So..

We moved in to our new home, as planned, last Thursday..

The Lifeline people kindly delivered us a few small items of furniture.. A fridge, a sofa, a coffee table, a kitchen table with 2 chairs, a wardrobe and a bed.. Unfortunately the bed is sort of too small for us. Too short, lengthwise for me, and not wide enough for the both of us, so for the time being, we've borrowed a couple of single mattresses from Fruitopia..

Meanwhile, we've also invested in another couple of small tables, a juicer like we had in Sydney, and some small bedding things.. We've also started mosquito proofing the house, by tightly drawingpinning net curtains to the window frames.. A nifty little solution that's far more cost effective than investing in mozzymeshing..

We're both very happy to finally have a home of our own. It even has a carport which is keeping the car dry and out of the sun.. (Torrential downpour happening right at this moment folks!)

Actually, while on the subject of the car, I was just noticing how much more petrol we've been consuming since since moving up here, and it's really taking up a far bigger chunk of our monthly expenses than it did back in Sydney days.. I suppose the furthest we travelled there was from our home in Malabar to Kingsford where we generally travelled twice weekly for fruit.. That would've been a round trip of 30 kms or so. Here, we are voyaging to Cairns and back weekly, a round trip of easily 130kms, and often travelling to Atherton and further afield once or twice a week, adding up to considerably more than 70kms per trip.. Not to mention small trips in and out of Mareeba centre, which although that'll be lessened now, as we have moved closer to the centre than Fruitopia was, it's still significant..

So we're considering getting some kind of conversion done to the engine to reduce the petrol consumption and instead use one of those water fuel cell things.. To be honest, I really am not mechanically minded at all, but there's this guy at the Saturday markets that has a stall where he claims to be selling something he calls Hydrogen Water Fuel Cell Technology (his business is called "Hydroxyboost").. It's not something that will run your engine 100% on water, which of course is what we'd prefer, but his little device that gets attached to the engine of the car can supposedly increase fuel efficiency by up to 40%, horsepower by up to 20% and reduce emissions by as much as 90%(!).. Bold claims that I would dearly love to believe in, but there's that nagging doubt that it may be all a con.. He claims that in other countries in the world, the US included, the government will actually subsidise the installation of the kit.. Are there any readers that may be able to confirm, or not, that this technology actually does as it claims, and genuinely works??

The claim is that the kit converts the car into a hybrid, of sorts, by using water as a catalyst, once it is broken down to HHO gas.. The guy pushing it certainly seems both genuine and keen and claims that he builds all the devices himself at home and can put us on to others that already have it installed and are reaping the benefits.. I'm enthused, just feel I need to do some more research online first, something we can't do easily yet, as still no internet connection here yet.. Although our phone line did activate yesterday, so internet shouldn't be too far away (we may nip into the library later today to check our emails and stuff, and maybe i'll post this off too)..

So yeah, we have a house and garden.. big mango tree and a tamarind tree too.. and Kveta's already planted out some aloe vera, and put down a few small cucumber seeds too.. We've also started burying our compost again, which is, we believe the quickest way to get it to break down back into yummy worm food soil. I think we may head back out to fruitopia for a visit soon, and pick some of their abundant cherry tomatoes to get the seed in the ground here.. Maybe dig up the odd pawpaw seedling if there're any the right size..

We're still very much in a state of unpackedness, and still organising here to get things the way we want it.. Kveta's been working hard on the kitchen floor which was left in a pretty filthy sticky state despite cleaners having supposedly been through the day before we moved in..

Powerpoints are few and far between which will mean trailing wires around the place, especially for the internet the phone line is in an odd inconvenient place, but I guess it's an old house, built back in the days when electrickery wasn't so popular as it is today..

Rang mum/dad and Helena last night to let them know our new telephone number..

Anyhow, happy we are..

peace,
mango

A home at last..

Lots happened this week.. About 2 hours ago, we got a telephone call from the girlfriend of the guy, Peter, up at Ravenshoe, who had previously invited us to house care for him.. He was the guy with the 6 working dogs I've mentioned already, and his is the place that up until recently, we had been hoping to move in to, but had been unable to connect with (we guessed he was working somewhere off the beaten track and his mobile was out of range)..

