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.

My new kitchen appliance...............

Hand made, local crafted for 25kina. Any guesses?

It's a coconut scraper. Janet gave me a lesson on how to use it. First you grab your bush knife (which all men, woman and children carry)

Clean the coconut, whack it 3 times with the knife and it magically splits open. I have a feeling if i was doing it, things wouldn't go so seamlessly.

Then you sit sideways on the stool and holding the coconut firmly you scrape the inside flesh over the metal scraper.

It is actually much harder than it sounds, as you know coconut is quite tough so it takes a bit of elbow grease. I clearly wasn't cut out for it so handed the task over....

The flesh was so good, sweet, crunchy, sensational! The girls couldn't get enough. So much better than the dried up old crappy coconuts you can occasionally get in Victoria.

I asked Janet to show me a traditional PNG dish. I bought some cooking bananas, these are not sweet, more like a root vegetable in taste really, but these ones look like lady finger bananas. The bananas were not quite ripe, quite firm, perfect for cooking apparently. I peeled them and cut then into segments and then boiled them in water for about 20 minutes.

While that was cooking i made the coconut cream. After adding a little water to the coconut i squeezed the flesh with my hands for about 5 minutes. Then drained the liquid using a strainer.

The result was lovely thick coconut milk......

and left over flesh............

The flesh tasted like wood chips, no flavor left, so that gets thrown. We drained the bananas and added the coconut cream, some onion, ibeka (a green, something like spinach but totally different) and a little curry powder. Cooked it for about 30 minutes.

It was delicious! I must admit i was a little surprised.

Foxy Roxy has landed

After 6 months of dealing with a useless dog shipping company, Roxy finally landed in PNG yesterday. The kids were VERY excited to see her. Although i suspect the feelings weren't returned with as much enthusiasm. Roxy the super dog was burned in a bushfire last year, so now she wears her super coat everyday.

LMS hasn't spent too much time around dogs and was very excited by it all. First she thought a bit of paw holding was called for....

She couldn't get enough............

Although i suspect Roxy could........... this high pitched squeal sent her over the edge i think.

Tomorrow, being Anzac day, we are heading up the road, (as in 200m) for a dawn service at 5.30am, followed by a rum BBQ breaky and a cricket match. Aussies v's the rest of the world. I've never dragged my sorry arse out of bed for a dawn service before, claiming i had to look after the kids, wax my bikini line or perhaps SLEEP! Tarzan has been on his own a few times, so given it was in our backyard i thought we'd all go. So i'm off to bed.

What to blog when you can't blog...

Well i was going to Blog, but it is absolutely bucketing down outside and the internet connection keeps dropping out so i can't upload any pics. So i'll just tell you about my day instead..... lucky you. :p

Had a good day, a group of local ladies from a woman's group came to our house to help in the garden. They are raising money to go to some conference up in the highlands in September. I didn't ask too many questions, something to do with their church. I try my hardest not get involved with any church activities anywhere in the world, but particularly here, everyone is so passionate about their religion. There are 17 churches just in this community. Plenty of passion, competition, and rivalry. In a country where there isn't a lot, church is everything, it gives these people some hope and something to look forward to every week. I am not meaning to get into a religious discussion here. Anyone who knows me, knows i am not in the slightest bit religious, but i don't have issues with people that are. :D Anyway, i digress.

For $25 kina about 15 ladies will come to your house and clean your garden, weed, sweep, whatever you like. It is the church my house meri Janet belongs to and i wanted to support her, so i got the ladies in. Although security would only allow 6, not the 15 they wanted to offer!

We 'lost' our gardener this week. Poor old Nicholas kept not turning up to work and causing dramas with the pay office and HR, so he got sacked. He has gone back to his home to be looked after by his 'wontoks' or family. I feel sad for him, but he is old and getting a bit senile and will probably benefit from being with his family. So the ladies came and raked the grass and pulled out the weeds nicholas missed because he is mostly blind!

I made them a huge pot of soup, fresh bread, pikelets with jam and some ice cold water for lunch. They insisted they had come to work and didn't want food, but i insisted more that i wanted to feed them! I don't back down easily, as you mostly know. So we all sat around under the house enjoying 'kai-kai' and 'talktalk'. I am surprised at how quickly i am picking up pidgin, i can't speak that well, but enough to get by and i can understand about 70% if people talk 'isi isi' (easy easy = slowly). Every day Rita and Janet teach and correct my pidgin.

The ladies were very wary of me to begin with. But after a few laughs and me getting my hooters out to feed LMS, we were all good friends. ;)

They told me no white meri had ever cooked for them like that before, which made me sad, but on the other hand happy to have made their day and filled their bellies. Like all developing nations there is a massive contrast between the rich and the poor here. The poor are often treated as second class, particularly by the wealthy nationals, but unfortunately by many expats as well. All of the ladies i have met here would happily feed and help people, but within the community it is not widely done. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty of fundraising and donations and most people feed and cloth and help their house staff but not a lot of sitting down in a group with local people offering them food and having a chat iykwim. (for all you old people, and mum.....iykwim is an acronym for "if you know what i mean") I guess there are so many people to help?! I dunno, i figure helping some is better than helping none. Maybe i'll start a new trend........ The ladies picked up 3 more days work today, so that's something.

In other amazing news, Rita's boy had his first hearing on Monday and has been granted bail, set at $500kina, so, thanks to all you lovely people who have bought or ordered 'Bilums'(bags) from Rita, it certainly helped her and her husband raise enough money to post bail. Rita and her husband caught a bus to Madang tonight and they will return with their son tomorrow.

I think we are having 1m of our 3 year rainfall, and someone told me the dry season was starting?! I have bored you all to sleep by now, so............ going to climb up my vine to the treehouse. aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgrgrgrgrgaaahhhhhhhhhh. *best Tarzan yodel i could muster*