A view from the roof top...

The house in which we are living is tall and narrow. Enoch rents the house, and for a few weeks lived there with a friend. The friend now lives elsewhere, but as the rent is paid in advance - I think on an annual basis - Enoch has the house all to himself.

The previous tenant was a missionary with Medical Ambassadors - and who had made a lot of contacts with the locals, many of whom live close to, or on the street. In making these friendships she paid a price in material matters as she "lost" computers, money, books and more.

Just the other day there was a local boy knocking on the gate - he looked well-fed and clothed - and he said that he used to get peanut butter sandwiches from a white person who used to live here.

There are big iron gates or doors opening onto the street, and space for a car - or "machine" in Creole.

On the ground floor are some small rooms which are usually uninhabited - one of them even had a piano in it, though it had totally lost its tune! But at the moment Enoch is living in one of them. He effectively has an en-suite - for when the water is running.

The main "living area" in on the first floor - a balcony, a sitting/dining room (where the TV is) a kitchen adjoining the toilet/shower, and a sort of hallway with stairs going up and down: down to Enoch's sleeping area, and up to where Ross and I pass the night.

The upstairs room is big and open - big enough for 2 double beds (and a single bed for later), a computer desk and an outside balcony which is pictured. I have tried to show how high the balcony is, and also to what is behind us - a fairly steep cliff with some scrubby trees, and very often a number of goats. During the night the goats can sometimes be heard scrabbling up the cliffs by both their bleating and by the mini-landslides causes.

I say "mini" because just 2 doors away - and again pictured was a small primary school. A few days after the earthquake in January there was an unrelated tragedy at the school: a rock broke away from the cliff and landed on the school killing four of the pupils. Just one more tragedy amongst so much. The school is still closed and the buildings un-occupied.

The upstairs balcony has on it, as you might be able to make out - two water tanks, which are filled by the menacing pump (when it is working) and there is also an impressive looking satellite aerial - except that is useless in terms of TV picture, and the internet (which also uses it) is highly dependent on the weather.

It gives a glimpse of the sea, and is great for seeing the sunrise.

You might also be able to see piles of washing all over the place. Bernadette does our washing, and that of Robyn, Dale and Kim. And it is all hand-washed, then ironed (until just recently all the ironing was done by a charcoal iron - now it's electric).

The process is laborious, but done well. The water is drawn from the well, the clothes are wetted, soaped, scrubbed and rubbed on the concrete floor, rinsed, and rinsed again, vigorously wrung out (there is no "delicates" option) and brought up to dry on the balcony. This is a process repeated all over Haiti - except that the drying is just as likely to be done on the roof of the house, or on a hedge of cactus plants.

Many of the Haitians take a real pride in their appearance, and to see the smart. crisp uniforms on the school children, and the extent to which they dress up for church, it is hard to guess the difficult living conditions so many have to live in.

Bernadette is very good at her job, and the clothes service is fantastic.