On Saturday the other hostel asked if they could borrow our van for the day to go to the beach. We said they could. Later that morning we thought it would be fun to go to the pool. Garth was going to take us in 2 trips on the motorcycle. He started looking around and couldn’t find his bike. I was out digging up plants to put in front of the hostel and he tracked me down, paranoid, asking for the whereabouts of his bike. A mad search had been started with the pembantu’s looking all over trying to locate the missing bike. Well, I happened to know that some of the high school boys had asked my permission to play a joke on “Uncle” Garth and hide his bike. I was all for it. So, the bike was well hidden, so well that Garth couldn’t find it. Turns out it was inside in the ping pong room-boy, was Garth relieved. So we were all ready to go to the pool when Wyatt noticed that the back tire was flat. So they took it down to the benkel (garage) and one of our penjagas (security guards) was there and said he would take it down to get fixed, and he did. He took the bike to a local shop and they replaced the tubing and brought it back in record time all for about rp30,000 (about $3.00). Not bad, huh? By that time, Garth just took the big kids to the pool and I stayed with Cale.
Ibu Poppi and I have decided that the first Friday of every month the kitchen will be closed and she and Yulli will do a major clean. Every day the kids here at school have the opportunity to order lunch that will be delivered from one of four different restaurants in the area. So on the cleaning Friday we will have the dorm kids order. Well, this Friday was going to be the first cleaning Friday and Garth and I thought we would surprise everyone by driving to Abeh to get Kentucky Fried Chicken for everyone-because that is SUCH a treat. So, we drove the 45 minutes to Abeh and waited for it to open. It is inside a mall with a bunch of other stores. We got there at 9 and it was closed so we did a bit of shopping elsewhere and then came back and waited until it opened at 10. Finally, it opened and Cale went to play in the indoor play area. I asked the KFC workers if they were open yet and they said “Blum” (not yet), so we waited, and waited. The sign said that KFC opened at 10, but they didn’t. So we asked another worker and he told us they weren’t going to open till 11. Well, there was no way we could wait another hour , and order and wait for the food and still get back by 11:45 so we left, frustrated. But, that is the way they run businesses here in Papua. What we wound up doing is ordering nasi bunkus for everyone from a local place here in Sentani. It is rice, veggies and chicken wrapped up in newspaper packages. Very yummy! They are about $1.50 each.
We are still nice and healthy. Sophie’s burn looks great. The new skin is coming in. Garth is improving. He set up all the chairs for church today, and was sore after, but otherwise he is getting better. Yahoo! Cale is working on potty training-he would much rather go outside than in the toilet. He doesn’t understand why I make him sit down to poop. He just wants to do it outside standing up. He is going to get the funniest looks this summer in the States. I think I will make him a T-shirt to wear that says, ”I was potty trained in Papua.”
I feel like I am a little closer to you all now that you turned your clocks ahead. That makes us only 14 hours ahead of you instead of 15. That is nice. Spring is in the air. Can you feel it? On Friday, it was 91 degrees here at 8 p.m. I am trying hard to blow some of this heat your way. All that blowing makes me tired, so I am off to bed.
Good night.
Rachel
No comments:
Post a Comment