EditRegion2

Hi again! Another week has flown by here down under. Monday was the Indonesian Independance day. In 1950, after a number of years of fighting, the island became somewhat independant from the Dutch. So we did our duty and purchased an Indonesian flag and attached it to our flag pole in front of our house. We are situated in a back corner of the compound with a high vine covered brick wall behind and beside us. Since our arrival we have had our Canadian flag flying from our house. It wasn't very conspicuous. However, on that day of independance, one of the policemen from the corner post near the compound was nosing around and happened to spot our Canadian flag. He immediately contacted the base manager and expressed offence to that fact. So since we are not an embassy, we had to take down our flag. It is a good thing that we didn't have our Dutch flag hanging there as well.... It is in our luggage that still has not arrived. We have been told that it left Jakarta on Monday and should arrive by the 26th. None of us is holding his breath... So that is how our week started. On Tuesday Mikah started school. Erica road the bus with Mikah the first morning. It is quite the bus ride through some interesting areas of Sentani. You never know what you will see. It is also a very bumpy ride. Erica felt that this would be a good way to get labour going at the appropriate time.... Mikah loves school and loves her teacher. She said that she would like to live here forever because she loves Mr. B as her teacher. We had to break the news to her that you get a different teacher each year..... This week Hugo has been working on the caravan instruments again. He has also been working with the tilt table that he fabricated. We will post a photo on the net asap. Hugo has also been repairing backlogged instruments that Wesley wasn't able to or didn't have time to repair. Wesley is a national worker who has been trained by MAF to repair radios. He is very good at that, but knows nothing about the other instruments on an aircraft and how it all works together. However, he can repair broken microwaves, phones, and other electronic gagetry. One of the things that MAF would like Hugo to do here is train Wesley on some of the other instruments that need regular repair. Since we still don't have our stuff we decided to see if we could find a couple of shirts for Mikah in "town." So we walked there on Saturday morning. You wouldn't believe how many people try to touch any part of Aidan that they can reach. The Indonesians love his big squishy cheeks and dimpled arms. There is a clothing store nearby which we decided to visit. While you are shopping it is quite normal for a store worker to hover nearby and watch your every move and be exclusively available to help you. It can be disoncerting at first. We first went to the children's section but had difficulty finding a shirt to fit. We ended up buying two womens shirts for Mikah as the children's shirts had head holes that were too small and they were so narrow that she couldn't get her arms through the arm holes. One of the shirts is Liz Clairborne brand which you women will recognize as a brand that can be purchased at your local Bay store in Canada. We paid $24,000 Rupiah for it, about $4 Canadian. Otherwise it was a pretty normal week for here complete with power outages, a sick pembantu and various people selling things at the door. We even had a woman try to sell us a delfts blue vase... Oh yeah, Mikah was exploring in the yard with her friend and they came upon some tiny little red peppers. Mikah had the bright idea of breaking one open and smelling it. She came running to the house yelling that she had been stung. Erica looked and looked under her nose but couldn't see anything. We should point out that this event occurred at the exact time that Hugo was trying to tell Aidan how to open his bedroom door as he had locked himself in and we don't have a key.... Anyways, Aidan eventually opened the door, and we got out the ice pack for Mikah. Her friend showed us what she had done and our yard worker Romeo gestured quite dramatically that these were not good things to touch or smell. Thankfully, our next-door neighbour is a nurse so we paid her a visit. After some vinegar and burn cream and an hour and a half with ice under her nose, Mikah pronounced that it didn't hurt any more and that she was never going to touch one of those peppers again. Erica made 2 pizzas on Friday. One was your regular deluxe type, as deluxe as you can get here, and the other was Hawaiian. The local grocery store was out of regular pizza meat so we used what they call smoked back bacon. It doesn't get crispy like our Canadian bacon, but has very little fat and a very nice flavour. The best part however, was the pineapple. You haven't tasted Hawaiian pizza until you have had one with pineapple from the interior of Papua. Wow! Justin Koens brought us three little pineapples from a tiny village in the interior. It is quite a bit more work than opening a can to prepare it for the pizza, but boy was it worth it! We would like to fill you in a little on some of the cultural differences that are very obvious here. It is quite common to see two men or two women or two boys or two girls walking hand in hand. They are not homosexual, they are just good friends expressing their liking of eachother. You will never see a married couple, or a couple who is dating show any public display of affection. That is considered to be something you do behind closed doors. Also you are not allowed to be alone in a house or vehicle with a person from the opposite gender who is not a relative or spouse. So dating here is a whole different ball game. There is no such thing as driving to the local lookout point and ..... Another important thing to remember is that you should do everything with your right hand. Your left hand is considered unclean as that is the hand that you are expected to clean yourself with after using the toilet. If you offer money to a vendor with your left hand, they will not take it. You should also never point the sole of your foot at anyone. So if you are a guy who likes to sit with one leg resting on the other, you better make sure that there is no one near where the bottom of your foot is pointing. This has to do with the fact that in the old days people would walk everywhere in their bare feet and often have to walk through dung and other garbage. So it is a great offence to show the sole of your "dirty" foot to anyone. A few points to ponder... So that's the scoop from Sentani! Take care and God bless! We would love to hear from you! In His Service, Hugo, Erica and kids