Fun times...

Today I took our kids, the two neighbour kids, and Ritha's girls to the Happy Kiddy play place at the mall. 9 kids, I know, but it went great! This place kills me. They have constant annoying kiddy-type music playing and blinking lights and as it is on the top floor of the mall and heat rises... it's an oven up there... The kids love it though. The ball pit is really quite large. And you gotta love the ride-on reindeer (or whatever they are...). Those cost extra as do the battery-powered cars. After their play time was up, we went to the Dunkin' Donuts and they each got to pick out a donut to take home. Fun times!

That last photo is how you read your kids a book when the power is out... I know it looks dorky, but it works great. Don't you love Aidan's dinosaur headlamp? We've been having quite a lot of power outages lately and many of them last for about 8 hours... Fun times...

Ambulance...

This morning as I was trying to get the cobwebs out of my head while lounging in bed at 7:30 am (I really do like the looser schedule of the summer...) when there was a timid knock on my bedroom door. Since none of my kids ever knocks, they just barrel in, I knew it was Ice. I told her to come on in. She was a little embarrassed but I assured her it was no big deal. She proceeded to ask me if I could take her dad to the hospital as he was having trouble breathing. I said sure, but I need to have a quick shower first. In retrospect I probably should have gotten a little more information from her regarding his condition... Anyways, I showered as quickly as I could and called a friend to come and have breakfast with the kids and made my way to Ice's house. Unfortunately I couldn't drive very close to their house. They live in a kind of a valley and you have to walk down a path which goes over a creek to get to their house. I looked in the front door and saw what appeared to be a body covered with a blanket. I watched it closely to see if there was any movement and when I saw none I had a moment of panic that I was too late and that I shouldn't have been so vain regarding my personal grooming... But then I saw Ice and she laughed at me and said that her brother in law was just cold so he wrapped himself up like that... Whew... As it turned out, Ice's sister Elina and Ice's husband came along with me. Ice's husband is afraid of me. Ice says he grew up in a village and isn't used to white people. He refused to sit in the front with me. "He's scared," Elina informed me. So she sat in the front and off we went sent off by a small crowd. Evidently Ice's dad, Mitre, is an important man in this area. I feel so bad for these folks. The government built a new hospital intended for the Papuans, particularly those coming from interior for medical care. Previously everyone went to the government hospital in Jayapura or sometimes the hospital in Abe. There is a better hospital in Waena, closer by, but it is a private Catholic hospital and therefore more expensive and they don't accept the government insurance cards. Anyways, back to this new hospital; it's way out of town so anyone who wants to go there has to take transportation quite far. And the taxis stop all the time to let people off and take new people on so a 15 minute trip can turn into a 45 minute trip and when you are sick.... So they asked me for help. It took us only 15 minutes to get there and I told them to call me when they were done. Four hours later they were done. Pak Mitre had been checked and told to spit into two different sample bottles and then bring them back the next day to be checked by the lab. (It sounds to my untrained ear that he has something like emphysema.)
Here's the other thing, there isn't ambulance service here like back in Canada. People don't just call up an ambulance to take them to the hospital. I think it is very expensive. From what I've seen, ambulances are used to bring people from one hospital to another if they cannot receive adequate treatment in the first hospital. They are also used to carry dead bodies. According to Ice the ambulance drivers are often drunk... hmmm.... Never, ever take our Canadian medical system for granted people!!!

Bits and Bites....

