We've been back in beautiful rainy Port Moresby for nearly 2 weeks, after a glorious 2 weeks back in alternately hot and cold Adelaide!
I'm sure many writers have put this much more eloquently, but you really do appreciate what you've got once you don't have it anymore. Or maybe I'm thinking about that 70s song about a pink hotel in Hawaii that they redid in a godawful way and then thrashed on commercial radio a few years ago? Regardless, for the 2 weeks I was there, my status updates pretty much said nothing apart from "Adelaide is AMAZING", sometimes with a few expletives thrown in for emphasis.
A slight detour - the flight over - by myself with Niamh. Do not recommend. Firstly, she's technically still an "infant" (ha! she's the size of a 2-3 year old!) so she's not guaranteed a seat. The night before our trip, I googled "flying with toddlers", "travelling with toddlers" etc and found some good suggestions. One of the best ones was that no matter how tired you are, whenever you get to an airport do not sit down. Run the kid/s around as much as you can, and wear them out before the next leg. This worked reasonably well, but is quite hard to do with a heavy toddler and 2 large carryon bags to lug around the airport, then try to find a place to run and watch your bags at the same time. Niamh was as good as she could have possibly been, and yet the whole 12 hour process was still an ordeal. I'm not particularly looking forward to doing it all again in 2 short weeks!
But back to Adelaide! While we were there, a lot of people were asking me "what have you got planned?", but apart from a few exceptions we left it fairly unstructured, and just enjoyed doing simple things. Walking down the street, driving a car, visiting friends and family, taking Ni Ni to a playground or the zoo.
Of course, the purpose of our trip was to see some very good friends of ours, Josh and Kylie, get married. The day was beautiful, and the bride and groom were gorgeous, radiant and happy. It was wonderful to be there to share it with them! We also enjoyed the reception and having a drink or two, accompanied by excellent speeches and delicious cake!
Ni Ni (Biscuit's name for herself) loved visiting Adelaide, and especially loved having her grandparents, aunties, and baby friends back. She's still talking about them! I'm pretty sure they all loved having her back too. The changes in her were much more noticeable when seen through other people's eyes. In the last 3 months she's grown, gotten a nice brickie's tan (singlet and shorts!), her hair's longer and she's now talking up a storm.
Since we've been back in Moresby, things have changed and they haven't. We arrived at 5pm last Monday, only to find that our luggage must've gotten held up chatting with mates at one of the airports and had decided not to meet us at the airport. This led to a tense night wondering if the bags been lost or stolen, and wondering whether or not we'd ever see them again. More importantly, there was wine and Haigh's chocolate in there! So, as we trudged towards our door in the carpark sans luggage, it was a nice surprise to see a new Mum chasing a toddler around. Lou had only been here less than a week, and is living in the same apartment block as us. Her little boy Lachy is 20mths old. It's great to have a new friend in the same place!
Then, last week, we had to say goodbye to some of our (still new!) friends that we made in our very first week in Moresby. Mandy (who was kind enough to take me op-shopping when I was fresh off the plane, and lent Biscuit all her girls' old toys before our freight arrived) sadly "bin go pinis" -literally "went finish" aka left for good. Lou and I were talking about this - it's just the way things go up here. There are a few families (usually at least one of the couple is PNG or part PNG) who are here for the long haul. Everyone else is on an average of a 3 year contract. Mandy herself even told me "some people don't bother to make friends after a while - it's too hard having to say goodbye all the time". I don't know, I still don't think this is the way to go. People are always going to come in and out of your life, and I've met so many lovely people already. I think if I didn't take these opportunities and get involved, I'd have a pretty miserable time up here! Still, very sad to see them go...
