the Rain Coast

Yay! I found someone with a cable that works with my camera. So I downloaded some (unfortunately not all) of our photos from our short time on the Sunshine Coast. We stayed with some friends, Robbie and Stella, and had such a wonderful time with them. Their house has a view of the sea and the city skyline. Most of the time it was raining, so we couldn't see much, but Friday it was fine. BUT I FORGOT TO TAKE A PHOTO!!!Grrr.

Anyway, we did the normal thing and went to the Australia zoo. It was comforting to learn that it takes quite a lot to entice a crocodile out of the water. We really liked the birds.

When we had lunch in the food court, this bird kept coming by to peck at left overs. Theresa liked the bird, but the bird didn't like Theresa...

Theresa's doing her sign for "more". I'm not sure if she means more birds and scary reptiles or more food.

Gotta have a photo of a 'roo.

And Theresa pointing out the sights.

I had another photo that I, with my weird sense of humour, thought was funny. If I manage to get hold of a camera cable again, I'll post it here.

Anyway, now we're in Whangarei, in NZ, and the holiday park we stayed at gave us 20MB for free. Yay. Thank them that this post is here.

farewell

We're on holidays now and thoroughly enjoying our break.

Unfortunately, (honestly, it's dreadful), I left our camera cable at home in our office in a place I never usually put it. Drats. So that means I can't put any new photos from our holiday onto the blog... unless I can borrow another cable.

So, other topics to talk about apart from holidays?

Well the first is this. Last week when we left the Solomon Islands for our six week holiday, it was like eating curry - a mixed experience. You love the flavour but hate the heat. We were so relieved to be able to go on holiday, but sad to be saying goodbye to two friends who won't be there when we come back.

Rob and Jemma.

They've been living at SWIM since April but are leaving tomorrow, having finished their short term mission with us. When they first came I thought, phough, more ausies. But they were the best Australians I'd ever met (including Karen).

We've had so many good times with them, although Rob's loyalty at the Rugby World Cup was a bit questionable.

Robs joined Jair on crazy endeavours, though I think he won the moustache one. I think Theresa's smiling in this photo at the prospect of them both getting rid of the mo. After that, she loved her uncle Wob Woy again.

Jemma quickly became the wonderful kind of friend with whom you can just talk about anything. Theresa loved playing games and singing and reading stories and learning to walk with her Aunty Jem Joy.

I've been thinking now of some way I can wrap this post up. I just don't know. I love these guys and I'll miss them. We've had a great 8 months living over the field from them. I wish all the people I love could live over the field from us.

including you.

How To... Make Your Own Cute Baby's Sandals

I don't know about where you guys live, but here in the Solomon Islands it's hard to buy anything of quality, and well... anything. Ribbon? good luck. Decent Fabric? Ha! What's that? Shoes? What are they again? I mean, everyone wears jandals, or slippers as they call them.

So now that Theresa is officially walking (as of yesterday), I thought she needs something to wear. There are lots of nasty bugs in the grass of the Solomon Islands. I mean, bites from certain centipedes can be fatal! No jokes!

So, if you're in a similar position, unable to find a decent pair of summer footwear for your baby, look no further than this post for all your answers to how to make your own pair of sandals... Well, not really, but this is how I did it anyway.

Take one old lonesome jandal whose spouse has passed away...

Then cut them a little bit bigger than your baby's foot.

When that is done, measure the hypothetical distance from the side of the sandal over your baby's foot and to the other side. I'm not sure about white babies, but my baby has cute fat feet. Anyway, then cut the elastic that length and your chosen fabric a bit longer (ok, this is where you see what my style is like... just guess! I did like an extra 3 cms each side) and double the width (plus a seam allowance). Now, of course as you know, there is no decent fabric here, so I raided some second hand stores, found a cute shirt for cheap that I would never wear, and used that instead. Put the right side of your fabric rectangle together and sew the length of it (and zigzag), turn it inside out and thread the elastic through.

