my nice house and creepy crawly things

I've always had a preconception that volunteering abroad goes hand in hand with stamping on cockroaches every time you enter the house, getting very ill, missing decent food, dealing with daily power or water cuts, and having no internet. This being so, I've felt a bit of a cheat that I come home from meetings, put on the coffee perc., turn on my laptop and surf the world wide web with cake (sometimes) in one hand. Occasionally, the coffee is replaced with coconut rum and juice. Only occasionally do I have to interrupt my relaxation to spray an invasion of very small but very persistent ants (or once, to tip boiling water on them because I lost the spray). There's the odd gecko, sure, but they are small and cute, though their eyes freak me out.

Prior to today, I had encountered one rat and one (big) cockroach, but neither of them at all near my nice house. Today my prolonged spell of luck came to an end; I went into the bathroom and emerged again to ask 'what do we do with cockroaches?' (not being stupid, or cowardly, but merely unsure whether to stamp or spray). I generally avoid killing things (I have spent many a holiday as the spider removal operative, carefully carrying our eight legged friends out of bedrooms and into the Great Outdoors under the instruction of friends) but it seems cockroaches need their own category of morality.

As for power; we had about three Sundays in a row where it went out in the afternoon, sometimes more than once, and for varying amounts of time, but it has been behaving itself very well of late. I don't think I'd be nearly so fortunate were I not living in the capital city, but the city comes with its downsides, so it balances out.

The only other inconvenience is dust. It being the dry season, there is a particularly large amount of it, and when the wind blows the dust lifts itself up and through the shutters into our first floor flat. I wander round the house barefooted (though maybe I'll review this given the arrival of cockroaches) so my feet are invariably filthy even though I give them spontaneous washes several times a day. At the moment one of them is also very swollen with insect bites.

In other news, I lost ALL my music (Boo Hiss computer death, and not quite full resurrection. Maggie's offered me access to her music collection but in the process is threatening to convert me to Rod Stewart. I apologise to my former self if she manages. Although I guess I claim to be open minded?)

Also, I am getting into House, which seems to be permanently on TV, rather like Friends on E4 in the UK!