On a positive note, Mandy's nanny Mary (who was our first choice) became available and is now working for us! No, she's not the "Mary Poppins" I talked about in a previous blog post... sorry, this may get confusing! Let's change Mary Poppins' name to Jackie. Mary's name is actually Mary! After the previous blog, and chatting with some other people, I realised that Jackie (aka Mary Poppins) was just not quite the right fit for us - because she only worked full time, and I really only wanted part time. Plus, one of her main roles with her current family is as cleaner/ housekeeper, and we already have ladies supplied by the hotel who service our apartment, and I think she would actually have nowhere near enough to do on a fulltime basis. So, even though I felt awful about it, we decided to say no thanks. I had no idea where to look next, but then not all that long after that, we found out Mary was actually available after all!
Mary started work with us last Monday, and was amazing! She chats to Niamh, and to me, reads to her, takes her out of my hair when I'm trying to cook lunch or something... I arranged to have lunch with some friends last Wednesday, and Mary put her to sleep, did the ironing and fed her lunch by the time I returned. I definitely don't need someone 3 days a week, but like everyone says, when you employ someone you provide an income for them and often a lot of other people as well.
I think I'm probably the slowest person around here to get a nanny. Most people have one within a week or two, and it's taken almost 3 months for me! But there are big advantages to "inheriting" a nanny from someone else. In PNG there are no police checks, no reliable referees, no qualifications for childcare. Having a good solid recommendation from a family you know and trust is pretty much the only way you know who you're getting. We already adore Mary, and Mandy and Gordon said "we love her more and more every day" - wow! Can't get a much better recommendation than that!
Oh, and a few weeks ago I sent an email to the head of one of the departments at the hospital here, asking if there was any possibility of a volunteer job next year. He's out of the country (and then I am) so we're going to have a chat in January to see if we can sort something out. Very exciting - I might have some work next year!!
What else? Niamh, Dan and I have all been sick continuously for about 7 weeks now with various upper respiratory tract infections. I am so sick of it! We are burning through baby panadol like you wouldn't believe! I just want to go to the gym again! Hopefully when we get back from Australia in January!
Oh, and this week just gone, Dan went up to the highlands with work! It was an exciting trip for him, and when an old lady painted his face unexpectedly (snuck up behind him!) he wondered whether that meant they were married or not! He saw a lot of beautiful scenery, and had a helicopter ride. Niamh and I also survived our first week alone in Pt Moresby with an absolute minimum of freak outs. I think having Mary helped, because at least I had someone with me during the day to talk to. But overall, it definitely went better than expected.
This weekend has been busy!! We went to the Ela Beach markets again yesterday, and picked up a few Christmas presents. Then in the afternoon we went to a mu mu (traditional highlands feast - signature dish is a pig roasted by being buried underground) for another friend who is going pinis. The mu mu was fantastic, and the party was a lot of fun. It was like one of those Summer parties from your childhood, where the adults were too
Today we had Dan's work's Kid's Christmas Party. It was a blast! Niamh and her friend Lachy were the only non PNG national kids there, and they were a bit of a sideshow. They decided to promote themselves by dancing on the basketball courts where the speeches were being held - during the speeches and while carols were being sung by the choir! When they finished, they enthusiastically started the round of applause themselves. Afterwards a lot of people came up to me and said how cute they were, so I didn't feel so bad about them stealing the show. Maybe it's a cultural thing? I was surprised no other toddlers ran out and started dancing. Obviously something in our culture is teaching them to be exhibitionists!
Well, that's about it for us this time. I was going to delve into some more controversial issues, but I don't really feel like it tonight. I'm in too much of a good mood!
And on Wednesday, we're back in Australia! (Yes, again, already!)
I have my lovely friends Alicia and Jono's wedding in Mildura next weekend, and I thought we'd stay on until New Year's. Dan will come down and join us in a few weeks!
In the meantime, a photo or two to pretty up the blog...
The Ela Beach Craft Market
Eating icecream ("skeem!!") at the Kids Party
Waiting for Santa with the other kids
Here's the link to the album on facebook
Bye :)
No comments:
Post a Comment