Hello again! Another week has flown by down under. We are still doing fine and in good health. Aidan's forehead looks great and the nail is about to fall off his toe. Mikah and Christiaan are also doing great. This week Hugo installed a radio in one of the 206's. It was the only aircraft in the entire fleet with only one radio. All the other planes have two. This is a fail-safe measure. Radio contact during flight is vital here. If a plane goes down in the jungle and they have no clue of its last position, it is very difficult to find back. Two radios is also a requirement in flying IFR (instrument flight rating). Hugo is also making a break-out box for testing instruments in the aircraft. This is an aid in trouble-shooting problems with instruments. He has also begun preparations to install two storm scopes in two of the 206's. A storm scope is a weather avoidance tool. As bad weather can come up suddenly here it is useful to be able to avoid it.

This week was quite normal complete with power outages and overflowing water towers. On Saturday Erica went with the head nurse Karin to meet the OBGYN at the hospital in Waena. He has clinic hours every Saturday from 11:00 am until he is finished. As you can't phone them and ask if he is in or if he is busy with a delivery, you just have to take your chances and show up. So we went. First Erica needed to register at the main desk of the hospital. There she had to fill out a small form asking such pertinent information as: name, date of birth, age, place of birth, tribe, religion, marital status, education level, work.... This information was used to generate an indenfication card which cost 5,000 Rupiah, not even a dollar. The consultation with the doctor cost 40,000 Rupiah, $6.50 CDN. Then she was given a number and told to wait by the outside of the clinic. There was a long bench on which to sit. While there they met an MAF employee and his wife who were there to find out if they were pregnant or not. There is no such thing here as a home pregnancy test. We aren't sure exactly how they figure it out here because she still didn't know after seeing the doctor. We will find out more tomorrow from her husband. It is quite normal here to speak openly about being pregnant or how you are preventing pregnancy etc... Being number 9 on the list, Erica did not have to wait too long in Indonesian terms.... The doctor, Dr. Daniel, was a very nice man. He is Indonesian but very cultured and soft spoken. It is not normal for Indonesian's to ask many questions of their doctor, they just accept what he says as the gospel truth. However, Dr. Daniel was more than willing to answer all of our questions. To listen to the baby's heart beat he used a wooden device that has a large opening that he places on the woman's womb and listens with the other end which has a smaller opening. Very high tech... He pronounced that all was well and that the baby is in good position, head down. After that successful visit, Erica and Karin made their way to Abe to do some shopping. They are busy putting lines on the road there and have also installed a new stoplight. We thought the lines might remove the "third" lane in the middle of the road, but that was wishful thinking... So there were still a few white knuckles....

We are enjoying the different fruits that are available here in Papua. There are over a couple hundred different kinds of bananas here. We stick to two of them. One, pisang ambon, tastes the most like the bananas that you can buy in the supermarket back home. The other is pisang nona, which is a very small sweet banana which the kids love. The first banana is best eaten when the peel is still green and the other is best eaten when the peel is bright yellow. We had some fun figuring this out... The kids also love a fruit called jeruk bali. In North America it is known as pemello. It tastes like a grapefruit only a little sweeter. You peel the thick skin off like you would an orange, but you must peel the individual pieces as well as that skin is much tougher than an orange. Mandarins are also always available here. They are not very sweet though. The sweet ones can be purchased in Abe. Of course Papayas and pineapples are also very common. We also eat quite a bit of watermelon, but it is so much work here as they have not yet invented the seedless melon. On Saturday Erica also purchased a melon that is a cross between a honey dew and a cantaloupe. We haven't tried it yet. When in Nabire we tried passion fruit which resembles a big glob of snot that you suck out of the fruit. We also tried sour sop which is even goopier but has big seeds in it that you don't eat. Hugo enjoyed them both.... He also tried what is called a tree tomato. It resembles passion fruit, but needs some sugar on it. These are only a few of the different fruits that are available here. So that was our week in Papua. How was yours? We'd love to hear from you. In His service, Hugo and Erica Feunekes