* I asked Ice how the payment went on Saturday. She said that her tribe had amassed 25 pigs, a large envelope of money and many nokens (hand-weaved bag carried at the back with the strap over the forehead). Nokens are the traditional item to give in times of marriage or payment for a wrong especially against an young unmarried girl etc... The pigs were apparently all large and worth 10 million each which means that the pigs alone were more than enough to cover the agreed amount. However, the family of the girl who had died were not happy with just the pigs. They began to raise their voices. So Ice's dad, who was brokering this peace agreement, made the decision to just give everything to them so as to achieve peace. But he then asked if they could have 2 pigs in return to have a pig feast with all the people who had come from far to help pay the fine. This was granted. Following the payment Ice's dad spoke to the tribe of the girl who died and thanked them and so one. All very cultural. However, the immediate family members of Hrlina could not look Ice's dad in the eye while he spoke his humble words. This is because just days earlier, a witness had come forward and told who had committed the murder and it was not a member of Ice's tribe. But Ice's dad felt they should just pay the fine and then try to deal with those responsible. I think he probably made the right decision because otherwise the family of the girl would most likey still be complaining about things. Now they have nothing to say.
However, the peace that previously reigned in the area has been broken. There are about 5 different tribes represented. On Monday the tribe of the girl who died also had a pig feast and forbade Ice's tribe from participating.
In the old days each tribe had their territory and you could stay away from other tribes quite easily. Now they are mixed together in "subdivisions" and that creates a new can of worms to deal with.
* There's been another plane crash here. Like the last one, it happened near Wamena. In fact it is the same airline as the last one and it was also a cargo plane. Occasionally they do carry a few passengers and were scheduled to carry at least one passenger. However, this fellow ended up taking a more direct flight with one of our mission aviation groups here. A good choice. The plane had three people on board and it looks like they hit the side of a mountain. There are so many mountain passes here it is easy to go into the wrong one and get lost and if there are clouds....
* Hugo is looking into the possibility of going interior this fall with a Dutch friend and do some courses on basic radio maintenance. HF radios are the lifeline of the interior and each time something goes wrong they have to send it to us to get fixed. Having grown up in a non-electronic environment, many of the folks interior have no clue of how to properly maintain their radios.
* I've planted a small corn garden just for fun. I brought the seeds along from Canada and they are sprouting and growing quite quickly. We are very optimistic right now that we will be eating sweet Canadian corn on the cob in a couple months....
* On Canada Day we had a barbeque with the other Canucks living here in Sentani. There are five Canadian families living here although one was unable to attend our gathering. One of the families is new and they just unpacked their crates and they had shipped a rather lovely gas barbeque. Man, those were tasty burgers! Although they're not as juicy as a true Canadian burger cause the meat here has no fat in it at all....

Bits and Bites....

Yesterday and the day before, scores of people, Papuans, came into our area to bring money or pigs to help pay the fine of 200 million rupiah. The official payment day had been Friday, but some pigs that had been promised couldn't come until Saturday so they graciously moved the payment up a day. So kind.... Thankfully everything went very peacefully, especially considering the amount of people that had gathered, and it seems they may have had a roast pig feast as well to seal the deal. Lots of the people that came are obviously not used to seeing Westerners so we were quite the side show for them... Gotta love that...
Speaking of side shows... I went shopping on Saturday at the big grocery store in the mall. It's about half the size of Superstore. Anyways, I loaded up my cart and went to the cashier. There was a small group of people behind me and some of them went past me so that they could see the cashiers screen as she scanned in items (yes, this particular store is rather modern in that it actually has scanners...) and when the total came up, the number was passed on to those not privileged to be able to view the screen... ugghh... I kind of know what celebrities go through now....
Speaking of the mall (I'm really doing well on the segues today...); I saw a booth selling buttons and badges so I went up to take a look as I'm always on the lookout for a Papua pin for my father-in-laws special retirement hat. Well, every single pin had either Bob Marley, a cannabis leaf, or the Jamaican flag on it... Apparently the Rastafarian movement isn't dead...
So (no possible segue here) there's still no margarine in town... Just wondering if Australia has a beef with Indonesia and there using margarine as a bargaining chip and Indonesia just hasn't caved yet...??? You folks in Australia still able to buy Meadowlea?

Bits and Bites....

I have a bunch of different thoughts in my head that don't necessarily connect to each other and since I'm not much of a segue girl, here they are in no particular order:

*Today there was a meeting called by Ice's dad and everyone attending was asked to bring some money so they can start getting funds together to pay the 200 million rupiah fine.... I'm not too hopeful that they will be successful in accumulating this amount of fundage before the 29th... I just hope they are or I might have to hide Ice somewhere to keep her safe.

