Life in a Barn

A preface: I am not meaning in any way to complain, as I am indeed quite happy here and in fact expected the general quality of life to be worse, not better. I’m just trying to be a keen observer of my surroundings and report on those that strike me in order that you may all share in my experiences.

Remember that expression, “Were you raised in a barn?” Well, I may be done being raised, but it is often on my mind as I’m pretty sure I now live in a barn.

The first hint of barn-likeness in Indonesian houses comes from the windows which are commonly wooden shutters, much like the kind you see in a barn. (In fact it is often much better this than the alternative, which is a plastic “window” that does not open creating a delightful greenhouse effect for those dwelling within) More significant than the windows, however, is the background behind that common expression mentioned earlier: generally an admonishment of someone who has left a door open to the cold, implying that if you were to live in a barn, it wouldn’t matter. Here, I may report that this assumption is definitely true as this is a tropical clime and building with insulation is unnecessary, and houses are often little more than shelters from the elements. In fact, the walls do not generally rise to reach the roof, and ceilings are considered unnecessary. Walls and floors are general the home of many holes, both intentional and not. All of these elements combined allow both improved air flow and/or insect and critter access.

This realization of barn-ness came on slowly, but it seems to be truer every day. I was first alerted to the notion when living in my old house, “the pink house,” Kari noted that “we essentially live in a barn.” Though at the time I remarked upon the general truism of this statement, it seems to have only become more pertinent in reference to my present accommodations in “the blue house,” in which the luxurious amenities of a sink with running water, toilet in the house and internet access are all lacking. The blue house is also in happy possession of one of those split doors which I think for some reason to be actually called a “barn door,” though I currently lack the means to verify this statement. In any case, the back door is a large wooden door, the type in which you can open just the top, or both the top and the bottom. Thus, this ingenious device gives the benefit of airflow without necessarily inviting all manner of fauna into ones home. Unfortunately, the arch-nemesis of the blue house, the chickens, have wings. Thus, whenever the coast is clear and they are not busy crowing cock-a-doodle doo (which anyone who has talked to me on skype can attest they are forever doing), they sneak attack into the kitchen to eat the cats food, poop on the floor and flutter around the stove causing general mayhem. In fact, yesterday poor Ika was unfortunate enough to step in some thoughtfully placed excrement.

The final nail in the coffin, as it were, in the determination of this lovely house as actually being a barn populated by people, is the realization that we are not alone. No, in addition to seven girls and one kitten (and of course the occasional chickens and ever present geckos, mosquitoes, ants, spiders and other manner of invertebrate creatures generally expected to cohabit), we recently discovered that there is also in residence a nest of sparrows, or some other sort of smallish bird, way up in the roof over the front room. Poor Jenny came to this realization as, sitting working at her laptop the other day, she was the near victim of a bird-poo bombardment. Now, gecko poo falling from the ceiling is quite normal here (indeed it landed on my head on one of my first days while I was having a meeting with Kinari), but bird poo is an altogether different, larger problem, and not one you commonly expect to deal with inside a house.

Thus, I must conclude, that we live in a barn. Albeit a nice barn, with tiles on the floor of the front room, and spacious rooms, it is nonetheless closer to barn than house in the conventional American perception of the word.