hardware stores

[b]hardware stores and Sumbawa[/b]Thanks for the info, Roy. I'm just about to leave Don Muang for Bali on my way back to Sumbawa, and I'm hoping to get to the airport this afternoon. Once I get back in Sumbawa and can get on my computer at school, I'll post about life in Sumbawa.Cheers,Bruce

Well, I'm back in Bali after an informative four-day conference in Bangkok for international teachers. It was pleasant to get out of the jungle for a while and be back in Bangkok. For all the fun I had shopping for the family and visiting colleagues, my visit to Ace Hardware in Kuta was one of the highlights of the trip. Thanks, Roy, you were right. I came away with only a fraction of what I wanted, and it took me two hours to pick and choose what I really needed right now. Plus, the manager was extremely helpful.I was surprised to get a number of emails from people planning on visiting or moving here, and to find a new Sumbawa forum. So as my "payback" for Roy's information and in response to the questions I've received, I'll try to describe Sumbawa as I see it after my first nine months of living here. But, first it will probably be helpful to supply a little background to put my comments in some sort of experiential context.I've been living more or less continuously in Indonesia since 1989. I came here after picking up a Ph.D. in anthropology from Berkeley. My entry to Indonesia was as a second grade teacher for a mining company. I spent four years living and working in Pakistan from 1999-2003, but my family stayed in Singaraja, and so home remained Singaraja where I spent my 14 weeks of vacation during each of those years in Pakistan. My first nine years in Indonesia were spent in Irian Jaya, or Papua as it is currently called. During those years, my wife and children and I spent our vacations in Singaraja which is my wife's home. I spent a year hanging around Bali in between Irian and Pakistan editing an educational webzine. For the last nine months, I've been living in the Sekongkang area of Sumbawa where I teach mathematics and IT classes.In my almost 15 years here, I've built three houses and a small restaurant in the Singaraja area. We currently still have two houses in Singaraja - one which is occupied by some of my wife's family and the other which is empty most of the time. We're currently building a house in Sekongkang which is a small village in the southwest of Sumbawa. The area is known mostly for the copper and gold mine that the Newmont corporation owns and for the surf which brings surfers here from all over the world. The southwestern area is just beginning to develop a small tourist trade, although most people here either work for Newmont, farm, fish or have small shops. Lately there has been a boom in construction in the area from Sekongkang to as far north as Taliwang (about an hour's drive north). This is driving land prices up, but providing jobs as well.Most Newmont employees live in a small town, Buin Batu, which is closed to non-employees. A few expat employees live outside Buin Batu, but not many. A number of Indonesian employees with families live in one of the surrounding villages. In addition to native Sumbawans, many residents of this area have migrated from various areas of Indonesia with a lot coming from the Lombok area. This is a very Muslim area, and there are a surprising number of people who have made the Haj. Local people tend to be quite friendly, helpful and curious about foreigners. Unless you wander around with a surfboard, they assume that you work for the mine. When I first arrived here, I wandered around the local market and received the usual Indonesian questions about where I was from, was I married, etc., etc., but no one asked me to buy watches, boys, girls, trips to see the dolphins, etc.What are the best things about this area of Sumbawa? Small population size; little traffic; no one trying to sell me things; cheap seafood; cheap land prices, beautiful white sand beaches and a sparkling, blue sea; lush, green mountains (except during the dry season); a very relaxed pace of life; wandering herds of horses, water buffalo and goats; a lack of scroungy, mangy dogs. Things that are less desirable - high construction costs; less of a variety of fruits and vegetables than you find on Bali; difficulty in getting some "basic" Western stuff - cheese, good tools, olives; no phone service; no Internet outside of the company town; no electricity on the beach; no tech support if you rely on computers like I do.I guess what I really like is being around Indonesians just living their daily lives outside of the influence of a tourist driven economy. My half day in Kuta yesterday while I waited to get the morning flight back to Sekongkang was interesting because while I was sitting in a cafe having a few beers and watching the Kuta scene unfold, I remembered what I used to like about Kuta years ago when I was a younger, single guy on vacation from living in an isolated mountain area - nightlife, bars, restaurants, action, and I saw what I love about Sumbawa - no air pollution from cars, trucks and motorcycles; no traffic jams, no people trying to get something from me - well other than the camat and luruh trying to get their cut of our little building boom.It's basically rough and rustic here with plenty of beautiful scencery- something a bit removed from Chicago and San Francisco where I lived in the US. I hope that satisfies people's interest. More can be found on my websites.Cheers

Thanks Ken,The websites are cyberbali.com and sumbawa.orgCheers

Thanks for the comments Ktee. I'm just rushing around today trying to get my wife and two of the four kids on the afternoon flight to Bali. My son needs to have another operation on his arm to remove all the pins that they put in last September. This is one of the big problems with Sumbawa - no health care. And that means in reality almost no health care. A new pukesmas is just about finished in my village, but no telling how good it will be. The closest hosptial on the island is five hours of hard driving by car. With the new airport, we can get to Bali in one or one and a half hours depending on the day. But enough about that. Living in remote places has disadvantages and this is probably the worst.As to the other questions - 1. There is a bahasa sumbawa. I'm picking up a few words, but admittedly it is not a real concern at this point. Once we get settled in the new house, I am going to be more serious about it because it really is necessary to speak the local language if you do any business dealings at all.2. People do speak Indonesian - everybody that I've met, but I haven't met any elderly people yet other than a dukun and he spoke Indonesian.3. TV reception is terrible. Local indonesian channels.4. Satellite is available on the island. We bought our little Indosat dish from a guy in Taliwang whose brother is our neighbor in Bali. (Just by chance as it turned out.) We get about 30 channels - HBO, CNN, BBC, all Indonesian ones, Star World, Action Channel, and some others that I rarely watch. The kids do most of the watching and they watch Indian movies or Indonesian soaps or American cartoons. The cost is somewhere around 300 K per month - similar to Bali I think.5. We have made a number of trips to Lombok for shopping, but now that the plane is five minutes from our house, we will probably fly into Bali once every few months for visits to the hardware store and whatever else. Lombok is easier, but shopping in Bali is better and I can visit friends when I go there.6. I gave up golf when I left Pakistan - much too expensive here for a duffer like me. Pakistan was USD 5 for 18 on a nice course, $10 on a better one.Cheers,Bruce

Sounds good Ktee. Looking forward to the beer.Bruce