*The other day I asked Ritha and Ice if they knew how conception occurs. They had no idea. Can you imagine??? Ritha has had a baby and had no idea... So I explained how the 2 cells merge and form a baby etc... Can you imagine living in such ignorance? I can't....

*A friend of ours spends some time interior; in fact lived interior for a number of years. He has a lot of stories to tell about people he has met and the history he has learned. One of the men in the village they used to live in told them that he knew what the tastiest part of a human was... He assured them that he had never personally tried it (ya right...) but the palm of the hand is supposedly the best.... There are some who feel that cannibalism is still happening in some areas here..... I try not to think about that...

*Hugo has installed the third traffic avoidance system leaving just one left to install. I'm not sure if we'll be getting one for our new Kodiak plane (which will arrive Lord willing next month) or not.

These photos represent just a sliver of life in the tropics. First you have our red lights that tell us if the city electricity is turned on or not. You'll notice that one of them is broken... They do occasionally explode.... When the lights are on the power is on and when the lights are off, the power is off or we've blown our main circuit breaker which happens fairly regularly...

The next photo is of one of our lovely pineapple bushes in front actually bearing fruit... and man it was tasty...

The last photo is of a "little" guy we found wandering around our kitchen... he doesn't bite... really....

In other news...

It's been a while since I posted a post regarding us personally. The other news is just so much more interesting albeit sad and disturbing...
Hugo has been puttering along in the hangar. He has been installing the new traffic avoidance systems in our caravans along with some other electrical work on one of the caravans. At the same time he has been doing some teaching of the national guy who works with him. This guy has had no formal airplane electrical training so he lacks the background that comes with that.
The kids are enjoying their "summer" holidays. We make many trips to the pool and the school... The weather has been rather warm as well.
We've been experiencing quite a few power outages lately, not so fun.
There's been no margarine in the stores for some time, also not so fun... But on a brighter note we can still get real butter from France... yippee...
Well, that's about all the "news" I can think of...

Retribution...

Things have been quiet around here this week. People are still scared though. As it turns out, the older people in the community, including Ice’s dad, met to discuss retribution for the murder of the young woman. They have fined Ice’s cousin 50 million rupiah (about $5,500CAD) and the guy that pretended to be her boyfriend, 150 million rupiah. If the money is not paid within 2 weeks, someone has to die and that someone has to come from the triplex that Ice lives in. It seems her dad has gotten involved in this issue when he doesn’t actually need to be involved. Ice says that the family of the girl is quite angry that he is involved. I don’t really know all of the ins and outs of all that but the ramifications seem rather terrible... Remember, Ice’s cousin knew nothing, she was an innocent bystander and yet she has to pay too... Never mind where they are going to get that kind of money from...??? I can’t even wrap my mind around it all.
The helper of a friend told how her tribe deals with situations like this. They will put a razor in the hand of the dead person and tell them to exact revenge on the guilty. Apparently the helpers father died mysteriously and they did their traditional thing and nine people died in the following months....
All the people involved in the above call themselves Christians but it is hard for those of us who’ve had the benefit of hundreds of years of ancestors who were Christians to fathom how people can still cling to such animistic beliefs and traditions. It is one of the biggest struggles for the Papuan Christians here. We in the West are often fighting the new whereas here, they are fighting the old and the new.

Revenge...

