Here and There

For months now I've had random pictures piling up of things that I want to eventually blog about.  In an effort to kill a lot of birds with one stone, I'm posting them all here in one shot.  Following are a myriad of pictures of things that make up my days outside of the office.

Momore is a goofy character who's always at my door trying to sell one thing or another.  This day it happened to be some bows and arrows he'd made.

I noticed this yellow fungi (I'm guessing that's what it is) growing several places around campus.  After a few weeks it was gone and I haven't seen it since.  If a fungus can be pretty, I thought that this certainly was.

 

With limited ways to get our hair cut here, we usually resort to cutting each other's.  Beth took a stab at mine a couple months ago (and did a great job), and I took a try at Lesley's hair below.  That was a first for me (and thankfully we're still friends).

We have a water faucet on our campus and women in the village often get their kids to hike down and fill up.  I noticed this little girl hauling the water in her hand plus a bilum full on her head.

 

 What a cute little chub of a girl!

I still smile every time I see this picture.  This lady only speaks her tribal language so we couldn't communicate with words, but a few smiles went a long way.

 

We have seven German Shepherds on campus which act as guard dogs as well as pets.  Unfortunately with so many male dogs, inevitably fights will break out.  One of our staff men, Jacob, decided he wanted to start doing some training to hopefully cut down on the fighting, and he enlisted the help of our three German interns Diemo (middle with Wyatt), Jonny (at back with Turbo) and Marco (with Ramsey).

 

My dog, Wyatt, with his "trainer" Diemo. 

 

 A package from the States!  We looooove getting packages from home and finding all sorts of treats like popcorn seasonings, magazines and chocolate.

 What used to be my yard is now a huge hole thanks to a tree root that's decided to mess with my plumbing.  I'm so thankful for all of our hard working men around here who do an amazing job of keeping our campus up and running and looking great.

 Forget the two foot indoor plumbing snake - we had to bring in this monster to find the problem.

 Momore made another appearance one day wanting to put on a dance for us.  He put on his "traditional" costume (although I'm not sure his ancestors would have used newspaper) and gave us a fun show. 

Every once in a while I come home from work to find random food lying on my porch.  This day Momore had dropped off some bananas and "pit pit" (a type of reed that you eat the center of).

 

 In our mission grocery store one day I found this can of Oregon cherries.  Be still my beating heart!  One of my comfort foods from my Mennonite background is Cherry Moos, a milk soup cooked with canned cherries (see below).  I haven't been able to make Moos since I moved here, so despite the $8.00 price tag (gulp!) I had to buy the cherries and try them out.  It wasn't quite like home, but it was enough to satisfy my Moos craving.

I'd never bought yogurt in a bag before I moved to PNG.  You mix the yogurt base and culture in the bag with water and fill up the clear plastic container.  You fill the large white container half way with boiling water, stick the clear container inside and let it sit for 8 hours.  Voila!  Fresh, homemade yogurt.  To keep making it without the package mix you just mix a tiny bit of yogurt with some milk powder and water and let it sit the same way. 

 
 

 Every so often I'm able to help Beth (our chef) in the main kitchen as she cooks for groups who use our facilities.  Last month we had some of the high school students from our main missions base (Lapilo) come for the day for part of their Transitions seminar (helping equip students and parents to return to their home countries after graduation).

 I am so fortunate to have some amazing co-workers and friends here who take it upon themselves to be a blessing to me.  On Christmas morning the Doerksen family drove down to my house and brought my Christmas gift, this beautiful headboard for my bed, that they'd made.  What an amazing gift! 

Last year Jacob and Beth noticed that I was using a piece of wobbly plywood on four posts as a computer desk, so Jacob made me this gorgeous desk.  I love old wood and knots and rough patches, so much to Jacob's dismay (and my joy) he purposefully left in all the knots and roughed it up a bit.  It's perfect!