Next week there is a week long conference happening where many directors from our organization come from around different parts of the world (about 35 people in all). A friend and I have been asked to cater lunches each day next week for the conference.
Keep in mind that most everything you cook here is from scratch. Making pizza involves making your own pizza dough, your own Italian sausage, etc. Making hamburgers involves homemade buns. Having tacos requires homemade tortillas (actually we buy these from a Papua New Guinean woman who makes them each week.) You get the idea, right?
Well, my friend and I sat down planned out the menu, made our shopping list, and off we went to the store to buy a whole lot of food. Our menu for the week includes tacos, sloppy joes, and hamburgers, all of which require ground beef (or mince as it is called here). Well, we encountered one large problem... the store is out of mince. It has been ordered, but the store truck is currently out of commission and there is no way to go pick up the order. Well, we explain to the store manager, we're making lunches for the DIRECTOR'S conference next week and we need a whole lot of mince. What can we do? The store manager assures us he will try his hardest to find a solution for us. So, we thank him and wait. A while later we are told that, since they were unable to get a truck to go pick up the meat order, they have decided to to buy a local cow and slaughter it themselves. How is that for service? I guess when you mention the directors you have a bit of pull around here. Something tells me that if I wanted a bit of mince to make burgers for my family they wouldn't have killed a cow for me!
Friday, July 6, 2007
Warm Chickens delivered to your door
Raising chickens is one source of cash income for many of the Papua New Guineans. We can and do sometimes buy previously frozen chicken from our store here, but another popular and often preferred way to get chicken is to buy from one of the Papua New Guineans. Often times these chickens are much more tasty and tender than the ones from the store. When purchasing one of these chickens, there is usually an option to purchase a live chicken (that you can kill and clean yourself) or you can pay a bit extra to have this part done for you. I opt for letting someone else do this part for me. (The extra cost amounts to less than 1 US dollar. Well worth it if you ask me!)
So, you let someone know how many chickens you'd like and the next day, you get a nice warm chicken delivered to your door. I think I'll add this to the growing list of things I never expected to be normal everyday life.
So, you let someone know how many chickens you'd like and the next day, you get a nice warm chicken delivered to your door. I think I'll add this to the growing list of things I never expected to be normal everyday life.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
What's New
OK, so I know it's been a while since I've posted. I have no good excuse, so I won't try one.
Today we spent the morning out at aviation saying goodbye to friends who are going home on furlough. We are so thankful that we had friends here to greet us when we arrived and to help us get settled here. Now we say goodbye to them for about 6 months. We've send them on their way with extra hugs for friends and family back home.
It is term break right now, so the kids are out of school. They are enjoying the break from school and spend most of their day playing in the yard with their many Papua New Guinean friends.
I have committed to teaching ESL at the primary school next year. So, I will be working four morning a week working with small groups of students who need extra help with their English. This job will stretch me a bit, but I'm excited about the challenge. I'll have about 18 kids to work with from all over the world (PNG, Korea, Germany, Finland, Japan) I'm excited about getting back into teaching. Please pray for our family as we all adjust to Mom going back to work.
Today we spent the morning out at aviation saying goodbye to friends who are going home on furlough. We are so thankful that we had friends here to greet us when we arrived and to help us get settled here. Now we say goodbye to them for about 6 months. We've send them on their way with extra hugs for friends and family back home.
It is term break right now, so the kids are out of school. They are enjoying the break from school and spend most of their day playing in the yard with their many Papua New Guinean friends.
I have committed to teaching ESL at the primary school next year. So, I will be working four morning a week working with small groups of students who need extra help with their English. This job will stretch me a bit, but I'm excited about the challenge. I'll have about 18 kids to work with from all over the world (PNG, Korea, Germany, Finland, Japan) I'm excited about getting back into teaching. Please pray for our family as we all adjust to Mom going back to work.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
A Birthday party PNG style
Today we celebrated our son's 6th birthday, PNG style.
We had about 10 kids (including our 2) over to celebrate. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and not too bid, 10 seemed to be a good number.
Decorations: I went to our store here to see what they had in the way of decorations. There were several rolls of crepe paper, all green, so I got too. He likes green, this is good. then I went to see if they had any balloons... they had 4. They were a dark silvery color and were printed with I love (insert a heart here) Papua New Guinea. Chad and I laughed a bit about these because usually you have "I love..." or "I (heart)..." We're not used to seeing, "I love (heart) ..." Just a funny translation thing. So that was pretty much the extent of the decorations, green streamers and 4 balloons. It worked, I spent less that 2 kina on it, that is equivalent to less than $1 in American money.
The Cake: I made a chocolate cake (from scratch) with chocolate frosting (also from scratch). Believe it or not we can get boxed cake mix here and sometimes frosting, but making it from scratch is cheaper and (I think) tastier. The question on my mind was how do I decorate this cake? Well, since we just got our cargo and now have a printer, I printed out on a piece of paper "Happy 6th Birthday" cut it out and set it on top of the cake. Then I found, at the store, some colored sprinkles and candles. There you go, simple, but colorful and fun. The kids loved it.
Goodie bags: It was very refreshing to see that the children at this party were perfectly happy with a ziplock bag (which I brought from the States) filled with 3 hershey kisses, 1 caramel candy, 1 lollipop, and one ballon rocket as their treat bag.