There is still much tension in the air here on our hill. Ice has given me a lot more information regarding the events of last week. Sadly it just shows how the people here are still unsure of what it means to truly be a Christian. Many are still following cultural traditions that have been practiced for 100's of years. The death of the young girl as it turns out, is a revenge killing. Years ago already, her father had tried to save a woman who had fallen into a fast flowing river but he lost his grip on her hand. Her family felt that as a strong man he should have been able to save her and so therefore he is responsible for her death. (Very logical not?) The woman's family has been seeking revenge since then. They wanted to kill the man's son but he is not an easy guy to track down so they decided to go for the daughter. Ice's cousin was best friends with the girl who died and she got a new boyfriend. Friday night she was going to up to the road up higher to meet him. Her friend asked to go along; an unusual thing as she wasn't normally allowed to go out much. Her family was protective of her. But she went along. At some point she asked if she could try out the boyfriends motorbike and he agreed and went along with her and they never returned. Ice's cousin went to look for them and only found the motorbike running with her friend's clothing on top of it. She freaked out and yelled for them but there was no answer so she ran home. The story is that the "boyfriend" used Ice's cousin to get close to her friend and then he sent a text message to the killers and told them where they were. Both families involved are Dani-mountain people. But they are from different tribes. Now the tribe of the girl who was killed feels that someone from the tribe of Ice's cousin should die as well. Actually, they would like it to be Ice's cousin as they blame her. She is still in police custody for her own protection. This afternoon she and the guy involved came up here for a meeting with all the families and they were under tight police protection. Ice said that the family of the girl who died is still very angry and emotional and so they didn't really discuss much and then it started to rain so the meeting was called off until tomorrow.
Everyone is frightened. On Saturday the relatives of the girl surrounded Ice's house and cut down all the banana bushes and whatnot around it. They pulled their bows and arrows out in a threatening manner. Ice's Dad told her to stand in the doorway and just look at them. She was very, very frightened but she did it and eventually the people went away.
In spite of the local pastors pleading with the people not to act the way they are, people are just going ahead with their traditions of revenge and retribution. Logic, rationale, and God's Word are just not being considered.

This afternoon we witnessed a traditional Papuan ceremony. Sadly, the girl who was killed was murdered in a very brutal manner. No murder is respectful but this one was about as disrespectful as one can get. An incredibly sad and fear inducing event. When someone commits an offence against a person of a different tribe, they are committing the offence against the entire tribe. There are apparently three suspects in custody with a fourth being hunted for. The girl's two companions are also in police custody more for their own safety along with the hopes that they can give some crucial information which would help lead to a conviction. Understandably the two friends are terrified to say anything as they fear they could be indicted as well.

The ceremony we witnessed today was unlike anything I have ever witnessed before. It seemed as though all the members of the tribes involved who live in Sentani congregated on our hill. (I estimate a couple hundred people) They came running up the hill whooping and some were waving sticks and machetes. They would break into groups and run back and forth; stop and wait for another group to run back and forth and proceed again. Then they joined as one and gave a loud whoop in unison. It seemed as though they took a break for lunch and then later in the afternoon repeated the mornings events. Then they all congregated in the field across the road where a few groups formed with the rest of the folks outside the fence observing. Each group would take a turn and run around the field whooping and waving whatever weapon they had including the occasional bow and arrow. We were watching in wonderment wondering what the purpose of this event was. It seemed like they were performing a stylized battle. Finally they all ran down the road back to the place where the girls family lives. One of the stragglers was a man we know and so I went to the fence and asked him about it. I did my best to understand him as he spoke rather quickly. This is a traditional ceremony used to determine which tribe the offender belongs to. The decision is based on the sound of the whooping. I'm not sure who makes the decision and what kind of whooping is good and what kind is bad. The people all gathered together afterwards to make the determination and then a number of people hopped into a police truck to go to the police station to pass on the results.

The people here are very upset about this tragic event. The girls family feels that someone from the offending tribe needs to be buried with her. There is tension in the air and people are behaving in a manner that is not normal. These kinds of events really do test the faith of the people here and bring out old suspicions and beliefs. Please pray that things will be resolved in a manner that is to God's glory and that the people can feel comfort in God's promises.

In the meantime we plan to keep a low profile until things settle down. Sadly, I think I know the girl. I never knew her name but she would come by to borrow a ball or pump up a ball or sell some fruit; often accompanied by little children. She was always friendly and polite; I liked her. I will find out for sure when Ice comes back to work.

I'm back in Sentani eh...

