So yep, that's us on Christmas day having our dinner of pasar (market) chicken, really expensive cauliflower from the interior city of Wamena, mashed potatoes and apple sauce... I had to ask the boys if they could please put on shirts as we were going to be eating a special meal together. It was really hot and because we really really wanted to have lit candles on the table, we had to turn off our oscillating fan in the corner. So we went through lots of "wine"-apple juice mixed with sprite. Can't actually buy real wine here. Although if I went down into the kampung below us, I could probably buy some pineapple wine. And it would only cost about 20,000rups a bottle too! Apparently every year around this time there are kids that try drinking rubbing alcohol because it is so cheap and every year someone dies from it. This year is no exception. So sad.
Pause - sip hot chocolate - yep, I'm sitting here drinking hot chocolate - it's cold! It rained this afternoon/evening and it was a bit windy and so now I'm warming up with some hot chocolate.
The two other photos are of carbite bombs. The first one is the cement variety. This one is conveniently parked right on the other side of the wall around the pool. So every now and then while we are swimming we get shocked with an incredibly loud boom! It is very, very loud. The bamboo ones aren't nearly as loud, thankfully.
On Christmas day and for the next few days afterwards, kids would come to our door and wish us "Selamat Hari Natal!" - Merry Christmas! and then look at us expectantly. So we'd just shake their hands and go back inside. Finally Hugo asked at work what the deal was. Apparently rich people usually give leftover food or cake/cookies to the poor people. We didn't know! As I wasn't about to bake up a pile of butter cookies - have you ever tried to make butter cookies in plus 30 degree weather with humidity levels over 80%? It is really, really hard! The butter keeps melting and so you can't even get the dough out of the cutter and off the counter/cutting board... I had some leftover free cookies that I'd gotten from one of the grocery stores for buying so much so that's what I handed out the next few times and then told them after that that the cookies were habis (done/finished/out of stock). Actually, I have to confess that a few times this week when Hugo was working, I just locked the gates so no one could come in, although one enterprising young lad still made his way in...
On Christmas day and for the next few days afterwards, kids would come to our door and wish us "Selamat Hari Natal!" - Merry Christmas! and then look at us expectantly. So we'd just shake their hands and go back inside. Finally Hugo asked at work what the deal was. Apparently rich people usually give leftover food or cake/cookies to the poor people. We didn't know! As I wasn't about to bake up a pile of butter cookies - have you ever tried to make butter cookies in plus 30 degree weather with humidity levels over 80%? It is really, really hard! The butter keeps melting and so you can't even get the dough out of the cutter and off the counter/cutting board... I had some leftover free cookies that I'd gotten from one of the grocery stores for buying so much so that's what I handed out the next few times and then told them after that that the cookies were habis (done/finished/out of stock). Actually, I have to confess that a few times this week when Hugo was working, I just locked the gates so no one could come in, although one enterprising young lad still made his way in...
Wishing you a blessed Sunday!
No comments:
Post a Comment