A Wedding Celebration

The kids at the wedding. Looks very picturesque until you notice in the bottom left hand corner of the photo all the paper plates and cans from the party floating out to sea

A Wedding Celebration

Danny's daughter Mina was a flower girl





Danny one of my workmates invited me and the kids to a family wedding today. Now how it works here is anyone in the family can kind of invite people so I had never met the groom or bride...but I did have a wedding invite with my name on so went along. Families treat it as an honour when people turn up so seemed the right thing to do.

Wedding invites are only given to non extended family members (wantoks)so if you are a wantok you dont need an invite you know you can just turn up. Apparently the tally was probably 200 invites plus 200 family members. All month Danny and his family have been preparing for the event - hand raising baby chickens, chopping firewood etc. The main event is really food and they cooked 100 chickens, 10 pigs and a cow....most of it motu style (hangi)!!

Didn't expect to know anyone there other than Danny and his wife ( who spent all her time in the kitchen) so wasn't really too keen on the event but turned out quite fun. Knew about 7 or 8 people, although we were the only expats. The bride and groom are from different provinces so there were custom dances from both sides and a Honiara tradition of a tropical down pour to drench us all part way through.

My SI friend Tammy warned me not to eat anything as weddings are notorious for food poisoning. The kids were happy to stick to fruit and I tried a bit of chicken, but stayed away from fish heads and the pork...so will wait and see how the stomach copes!!

The Week that Was!!

Tobias & Wayne at the School Disco


Has been a busy week with school discos and Bring and Buy markets at school, and the normal challenges of just getting everyone to work and school and home again each day by a mother with an ever reducing sleep bank balance!!!!!

So some highlights!!!

Millie won the little kids dancing contest at the disco - ok there were only 4 competing and 2 were Wayne and Tobias who didnt seem to realise what was going on...never moving a muscle in the spot light.....and both Millie and her friend Dara got prizes...but Millie danced like there was no tomorrow in front of a large crowd of cheering kids and parents. A talent she surely inherited from her father!!!!

Poppy has become a super reader this week obsessed with reading whole chapter books in one sitting!!! Was a great idea when we set the challenge of reading 30 chapter books in a term but now she seems to think she needs to do it in a week!!! Help I have unleashed a monster!!!

Tobias and Wayne have become inseperable at Kindy, always hanging out together and choosing each other for every activity. The only English Wayne can speak is singing "baa baa black sheep" and "twinkle twinkle little star" both of which he does beautifully. Is a great little friendship but dont think its helping Tobias's somewhat hard to understand speech...but then perhaps its hard to understand because he is picking up Wayne's mother tongue and I havent work that out yet???


My work has had its very interesting moments this week. Needless to say in the many battles we fight we have had some wins and had some loses. The good news is my contract has been extended for 6 months so gives us definite plans out to March 2009.
On a more quirky point we watched fisherman capture 8 dolphins in the sea out the office window this morning - probably destined for the very lucrative international dolphin market- this time a marine park in Thailand I think.

Next week we head to Vanuatu for a 10 day holiday with our good friends the Keirs from Taupo. Can't wait...should be great.

Hanging out at the Beach

Today we hung out at the beach with friends.
This is Tobias with his little mate Noah - also a kiwi kid

Dad look at my creations 2!!!!

Moments after taking the last photos Tobias threw a wobbley because he had no creation to show off mainly because he insisted on cutting any piece of cardboard that came near him into inch squares.....so we quickly made him a VERY BIG house to show Dad!!!!! Don't panic the orange on his face is only felt pen...not some unidentifiable tropical disease!!!

Dad...look at out our creations

Poppy had to make a model of the Special Needs School she visited so that was our challenge this afternoon. Is amazing the craft stuff you can find here if you hunt it out. The card board was 30c a large sheet and the green stuff is sheets of foam that you can cut up for $1.50 a large sheet.

Ok....you're right there are serious touches of Mum's involvement in the model but Millie's "garden cemetery of love " is all her own work and idea????!!!!

Queen's Birthday

Today is our Queen's Birthday holiday. Cant say I have EVER realised there may be pomp and ceremonial associated with this event in every country but I suppose GG's everywhere do their thing.

Now mainly because not much happens in Honiara and also because Cathy's Dad Festus was marching we heading down to watch the police band and marching and dignitry parade to celebrate Liz's birthday.

Was painfully hot but at least we werent dressed in ceremonial outfit and marching!!!
First time I've sung "God Save the Queen" in a while too!!!

A couple of stories from our week

Chicken for tea!!!

Another of our chickens declared their true sex this week with the announcements of some cock-a-doodle-dos. Not really appreciating the midnight calls I asked Steven one of our guards if he would like to take "Nellie" the chicken home one night and do what he may with it!! He was more than happy to oblige but when I went to bed later that evening I could smell the very distinct smell of boiled chicken!!!! Yes he and fellow guard had sneaked up on poor Nellie, killed him, plucked him and dunked him in the pot for dinner all while we were happily eating our tea upstairs and watching tv!!! Haven't dared tell the kids

Aerial Payday

Today Carl is doing the pay run for a Palm Oil Plantation. Now these are no normal pay runs. After so many hold ups of the truck they decided they needed to use choppers. Now each fortnight a chopper, with 2 armed guards in the back, and the pilot ( who I suspect I know!!) wearing a bullet proof vest flies the payroll on a randomly selected route to the admin compound of the plantation. They don't land, but instead hover over a building where a hatch in opened in the roof that they drop the bag of $$$$ through!!!!! All in a days work!!!

Tobias's little mate Wayne

Tobias has a new little friend Wayne who lives 2 doors away and goes to kindy with him. Wayne is always keen to come over to play. He loves the trampoline and today learnt to ride the trike. Communication between the boys is somewhat limited as Wayne mainly speaks his Choiseul language and a bit of pijin. Doesnt seem to matter when you are 3 year old boys. He is also not backward in wanting his photo taken. Unfortunately Tobias was a little photo shy today so we only have Wayne in the pics.

Baking Lessons

A group of the girls at work were keen to learn to bake so Sunday afternoon we got together for a first in a series of lessons!!!

Today muffins and biscuits were on the agenda. Was a bit of a challenge to find recipes with local ingredients but we stuck with a couple of basic mixtures and just added things for variation.

Was heaps of fun, a good few laughs, and lots of sweat in the afternoon heat but we cooked 5 dozen muffins ( banana, coconut & lime, and pumpkin and shallot) and 7 dozen biscuits ( peanut, choc chip and M&M's)

One of the girls said it was dream for her to learn to bake biscuits - something she had always wanted to do but never thought she would have a chance!!! I suspect I might have to bring back a few elecric beaters though as creaming butter and sugar by hand in this heat is enough to put off the keenest cook!!!

Next apparently is birthday cakes!!!

Is a fun way to get to know each other, spend time together and share a few skills.....and I'm sure there were some happy families when they took theit first baking batches home!!!