After more than 35 hours of travel I arrived safely back in Sentani. The trip was long but fairly uneventful. While on the plane from Makasar to Biak there was an announcement asking if there were any medical people on board who could assist a passenger in dire need of medical assistance. I looked up ahead and saw a group of people clustered around one of the seats. Not sure if any of them was a medical professional. However, there was a gentlemen across the aisle from me, wearing a Kim Jong Il type suite with gold framed glasses, who, without examining the patient, told one of the flight attendants to give the person a pill which he just happened to have on him... okaaaayyy.... Gotta love this place...
This morning as we were eating our pancake breakfast, we saw many people begin running past our house and up the road; some of them carrying machetes or sticks. A police vehicle also raced up the road. Ritha went outside and asked one of them what was going on. Turns out that the daughter of the local RW (head of a bunch of subdivisions) was found dead by the side of the road. Not our road, but a road that meets up with our road. She had been missing since last night and was found this morning by her uncle as he went up to work in his garden. When a member of the Dani tribe dies in a car accident it is a big deal. They don't view accidents like accidents and will demand 100's of million rupiah from the tribe of the person that was involved. They are still rooted in the old customs of an eye for an eye. Traditionally, before the modern world entered their world, when someone from another tribe killed one of their own, they would reply by killing one from the offending tribe. Now they just ask for money...
Later on we saw the mobil jenazah (literally=dead body car) go by on its way to the hospital where an autopsy was to be performed. It seems that this girl was beaten to death. Very sad. As people came down the hill later some of the women were calling out loudly. Ritha explained that close family members of the mother of the person who died call out like that.
Let's pray that the people will remain calm and not go out an attempt to exact vengeance for this death. Let's pray that they will remember God's word and act accordingly.

Afternoon at the Lake....

Today I went to the beach with my family here. My bro H has a boat so I had the opportunity to try water skiing again for the first time in over ten years... There was some reaquainting necessary with how to get up... So there were a few spills... In my defense the water was rather choppy today. But the weather and the views were fantastic! We bbq'ed burgers and soaked up the sun! Fun stuff!

More wedding photos...

The first photo is myself with three of my sisters. The next is myself with my youngest brother J. I think the next photo is self-explanitory. The fourth photo is of all the Moesker women (minus my sister Marsha who had already gone home). Then you have my folks. Then my bro who got hitched and finally my littlest sister Julia. Doesn't she look fine?

Wedding day!

So this morning my younger brother John married his sweetheart Daylinn. It was a lovely wedding and the bride and groom made no secret of the fact that they were thrilled to be married.

The photo above is of all of us siblings with spouses. Only my hubby Hugo and our kids were missing... :-(

Don't they look happy and beautiful?!

So I've been in Canada for one week now. I think I'm getting over the culture shock. You know what bugs me? I go into a store and I see something that I'm looking for and it seems to fit the bill and so I buy it. But then the next three stores will have a different version of the same item including possibly one I like better than the one I purchased... ugghhh... I'm used to only possibly finding one single version of something I need and I buy it. The array of choices to be found here is astounding! Then there are the public washrooms in places like malls and airports... CLEAN! Toilet paper and soap provided and you don't have to pay!

The roads here are so smooth... Actually the runways are smooth also. When I left Sentani we literally bounced our way into the air. When I flew from Vancouver to Kelowna in exactly the same type of plane, boeing 737, I barely felt a thing!

People drive fast... need I say more...?

It's been great to see the folks again. It feels like I haven't been gone three years. Except that my parents have better furniture now and my baby brother is an awful lot taller... :-)

As I flew to Kelowna I couldn't resist taking a photo of the rockies still covered in snow.

That second photo there is of my baby sister and me. Freakish isn't it?

White Rock...

Today I had the chance to reminisce with friends (the Hoff family) at White Rock. We walked along the waters edge before feasting on fish'n chips and then ice cream cones. It was a lovely sunny day, but I kept my sweater on and the many in bathing suits probably thought me odd....
P.S. Yes Mom, I streaked my hair... :-)

So I'm Canada eh...

