strike!

So what do kids do when their teachers strike? As I recall in NZ, they did school work, or were supposed to, watch t.v., maybe make themselves a smoothie in the afternoon (if it's summer).

Teachers are striking at the moment in the Solomons and so the kids who live at SWIM have been home from school. Yesterday I heard them fighting in the external kitchen at SWIM so I went to see what the fuss was...

They spent their day off walking down to the sea, catching fish, cooking them up with rice and then they finished off with a party!

They don't have a word for this in pijin but, bon appétit!

my birthday

In all my adult life so far, I haven't celebrated my birthday. I mean, it's come and gone, but I haven't celebrated. Not because I don't want to get old, but because I didn't really think there was much worth celebrating. How arrogant of me! How could I scorn God's goodness to me by choosing to be grumpy about life. I must be finally maturing, even if only a little, because a small part of my selfishness died and I thanked God with deepest gratefulness for his blessings in my life.

And so I celebrated my birthday.

It started early in the morning when Jair showed me my birthday present - he'd made a netball court for me. He made hoops, painted the lines out with oil so that they court is marked. The court is grass, as is customary in the Solomons, but it serves its purpose well. We've had four games since the court was made last week and all our friends at SWIM who join have a blast running around, laughing and playing. It's so fun playing netball in the Solomons.

Then I got baking, with the new beater that my mum sent me for my birthday. I got it in July, but it, and allll the other presents she sent, are so cool. Thankfully a friend came by and helped with dishes and holding Theresa, who was being a bit troublesome. I think she knew something was up.

Then the party started. Again, I've never really in my adult life organised a party... although, regrettably, there are plenty of times when I should have, and when I was planning to. I'm an introvert though, so I don't throw parties. Except for last wednesday. I made two carrot cakes (I spoiled myself by buying cream cheese so I could make cream cheese icing... hmmm) and a huge bowl full of cookies and tonnes of litres of iced coffee. I invited all the people who work and live at SWIM and the guests in the Transit House and we all ate and drank and were merry.

Then after I washed all the cups, Jair, Theresa and I went out for lunch to my favourite western cafe. There's nothing quite like escaping into its cold, crisp environment to make you feel as if you've gone back to NZ. Alas, it's so expensive that it's only something that happens infrequently. But that made it all the more special.

My birthday dinner was on Thursday night. I invited a small group of close friends and we had a delicious dinner of cream cheese (again...) stuffed chicken breast, salads etc. I won't tell you what was for dessert because it involved an ingredient that is contraband here... then we played balderdash and had an absolute howl of a time!

The second best part of my birthday was that in the afternoon, I got a birthday parcel from my special friend Bianca. She had told me 20 days earlier that she had sent it and that it would arrive in 12 to 24 days, but I thought, knowing Solomon Post, add another two weeks. But it came impeccably on time - right on my birthday. Yay. Thanks sooo much to Bianca - it really made my day.

But the best part of my birthday was celebrating God's goodness to me. One of his gifts is my wonderful husband whose Godliness and love and wisdom astounds me daily, the second is my beautiful daughter - who is closer than any biological child ever could be.

How to Make Your Own Homemade Mayonnaise

Back in the old days, everyone made all their own food - or swapped things. You didn't buy chutney from the store - you made it, or you swapped your neighbour some eggs in order to get a few jars of hers. But now, everything is from stores and it's not going to take very long before kids (kids these days....) think that, well, tomatoes grow in cans, don't they?

And mayonnaise comes from a plant...

If you're living in a place where you can't get hold of some items of food, your only option is to... go without or make it your self. There is mayonnaise in the Solomons, but it's rather expensive - everything is. Whether or not you would use this recipe because you too live in a place where mayonnaise cannot be come by cheaply, or if you find yourself, at home, alone, unable to go to a shop, and in desperate need of mayonnaise, here it is.

Crack two eggs into a blender and blend for a while - till it looks all yellow and well mixed. Then slowly drizzle a cup of oil (I use canola oil) into the eggs which are in the blender while the blender is going.

By the time you've poured all the oil in, it will be making a glug-glug sound; keep blending until it stops glug-glugging. Then stop the blender and add various things to add flavour. Experiment a little, but for the first time you might like to try my favourite combination - crushed garlic, salt and pepper and a splash (a big one or a little one depending on taste) of Balsamic vinegar.

Hmmmm... vol van smaak!

SWIM GYM

In the interests of keeping healthy, and encouraging lively friendship amongst his mates, Jair, and some of the locals here, Gerry and Philip, when Philip still lived here, started a gym.