Anyhow, she informed us that Peter had had a change of plan, and that instead of us housecaring while he was away, he had decided to put his place on the market, and sell up.. So basically, no Ravenshoe for us..

But were we upset? Not in the slightest..!

In fact, we started the week desperately trying to contact him to tell him that we were willing, keen and ready to move in at any time, and left him a text message, and voice mail to indicate such, followed by countless hangup calls all reaching his mail message box..

Yes, the week certainly never seemed bright when it started.. Wednesday we rang the queensland housing office in cairns, and asked them how our application for government housing was progressing, and were told that they were still waiting on some papers from us.. but hang on a sec, let me backtrack some, because the story will be difficult to follow if i tell it from there..

what happened was, that when we got here, back in december, we first chose the path of believing our home would be relatively easy to find, so we started picking up the twice weekly free advertising newspapers in search of rentals, we also visited many estate agents in all the towns we've passed through on the tablelands, and eventually even got around to writing up some small fliers with our telephone number on (the one here at fruitopia), explaining we were a peaceful couple, available to house or land sit anywhere on the tablelands..

Well.. the local advertisements rarely had anything in them that we considered affordable, so mostly they gave us few leads.. - Because we are living on a shoetring budget at the moment, we were only considering rentals around $150 or less, but the cheapest are mostly $200 to $250, so much as there may have been something otherwise suitable for us,the price made us not even consider it..

The real estates have been pretty much the same deal, we've been to lots of them, and the cheapest rental we found was $160 out near some place called Tarzali.. I mentioned it in an earlier post I think.. nice view, but a few things about it made it nonsuitable, including that the house looked like it would be like a sauna inside on hot days..

So, sometime in January, toward the beginning, I think, we decided to see if the government could assist us in some way in finding accommodation.. (we were living in government housing in Sydney prior to escaping there).. Mostly it was kvetas initiative I think, in pushing us to get that process started..

We filled out a short form that we picked up from the Mareeba Court House, and they duly faxed/sent it down to the Cairns Housing department.. Some days later, the Cairns office sent us a whole load more of forms to fill out, including getting some kind of support group to verify our status, doctor certificate/form stating the nature of kvetas disability, and more.. We even had to get Ian to write some kind of letter stating that we lived where we currently are, and explaining why we will have to vacate our spot before month end..

Anyhow, rushed around like blue-arsed flies we did, getting help from some centre in mareeba called "MISC" (Mareeba Information Support Centre), some kind of small house/office that help out people in similar situations to our own.. and waiting forever to see a doctor..

We eventually had it all filled and ready to be sent back, and took it all in to the Mareeba Court House, and dutifully handed it all over to some official there, who then both faxed and sent everything down to the Cairns office.. (that was on either the 18th or 19th of January).

Now, (I'll soon be up to date, I think!) .. About 10 days ago, we rang housing and asked them the status of our application.. Their answer was that because of our situation, we have been given top priority, and there was nothing more that we could do, but sit back and wait for something to become available..

That was a relief!! So we decided, following advice of the MISC place, that the best plan is to ring up the Cairns office each week, and keep bugging them, apparently it'ld help get us pushed through quicker..

So, this wednesday just gone, 4 days ago, we once more rang the Cairns office and asked them what our status was.. This time, we were told that they were still waiting on papers from us..

What? I questioned.. What/which papers? They explained the doctors certificate, witness reports, forms we should have filled in and sent back already before the 3rd of February..

I explained as patiently as I could that that stuff had already all been taken care of 3 weeks previously, that the courthouse had received everything from us, and sent it on to them already, and that the week previously I had already contacted their office, and had been informed that there was actually nothing more that we needed to do, and we should just sit and wait patiently..

After much toing and froing on the telephone, we were finally firmly told that no papers had been received from us yet, and there was nothing further they could do until such point that the papers were received by them..

Neither of us are fans of bureaucracy, far from it.. In fact, I think both of us have an aversion toward forms and stuff, and to hear this was quite disheartening, especially as we had not taken any photocopies of anything.. So we returned to the courthouse to see if possibly our forms were still there, waiting to be sent.. The court house official (same guy who had dealt with us previously), checked his log book, and confirmed that the papers had been forwarded on the 19th of January. He promptly rang the Cairns housing office, and explained this to them.. They denied ever receiving anything..

