Since about January 2004 I have lived by the beach on Sumbawa. I bought this house after renting it for a few months. The house was put here by one of the companies that started working in the early days of the mine. It is portable and it was very cheap. I have just re-painted it though. Each wall is a different colour and I think it looks really cool. Twice I have had parts of the roof over the balcony at the front and back blow off. Sometimes there are freak winds that are obviously quite strong. It is on land that is part Yoyo's Hotel and Restaurant. It's a small restaurant and hotel on the beach which is partonised by the people who work in the mining townsite close by and the occasional tourist. I love living here so much - it is heaven. My house is about a five minutes from the mining townsite where I work at the Batu Hijau International School. I used to have a motor bike only and getting to work in the rainy season meant you got soaked some mornings. Now that I have a car - it's not a problem. Maintaining a car on the terrible roads here is an issue though. There are two villages close by: Sekongkang and Maluk. Both are very small and there is not much in either of them in the way of shops. Before the mine started here, I doubt there would have even been villages. Tongo is another village close to where I am but is even smaller than Maluk or Sekongkang. Where I live at Yoyo's, there is no land line telephone service or electricity supply. We have to rely on electricity provided by a generator run by the owners of the resort - for which we pay handsomely. Sumbawa can be very dry and water is scarce in the dry season. Supply is sometimes a problem as all the water at Yoyo's is from underground wells. It rains much less here than in Lombok or Bali. I have a telephone in the house by way of a quasi stationery mobile phone that runs from a TV like antennae and also have a satellite internet connection, which was installed by the owner of the resort. It's a very expensive connection though, which costs me a million rupiah a month. That's about $142 Aussie dollars a month! But this is my little piece of paradise and having the internet is great. I have recently purchased a hectare of land that runs up the side of a jungle covered hill and has spectacular views down the coast, of the sea and rice paddies. I have bought it as an investment for Oliver. In the meantime I would love to build a tree house on it just for fun. Maybe the tree house could be a luxury eco-tourist type place and I could get people to come and stay in it to experience the jungle.