It's really quite cool. It amazes me - the things you can do with concrete and old baby formula tins. No one has an excuse not to have a good set of weights if you can get hold of those two things. After using the weights for a while, they decided to weigh them to see how much they really weighed...

they were heavier than expected...

but that's a good thing, right?

They used to have gym sessions in the morning but people got a bit slack and didn't turn up. You can't do weights by yourself either. So now Jair gears the guys up in the afternoons to do it and they have a good gym session. As far as I understand this one...

is 80 kilos all up.

Theresa came with me when I went to take photos - but every time I took a photo of her, she did this:

Cheeky girl! ;)

WW2 tour

Every now and then, and possibly not anymore, this old guy (though not a veteran) comes to the Solomon Islands and conducts a tour of WW2 sites in Honiara and Tulagi. It's a once in a life time opportunity, especially because he probably won't be coming back, apparently. So Jair and I, as well as Rob and Jemma and two people who are here with a mission team, booked a place to join the tour. It was really a day with lots of laughs, great stories from the guide. The only downside was that because there were no toilets (although, I did have a custom stop), I didn't drink much water, so by the end of the day I was rather dehydrated, and the next day came down with an awful flu.

Anyway, the photos probably tell the story better than I could write it.

We started at the American War Memorial, where the guide gave us a quick but comprehensive history of the Guadalcanal Campaign, which for your information, even though you may have never heard about it, was vital for our freedom today. This guy, I think his name was John, had lots of great stories. I mean, he's spent years thinking and digging up people, well, in the historical way, finding out who's who, where they went and what happened to them. There's this plaque at the memorial to the unknown warrior, but John told us how he found out this guy's name - so he's not so unknown after all.

The War Memorial has an amazing view - and so Jair and Rob did a great smiling pose. Good on'ya guys - they've gone to Tulagi today (in the Florida Islands) to join the tour there.

After that we drove down this road, well a road that I drive on all the time. I don't know if it's got a name - most roads in Honiara don't have a name. We stopped rather randomly and he told us of a guy who won a medal because of fighting in this area. Another brilliant story. It was rather fascinating to find out that this road, and many other roads in Honiara, were old jeep trails in WW2 to supply troops. Interesting. Didn't know that before.

Our next stop, after that Japanese Memorial, was a small valley where the marine raiders had fought with the Japanese. John told us the story of a veteran he met who had been injured when a hand granade went off near his leg. The vet said he'd come back to the Solomons if John ever found the place where he'd been injured. Well, John told us all about the calculations he'd done based on this map that he was given, a fascinating little story in itself. Anyway, he thought he'd found the spot, even though it meant that this Veteran's map must have been wrong. He took the chance and took the veteran back to this spot, hoping to find out whether this was where the battle had been. The veteran looked around, John said, with no look of recognition at all. I mean, it had been decades since he'd been here, if indeed, this was the place. John was about to give up hope, when the Veteran said, "I slept right there

this lookout post which gives a perfect outlook on Henderson Airfield - or the international Airport. After the Americans took over the airfield (from the Japs who started building it), this Japanese guy dug a little hole on this hill to keep track on what the Americans were doing. The hole is still there and while the guide was talking, one of the other fellow-tourers found a piece of shrapnel. The Americans didn't know exactly where this Japanese guy was, but they knew he was there. Eventually, they just bombed it and he died. But what a great look out post he had, except for Hazy Dayz - like Saturday.

Then we went to Barana village. Nearby is the Gifu site - where the Americans fought against the last Japanese. There is tonnes of stuff rusting away there, cans, teeth, compasses - the whole lot! The Locals dig it out and have made an elementary museum out of it.

They look like miniature hot water bottles but they used to contain oil for cleaning your gun.

Speaking of which...

Just pull the pin!

Miscellaneous bottles... and rounds of bullets...

I think these are cases for binoculars - but I could be wrong. Lots of happy smiling kids in the background. They must think we're odd, having such an interest in this stuff. Anyway, after looking at all the relics we went up the hill to look at the hill that they fought on (Sorry that I'm not very specific).

I had to show you this - NPW Zealand. It's a misprint; obviously it should say NEW Zealand. I've always wanted one of these tee-shirts, but I decided against asking this guy if I could buy his. So we looked around on this hill, down the track to where the entrance was to the jungle path to the waterhole. Listened to some more great stories about the men who occupied these foxholes - like this foxhole for example...

... which was occupied by an eccentric Italian who would recklessly put his foot on that rock and shoot any oncoming Japanese. This particular hill gave a beautiful view (except for the Hazy Dayz that it was) of West Guadalcanal. I sat on the hill, drinking in the view and thinking about the men who fought and defended this hill, Hill 27.