So basically, we were given little choice other than to get the stuff filled out and sent off again. This time, though, I think we were given slightly less forms to fill out.. just the basics i think, but fortunately we were able to book in to see the doctor already the following morning, and we were also able to get pretty much everything done and dusted by 9:30 thursday morning.. phew.. record timing.. We then returned to the courthouse with those precious papers, and this time asked them for copies as they had been lost previously.. they did that, and faxed the docs immediately down to cairns (actually, they both fax the docs and send them by post!).. Time of faxing (which they stamped on the photocopies they gave us), 09:52.

That done, we thought that we had done enough for the day, but i suddenly got this recollection of how we were told once that there was some kind of office in mareeba that we could go and register with and they could also help us find lodgings, so not really knowing quite where or what that office was, I honed in on some local council offices..

There in, Kveta and I approached the desk, and asked if they offered any assistance for homeless people, explaining that that might soon be our case if we continued being unsuccessful in finding a suitable place to live.. Explaining also about kvetas spinal cord injury..

We were told there was no emergency accommodation place that they knew of, but were given a lead to go see some guy who ran a sort of employment agency for people with disabilities, saying they believed he may have some ideas to help.. Once there, we nearly decided to give the place a miss, thinking that it was doubtful they would be able to help in anyway, but I told Kveta that I would just nip in quickly and ask some simple questions..

I was greeted by a guy named Barry, who as I'd imagined, appeared to have little idea, but he told me to hang on a sec, and disappeared into his office to make a call..

minutes later, he came out smiling and told me that we should go to some other office in town, and that there would be a woman waiting there to see us in half an hour.. My hopes weren't exactly overly enthusiastic about the idea, but I returned to Kveta, and told her what the plan was, and she agreed to go with the flow and see where it lead us..

So, the next stop was only around the corner, and I soon got the realisation that this office was in fact the one we had heard of previously that could assist us in finding housing.. It was a barely noticeably office, that apparently keeps irregular hours and rarely open to just wander in, but this lady named Patricia was waiting there for us, and patiently listened as we explained our situation to her..

Miraculously, she smiled and told us she had a place for us.. No fuss, no messing around.. She first described a unit somewhere, which I don't think either of us were that keen on, but when we explained that we needed a bathtub too, she immediately told us of another place that would be available to move in to from next week..

I could feel the stress relief valves open up for both of us as she told us this.. She said first she would have to check our status with housing, and she rang them immediatly, and was told that they were still waiting on our papers.. We explained they had been faxed an hour previously, but it appears they had once more gone missing, and the department denied ever receiving them.. Fortunately, this time we had the copies with us, so Patricia took them from us, and told the housing dept she had a copy of everything in her "hot little hands" as she worded it, and told them she would be faxing it down to them again straight away.. Which she promptly did, and after speaking with one guy handling our case down there, agreed that she would go ahead and process us for the house she had available..

She gave us the keys and told us to go have a look at the place.

It's sort of in a quiet suburb area in Mareeba. a 2 bedroom house with a front and back yard, and a large mango tree in the back yard..

Now we both know that this is not exactly the place that will ultimately be manifested for us, but as a stepping stone toward it we are quite content to be given the chance to stay there.. So we agreed to move in.. We need our own space and privacy, and, much as I might like Ian, his sometimes habit of bringing home road kills, wallabies and kangaroos and stuff, and letting them rot around the place has made the air at times unbreathable for us..

But I'm side tracking again.. OK.. We returned to Patricia, and asked if she had any idea how we could get the house furnished cheaply.. She was extremely kind and helpful , and wrote a letter for us, that we were told to deliver to some organization called "Lifeline", basically, through public donations of unwanted household stuff, they help out people in similar situations to ours, and they have agreed to fit out our house with the basic basics free of charge.. Bed, table, chairs, fridge, etc..

Unbelievable really.. Thursday turned out to be the day of big smiles as everything started to fall into place for us..

