On Saturday we hiked up the mountain to the base of the water fall. We started the walk from our house, followed the road up until we came to the jungle. Then we entered the jungle and walked up a path until we were able to get down to this little water fall. About 45 minutes later we were joined by at least 50 school kids who had just planted plants and trees somewhere else on the mountain. It got a little crowded there... By then Mikah and her class had climbed up higher to a cave found under an incredibly large rock. I did not lug my big camera up the mountain so we only have these two little photos from our phones as proof... Fun times on the moutain!
Tomorrow morning I am planning to go to Singapore with Christiaan for his annual hearing check-up and new ear molds. Looking forward to some hamburger consumption... :-)

Mikah's birthday....

Today Mikah turned 13. We offically have our first teenager... yikes... But we love her and are very thankful for God's guidance and protection in her life!As per tradition, Mikah requested a trifle for her birthday cake and I was more than happy to fulfill that request! I've been saving chocolate pudding, dream whip, and some caramilk squares from Canada for this very day... YUM!!Mikah with two of her good friends L and E.

Correction: Yesterday I said that the child who passed away was the young couples first child but in actual fact it is their third child. Hugo attended one of the funeral services yesterday. There are usually a couple services when someone dies, before and after the burial. Apparently the boy died of cerebral malaria.

There was a wave that hit Jayapura on Friday night at about 8:30. It caused damage in an area farther up the coastline from where we were. About 15 minutes drive. You can see photos here
The day after the tsunami, a group of guys from the high school went to the beach and swam in post-tsunami waves. Apparently the water level went up and down dramatically every 10-15 minutes.

Yesterday one of our aircraft experienced a landing accident. One of the tires was blown and the plane veered into the ditch alongside the runway. The plane was only travelling at 10 knots when it hit the ditch. There were no injuries sustained by any of the 9 passengers or the pilot. The plane however, sustained significant damage and will be out of commission for some time. We are thankful for God's protection! Please pray for our pilots out here who fly in crazy areas all the time!
Yesterday myself and three friends were in Jayapura to spend the night at the Swiss Bel hotel to celebrate a birthday. We heard before supper time that there'd been an earthquake in Japan and that there was a tsunami watch for Papua. We decided to go to our rooms and retrieve our valuables and clothes and head for higher ground to eat dinner and wait out the watch. As we were leaving with our stuff we observed a group of people meeting in the lobby of the hotel. We didn't think much of it. Later we found out that our entire hotel was evacuated and some people were sent to the very restaurant we went to. The manager of the hotel met us there after we'd eaten supper and told us it was not yet safe for us to return. After about 15 minutes he told us we could return. So we did and as we were exiting our vehicle we heard a warning siren and it was rather dark and quiet at the hotel. Some people went by and told us that we had to leave again. So we did. We drove up a ways and watched the harbour from there and we saw nothing. There was no noticeable wave. Thankfully... It was however, another adventure... No trip to Jayapura is completely void of adventure!
One of our group is a woman from Japan and her family is safe but are experiencing after-shocks. Our prayers are with the Japanese victims and may they find hope with the only One within whom hope and comfort may be found.
Yesterday the 10 month old son of one of our loading guys passed away. He'd been sick for a little while and they thought he was getting better but he took a sudden turn and passed away. Please pray for this young couple who lost their only child.

So our yard man/guard came back to Sentani on the weekend. It turns out his brothers didn't really know the real reason why he went up to Pyramid. "Y" went up there to finalize his divorce from "M". When he married her, he paid her family 13 pigs. Now that they are divorcing, his family is supposed to pay back the dowry. However, they did have a son who died at 3 months of age so the family took off 5 pigs from the re-payment.... I assume Y left the pigs in the care of his relatives there. Currently, large pigs are worth (according to "I") 15 million rupiah ($1,500). They used to be worth 10 million rupiah but because the price of rice has gone up, the price of pigs has gone up by 50%.... seems a little extreme to me... Y said that his (ex) wife was crying and asking him to take her back but he refused... I wanted to say a lot to him, but it wasn't the time or the place as I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes and had food cooking on the stove. He brought us a big bag of vegetables from Wamena. It's very touching that he does this. He told me that he really missed us while he was gone...
There was a widow with three young children living with I and her dad. This woman is quite the character and had basically chased away another widow with daughter who had also been living with them. This woman is addicted to beetle nut and seems to care not a whit about her children. A couple years ago I first saw her older son. He had a very large open wound on the back of his neck. I asked the mom if she was able to bring him to the doctor. She said yes she was, but a health worker had already given him a needle. She didn't bring the boy to a doctor. Eventually the wound healed up. However, a few months ago he began to swell up. She did not bring him to the doctor even though "I" encouraged her to do so. Finally, she brought him to the Catholic hospital in Waena. The most expensive hospital; and she has no money or insurance. I and her husband went there to visit and they brought rice and drinking water but all the mother could say was, "Do you have money for beetle nut?" and "I went to the witch doctor and he told me who made my son sick." When asked if the doctor had given her son medicine, she ignored the question and asked for money to buy beetle nut. When the hospital realized she was not going to pay, they took her cellphone and sent them to the public hospital in Jayapura. On Saturday night the boy passed away. The mother decided to bury him in Jayapura. A strange decision as his father is buried in the graveyard near our house and that is so much closer. A group of people from the community here went to Jayapura on Saturday. They wanted to talk to the mother about her decision and tell her not to come back to live here on Pos 7. The people here are sick of being used by her. But when they arrived, the body had not yet been buried and as long as there is a body, they cannot discuss anything. So I told me that tomorrow when they do the final funeral service (4 days following death) the people plan to tell her their decision. Throughtout this whole ordeal, the 5 year old twins were living with I... What a sad, sad situation...

