Hello again! Another week gone by in our adventure down under. This week there were two things being celebrated here. The local folks celebrated Idul Fitri - the end of Ramadan - and the Americans celebrated their thanksgiving. On Tuesday and Wednesday this week all the stores were closed to celebrate. It is a time when families get together and have a large feast and everyone apologizes to everyone else for anything they may have done wrong in the past year. It is also the end of their daily fasting. During Ramadan there is no smoking or eating or drinking during daylight hours. The really devout ones don't even swallow their own saliva. So there is a fair amount of spitting occuring during this period. This week they were also letting off quite a lot of fire crackers in celebration. We at the base here got together on Wednesday evening to celebrate thanksgiving with a potluck meal. It was a very nice time of fellowship together. We also took the opportunity to say good-bye to a Canadian couple that is going back to Canada after being here for over 10 years. From there they are going to go to language school in Quebec and then to Mali. On Monday four Canadians arrived here to visit with us. They are the Epps, president of MAF Canada, and the Keelers, board members. Tuesday was our turn to have them for dinner and we decided that it would be fun to get a babysitter and take them to one of the local restaurants. As it was Idul Fitri there was only one restaurant open - one that caters to westerners. We had a very nice dinner with them. It sure was fun to hang out with some real Canadians again. The sound of "eh?" was music to our ears... Tuesday was also a day off for Hugo. Monday morning Hugo discovered that he had successfully bid on Ebay for an important piece of test equipment for radios - a spectrum analyzer. Unfortunately it won't come here before we go back to Canada. He also installed an airspeed indicator in an aircraft used for training purposes. The rest of the week was spent doing little odd jobs and more research. During the day on Tuesday we took a drive around Sentani. There aren't very many roads so there is no chance of getting lost here. We first drove to the lake and took some photos of a couple islands within swimming distance. Many of the islands have a church on them and surrounding the island are houses on stilts in the water. It is a really neat sight. Then we drove up one of the foothills and saw a variety of houses again. There are people from the interior who come here to live and live exactly like they did interior. It is a nice road which is amazing as we really didn't see anyone living on that road that actually owned a vehicle. We sure did a lot of waving that day though. On Friday night we enjoyed a couple games of indoor soccer at the school and the hamburger meal that accompanied them. For the rest we are all doing fine. Still awaiting the birth of our newest member... Thankfully we had a few days of cool weather beginning on Friday. It felt just like home, it rained almost all day on Friday and all day Saturday. This was a welcome relief as the rest of the week it was very hot. That was our week, how was yours? Selamat Harri Mingu! (Happy Sunday) In His Service, Hugo and Erica Feunekes