Also, I have to say that the house is not exactly everything we've been dreaming of, and that what we do know, is that in every case, it is purely temporary for us.. Patricia says we would likely be moved on within 6 months or less, as housing in cairns would still be searching for a new home for us, and one other organisation based in Atherton, who Patricia is also registering us with, will also be looking out for suitable accommodation for us elsewhere..

Because of our low budget lifestyle, and the fact that this organisation is somehow government sponsored, the rent is relative to what we can afford, and after an assessment of our bare incomes, we are quite relieved with it's affordability...

We've no idea where our true home is, yet, but the Divine continues to provide as always, and destiny awaits us..

We move in to our new home on Thursday (18th).. We'll probably get a telephone installed shortly after, and figure out some way to reconnect ourselves to the wide eyed web..

peace,
mango.

Well, Fruiopia certainly gets its fair share of visitors. Currently, in addition to ourselves, (Kveta & I), and Ian & his dog shelly, there's also MIchelle still staying here (she's canadian, been here more or less since the raw 801010 retreat that finished just prior to our arival in December), there's also a guy named Paul who's staying here, and yesterday, Darrick, who I interviewed on my blog not so distantly, arrived..

Paul is this 60 year old well traveled dude, former follower of Osho, and mostly living around the Byron area, originally from Ireland..

Actually, turns out he knows a couple of friends of mine from a while back.. Ben, the french instincto, who I've crossed paths with a couple of times, and Asakti, also a former Osho follower.. I'm informed both Ben and Askati who once adamantly stuck to raw, are not eating some cooked stuff too.. (Spoke briefly on the phone with Ben in November I think it was.. maybe October, or September or earlier too though.. no longer sure.. he was back in France, visiting his mother and friends.. mostly he's been living in recent years on Koh Tao in Thailand.. Where he and his partner have built a house that I believe is now up for sale.. Not sure where he is now, and what his plans are)..

Ben and I met here in Australia.. in fact, not too far from where I now sit.. at my old loved haunt, Mary Farms, where I hung out for in all around 1.5 years, some 12 years or so ago.. At the time there was this big rainbow gathering there, with several hundred people. One morning, Ben had decided to give an impromptu talk on instinctive eating, and I was among his small audience.. After he'd finished, I introduced myself, and he replied something like" Ahh, Mango, I know of a Mango also living in the Pyranees".. and I said to him, "yes, that would be me", and Ben patiently tried to explain that the other mango lived in the pyranees in France, and I insisted that that guy he was refering to, was in fact myself.. As it was.. (I had recently left France to visit Australia, and had arrived on a rarely given 4 year visa, so the mango in the pyranees he knew of, was in fact yours truly).

Anyhow, back to Fruitopia, and who's currently here.. Yes, Paul.. he's been here for a little under a week now I believe, and I gather plans to stick around for a couple of months or so.. He's a friend of Clintons, and already visited the place on numerous occasions, i gather doing a far bit of work here too. He's into raw foods I think. Including eggs at times too, I believe. I still haven't had that much of a chat with him, but seems like a good guy to be around.

Darrick, who's been globetrotting for the past 3 years or so, has also just travelled up from Byron Bay.. He was here in December for the 80/10/10 gathering, but left just before we arrived here, so this is the first time we've met outside of the internet.. He brought with him 2 once frozen, mostly thawed, durian he'd bought in Cairns at an asian store, and generously shared them with Kveta and I.. very nice.. far superior to the frozen durian you get in some woolworth stores here (they seem to defrost and refreeze them or something, and always taste like they are passed their prime.. not enough turnover i guess, unlike sydney that would take them from the freezer in the morning and be pretty sure they would all be gone by late afternoon..)

One of his reasons for getting here is to sample the akee, but the rain still seems to have stopped play.. Yesterday morning I checked the trees, but only found one that was open and ready, and when I got back, we discovered it was mostly rotten already.. there're a lot of green ones the rain and wind has knocked off the trees already, and although still a fair few fruit on the trees, many are stung and blackened, and very few appear to be ripening.. Still.. today the sun is shining, and sky's relatively clear, so maybe that'll give them a kick start again..

