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There is a short hallway to our right with two doors on the right hand side
and one at the end. Behind the first door is a small storage closet where Randy
puts my knapsack, behind the second is what looks like the interior of a one-hole
outhouse with a frosted glass window and a basin with faucets. Behind the third
door is a small room with mosaic tiles covering the walls, ceiling and floor, as well
as the inside and outside of a box about three feet square and four and feet high.
The box is full of water. In this room there is another frosted glass window, a drain
in the floor, and taps and hose on one wall.
“Later, I’ll tell you how to use the toilet and take a bath,” Randy says. “You
can wash up before we eat. Meanwhile, I’ll show you the rest of the place.”
To the left of the entry foyer is a tiny kitchen. Its counter is no more than
five feet long with a sink and a window. Under the counter is a tiny refrigerator,
about the size of a dishwasher in Canada. There is a small gas range. The kitchen
is open to the living space.
Entry, kitchen, toilet and bathroom occupy about one third of the apartment.
The other two thirds is one big open room that can be divided into a living space
and a bedroom space with floor to ceiling padded sliding doors. The walls and
ceiling are white; the floor is ‘tatami’; the far wall has large sliding glass doors
with aluminium frames; outside these a long concrete balcony; beyond that a rice
field.
A table with its surface about eighteen inches above the floor sits in the
living room. Pillows are strewn here and there. In the bedroom space, a closet
with floor to ceiling sliding doors covers the entire wall which separates the
bedroom from the hall to the bathroom and toilet.
“It’s wonderful!”It is. In the last couple of years, I’ve gotten used to living
in tents and on the ground. What an improvement this is over the two crummy
little rooms on the third floor of a downtown Regina house that Randy had shared
by Morley Evans