Friends for dinner

Autumn (almost 3)

 

The reluctant superhero. 



A rare, fun day at the office with Dad.











Next door.

Neighbourhood Friends

Masak-masak (again)

Masak-masak = play cooking. 

Agnes prepares the pineapple from our garden.

Bible Club

For a few years now I have been taking the children to a neighbourhood mid-week Sunday School connected with the church we used to go to. For a while I was helping with teaching, then I stepped back and was just going to help provide good material, but the lady running it recently and suddenly took her three children to Ambon to live. This was a blow for me as she was one of our neighbours that I counted a friend. I don't have the time or energy to run the group myself at the moment, or train someone else to run it, so for now it has folded. Maybe it's something I'll take up in the future, using Papuan Malay material our team prepares...maybe I will run a Christmas program in the holidays...maybe...but too much going on at the moment. My children were not always enthusiastic about going. It took all my tenacity some weeks to follow through and insist that this was what we were doing, like it or not. Other weeks a thousand other tasks at home beckoned, but it was almost always worth making the effort. This particular week Soren played the part of Big Responsible Brother to perfection.





After some sweet tea and biscuits, time to head home through the mud, cow poo and rain.

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.

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.

Afternoon light

I love the long shadows of the afternoon and the way the light streams through the swaying coconut palms as the kids play, riding bikes, soccer or whatever. Soccer is definitely the sport here; kids grow up constructing makeshift goals and kicking a ball around with each other.

The Wedding

Cathy from next door got married. In Indonesian culture, marriage is the most significant life cycle experience for a woman--the end of childhood, the achievement of adulthood, the binding together of the couple and their families, the promise of children (Culture Shock! Indonesia p.146). Here some neighbours construct the archway for the groom's family when they come to collect the bride.

There was a constant stream of relatives coming and going in the lead up. Our garage was taken over a few times for the extended families to meet, organise and give funds towards the wedding and reception, to which 800+ were invited.

Our house and another neighbour's were used for hair and make-up preparations starting at 4.30am..

The bride waits inside as the groom is brought to her family's home in a beautiful and moving procession of dancing and drumming. The groom's female relatives proceed to the closed door, knock, wait, knock again, and ask the family for the bride. This was the high point of the day for me.

Some of the men wore the coloured cloth of Timor province, where Cathy's father is from.

It was a big day for Soren whose job was to accompany the bride and amongst other things, keep her cool with a fluffy pink fan! He did us very proud!

Catholic church ceremony.

If you look hard enough you might see me underneath the layers of make-up and hairspray. Personally I thought I looked quite scary (though it was fun to have the pampering) but Phil assured me I looked perfectly lovely. A seamstress came to Cathy's house and measured up about 40 women for their kebaya (the thing Ibu Susanna and I are wearing) and mine turned out beautifully!

After tons of speeches and thousands of photos Soren's wedding duties are over and he can relax with neighbour buddies Gaby and Agnes. You wouldn't know it, but Reuben had a vomiting and diarrhoea bug that day. Fun!



Our garage was converted into a pumping dance hall, complete with mirror ball above the washing machine. We put the kids to bed (they miraculously slept through the incredible noise) and joined in, only to conk out after about an hour and go to bed at 10pm like a couple of old grannies. Haven't had that much fun in a looong time!

July Randoms

Beautiful niece Marlena ready for Year 12 formal with Mum and Dad looking very suave. One of the things I did in my 'gap year' was babysit for Marlena on Mondays. She was a baby then and I still can't get my head around the fact that she is finished school. Can't wait to spend time with them all in December.

My baby Autumn at 14 months in her Aussie animals suit.
Reuben and David whom we babysat along with his two sisters the other week. They are fabulous and we had crazy fun! Seemed so peaceful and calm and easy when they went home and there were only three to deal with. The illusion didn't last.

Two beautiful faces, Aussie and Nimboran.

These three normally happy-looking kids graduated from the local PAUD (Play Group) to Grade 1. I used to take Reuben to this group and help teach, so I'm a bit attached to them. Indonesians will often wear white face cream to a special occasion (light skin is considered beautiful). People don't generally smile in photos either. The kids are with their teachers, the Minister of the church the Play Group operates out of and other VIPs.

Autumn starts to lose her cool. When the invitation says 3pm, that means arrive from 4pm, start around 5pm, or whenever enough people have shown up and everything's ready.

The twins who live across from us.

Lovely Merlin from our neighbourhood. I find her hard to understand as her Papuan Malay is thick and fast!

More neighbours.

Masak-masak

The kids love to play masak-masak (pretend cooking) together. They collect all sorts of exotic ingredients from the garden, and dirt serves as rice.

They also love to play rumah-rumah (pretend houses).