The Party agenda: As the guests arrived, we had some sidewalk chalk
(thanks Grandma) and toys out for them to play with. After about 1/2 an hour we began a treasure hunt around the yard. Ultimately the treasure hunt led them to find their goodie bags (hidden in the sandbox). This was great fun. I've never seen a group of kids so well behaved and cooperative as these. They worked together to find and read the clues, waited for one another before moving on the the next clue, etc. After the treasure hunt we served cake and then the kids played around the yard. Chad pulled out his banjo and they sang some songs, played freeze dance, and seemed to have a great time. Simple, yet fun.
The day ended with my son giving me a big thank you for a GREAT party.
We had about 10 kids (including our 2) over to celebrate. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and not too bid, 10 seemed to be a good number.
Decorations: I went to our store here to see what they had in the way of decorations. There were several rolls of crepe paper, all green, so I got too. He likes green, this is good. then I went to see if they had any balloons... they had 4. They were a dark silvery color and were printed with I love (insert a heart here) Papua New Guinea. Chad and I laughed a bit about these because usually you have "I love..." or "I (heart)..." We're not used to seeing, "I love (heart) ..." Just a funny translation thing. So that was pretty much the extent of the decorations, green streamers and 4 balloons. It worked, I spent less that 2 kina on it, that is equivalent to less than $1 in American money.
The Cake: I made a chocolate cake (from scratch) with chocolate frosting (also from scratch). Believe it or not we can get boxed cake mix here and sometimes frosting, but making it from scratch is cheaper and (I think) tastier. The question on my mind was how do I decorate this cake? Well, since we just got our cargo and now have a printer, I printed out on a piece of paper "Happy 6th Birthday" cut it out and set it on top of the cake. Then I found, at the store, some colored sprinkles and candles. There you go, simple, but colorful and fun. The kids loved it.
Goodie bags: It was very refreshing to see that the children at this party were perfectly happy with a ziplock bag (which I brought from the States) filled with 3 hershey kisses, 1 caramel candy, 1 lollipop, and one ballon rocket as their treat bag.
The Party agenda: As the guests arrived, we had some sidewalk chalk
(thanks Grandma) and toys out for them to play with. After about 1/2 an hour we began a treasure hunt around the yard. Ultimately the treasure hunt led them to find their goodie bags (hidden in the sandbox). This was great fun. I've never seen a group of kids so well behaved and cooperative as these. They worked together to find and read the clues, waited for one another before moving on the the next clue, etc. After the treasure hunt we served cake and then the kids played around the yard. Chad pulled out his banjo and they sang some songs, played freeze dance, and seemed to have a great time. Simple, yet fun.
The day ended with my son giving me a big thank you for a GREAT party.
Haus Meri
Yesterday was the first day that our haus meri came and worked for us. Here in PNG it is kind of expected the expatriates will a hire national woman as a haus meri (house help). I waited a while to hire one because I just didn't feel ready, but I finally decided it was time. Yesterday was her first day. It's going to take a bit of getting used to, but it's great to have the help around the house. The housework has always been my job and it feels strange having someone else do it for me, especially when I am home and when I consider the rate of pay that is expected for work such as this. Most American's would be appalled at how little these women are paid. My tendency is to want to pay her more, but I have to respect the economy here and paying her more would upset the balance. So, often we find other ways to supplement their income like throwing in a bag of rice with her pay.
The people of this country are rich by some standards. Most have land and gardens that produce enough to feed their family and sell some at market, but what they often don't have is much cash income. The biggest need for cash comes when their children enter school and school fees must be paid. Some of they ways that we are able to help them with this is by buying their goods at market and by hiring them as house and yard help.
One of the best things about having a haus meri (and yard meris) is that it gives me a relationship with a national. It gives me a window into the PNG culture and a chance to make a wontok (friend). My prayer is that through my relationships with our hired help, we can encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.
The people of this country are rich by some standards. Most have land and gardens that produce enough to feed their family and sell some at market, but what they often don't have is much cash income. The biggest need for cash comes when their children enter school and school fees must be paid. Some of they ways that we are able to help them with this is by buying their goods at market and by hiring them as house and yard help.
One of the best things about having a haus meri (and yard meris) is that it gives me a relationship with a national. It gives me a window into the PNG culture and a chance to make a wontok (friend). My prayer is that through my relationships with our hired help, we can encourage one another in our walk with the Lord.
Monday, April 30, 2007
PukPuk
Lest you think that all of my cooking here has been learning to make familiar dishes with the resources on hand, I wanted to let you know about one of my latest culinary adventures.
Last weekend my family enjoyed a wonderful stir-fry meal with rice, noodles, various veggies, and PukPuk. (PukPuk is the Tok Pisin word for Crocodile tail). It was quite delicious. I wasn't too sure about it myself before cooking it, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the flavor.
I guess that goes toward the top of my list of most exotic things I've cooked and eaten. Maybe later on, I'll get more adventurous, but for now I'm feeling proud of this accomplishment.
Last weekend my family enjoyed a wonderful stir-fry meal with rice, noodles, various veggies, and PukPuk. (PukPuk is the Tok Pisin word for Crocodile tail). It was quite delicious. I wasn't too sure about it myself before cooking it, but I must say I was pleasantly surprised at the flavor.
I guess that goes toward the top of my list of most exotic things I've cooked and eaten. Maybe later on, I'll get more adventurous, but for now I'm feeling proud of this accomplishment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)