We just received our internet bill in our post office box today. It says payment was due eight days ago. Welcome to Fiji. Never mind; they didn’t cut off service or anything. So we paid the bill at the Post Office – most bills are paid in cash at either the Post Office or grocery store – and we are good to go for another month of painfully slow dial-up service. The cost is only about US$15 per month so it’s hard to complain.
Our monthly telephone bill, which included a couple of awkward delay-filled calls back to the US was less than US$5. (Deborah’s sister Suzie made one such call to us and it cost her $95. Ouch.). Our electric bill is a little harder to decipher. The last one was for US$14, but the previous one actually showed a credit. It wasn’t because of any prepayment; the meter reading was actually less than the previous one. Apparently, if those in charge of meter reading don’t feel like making the long trek up your driveway they just “estimate” what it is. Personally I would have come up with an estimated reading that was higher than the last one so as not to indicate a negative usage, but that’s just me.
We have gas cylinders that supply the stove and instant hot water heater. Just yesterday we used up the first of two, and will have to take the empty into town to exchange for a full one. I don’t know what the cost will be yet. That’s pretty much it for utility costs. There’s no heating or cooling system, apart from the fans, and all the water we need conveniently falls on the roof and is collected in tanks below the house. There is no house-to-house garbage collection. People just drop off their bags of refuse at platforms spaced along the main roads. The platforms are raised up off the ground to eliminate a source of temptation from the local dog population, although they are usually too wiped out by the heat to do much mischief.
This is the garbage platform we used until they tore it down, replaced by a big, fancy metal one
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