Darrick tells us that a guy named Robert Lockhardt will be visiting us on Thursday here.. I'm told he's a 65 year old fruitarian who can do walking hand stands.. Apparently he has some land just south of Port Douglas, and grows his own jackfruits and stuff.. Darrick tells me he's up for being interviewed on my blog when he gets here, so maybe another interview on it's way.. Also, Sandrine, one of the last people I interviewed has given me the email of another practising fruitarian in Europe that I can interview.. due to our dodgy internet connect, I've not followed up on that one yet..

3rd February. 2010

Yesterday we finally caught up with that guy, Dave, in Malanda, who had negotiated with us previously concerning the possibility of house sitting his place there.. We had been forever holding out that it may work out, but when we arrived unnanounced on his doorstep (we had no way of getting in touch with him as he never got back to us with his new number after his old phone had been lost), he just told us he had changed his plans..

Quite rude, we thought.. no apologies for not ringing us and letting us know (his last message to us had been that we would meet up that same day or shortly after, and discuss the possibility further, and then suddenly no further communication).. So all we could do was turn the car around, and leave.. (The Malanda house is about 1 hours drive from our Mareeba home)

So we are still very much in the same situation as previously..

However, we did check out a couple of real estates after visiting Dave, and one place had a property we drove out to have a look at.. Just outside of Milla Milla (which in some aboriginal tongue, I'm told, means rain rain, due to the heavy rainfalls it gets).. anyhow, we both loved the place.. nice big house, very private, nice land with a beautiful view in all directions and great soil.. several well established fruit trees on it already, 2 loaded avocado trees and several citrus things.. one passion fruit vine looking a little neglected but baring fruit still.. Definite privacy for naturism.. big sun room. Apparantly Quiet area with no visible neighbours..

The property is available for around $200 a week, which is sort of a little over what we are looking for, but rentals for under $200 a week are saddly few and far between.

Anyhow.. down to the real drawbacks.. No furniture.. well that's basically a minor issue, as it'd be easy to get hold of a matress which is all we'd need to get started, and other bits and pieces could slowly be gotten hold of.. However, the real issue would be that the lease is only really short term.. The owners are away, travelling, apparantly around australia, and are scheduled back in less than a year and a half from now.. but that's just a vague plan that could and likely will change, so they could theoretically return in 2 weeks, and suddenly we would be in exactly the same position, but only be under even more pressure to find a place quicker.. also there is a lot of grass needs mowing regularly, and although a sit on lawn mower is provided, if there are any problems with it, it would be up to us to get it fixed, which would be a potential added expense we could basically do without..

for these basic reason, i think we have already decided to give the place a miss.. a long term lease would be a different issue, where we felt the land was truly ours for a while ,and could get more trees in the ground..

So another no-goer..

We drove home, and discovered a small country house that sells persimmons, so bought a couple of kilos..

Oh, almost forgot to mention that we had another swim at Malanda Falls before heading home, and a picnic of pawpaw and passionfruit.. great spot!

It's Helena's birthday today. Happy birthday Helena (she's my sister!)..

peace,
mango.

It' the 2nd last day of January 2010, and we're still stuck at Fruitopia uncertain of our short term destiny.. We're in the middle of monsoon, and naturally thankful that the roof over our heads has no leaks..

The hopes to move in to the place in malanda, didn't pan out.. we eventually were gotten in touch with again by the owner, (says he lost his mobile phone and fell in love with a south american girl or something), who once again built up our hopes for a meeting and interior guided tour, but once more failed to follow through, leaving us wondering what happened and no way to contact him..

He reckons he's always like this, and thus not exactly the most reliable of persons, which is fine for him, i guess, not the way i like to be, but maybe he's just more spontaneous or something.. anyhow.. Ultimately we are still very unsure whether or not he is serious about us moving in, and our spirits are apprehensive in trusting him fully.. there is still a chance though. that tiny glimmer of hope that forever prevails..

apparently we were on TV last night, on the news, some guy at the markets who sells pineapples reckons he recognised me.. it was in connection with some news about possible road blocks due to the wet season and cyclones between here and townsville, that may stop the flow of food produce between here and there.. and the filming was done at rusties market, in cairns.. - we actually noticed that we were being filmed, but just carried on doing what we were doing, choosing our fruit.. So we weren't no big stars, just extras, as it were..

actually, that reminds me, i need to get in touch with that extras agency i was with in sydney, and tell them i've changed address, and ask if there's any chance of getting any extra work up this end of australia..

