Dinner at the Highland Hotel

Today was my friend Elissa's Birthday so a bunch of us went to the Highland Hotel for dinner.  It looks just like a Premier Inn, it's so weird to be driving past piles of rubbish, over massive potholes then through a barbed wire fence with security guards and feel like Lenny Henry will be behind the concierge desk!

Me & the Birthday girl eating pizza. 

Tok Pisin Language Class

My teacher, Nicki, and substitute teacher, Lauryn, have both been very patient.  It's relatively straight forward to read Tok Pisin and understand the gist.  The challenge comes in forming coherent sentences and understanding native speakers.  Hopefully after my week with the remote tribe next week, I'll be a bit better!?

Nicki teaching me Tok Pisin in my house

A little piece of the story of My Life

When I was on the MAF orientation course in Cairns last month, each of us was asked to stand up in front of all the current MAF personnel from that area and tell a little part of the story of our lives which lead us to joining MAF.  This was rather scary, telling 100 strangers about my personal life.  But as they all know, I thought I'd share it with the rest of the world!

Find the clip on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/rCqUJ2OBEX4

Sat 15 Mar 2014 - Telling part of my story to MAF personnel

If you would like to ask me any questions about what I talk about in this clip, please email me on YellowShiv@gmail.com. 

My 1st Dinner Guests!

Catherine & Luke were staying in Hagen waiting for a plane to be fixed so they could head back home to Rumginae in the Western Province, they were supposed to be here for a couple of days but it ended up being over a week so they agreed to come and brave my slightly experimental Stirfry!

Luke is a MAF Pilot and Catherine is a Speech Pathologist (Therapist) who works in the hospital near their base and helps in the local bush community. 

Domestic Goddess - My 1st Loaf!

With the help of my inherited Bread Maker, I successfully made a loaf of Soda Bread.  It might look a little flat, but it turned out to be just right and rather tasty, if I do say so myself! 

Before:

After:

Then I experimented and made a loaf of Sunflower seed bread, which tasted great sliced with cheese & tomatoes on top!

The next thing I need to do is figure out how to made a loaf rise. And don't say add yeast, I did that in the Sunflower loaf, but it still came out mostly flat and rather dense. 

Down the Garden

"Mi go long gaden bilong Kimy long kamautim kaukau."
I went to Kimy's field to dig up sweet potatoes.

Kimy & friends

As part of my Tok Pisin classes I was taken to see how PNGs grow their vegetables.  The veg market in Mt Hagen is the best in the country, everything looks and tastes delicious and it very cheap as things grow easily in the rich soil and warm, wet environment of the Highlands.  The vast majority of the veg is hand-grown by families using traditional methods.  It's backbreaking work, especially in the heat of the day.

Kimy very kindly allowed me to dig up some of her sweet potatoes (kaukau, pronounced cow-cow), but I managed a hand-full in the time it took her to dig up a sack-full!  Kimy then carried a large sack of sweet potatoes (Over 40Kg) on her head for the hour's walk home.  I helped by carrying a small sack of corn (Less than 10Kg!).

Shiv digging kaukau in the gaden

My latest Newsletter is hot off the press!

This Newsletter (Snapshot below) has been sent to my close friends, family and the wonderful people who have asked to keep in touch.  My Newsletters will be coming out approx. 4 times a year. 

If you would like to receive my complete Newsletter via email, please let me know.

Email - YellowShiv@gmail.com

Driving Test Passed!

I was taken on a MAF driving orientation this morning. I drove around Hagen town and up to Kagamuga Airport where my office is. Thankfully I passed so I'm now allowed to drive the rather attractive MAF busses! :-)

My 1st walk, alone!

I just went on my 1st solo walk into town and it felt great.  I told a friend where I was going, just in case, and walked to the other side of town and back, stopping in to a few shops along the way. 

It might sound like a small, almost silly thing, but it felt great to have the confidence & freedom to go out alone.  I felt safe and everyone was really friendly.  Two thumbs up for feeling right at home!

In other news, my neighbour's guineapig had 3 babies this afternoon. :-)

My Heroes!

All you want on a Sunday afternoon is a cuppa!  I lit the gas stove, as we were in the middle of a 36 hour power cut, and the little flame quickly died, alas, no more gas.  Thank goodness it wasn't a power leak, that got fixed on Thursday!

My compound family quickly came to the rescue.  They located the spare gas bottle, moved it under my house (weighing approx. 100kg), disconnected the old and connected the new. Voila!  Thank you all, my heroes!

The postage to PNG works!!!

You will all be very pleased to learn that Cadbury's Chocolate and Twinings Tea can both make it to PNG in the post, as you can tell from my little tea set.

The chocolate did get a little deformed, but I'm sure it will still taste the same, and it's much better than the chocolate on sale here which is imported from Australia, it's far sweeter than Cadbury's back in the UK, yuck!

February Newsletter for Ruislip Baptist Church

For more information about my Home/Supporting Church, click on the link below:
http://www.ruislipbaptistchurch.co.uk

The excitement of running water!

I woke up this morning, went to brush my teeth and discovered the taps were all working, yeah!

How important the small things are when they are not guaranteed. 

The electricity's a bit dodgy

Since I arrived 5 days ago the electricity current has been a bit low, they were running generators outside some people's houses for a couple of days to keep the refrigerators going.  Yesterday the power went off for most of the evening and overnight and blew out the pump which pumps water up to the header tank so I can have water in my taps.  The town water has had no pressure for over a week, apparently!

Just now there was a really loud buzz and a bright blue light outside whilst my lights flashed.  At first I thought it was fireworks, but it turned out to be a large street light, just outside the compound, overloading and showering sparks across the street.  Scary!

Fortunately the power is still on, and if it goes out I have torches, a gas stove and a bucket to re-fill the toilet cistern so I can still flush it.  All fun and games in my 1st weekend in PNG!

My 1st Dinner in my New Home

Washing the fruit and veggies from my 1st trip to the market

After a fun and exhausting trip to the market where Nicki, my Tok Pisin language teacher was trying to teach me lots of useful phrases and learn which leaves could be eaten raw, everything needed a good washing, with just a little bleach to be sure.

Testing my new, inherited, electric wok

As there was fairly decent electricity for a couple of hours, I managed to test my new electric wok (Thanks Jenny & David W, previous Mt Hagen residents).  I was even brave enough to just throw stuff in and see how it tasted.  You might see a few similar posts over the next few weeks as I try and figure out how to cook for myself from scratch.  You can buy some fast food type things from the supermarket, but there is little choice and a big price tag!

Stir Fry ingredients:

Broccoli leaves & flowers

Bok Choi

Carrots

Pine Nuts

Bacon

Oyster Sauce

The results were altogether delicious, with strawberries & bananas for pud!

It's amazing how such a large pile of greens cooks down to such a small amount.  I will be sure to use a few more greens next time, which is generally the way to eat out here.  The cost of just all these fruit & veggies (minus the bacon and other embellishments) is around £1!

Enjoying my 1st dinner in my living room!

And the adventure was well worth it.  So I now have a massive pile of Broccoli leaves and flowers left, I might steam them and have them with roast cow-cow (The local name for sweet potato) and carrots...

Welcome Home!

My Yellow Front Door!

Having arrived in Papua New Guinea on Monday 3rd March, I would like to welcome you to my new home in Mt Hagen, the house with the yellow front door.

I would also like to point you to my new website http://yellowshiv.net where you can access all further news items from my blog, along with photos of my travels, contact details and various other bits and pieces.
Thanks to Matt Easton for making it for me!

Welcome to my online home, http://yellowshiv.net!