One day when we were trying to install the bathroom upstairs to Red Two, we lowered a plumber down the side of the wall by rope. As he approached midway down, he yelled, ''There is a window here, and I think there is a room. Send me a flashlight." Upon receiving the flashlight he shouted excitedly, “There is a room here. It is a very long room, but there are no boritis (mangrove pole supports) holding up the ceiling."

I turned and looked at the other two employees, frozen-faced. All three of us recognizing at the same moment that we were standing on air and hitting it with a sledgehammer. We three men literally flew out of the narrow doorway at the same time. By the grace of God, we escaped. We ran downstairs and knocked on a partition wall and discovered, at what is now the foot of the bed, a very hollow spot in the wall -- which upon excavation, it fumed out, to have formerly been a very small door. We knocked through to find a pile of rubble three feet high from the partially collapsed ceiling and external wall - I had competing fantasies of Tutenkamen and Agatha Christie.

Once we'd re-excavated this previous doorway and were sure that we had installed enough boritis to shore up the ceiling, we began to sift through the rubble hoping we'd stumbled across Tutankamen’s tomb. But alas, there were no sarcophaglii or pirates' treasures among the rubble. The next door neighbours apparently knew there had been goodies stashed here early on in the revolution and had excavated from the opposite side. The large brass pots which stand in the hallway leading to the bathroom were the only treasures that remained, and I have left them just where we found them. The illogical niche in the wall commemorates the archaeological expedition by our thieving neighbours.

The window at the end of the hall had provided access to a second part of the house, by lighting an escape route. During the early days of the revolution, the elder men of the family had hidden everything they had inside. After the revolution, the surviving members of the family completely forgot that things were hidden there. This had somehow seemed insignificant in comparison to having successfully fled with their lives.

In the bathroom, the funny little staircase is all that remains of an original staircase which led up to the tea house on top.