Bits and bites....

The other day I opened a bag of mentos that I'd bought and we won 100 rupiah!!! That's like 1 cent!!! Whoohoo!!!

The other day the boys participated in world math day and competed against kids from all around the world. I think they held their own!

Doesn't that flavour just sound soooo tasty???

This is the bug that interupted the kindergarten PE class.... justifiably so...

Coconut...

I needed grated coconut for my granola the other day so I made my way to the little market. It's been recently renovated. Someone with funds paved the road and helped the vendors build wooden stalls out of which they can sell their goods. It's so nice, I can drive by the stalls on my motorbike and stop at the ones that look promising and simply pass by the other ones. I decided to buy coconut from this fun lady (mostly cause she's the only one selling it there...). She's from Manado. I asked her to peel most of the brown stuff off the coconuts before grating them. She first "washed" them in that bucket of water... Once they were ready she started the motor of her grater. It's a pull-start, like a lawn mower, I love it! A few seconds later I had three grated coconuts in that black plastic bag. I had a fun chat with her while she was working. She has 2 children and 5 grandchildren. She asked me if I had grandchildren too...

International Day at the International School...

Mikah explaining some of the interesting things about Peru to a couple younger students visiting the display in her class.

Marc's class presented about Canada. Apparently it is to the North, is very Cold, gets Dark early, has a variety of Animals, and is for Anyone!

And there's four seasons! People could have a mini pancake with maple syrup in Marc's class. One of Marc's classmates is a local boy and he thought it was so cool that Canadian's have fireplaces in their houses!

Throughout the morning the Fact Finder person was quizzing students regarding interesting facts about the different countries being presented.

Christiaan's class presented America and they served a lot of junk food and "soda" and had a stickball game going on in the tennis courts. So fun!

Brynne's class did South Korea and as one of the boys is from there, his mom was able to get enough costumes for all the kids! So stinkin' cute!

Aidan's class presented Indonesia. They sang the national anthem for us. As you can see, some of the kids didn't need to read the words! Aidan did a report on Sulawesi and here Marc is checking it out. They served some tasty Indonesian snacks too!

Bits and Bites...

Birthday parties are cultural experiences. Invitations here are sent the day of the party. All guests arrive and sit down. The birthday girl sits in a central location and someone (in this case, her mother) will be the "master of ceremonies" (for lack of a better word). She will go around the room and ask everyone to say his/her name. Then she may quiz one or two of the children to check if he/she remembers the names. They will. Then a few songs will be sung with the last one being happy birthday. Then a knife will be brought out and one piece of cake will be cut by the birthday girl together with her mother. She will usually give a bite to her mother. Then her mother will ask if there is anyone else she wants to give a bite to. She chooses her best friend. Then her sister will pray to close the "ceremony" portion of the party and ask for a blessing on the food. Then we all proceed to the "buffet" table and get some food -rice, fish, curry chicken, cucumber/carrot salad, bean soup, and fried noodles and of course, a cup of water. Like bottled water, only in a cup. Tastes like plastic... You eat and then go home.

*There's a salt shortage here. Don't know why, but I'm starting to run low and beginning to feel the beginnings of panic... What would I do if I couldn't get any salt??? I NEED salt. Can't bake bread without salt!!