Yup, I'm in Canada right now. It's a little surreal really. It rather feels like not much has changed. There are some new buildings and such and people's kids are bigger, but it feels the same. I'm loving the mountains and the crisp air. Every night I go to bed with ice blocks for feet... I'm not used to a dry climate with temperatures below 20 C...
It is fabulous to see friends and family again though. No pictures... yet... Just lots and lots of shopping and visiting.... :-)

Kawin...

It seems that Ice has been "kawin" with her boyfriend. Kawin is what they do here when they can't afford to get married. Basically they move in together. Her family and his family had talks. His family admitted that they wouldn't be able to pay the dowry for a marriage but that they could manage to pay the dowry for "kawin". Ice would dearly love to get married, but she's realistic (plus she feels that as a woman her opinion is of no value and that she must just do what the men in the family say). So far her "husband's" family has not paid the dowry. Not sure what the holdup is. In a situation like this, the couple is not supposed to have any children until the dowry is paid. Hmmm.... who's gonna control that??? Should they have children without the dowry being paid, the children belong to her family and he has no rights to them whatsoever.
So why didn't they just wait until the dowry was paid? Well, it turns out that this guys' older brother also had his heart set on Ice, in spite of the fact that he has already been married and has two children. His wife left him a while ago and lives with someone else. Ice has no interest in this fellow and decided that it would probably be best to let him know very clearly, sooner rather than later, that he has no chance. Turns out, Ice's sister, who is actually married but not living with her husband, likes this older brother.... What a soap opera...!!
I really wish that they would perform some sort of ceremony when a couple is "kawin". I think it would be good for the couple to promise in front of the members of their church and their pastor, that they will be faithful to eachother, just as you would in a marriage ceremony. The thing here is that the people really want to have the whole package. Ritha was actually kawin with her husband for 10 years before they actually got married in church. The "whole package" means, they want to wear the special clothes-he a dark suit with white gloves, she a white dress, they want to have the big party with lots of food and of course there is the government paperwork that has to be filed which also carries some fees with it.
One can still see the clinging to the old ways in spite of the fact that they have the Bible to guide them in their lives. But the truth is that we do the same in many things as well. Just maybe not such dramatic things...

A frightening event...

Today I had a strange experience that could have been a really nasty one. Just before noon I was in the kitchen stirring the granola I was baking when Ice came to me and said,"Ibu, did he come with Bapak (man/father)?" I looked at her and wondered what in the world she was talking about. She looked away from me and repeated the question. So I went around the corner and just about walked into a guy standing there in my living room! I assumed that he had just entered the house, however, I was wrong. Ice had been cleaning in my bathroom when she felt an odd sensation that she usually feels when someone is trying to get into her house. So she stealthily exited my bedroom and suddenly there in Mikah's room (which is on the far end of the house away from the front door) was a guy looking through her desk drawers. Ice remained calm and simply asked him what he wanted. He replied that he wanted Bapak and Ibu. She managed to get him to walk down the hall (although she said he did bump into the wall alerting her to the fact that he was intoxicated). She was afraid that he would run away so she kept near him while allerting me to his presence. I asked him what he wanted and he mumbled something about having a need as his dad is sick. (His Dad actually died many years ago and is a former MAF employee) I escorted him outside where Ice told me that he had been looking in Mikah's room. I asked him if he took anything and he said he didn't. He did have a Bible in his hand, not sure why... I calmly told him that it was not cool to just go into people's houses and that normally one would call the police if someone strange was in their home. I told him that he should go home and sleep and if he needed something to go to his relatives. During this whole event I had no idea of his identity. It was only afterwards when I questioned Ice about him that I figured out who he was. A nasty guy who's sister worked for our friends in Nabire. He had kicked her out of their mother's house (just down the road from here) in spite of the fact that she gave him money and she continued to give him money even when she moved to Nabire with our friends! Thankfully, he was too intoxicated to be violent and thankfully he did not manage to take anything. You may wonder why I did not call the police. Well, had I done that, I would have had to try and keep the guy at my house until they came and then have to deal with the police. In addition, the police most likely would just arrest him, beat him, throw him into jail until he sobered up and then let him go. I don't see any good coming from that either. However, apparently we are supposed to go to his family and tell them about this. But I know that he has already caused his mother and sisters so much grief that I'm not sure I want to add to it.
As I am writing this, Hugo is installing a second slide-lock on our front door and I will now be more vigilant than ever about locking it. Thank God nothing bad happened. However it does leave me feeling rather uneasy in my own home. Not such a nice thing...

