Hello again! What a week we have had down here! On Monday at 6:00 pm Erica determined that yes indeed she was in labour and we had better head to the hospital. We brought the kids to the neighbours and the nurse, Karin, from next door got a car and off we went. It is a half hour drive to the hospital. Upon arrival just after 7:00 we went to the ER. Karin went to check us in at the front desk and a male nurse took Erica's blood pressure. When Karin returned he asked her how far apart the contractions were. She said,"three minutes." The change in expression on his face was quite comical and he quickly got a wheelchair and brought us to the labour/delivery room. Once there, Hugo was asked to wait outside. In Indonesia it is not common for the husband to be present during delivery. The labour/delivery room has three beds, all a lovely shade of green vinyl. The floor and walls are all green tile and there are curtains around each bed. Two of the beds were occupied upon our arrival. One was a woman in labour and the other was a woman receiving I.V. So naturally we got the last available bed which was the one on its own. (We should mention that the woman in labour had about 6 other women sitting around her bed on the floor) Shortly after our arrival, the power went out. Karin carries a penlight in her purse, not something we had thought to put on our list of things to take to the hospital... Thankfully after a couple minutes the generator went on. What that meant however, was that the airconditioning was not turned on as it would use too much power. There were also no working lights in the bathrooms... The room became rather stuffy. The nurses asked us if we would like them to call the doctor. As that had always been our intention, we said please do so. In Indonesia women deliver their babies lying horizontally. When we asked if the beds would "sit up", the nurses replied that they didn't think so. By this time Karin had gone out and told Hugo to come in. He poked around under the bed and made it sit up. As we had the curtains closed the nurses did not see this miraculous event occur. Soon it became evident that the baby was going to come very quickly. Karin went to get the nurses/midwives who were in another room playing on their hand phones. The three of them quickly jumped into action. When they pulled back the curtain and saw the bed their eyes grew round with shock and they couldn't believe what they were seeing. Very funny. Anyways, about 10 minutes later, Marc Jacob made his entrance with the midwives doing the delivery, the doctor not showing up. We had brought our own towel and had laid it on the vinyl bed and the nurses had put a receiving blanket on top. After Marc was born and the placenta delivered, they put the towel, blanket and placenta in a bag for us to take home. The tradition here is to bury the placenta on the family property so the child will always know where his home is. We politely told them that they could dispose of it for us. We stayed in that room for about 2 hours. Unfortunately all of the private rooms at the hospital were being used and they told us that there was a bed available in a class 2 room. There was no airconditioning, they told us, but there is a fan on the wall. As we really had no choice, we took the room. First Hugo and Karin went out and found a public phone where Hugo could call holland and they bought some water and crackers at a little store beside. Then we went to the room. There were indeed three beds in the room, with no curtains between them and anyone walking outside could look into the room through the windows in the doors. Hugo went to turn the fan on and it shook so hard the top popped off. The fan had a broken blade... Eventually we did discover that behind some lovely pink curtains was a window that offered a hint of a breeze. It was still very warm in the room. They kindly brought Hugo a plastic stool to sit on and Karin was allowed to sit on the bed that wasn't being used. There was another woman in the room with her sister helping her. They shared some chocolate cupcakes with us and also offered to share their medicine with Erica. They were very sweet. After sitting and talking for an hour or so, with no one coming to check on us, we decided that maybe we should just go home. Karin went out and asked the nurses what we needed to do. They were shocked, "But she just had a baby!?" Karin explained that Erica felt good and the room was really hot.... "But she has to see a doctor... and you have to pay first..." Karin said that was fine, what did we owe and where was the doctor? The doctor had been in church practicing with a choral group that he sings with. So he was contacted and came around 12:00. He felt Erica's tummy and wrote out a prescription for some drugs and vitamins (which were never filled...) and wrote the paper necessary to get a birth certificate. Now to the matter of paying. As there were no office people around at that time of night - people in Indonesia just don't go home from the hospital at such an hour - they guessed at how much we would owe. We paid $700,000 Rupiahs ($115 Cad) that night. Since then we have received a proper receipt and the total was 669,000 Rups. A pretty cheap visit to the hospital. So we went home and arrived at around 1:00 am. We are sure that they must still be talking about the western woman who waltzed into the hospital, had her baby a little over an hour later, and went home four hours after that.... It just isn't done here, you have to stay for at least 2 days... So that was our adventure having a baby in Indonesia. Today, Sunday, Marc was baptized in the Gereja Gereja Reformasi de Indonesia by Rev. Vandebeek of the ZGK. It is all done a tad less formally than in Canada. There is no babysit, so you have all your children with you in church. Unfortunately Aidan was a little cranky... There was also another Dutch family who live in the interior having their 6 month old son baptized. They make a lot of noise at 6 months. It was a very noisy church service - a common thing in Indonesia. There were a couple little boys who kept coming up during the service to look at Marc sleeping in his baby carrier. Very cute. When it was time for us to stand and answer the questions, our boys decided that it would be fun to run around the church... We caught them in between answering yes to the questions. Then we all proceeded to the front of the church where the two little boys were baptized. Aidan went behind the pulpit and began to sing and then went over to the liturgy board and began to write on it with chalk... Hugo put a stop to that. Thankfully that happened during the singing afterwards. We have some of this all on video... All in all another interesting Papua experience. Well, we are heavy into the Christmas season here. We are experiencing what is called Kristmas non-stop. That means christmas music is playing non-stop from the time the sun goes down until, we aren't sure, because at some point we go to bed. Thankfully we can't hear it in our airconditioned bedroom, but there is often one doing it on the one side of the compound and another on the other side and you can clearly hear both.... The local grocery store has its christmas trees out and lights twinkling... A number of the families on base here also have lights on their houses and fake trees inside. It is strange to be sweating in your shorts and t-shirts while listening to Christmas carols... Hugo worked on Monday and Friday this week, so there isn't much to report on from his end of things. For three days, all of our meals were provided for so we didn't have to do any cooking. That combined with having a pembantu, we had a very relaxing week to recover. On Wednesday we took Marc to get passport photos done and on Thursday Hugo took him to a notary public to get the photos signed as a true likeness of Marc. That visit cost $50,000 Rups ($8.00 Cad). What notary in Canada would do anything for $8.00? We have sent away his passport application and pray that it is ready in time for us to pick up on our way home through Jakarta. So that was our week. Thank-you to the many folks who sent us emails after Marc's birth. We really appreciate it. Selamat Harri Mingu! In His Service, Hugo and Erica Feunekes