Do four of these (two for each sandal). Sew the elastic into the ends and finish it off as you wish. Then take some mega powerful glue (like this great atom stuff that our cobbler friend gave us! It's amazing. Quote: "Bonds skin and eyelids within seconds". Yikes!) and glue the fabric covered elastic pieces onto the sides of the sandal.

Now, this is actually quite tricky and in fact, to be truthful, I did a shocking job and when Theresa first wore the sandals, they kept falling off so I had to pull the elastic strips off and re-glue them (typical of my style of creating things). Pretty much, you need the first elastic thing to be just at the base of the toes and the second one to be just a little bit in front of where the leg comes... what on earth do you call that part of the foot? I'm not sure... the tallest part! So be careful where you glue it... warning, it is hard however to try get your baby to sit still while you try figure this out!

Then measure the length from the bottom of one side of the second elastic to the other side as pictured above. The elastic I used for the back was less wide than that which I used for over foot pieces... I think it would be more flexible and comfortable. Then do the same thing with the elastic and threading it through a sewn fabric cover.

Just an aside, I really like this tape measure. My mum gave it to me when my Oma (grandmother) died. It was hers. I love the dutch writing on it. I love the button that keeps it in a nice little wound up circle. I love that she used it for years and years, making clothes, sewing things for her babies. And now it's mine, still being used to make things for the family.

Then glue on the back straps and if you like, make some cute bows for the front strap. I made a matching bow to stick onto a hairclip too. Thank you to my lovely sister Frieda for sending me the ready to be covered haircilps!

All in all, the outfit is really cute, well, I think so...

and Theresa's precious little feet are guarded from nasty centipedes...

but not dogs! Oh well, at least she likes Laki!

What Happened on Our Sunday Afternoon Walk

The day before yesterday, Sunday (but note, not on our Sunday afternoon walk) a friend of ours gave us this:

It's a 90mm anti - tank missile from WW2 found dumped in the sea near Yandina in the Russell Islands - part of the Central Province of the Solomon Islands.

Cool. Theresa thinks it's cool.

Especially because it makes a neat sound when you hit it with your hands.

Anyway, then we went for a walk on Sunday because Theresa was grumpy. She's had these boil/bite things on her legs so hurts. This was how the Sunday Afternoon Walk finished...

Awwww adorable.

TFD

Last week here at SWIM, we facilitated a TFD training workshop. Tom Clarke, who has quickly become a good friend, (he's a Taswegian) came over to the Solomons to run this workshop. It's purpose was to give prison workers and volunteers basic skills to work with sexual and violent offenders. Tom has drawn from his vast experience working with inmates and has developed this program to help people change detrimental thought patterns. Tom really knows what he is talking about and all the participants definitely benefited from the course. If you know people, or community groups that would like to be involved in this course, check out Tom's website - the TFD project.

Tom's a really neat guy - we are so blessed to have had him stay with us. We introduced him to iced coffees, and he introduced us to salt and pepper squid, both of which we all ended up liking alot. Unfortunately, though, we didn't have a group photo with us and Tom!

While Jair was busy participating in the course, I helped the local women cook up a storm! We did the catering. It was a very very very busy week last week. It taught me about stress management - well, learning from my own mistakes, that is. I was relieved when it was over, but thinking back it was a lot of fun as well. Judging by the comments (and the weight gained by some people;) I think it was a success! The locals loved the iced coffee served with lemon crunchy muffins, chocolate cake or caramel slice for morning tea. We had a good variation in each meal, keeping with the local style of eating staka kaikai tumas (stacks and stacks of food). We had a bit of a western influence sometimes (hamburgers on the last day) but plenty of good local food. I took a photo of my plate of lunch one day:

Clockwise from left - salad; cassava rolls;bbq fish and chicken - local style; curried chicken, rice, curried egg sandwich; deep fried fish.

At SWIM we've never really done catering before, although we get asked about it all the time. Now we know that if we ever want to go down that track, as a way of helping the SWIM base be more self-sufficient, we definitely have the know-how and woman-power to pull it off with style. I'm so impressed with Grace, Helen and Margaret who did fabulous job in the kitchen with me. Trifala barava save tumas!