Our last stop, well, (last for me, Jair and Rob continued with the tour to see Bloody Ridge, but by then it was 3:30 or so, so I went home to relieve the baby sitter of our baby) was the battle of Tenaru, which was actually Aligator Creek, not Tenaru River, but the maps were marked poorly and it was only after the battle, and after the reports had been written, that the realised it wasn't the battle of Tenaru at all... Anyway, we went to this spot on the black sand beach and heard about the fighting that happened there. John told the story of how one American crossed the river to get something off a body and then swam back. His fellow soldiers gaped as they saw a crocodile eating the intestines of the body the American had just come back from. Eek. Crocodiles were part of the line of defense - You better believe it! A little kid told us that they don't cross that river at night (it's really quite shallow at this point) because a crocodile comes there every night. Eek, again.

Anyway, some of the folks on the tour had photos taken during the Guadalcanal campaign and they had a picture of this same beach, strewn with bodies. You can see it if you watch The Pacific. I think three of the episodes are based on the Guadalcanal campaign. I walked back slowly, because the ground I was walking on had once been covered by American and Japanese men who had died in battle. It's interesting to look at the places they occupied, the land they fought for, the things they left behind. There are many stories in these places, but many stories that will remain untold, because they died with the men who died there.

just like home

July is a busy, busy time here. This week, we had the Langham Conference here, so the place was packed with pastors attending the preaching conference. We're always so stoked when this kind of thing happens because it is such a great way to share our facilities.

Then it warmed my heart (which is already quite warm, because July is the driest month - mid thirties in the day), that when the team from Bethlehem College came back from a week in the village and a day at sea, one of them said, "oh, it feels like we're coming home." It's an honour that this place would feel like home to others as well.

Then, this week, I splurged and got another taste of my other home. Seven local dollars gave me possession of a kiwi fruit. I'm not sure why I took my kiwifruit spife over here (or is it a knoon?) but it finally got put to use. It was the first time I've eaten a kiwifruit in almost two years (I think). It was sweet, but a tad on the soft side. But still, rather special.

Random fact - it appears that outside of NZ, they call kiwifruit, kiwis. So people talk about eating a kiwi and I get scared - do they mean me or the bird?

Meals (take two)

This blog is called take two because the first one disappeared when the internet connection died a few minutes ago. Anyway.

Much of the food we like to eat is imported. Locally grown food includes taro, cassava, kumara, various types of "cabbage", tomatoes, eggplants, beans and capsicums, pumpkin and cucumber. Apparantly you can buy local beef, though I've never seen it. People kill a pig to celebrate a wedding and chicken and bacon is available in the market or local stores. We often buy the latter two, to support local enterprise, although the price of locally grown bacon and chicken is the same as the price of their imported counterparts.

So, the list of cheap food is rather short, being limited to locally grown food. Apart from fruit, all other yummy food is imported and thus expensive. So, chocolate is off the list :( Actually there are local cacao plantations but I've never seen the sweet delicious product of it in edible form.

Because we want to maintain good health and we are blessed to have sponsors, we don't have to live on cassava and cabbages but can eat the food we like. Well, within reason - milk is all powdered. I've always been opposed to using packets and the Bulk Store has an adequate supply of spices and herbs so we get by quite well. Let me give you an example.

Kumara is quite inexpensive, purchased from the market. You can buy a heap of kumara, about this size, maybe 12-15 in a heap for 10 Solomon dollars, or about NZ$2. So, kumara is a good staple. But kumara tends to be a bit dry, but not if you mash it with yoghurt and wholegrain mustard. Then it's delicious.

It made the perfect accompaniment to ghoulash. The ghoulash featured a small amount of cheap steak and heaps of locally grown vegies - capsicum, tomaotes and eggplant. With the right seasonings, it was scrumptious. I used my own lettuce for the salad as well as cucumber and tomatoes (Cucumber costs SBD$2 or 3 at the market. That's about 40 NZ cents!). I splurged by putting some cheese in the salad. Sometimes the Bulk Store sells expired cheese (how does cheese pass its use-by date! It just gets better!) for cheaper than you can buy cheese in NZ. I think that's why I splurged. Sadly, there's no expired cheese for sale at the moment. Also, when I was in NZ I bought a precious bottle of balsamic vinegar which I added as the dressing. (There's always too many precious things I want to take back here with me when I go for a yearly visit to NZ). The balsamic vinegar also makes the perfect addition to homemade mayonaise. Maybe my next post could be about homemade essentials...

We usually eat our hot meal at midday, because we're both around the house and it makes the afternoon easier. So while we were eating this yummy meal on our deck, Theresa was crawling around and...

pulling on Laki's ears. Oh, how Laki loves her.