You wouldn't be mad for mistaking this for the bathroom, but it is infact the kitchen, although Edie could probably bathe in this solid fuel wok (one of 3 in the room). Yanhui and Hunter stayed until 4 pm this afternoon, helping us shift stuff and clean a few rooms in the farmhouse. As a result, Edie and I have now moved in. There's still a lot of work to do but we have somewhere to sleep and, if I dare to light the gas stove, cook. As Yanhui and Hunter drove off this afternoon I had a sudden pang of isolation and aloneness. It's what I imagined I would feel arriving as a VSO volunteer 5 years ago but didn't, because Simao is so developed and we had several English-speaking contacts. Not this time. Our ears are slowly tuning in to the northern accent but it's still a bit of a culture shock in other ways - food, daily routine, physical size of the locals (people are tiny in Simao). After 5 years in Yunnan, we are definitely southerners.
Sweeping the yard.
The door on the left [back] is our loo and the one behind me is a store room, where we're putting everything that's been left behind by the owners that we don't think should be chucked out. Up on the right is a large lounge with two small bedrooms off it. This will be the activities centre, once we are set up. The kitchen and our living area are off to the left. More photos to follow tomorrow, should we still have internet connection.
Edie and Yanhui on a walk down to the river. Every household has a patch of land to grow crops, and we accompanied No 4 Aunt to the fields this evening to pick some tomatoes, leeks and cucumber to last us a couple of days. The Gubeikou section of the Great Wall runs along the ridges in the background. The small knobbles on the horizon [one above Edie's head, for instance] are towers on the wall. From here we can take the wall south-west to Beijing or North-East to Jinshanling and Simatai [about 8 hrs walk from here, by Wall].
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