*The situation with the man that had a relationship with the married woman who said I's name was "resolved" the other day. "I" went over there and the man looked at her and said,"I have no idea who this woman is." Whew, "I" was off the hook... Then all the people present discussed with the man what had happened and he admitted to taking the woman somewhere for a week. He gave her a Blackberry phone because he had no money to give her. The people gathered there decided that he would have to pay the woman's family 40 million rupiah for his actions. That's $4,000. Lots of money!

*Our guard went up to Wamena with his brother-in-law. We had been helping him save up for a motorbike that he could use to get to school when he starts again in August. Well, he came to Hugo and said he needed all of his savings so he could go to Wamena. He didn't say why. Yesterday his brother told me that it was to resolve a problem with a man who had bothered Y's wife (well, former wife actually) and had not yet paid the fine he was supposed to pay. The guy lives in Jayapura but his family is in Wamena. Y also had to pay for his brother-in-laws ticket-apparently he has some other ceremony or something to attend to and as he doesn't have a job but Y does, so guess who has to pay for his ticket??? There's no getting ahead here...

*Apparently there is also a shortage of finger-print ink around here so the police can't issue any driver's licenses right now...

Christiaan's birthday supper and more...

Homemade hamburgers on homemade buns... fries... purchased.... but home-fried...

Funny story... The first day that Ice had her new teeth she went home and went into the "living room" where her younger brother and his buddy were watching TV. They looked over at her and said,"That looks like Ice, but Ice doesn't have that many teeth. Must be satan." And they went back to watching tv. So Ice left the room and took out her teeth and returned. The boys said,"Oh Ice, there was just somebody here who looks just like you but with teeth. Must have been satan ya?" As Ice was telling me this I asked her if they really believed that it was satan the first time they saw her. She said emphatically,"YES!" hmmm....
A couple days ago a woman who was sick with malaria, and had been having an affair with another man, was talking a little crazy and said that Ice knew why. Why what? I don't know, but the point is she mentioned Ice's name. Ice says she knows the woman but has never hung out with her so has no idea why she said her name. The sad thing is that even though this woman was in a malaria delirium, there will be people who will believe her and will therefore cause problems for Ice when in fact she's done nothing. So that meant that yesterday Ice's dad and some other family members went to deal with the problem. Ice had to go as well. I guess I'll find out today what happened.

Happenings...

On Tuesday I took Ice to get her new false teeth. She's pretty stinkin' happy with them! Like most people here, she had a lot of problems with her teeth. Good dental care isn't really encouraged and good dentists are as rare as ice rinks here. But there is an expat dentist here and for the past 1.5 years or so, we've been working on fixing all the issues in Ice's mouth. And the final step was for her to receive her fake teeth. They look great! Of course her mouths a bit sore and she bit her cheek the other day while eating... I keep telling her she just has to stick it out and the pain will go away. Hopefully she does!

Today we celebrated Christiaan's upcoming birthday with 8 of his friends. We started out with a game of barefoot soccer while waiting for all the boys to arrive and then we moved onto cake and pop. After that we launched some water balloons and then they had a water fight. Fun times!

Seen while out and about...

This is a store in the mall... It actually sells accessories...

Apparently that's the flag of Australia... This is a FIFA headband that we got for free in a bag of frozen chicken strips.

No hygiene police here...

I did buy this, I just had to try it!

Hmmm.....

Haha...

How would you like to have a spare tire cover like this!

Table lamps are really hard to find here but if you're not picky....

Not sure what this building is about or why there's a fancy statue on it...

Not sure what these are...

Would you buy bulk potato wedges or bulk anything for that matter in a third world country??? Eeewwww....

Jayapura...

Hugo still had two days of holidays left from last year and we decided to use them to go to Jayapura for a few nights without kids. R, was willing to stay with the kids for which we were very thankful. We stayed at the Swiss-Bel hotel:

It's that castle-looking building on the far left of the first photo, centre of the second one. It's located on the waters edge along the bay. It's like a little piece of cleanliness in a very dirty city. We enjoyed a few days of relaxing, shopping, going to the beach and not cooking... :-) We were also able to visit a friend of mine on the Chinese New Year (IMLEK). That was a fun cultural experience. You need to shake hands with everyone in the house when you arrive and everyone who's there when you leave. We also got to eat some yummy food.

One day we ate lunch at this swanky place called the OK Cafe (sounds like it comes out of an old Western doesn't it?):

Hugo had Shrimp steak (or so the dish was named...)

I had Ifu Mie (vegetables and chicken over fried noodles).

We ate all of our suppers in the hotel restaurant because it's quiet and no one bugs you there...

One morning we drove to the beach known as Base G (a name given during WW2). It was a nice cloudy day so the temperature wasn't too hot. I still burned...

A couple guys fixing their fishing net.