During our time on Aride, we lived in the largest of all the concrete dwellings on the island, it comprised kitchen, bedroom, shower room, large central storage room, back office, workshop and two verandas. With very limited facilities the whole house was regularly inhabited by wildlife; the termites had eaten into the timber, the roof housed geckos and skinks, and the shower area was a play area for crabs to scurry around in. With no running water there was no sink or toilet, but we did have an open fronted plywood cupboard in which we kept all our toiletries.
Working in 90% humidity and over 30˚C required a huge amount of effort to do the simplest of tasks and a lot of time was just spent living. Short daylight hours exacerbated this with never much more than 12 hours, it was dark around 6.30pm and like the UK, on the days with limited sun they drew in a little earlier. With no running water or mains electricity, darkness brought with it added complications, depending on if we had electricity or not, this was typically due to either generator failure, or a blow in the wiring. Whatever the cause, it meant facing a shower in the dark, which in fact might have been a better prospect than having the light on as our bathroom was a little grim. Just a room with a small concrete area to wash in, the shower was basically a bucket of water that one tipped over one’s head as described so beautifully before we arrived.
However every cloud of a tropical storm had a silver lining - once all drinking supplies were full, heavy rain brought the opportunity of a freshwater shower - pure refreshing heaven!!
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