Check out what i got.....

Just because i am living in the jungle doesn't mean i can't shop! there is always a way. I ordered this, with matching ear rings and i love, love, love it.

I met this lovely lady when we were both pregnant with our first babies. In my spare time i like to sleep, sometimes cook, but mainly sleep..... in her spare time she creates masterpieces. Check out her cool blog here

I though i was pretty clever when i threaded a few beads on some string and attached a clasp, but this is a whole new level of beading! Her stuff is really impressive and worth a look.

I ordered this, with matching ear rings and i love it.

It looks great in the picture, but is even more stunning IRL. Thanks so much B.

Disturbing post, contains swearing. Don't read if you'll be offended!

You know those nights when you just can't sleep. The last time it happened to me i was 9 months pregnant and i think my body was trying to prepare me for a lot of months of little sleep. ;-) But tonight i ain't up the duff and my kids are sleeping through the night. I am lying in bed thinking of the fuckedness of living in this developing nation. (is that even a word, it somehow seems more acceptable if the word isn't correct?! whatever, i'm frustrated at life here.)
The compensation system here is pretty harsh. A 17year old girl, studying at bording school, year 11. Got mixed up with a boy who apparently already had a girlfriend. She phoned her mother and asked her for $150. She had to give this to the boys girlfriend as compensation for fooling with her man. Her mum said no, don't be ridiculous. 2 days later she was found hanging in her room. Whether she took her own life or not is in question, but regardless of that, it is fucked. Either she was murdered or took her own life for fear of the repercussions of not paying her compensation. And not to mention how her mother must be feeling.
A young man with 3 kids died of bowel cancer on the weekend. If you live out here and get cancer you basically die. Unless you have money there is no medical imaging, there is no radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy, there is nothing. Pretty much a panadol, some antibiotics and a teaspoon of harden the f up. How is that fair?
A six year old disabled boy lives with his mother, grandmother, baby brother and Aunt nearby in a one room shack. He can't walk, talk, feed himself, he is incontinent and they have no support, no money no nothing. They take it in turns to care for him, carrying him around and tending to his needs. The grandmother is the bread winner, but she is old and isn't all that well. They seem happy enough, but how tough does life have to be? They think they are lucky to live in a little house with one powerpoint!? And what will become of them when she is dismissed for reaching the ripe old retirement age of 55? (pretty sure she's well past that but most people round here have no idea when their birthday is so they make it up)

It's great that the simple things here make people happy it really is, because if they didn't find joy in the simple things they really would have nothing. I used to wonder how people living in such conditions can believe in god, why on earth would they prey and worship someone/thing and give thanks for what they have?! It infuriates me that they donate so much money to their church when they have none. But i now i realise that everyone needs a little hope, and if going to church and donating money gives them a little light then good on them. Not to say i'll be going in the near future, but i can understand why people here chose to go.

I don't want to become desensitised to life here. So many expats are. I don't want to be like that. Already my perceptions have changed a little, i've had to wise up a little. Generally i try and see the best in everybody, but in a country where there is nothing, petty crime is rife you need to be cautious. If i give too much to my house staff their friends and family get jealous and fights begin. If i give something to someone else my house staff get jealous and say i should be giving it to them. (not to my face, but gossips travels fast here. ;-) ) In a world where there is nothing, something as small as a biro is a prized posession, so i can hardly blame them for they fights, but i don't want to cause them....

Anyway, i can't sleep, so thought i'd have a bit of blogging therapy. Might give the sleep thing another shot. Night. x

Fallen off the blogging band wagon a bit of late, so thought i'd better pull my finger out and tell a story. LMS has been a bit sick with a virus and not sleeping so well, so i've got a bit slack..

Anyhoo....

Last Sunday we went for a hike. It was a 5 hour return trip, mainly uphill, in the searing heat. We needed to leave at about 11am in order to get to our destination and back in time before dark which meant walking in the middle of the day. Oh man, i though i was going to die. It was HOT, HOT, HOT and very humid. Tramping up hill for 2.5 hours sure got the sweat pouring off me. We were hiking to the base of Shaggy Ridge a razorback ridge in the Finisterre mountain range, the main position of defense for the Japanese during WWII. The track we followed was the original road from the war used to access the base of the Ridge. During many parts of the hike you could recognise where the road went, but others were just thick scrub and a single file track.

A few precarious river crossings....

Kooni grass out of control....

After two hours of steady climbing we came to a 'road house' Man was i happy to see it. A small spring gushing, crisp, clear, fresh water, and a couple of rocks to rest my sorry arse and adrenalin filled legs on. When there is a good clean water source, you generally find a little set up like this one...