This is what we do for fun around here....

In honour of two Canadian families who are repatriating soon, we had another hockey tournament. We had four teams with the Canadian players evenly distributed throughout the teams... :-) We played four games over an evening and a morning. Our team ended up being in third place. But it was fun in spite of the myriad of bruises over my body...

Now I just want to say

GO CANUCKS GO!!!!!!!!!

Blockade...

Yesterday some friends of ours attempted to go to Abe. However, the road was blocked. A group of inebriated locals had decided to block the road with fallen trees and burning tires. They were demanding $ before allowing folks to go through. If refused, they would wave their machetes around threateningly. The police were dispatched and asked the locals to clean up the road. They refused and so the police began shooting in the air. That had no effect so the police shot one of the men in the leg. He was taken to the hospital here in Sentani where he died. Probably more because he had more spirits than blood in his body than because of the wound. Upon hearing the news that their comrade had passed on, the men at the blockade became even more angry and threatening. I'm not sure how the whole thing ended, but it probably ended in arrests. There is so much more I could say about events like this, but I fear that I should not. It just makes me feel incredibly sad that these kinds of things happen with local folks...

Going to school...

Ritha has been going to school all year to become a teacher of the Protestant religion. Kind of a funny title, but she's going to a government school and according to the government there are only five religions. We have an older desktop computer in our office that Ritha can use whenever she needs to prepare her assignments and use the internet and print things. So she does. She has been getting some very good marks on her assignments and the teachers are making her prove where she got her info etc... So annoying for her! As if she isn't busy enough already! The problem that most of the other students run into is that they have to use internet cafe's to surf then net and type things up and there are times where there is no internet or there is no power. Like the other night. The power went off. Here they say "lampu (lights) mati (dead)". But Ritha was at our house so first she used our laptop and then when it got dark we put on the generator and she could keep going and print upon completion. She had only received the assignment that day and it was due the next day. Not sure how her classmates were supposed to complete their assignments....

The first two photos are of the view from our room. The first is part of Jayapura and the second is the view out to the ocean. Then you have the pool. Behind Hugo's chair is a little patch of beach sand so you can pretend you're at the beach... There was some problem with the umbrella, the only one remaining of the original three... But these guys got it fixed so we didn't have to bake in the sun.

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/04/29/soldiers-riot-jayapura-assault-media.html

Follow the link to read about the "activities" that occurred earlier this week. There was a bit more to the story than I had heard and wrote about.... Isn't that always the case?

Rumah Makan 89

Hugo and I just returned from a two-night get-a-way in Jayapura in celebration of our upcoming 12th anniversary. Our first night we ate at a "swanky" restaurant called Restaurant 89. Not sure why... The cook works right at the entrance so you can watch him and his underlings, with their odd longish hairdo's, as they prepare your food. In the second photo you can see my noodles on the green plate waiting for their turn to be fried. I ordered one of my favorite dishes, ifu mie. It means vegetables over noodles. The noodles are fried first, very yummy (don't think about the oil... don't think about the oil...) then some shrimp and some chicken is fried up, then some veggies, and then the guy uses his spatula to get seasonings from different bowls, and then adds water and cornstarch and finally, an egg "whipped" with chopsticks. He then pours the lot on top of the waiting fried noodles. So yum! Hugo ordered nasi goreng (how boring) and fried shrimp (they were good but we missed some sauce to dip them in...).

Our children were in the very capable care of our good friends Jan and Dini.

More on our adventures tomorrow....