It sounds so much nicer in French, doesn't it? But it's just as true in English - "The more things change, the more they stay the same" - just look at today's "Riverbend" Cottage above and below my Bougainville donga in the 1970s.
Can you spot the difference? Correct; the red chair is of a slightly different design but it's all a friend of mine could find as he went shopping - PHOTOSHOPping, that is! - to make me feel at home before I move into "Riverbend" Cottage while Padma is in Indonesia.
I mean, why keep a big, two-storey house clean and warm when I can relive the good ol' Bougainville days sitting in a red chair on the porch of "Riverbend" Cottage? Throw in a dash of rain on the tin roof and I can almost hear the surf crash on Loloho Beach!
My donga is my castle! And I'm the boss in it - and I have my (absent) wife's permission to say so ☺