A few bananas...

Banana and paw paw trees a plenty, although i'd never take a banana from the middle of the bush in PNG, it more than likely belongs to someone. Peoples' gardens are all over the place, mostly hidden about an hour or two walk from their homes. We had lunch and refueled. One of the guys hiking with us is staying the guest house where we live. The guest house provides 3 meals a day. As Cameron wasn't going to be there for lunch he asked them to make him a sandwich. The kitchen staff told him they didn't have much, he replied "peanut butter or vegemite will do" Not really to his surprise but to our amusement he had 2 sandwiches, both with peanut butter AND vegemite. Yummo.

I thought i was done with the hike, but after a rest i was rearing to go. The goal was to get to the base of shaggy ridge and check it out for the future hike when we overnight and climb the actual ridge.

We arrived at the small village at the base of the ridge and were met by a few friendly locals. The village was lovely, clean and tidy with some nice little houses. They had a beautiful new house that had been recently built, it was the biggest house i've seen here in a village, 4 bedrooms and up on stilts. No one was living it it, and from what i could gather this was because when you build a new house here you have to have a big feast and a 'sing-sing' before moving in. Either that or it was purpose built for the hikers that camp there before climbing shaggy ridge.

Esta took us down to the Faria river for a look, where we had another rest and shared a bag of lollypops with the kids who were enjoying a swim and helping out with some washing.

The kids from here walk about 4 hours on a Monday up the river to their school, they camp the week there and walk back on Friday. There is also a small hospital apparently. I'd like to check it out sometime, but leaving the kids overnight is a bit hard. Maybe when the olds visit?! :-p

Esta was keen for us to return and stay the night. She said we could bring the kids. yeah right. She might walk 7 hours to get to the market with 30kg's of food on her head, and her kids on her back, but i am soft and aint carrying my two ratbags 2.5hrs up a mountain!!!

This is a picture of the first part of Shaggy Ridge, as i am no photographer i wasn't really able to capture the incline very well, but let me tell you it is steep, it looks like you'd fall off while hiking up it if you didn't have spikes on. ;)

The hiking crew.....

And the best part of a hard day hiking? Beer of course.......

The garden

Thought i'd share a few pics of the garden today. We have some amazing flowers as well as a small market garden. Having a few problems keeping the kids out of the seedlings, but we'll get there.

We're currently growing Sweet potato, taro, broccoli, tomatoes, cauliflower, watermelon, bananas, spring onion, pawpaw, basil, coriander, lemongrass, parsley, capsicum and pumpkin i think?!

The garden monster...

Ouch

So the board of directors flew in for a few hours yesterday, it was a bit of a big deal apparently and everyone was running around cleaning sorting and organising. Except me that i is, i remained blissfully unaware and continued my own running around after my nude children. Yes plenty of comments on the lack of clothing there, but i know you are all just jealous, who doesn't want to run nude all day eh??? And you Melbournites are seriously jealous as you couldn't run around outside in the nude even if you wanted to.

Sorry, slightly sidetracked. So there was a big lunch yesterday, steak on the menu, so Tarzan sat very nervously as the directors cut into their steak. Turned out it was great so he was quite chuffed. I decided i should do the supportive thing and celebrate the lovely steak, so i got stuck into a couple of bottles of wine with another lady here and needless to say i am somewhat slow this morning and my head is pounding. Oh i know i wont get a lot of sympathy for any of you lot, but i am feeling better already just being able to whinge about. :p

It's a lovely day here today, about 28 i'd guess, a slight breeze, a few clouds around.

I'm looking forward to the next couple of months. We have lots of friends and family coming to visit. We're also heading to west New Britian via Port Moresby on wednesday. Tarzan has a few meetings, so we're going to support him and hang out in the resort!

For anyone who is not on facebook, here is a pic of us swimming. LL is loving the pool these days and insists on swimming by herself, and LMS seems to think she can swim by herself too. Not matter how many times she goes under and comes up spluttering, she is straight back down for some more?!

I was always unsure whether or not to use floaties on kids, but it has been the best. Lu has so much more water confidence now. I'm sure she will ditch the floaties when the time comes.

Lunch, nap. Yeah!

Mothers day

Mothers day in PNG involved a dinner dance for Pacific Mummas. The dress was 'Toana" which is pacific wear. So every one spent the days before whipping up lap-laps (sarongs) threading frangipanis and helping decorate the hall. I kindly made Tarzan's outfit, a grass skirt. Much to his disgust! I sewed two kids skirts together to fit it around his waist. My dress was 3m of material wraped and secured with 2 pins.

