Roosters and Scorpions

The sound of waves lapping gently on the shore lulled us to sleep. The pleasure of smelling the salty perfume of the ocean in that deep dream state one only achieves in the early morning hours was rudely and sharply overridden by that f*****g rooster! It had chosen to stand directly under my window and proceeded to kykeli ky for the next three hours! Having only had a few hours sleep when it started crowing it was rapidly becoming in danger of being that evenings dinner. After a few hours of trying to ignore the bugger I decided it was pointless and got up to scoop the refreshingly cold water of the mandi over my face and body. As I stood on the concrete bathroom floor lathering the soap onto my skin a small scorpion ran across the floor. I grabbed a scoop full of water and flushed it down the drain and resolved not to mention it to the kids, I did want them to bathe in the near future. Later that day India found two more scorpions near her suitcase that required removal. A few days later everybody was in favor of eating the rooster, even India and she's vegetarian! Opening up the wooden louvred windows that faced the ocean I was greeted to the sight of three chickens roosting in the small tree outside. Stepping outside and rounding the corner of the house I came across a mother hen sitting with eight two day old chicks tucked under her wings. Mother and chicks were all a-flutter as I walked past. Later in the day that bloody rooster just wandered merrily into the kitchen looking for somewhere nice to sit and Torsten had to chase him out. Apparently when they're about to lay their eggs the rooster and hen will walks round like a young married couple trying to find a spot that looks good to nest in. Quite frequently this turns out to be the top of the fridge or Lises armchair and they have to be unceremoniously evicted. Regarding the rooster, Lise explained that he crows at first light ( it's still bloody dark as far as I'm concerned!), and to announce both high tide and low tide, and also to chat to the other rooster across the road. My mother had acquired at great expense to the management ($100 for a small bag) some Kopi Luar for me, the civet cat poo coffee I spoke about in my my post titled 'Cat Poo Coffee' for anyone interested in the process. Faridah made me a cup of kopi biasa (normal coffee - which is coffee grinds that they have grown, harvested and roasted themselves) which I started to drink and found quite nice. Then she brought me a cup of the Kopi Luar and after tasting it's velvety smoothness the normal coffee tasted incredibly bitter. Morning coffee was accompanied with persimmons, sau (a fruit with a pear-like texture) and papaya. Every time I eat papaya it reminds me of our friend in Perth Loren Adams. Loren had been in the SAS and during his interrogation resistance training he had been blindfolded for days sitting on a hard concrete floor and been forced to eat mashed up papaya whilst being told it was someone else's vomit. After that he couldn't even get close to the smell of a papaya without gagging. Over a lunch of grilled snapper, rice and pumpkin shoot leaves we listened to the Arab news, the Russian news and the Japanese news. Being almost on the equator here, the huge satellite dishes on the houses here point almost straight up to receive signals from the satellites orbiting the globe. They pick up some 600 plus chanels, our favorite usually being the French film that's on at eight o'clock in the evening.