Rainbow Warrior


Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior came to Papua! They weren't protesting, but promoting the beauty of Papua's vast wilderness and the importance of protecting it. Guin's sister Thom and Nic's friend Val, whom we had met in Sydney, was part of the crew and gave us a tour. Cool thing was, cousins Otto and Esther had just been on the very same ship in Sydney a few days before. A strange sensation, having this sudden connection with, but still being so very far from, our family.





Current forest (top) and proposed logging (bottom). Ouch!

Reuben's playgroup

Reuben goes to playgroup a few times a week, 8-10am. Lately I have been staying for the duration, to help him engage and keep it a postive time for him before he heads to the international school in August. 

On this particular morning the children played being at the market. Ibu Esther who runs the group has a never-ending supply of creative play ideas. 



Burning rubbish.

With friends Mel and Mama Kin, who've also been conned by their kids to stay for the morning.

Rambutans

Eureka! Rambutans don't just look fantastic, they're also sweet and delicious.

We have a tree in our yard and apparently this is the first season that it has produced fruit.

Soren's Special Time

We've been working with Soren on expressing and thinking about frustration and anger in better ways. The reward he chose on completing his sticker chart was to go to the fancy new mall in Jayapura and have frozen yoghurt and special time with Daddy.

Gaby

Soren's friend Gaby often comes over once Soren has finished homeschool. He's a lovely boy and they are very tight.

Soren says to me, Can Gaby pleeeease come in and play, I don't think he's ever played playdough before!

I'm not sure if he was just being polite but he seemed to like my risotto. I still have a precious little stash of arborio rice, which you can't get here.

Big Ruben & Little Reuben

Our house-helper's son Ruben had a day off school so he came along to work with her. He and Reuben play really well, seemingly without any need for conversation, as Ruben has no English and Reuben speaks little Indonesian. 



Hospital

This is the emergency ward at our local hospital. You bring your own sheets and pillows. And blood donor. But our neighbour who was dangerously sick with malaria was well looked-after and thankfully recovered.

Autumn is 2!


Now that Autumn is two we've put her to work at the market selling vegetables.

I put in a valiant effort at potty training for a couple of weeks before giving up. All it did was make her so terrified of pooing that she would hold on for hours. Maybe in 6 months I'll give it another shot.

One of my all-time favourite things is to see the boys loving their little sister well.

She had a very Spring-like flower cake for her brithday. When it came time to sing Happy Birthday, Reuben was melting down and didn't even want cake and Soren was lying feverish on the couch (all three were at some stage of malaria treatment). So Phil and I sang to her ourselves, ate some cake and had a laugh at how ridiculous it all was.

Bread


Once I showed Philip how incredibly easy it is to make bread, with a breadmaker to do the kneading bit and an oven the rest, he gave it a shot himself. He said it felt something like coming home from the hunt, providing for the family. By necessity, not choice, I also make our own yoghurt and breakfast cereal.