LMS had a mini sarong and the whirlwind had her grass skirt from Fiji.

Shortly after getting dressed, Lucylu proudly exclaimed that now she had boobs too so she could feed LMS!

The feast was fantastic, lots of traditional dishes from the pacific. Kokonda (fish marinated in lime juice with coconut milk), sweet potato and (something else) in coconut cream, chicken curry, sago, stir fried local greens with chilli, coconut rice cooked in coconut leaves, taro ( not my fave, kind of like sucking on chalk) followed my a mothers day chocolate cake.

We had 'live' entertainment. A dodgy Aussie from Lae with his guitar who wouldn't get a gig at the local RSL in Aus, but is some kind of small star here. But after a few drink i couldn't care less who was singing, as long as there was music! We danced up a storm. Lucylu danced from about 7pm till 11am with anyone who was interested, she had a ball. And LMS did her fair share of boogying too.

This is the lady who organised it all, she is the hear of HR. She is from a part of PNG where people generally have really dark skin. She is always joking she's going to take LMS back to her hometown and pretend she is hers. Talk about ebony and ivory! She is a lovely lady, used to be a TV presenter here and won miss PNG a few years back!!

This little guy had the coolest head dress on. It was made of feathers. He is 4 and our cheeky little neighbor across the road.

This is Suniam, the oldest mum's in attendance so she got to cut the cake. She gave a bit of a speech (lecture)and was telling all the men that they better make this a good mothers day because fathers day is coming up. Quite amusing really. One of those 'you-had-to-be-there' moments i am guessing.

It was a great evening and a nice way to start mothers day. Tarzan did very well following up with a card made by the girls, flowers, pancakes with sauteed pineapple, banana and passionfruit, and a steaming hot latte.

Hope you spoilt all your mothers out there, as for my mum i hope she'll take an IOU. ;) xxxx

Monthly trip to Lae

We just got back from our monthly shopping trip to the big smoke. A 2 hour drive away is Lae, quite a big city with big supermarkets and a department store with loads of overpriced stuff just for expats. ;)

On the way down on Friday we stopped in at another ranch to check out some weaners (baby cows, not hotdogs. ) We set off from there and the phone and radio started going. There was open warfare on the road into Lae at '4 mile'. 2 clans were sorting out a disagreement with bush knifes, bows and arrows, spears and fire. When we travel we are constantly monitored by a security company employed by the company. They advised us to turn around and wait for further news. So we did, and not long after we were told it was safe to continue on, police were on site and the waring had stopped. Regardless of that incident we always get an armed escort for the last 30 miles into Lae, it is notorious for holdups and the company recommend you use the service. So we continued on and met our escort at '9mile'. Driving through 4 mile got the heart racing a little. The security company wouldn't let us go if it was unsafe, but the remnants of a battle were obvious. Plenty of people either side of the road looking pretty angry. Houses burnt down, about 10 police vehicles keeping the crowds under control. Apparently 3 lives were lost and many homes. Pretty sad really.

We arrived without incident and checked into our hotel. It's a pretty flash hotel for PNG, it's no park Hyatt but it's certainly a little luxury for here. I even booked into a hairdresser for a hair treatment and blowdry. The soft dull of the hairdryer was a nice change from the not so dull 2 year old! :p

We had a promotional night on at the Lae Yacht Club. The company beef was cooked up and the company supply prizes for a raffle. N0t how i would have chosen to spend my wedding anniversary, but better than a poke in the eye with a blunt stick i guess. The yacht club is full of expats drinking, talking crap, while kids run around and create havoc. I loved it as there were plenty of other kids to keep mine entertained!

Shopping is a real mission. It's not safe for me to go alone, so we all go. Yep, a 2 year old, 1 year old and a cranky husband who's not into shopping doesn't make for the best day, but i am so excited that i can actually spend money i don't really mind all the whinging and carrying on. ;)

We went to the three biggest supermarkets where you can buy most things you'd want/need.

I paid 40c for half a kilo of beans and $16 for a tub of yoghurt, $20 for 1kg of tasty cheese?! So you can see it pays to eat as the locals do.

We (well, i) bought so much stuff we had to off load some into another car traveling back. A nissan patrol full of shopping is a lot of food.

I'm in the middle of unpacking it all but decided i needed a break. A beer and a bit of blogging while Tarzan watches his beloved Hawks seemed totally appropriate. Essendon is currently 10 points ahead. I think i'll go to bed now.