Theresa helped out in the kitchen as well...

Well, helped herself to what she thinks are great toys - kitchen implements.

So potential career for Theresa? Chef or Climber? I think the latter ;)

1 year old!

We celebrated Theresa's first birthday on Saturday, the 12th of November. It was a very joyous occasion... A whole lot of friends came over for the party in the afternoon. At 3, right when the party was meant to start, a thunder and lightning storm hit. It poured down with rain for a while, hence the umbrellas!

There was a cake, of course...

Party games...

good times...

We are so thankful to have Theresa in our family...

Theresa is joyful and she's a joy to us. Earlier this year I was thinking about when you adopt a child, God gives an orphan a family, but He also gives childless parents a child. He has certainly done that with us and we are so thankful for the great first year we've had with this delightful baby. Happy birthday Theresa! xox

How To...Carry Your Baby Isabel Style

Even though the Solomon Islands is one nation, there are many different people groups inside, who, although they come under one cultural umbrella (Melanesian Culture) have amongst themselves different ways of doing things.

Modern Honiara Women, carry their babies in Cheap, Chinese Made Front Packs.

Women from Guadalcanal and Malaita (and most other islands) carry their babies on their hip, with a lava lava (sarong) wrapped around the baby and tied up by the mother's shoulder for hands free capabilities.

I made myself a little "pea pod" - it's great. It's got clips, wasn't that hard to make, and because I made it myself, I could choose this funky lime green fabric. I love it. Theresa loves it. Ideally, she sits securely on my hip with the pea pod holding her in place.

Except that Theresa has a very passionate, excited personality and she's not happy to sit comfortably by my side but is always trying to lean forward and engage life to the fullest.

So I decided to start carrying Theresa Isabel Style. On the island of Santa Isabel, women carry their babies in a lava lava tied on to their back. It's a distinctive part of their mothering and you can usually pick out where a woman is from by how she's carrying her baby. Babies are carried like this from birth, which I find a bit scary, but it's definitely a good method to use when your baby can sit up by herself.

Theresa loves Isabel style because she can get a good view on the world, but she's so tightly strapped in place that I can rest assured knowing that she won't fall out. And it's really cuddly.

This is how you carry your baby, Isabel style.

First you put the scrunched up end of the lava lava over your right shoulder and then get your baby to stand behind you as if she's going to have a piggy back. Then drape the length of the lava lava over your baby's body, tucking the middle of the bottom edge of the fabric under her bottom and reaching to her knees. Then pull the lava lava across to your left hip and then up to meet the other part you previously draped over your right shoulder.

Tie it in a lose knot. The higher your baby is on your back, the more comfortable it will be for you. If she's sitting low, I find, it pulls much more on your muscles and hurts quickly. Anyway you kind of adjust your baby so she's sitting where you want her to. Also, you want the top of the lavalava to cover her right arm, but leave her left arm free. Then tie the knot tight. Make sure the whole thing is tight - there will always be enough room for her to breath, but you don't want her to have to much room because she might lean back and fall out! Maybe, I haven't let Theresa try that.

Isabel Style is a good way to carry your baby if all you have is a lava lava or a length of random fabric. It's hands free, comfortable, baby gets a good view and feels secure, and it's incredibly cost effective. It's for daddy's too!

Theresa snuggled up to her daddy all the way to Church on Sunday like this.

There are other ways of tying, although I don't find them very secure. This might sound confusing, but once you get the hang of it, your baby will be happy to well, just hang there.

We love it!

One of the Last Very Firsts

Our sweet little Theresa is almost a year old. I can't believe it. Last week, she attended her very first birthday party - the party of her two little friends Anneka and Keelah. They're twins who are two weeks older than her. She loves playing with her, in a little, baby kind of way (you know, pulling hair, driving the walker over each other kind of thing - just your usual baby love).

Now that Theresa's almost a year, she's drawing to the end of some of her significant first experiences, like laughing, standing up, throwing a tantrum about eating eggplant, and playing indians. Obviously, she's got many more first to go in her life - reading, jumping on the tramp, etc etc, but she's getting to the end of her baby list.