.. i just took a break in writing this, and accomplished the above paragraph.. one less thing to contend with..

yes.. the markets at mareeba were today.. (they're on the 2nd and 5th saturdays of the month) i'm gathering that there's a far greater turn out of stalls in the winter months, and when the rain is no longer ever present..

the markets are pretty good here, we're getting nice cucumbers, passionfruits sometimes, pineapples, avocadoes and more.. yesterday we were at rusty's market in cairns, and scored several locally grown durian.. 2 of them particularly good, 2 of them pretty lousy..the price varies depending on the vendour, i think there were 4 different sellers this week, with prices between $8 and $10 a kilo.. the best ones we got were $9 a kilo.. quite a bit dearer than the $5 a kilo we were paying in sydney, but worth it for them being local and fresh.. We're keeping all the seed, and many of them are sprouting already in trays.. hopefully we can get some in the ground wherever we end up, and that the climate will change enough for them to flourish on the tablelands..

we also got one mame (sapote), and a rather large yellow one (sapote - canistel) - both at $3 a kilo.. the canistel is often just too powerful for me, and i can only handle it in very small doses.. i think most of it will get wasted.. we'll have to remember in future to only buy the smaller ones.

NEXT DAY ALREADY.. (Sunday the 31st January, 2010)

Sorry, I've had a lot on my mind lately, and much as I have a head full of updates, they're rarely getting blogarised.. As well as the stress of us not having a "home", i have recently sort of reestablish communication with my brother who I've pretty much been out of touch with since the mid 1980s or less.. (time flies!).. i think time has lead us both down very different paths with differing viewpoints and outlooks on life, and it is not without a good deal of, to put it in the best way i can, "challenge", that we have exchanged our first words..

At this point I'm not 100% sure where things are headed, but I choose to believe that I've done the right thing by getting in touch again, and that what we have to say to each other, is what we both need to hear, even though we might not find our words if there might be a certain degree of challenge in our words..

my brother has chosen a very academic path, and i like to think of him as a renowned mathematics professor at the forefront of his fields.. he certainly has always been someone that in many ways i've looked up to and admired.. he used to know all the answers on those trivia quiz shows, even the most bizarre geeky ones on university challenge and mastermind.. maybe i'm exaggerating some, but he certainly is a genius on many levels..

he's done the house and car and wife and kids and dogs and cats thing, with a prestigious job teaching in some college in wisconsin, US, somewhere.. A path I for many years believed would also ultimately be mine, but destiny is a strange and fickle beast and that just wasn't meant to be..

as far as diet and ethics go, which as you know is a major part of my life, there is little we have in common, i gather he gives only token regard to the role food plays in society, and although he may be aware of certain more obvious issues, like many of the rest of society are, like the bulk, i believe he remains ignorant of the full extent that diet can and does effect us..

hey, i'm not by any means saying i have full awareness either, and maybe even the awareness I do have is even flawed, of course, it could be, just i adamantly don't believe it is. :)

Anyhow, that's something on going, and after feeling initially quite perturbed by our first emails, i've moved on and decided to be more lighthearted about it, and just see where it leads, and try not to hold too many expectations..

..

Kveta is often reading the gypsey tarot for us, as we are impatient to be at home, and the cards always show that it is on it's way.. her mum checks regularly for us too, and the cards are always bright and shiny with a most positive outlook.. and at rusty's on friday, there was one woman had a stall reading tarot, and as i walked past, she said pick one, any card, so i honed in on the one i wanted, and it flipped over to be quickly interpreted by her as beautiful house and home surrounded by light.. so it certainly feels like things are looming ahead for us, even though still invisible.. patience mango.. patience..

anyhow.. no ideas if i'll get to post this today, as i'm doing all my writing, replying, emails etc offline on our trusty laptop, and then copy things to a usb stick and sometimes connect to the internet via an ultraslow dialup internet connection that is constantly flaking out and taking forever to load pages.. quite frustrating, so try not to contend with it too often.. the best thing to use is portable thunderbird for the emails, as i can receive them all at once onto my usb stick, then work with them from our computer later, offline..

anyhow.. ciao for now,
mango.