Hello again! I must apologize again to those for whom this is their first update from us. We finally now have our own computer and have it all set up with everyone's email addresses etc... This week we've gotten into a bit of a routine. Not one that we can stick with yet though as Mikah is starting school a week late on Aug 19. There are a number of elementary school teachers who have yet to arrive or have just arrived here. We had an enormous rainstorm this week. It really put our roof to the test and the roof failed. We had two leaks which were thankfully dealt with promptly the next day. The field in the middle of the compound was like a lake! That night and the night before we also had power outages while eating dinner. MAF waits 30 minutes before turning on the generators as sometimes the power comes on shortly after it goes out. Aidan was particularly frightened by these events as it gets very dark when the power goes out during supper because it gets dark here at 6:00 pm every night, all year round. Fortunately we had visited the garage sale of some folks going back to the states to live and had purchased a large flashlight. Hugo has been working on the electronics of the Cessna Caravan that is in for regular maintenance. To help test some of the components, he worked on fabricating a tilt table. We have taken a few photos of the aircraft and once they are developed we will put them on the website. In the next two weeks Hugo hopes to spend a day flying with one of the pilots in one of the Caravans. This will give him a good opportunity to see the instruments in action particularly the autopilot. Unfortunately none of the autopilots are either working or working properly. To rectify this situation is Hugo's pet project. A good working autopilot would allow a pilot to relax a little more during the flight and be fresh when coming in for a landing - which is the most difficult part of the flight here as many of the landing strips are pretty rough. This week our pembantu was sick one day and Erica particulary missed her. It is so necessary to have that extra help around the house. For example, bread making is a very time consuming process that must be done at least every other day as we have only two pans and virtually no freezer space. What freezer space we have is taken up by meat-which you should purchase when you have the oppportunity- and jello/yogurt pops and ice cubes. The kids really do not like the milk here. Most people use powder milk and it does not have a nice taste. You can purchase premade milk in tetra pacs but it is also nothing like good Canadian milk. So Erica makes Jello/yogurt pops so the kids get some calcium. The yogurt is also homemade. Rice is nothing like Uncle Ben's back home. It needs to be thoroughly rinsed and any rocks and bugs picked out. Thankfully we have pretty good rice right now which has no bugs and virtually no rocks in it, but it still needs to be rinsed. All vegetables should be washed in a solution with some stuff called PK to kill any bacteria on it. If you don't wash it in PK you have to make sure to cook it really well or you could get amoeba/parasites. Yummy! We also wash oranges and limes in warm soapy water and thoroughly rinse any imported fruit before eating it. You can buy apples and grapes from New Zealand here and they are pricey but very tasty. We don't get a lot of different kinds of bugs in our house, but we have seen evidence of cock roaches, and Hugo did kill one. But what we do get is a tremendous amount of ants. Every morning our pembantu sweeps up piles of dead ants (we put out poison) and at nights we sweep up more piles again. Everything in our cupboards should be tightly sealed. Tupperware is a hot commodity here and can be bought in some local stores! We have had a few small spiders in the house, but the big ones that we have seen have all been outside-for now.... This week Erica and the boys saw a beetle that was the size of a field mouse! They are very big but completely harmless. When you live here on the compound, you just never know who is going to come to your door next. We have guards at the gates and they will let people in who are selling things. Some days it seems like a never ending parade of people. They will try to sell us pineapples even though we have a ton of pineapple plants around our house - delicious - they sell tortillas, fresh fish, freshly butchered pig thigh(didn't go near that one!), vegetables, fruit - usually very ripe bananas - and one woman came selling weaved bags, necklaces, and a blue ceramic bowl. Mikah was enthralled with the necklaces so Erica bargained and got one for her. Mikah only takes it off when she goes to bed. We have learned to say "teduk" when they come selling things we don't need. It basically means "no". On Saturday Erica went shopping to Abe with some other MAF folks. There is a store there called Saga which is just like a WalMart-except the carts aren't very big. It is a two storey store in which you can buy everything... Almost... It is interesting, here you can buy quite a few imported items from the US but they also carry quite a lot of stuff from Holland. Honig is a big brand here. You can also buy mentos and fruitella and nutella and chocolate sprinkles and havermout oatmeal - and a lot of it is actually made in Indonesia! One very important thing to remember when going on a long shopping trip to Abe, is to go to the bathroom at home before you go and make sure to empty your bladder completely. The washrooms here, if there are any are not the kind of place where you would voluntarily relieve yourself. Therefore most people do not take kids shopping with them to Abe. In Jayapura most people go to the Missions Fellowship part way through their day to use the washroom as it is clean and actually has a toilet with a seat...and toilet paper.... Enough about that... We love to hear from you all and are happy to announce that our MAF email
address: hfeunekes@maf.org is in good working order!
Take care and God Bless,
Hugo and Erica and kids

P.S. To date we have still not received our stuff... It is amazing how you can adapt to life without some of the things you thought were so important....