Including going to her first birthday party.

We both had a big list of things to do before the party in the afternoon. It was 10:10. Theresa was sleeping, I was in the kitchen making something when I thought - "shoot! I don't have any presents for the twins - and there's two of them = two presents needed."

Frantic think - what can I do. Buy something? Nothing in the Solomons worth buying for a 1 year old.

Making something was my only option. Fabric book? Too difficult in the 2 hours I had left.

photoframe - hmm no.

think think think.

Then I remembered a cool blog on making hair clips for babies.

So I gave it a go.

I think it turned out pretty well (in fact, I tried it in my own hair and wanted to keep it;) I think I'll make some more.

The cutest thing is that Keelah was wearing red (at least, i think that's Keelah - they're identical so it's kind of hard. I think Anneka has one more tooth than Keelah...) so her hairclips really matched her outfit.

Theresa was all excited about eating cake so she stood up randomly. Probably the fourth time she's done that without holding onto anything.

And she loved ice cream - well, you wouldn't think so from this photo but she just kept coming back for more. She did think it was cold on her little gummies though. oh well, good for teething (she got her fifth tooth a few days later!)

So that's another first knocked off the list. Next week will be the real first - first birthday!

Sunday Afternoon Walk

On our Sunday afternoon walk this week, I came across these beautiful flowers in the dirty creek that's at the back of SWIM.

How could something so beautiful live in such an awful, smelly place. You haven't seen the creek - believe me, it's terrible. Stagnant, crocodile infested, dirty water. (Ok, the crocodile part isn't completely accurate, but crocodiles have been found in parts of the same body of water)

But I found these beautiful flowers in there. They were quite fragile, bruising even if you blow on them, which the fan was doing.

I also found this flower in a random bush in a random patch of lawn. I thought it was quite pretty.

The only vase I had for it was an old WW2 coke bottle, found in the dirt outside the boundary fence.

I rather like these Coca-Cola bottles, the contents of which was swagged down by a thirsty American soldier who just wanted a break from the sweltering heat, the flies, and the bombs in 1944.

Now the bottle holds flowers.

Then after my walk, I found this bug on my floor.

Another crazy bug!

Another crazy red bug with wings that have blue dots on them.

Speaking of crazy bugs, I have these killer ants at home, that ate my camera! For the second time in one week, I found these ants nesting in a camera case - thankfully the first camera was fine. I got there quick enough to deal viciously with the ants. The second camera though, found infested one week later, sustained permanent brain damage. Which is sad, because it was an old film camera which I hadn't developed for years, keeping it as an ongoing time capsule. Now nobody will know the photos it held, because the ants ate it.

Oh, life in the tropics - where you see so vividly a dichotomy between the effects of sin on ants, and the beautiful intricacies of creation.

Eeney, Meeney, Miney, Matchey!

I have been procrastinating about writing for way too long now. First I went away for over a week with Theresa (I will write about that some time), then we had Ant and Matt over so we were all super busy. But today is the day and I had to sort through all the historic things I wanted to write about...

Recently (or not so recently) my friend and fellow blogger Talia wrote about wearing matching clothes with her baby. Being matchy matchy is cool. Unfortunately I can't really match with Theresa because not only is there a lack of fabric stores to choose the same fabric to sew clothes, she also cruises around in a nappy all day. I mean, she probably spends about 6% of her life in clothes - that's when we go to church or go to town, which is seldom. I can't really match with the whole nappy thing. To make matters worse, she's usually a nuddy buddy at the moment - we're trying to combat her nappy rash. So, again, matching is not an option for us two.

But, I did think it was really adorable that only a few days after I read Talia's blog about matching, I saw this:

Our friend Mercy had dressed her two girls, Anna and Rebekah, in matching clothes for Church. They even do the whole Matchey thing here! (BTW - Mercy made the skirts - she's a very lovely, creative Solomon mother).

Also at church I saw these awesome bugs!

What are they? Anyone know?

This is what the kids thought of me taking photos of bugs:

They weren't so interested. Meh - bugs.