Well as some of you are probably aware Thursday was American thanksgiving day, and as a fair proportion of the missionaries here in Ukarumpa are of US decent thanksgiving is celebrated here too. It would appear that being a single American guy would be kind of nice this time of year, Chris my roommate has been invited to 4 different thanksgiving meals this year, not a bad effort. However the celebrations are not restricted to Americans, I went to a lovely thanksgiving dinner on Thursday at Tiffany's place along with 9 others. There were 7 Americans, 2 Aussies and myself (a New Zealander). A grand time was had by all, we had plenty of yummy food and none of the strange American dishes like sweet potato with marshmallows on top (sorry to any of you who may be reading this who gave me any of this in Vancouver, you are still all very nice people despite your eating habits). While we waited for the main course to settle we all shared something we are thankful for and then we had a good old sing-a-long. Then came dessert, now this time Americans have got it right and us New Zealanders could learn a thing or two. Pumpkin pie is the business, a great use for the humble pumpkin.
Just as I was getting in to the van to go down to thanksgiving the earth started shaking. It didn't take too long to establish that I was experiencing an earthquake, and a much more significant one than I had previously experienced. The earthquake lasted much longer than any of the other quakes that occur every now and again over here, I would guess it lasted a good 30 seconds or so. The reported size of the quake was 6.7 and was centred 100km off the coast from Lae, so it was a fair way away from Ukarumpa. Still it was violent enough to put a large leak in our water tank as well as another 8 tanks around Ukarumpa. The repair dudes replaced our tank yesterday and then finished plumbing it in this morning, so now we just have to wait for more rain to fill it up, and based on the weather pattern we have been experiencing lately I expect that it should only take a couple of days to fill up the tank. It certainly appears that we are moving in to the rainy season, every afternoon it starts raining some time between 1 and 4 and keeps raining most of the night; rather inconvenient when I forget to take my umbrella to work after lunch.
Friday, November 23, 2007
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Carnival
Last Saturday one of the highlights of the Ukarumpa calendar took place, the Ukarumpa Carnival.
All your favourite carnival food was available like candy floss/cotton candy/fairy floss, donuts, funnel cakes, ice cream, plus a variety of other food items of a more savoury nature. I particularly liked the donuts, freshly made with either vanilla, maple or chocolate glaze, yummy. It was a gorgeous day which in turn meant that I was kind of thirsty, so I went through a fair few bottles of root beer and cream soda (I don't think they had any water on sale or I would have chosen that). By the end of the day I had quite enough sugary stuff.
There were all sorts of fun activities the whole family could enjoy. The mini golf was pretty good, a very interesting course although it could have been improved if the grass had been mowed beforehand.
The sumo-wrestling in inner tubes was a little on the tiring side but fun none the less. I had a slight advantage in the group that I joined, as I was a little bigger than the others, and the only guy
The 12th grade boys had a great time going around arresting people and putting them in jail until they would pay to be released. Quite a little money making business, someone would pay to get you put in jail, plus they could pay more to keep their name a secret. But the prisoner could pay more to find out who the scoundrel was that put them behind bars.
But by far the most popular attraction of the day was the ferris wheel, or ferris square if you you want to be more precise. This was built by one of the men here back in 1995 and is operated each year by the 11th grade boys. They sure must have been tired by the end of the day, they were busy all day pushing people around and around. I decided to cut them a bit of a break and I just watched.
All your favourite carnival food was available like candy floss/cotton candy/fairy floss, donuts, funnel cakes, ice cream, plus a variety of other food items of a more savoury nature. I particularly liked the donuts, freshly made with either vanilla, maple or chocolate glaze, yummy. It was a gorgeous day which in turn meant that I was kind of thirsty, so I went through a fair few bottles of root beer and cream soda (I don't think they had any water on sale or I would have chosen that). By the end of the day I had quite enough sugary stuff.
There were all sorts of fun activities the whole family could enjoy. The mini golf was pretty good, a very interesting course although it could have been improved if the grass had been mowed beforehand.
The sumo-wrestling in inner tubes was a little on the tiring side but fun none the less. I had a slight advantage in the group that I joined, as I was a little bigger than the others, and the only guy
The 12th grade boys had a great time going around arresting people and putting them in jail until they would pay to be released. Quite a little money making business, someone would pay to get you put in jail, plus they could pay more to keep their name a secret. But the prisoner could pay more to find out who the scoundrel was that put them behind bars.
But by far the most popular attraction of the day was the ferris wheel, or ferris square if you you want to be more precise. This was built by one of the men here back in 1995 and is operated each year by the 11th grade boys. They sure must have been tired by the end of the day, they were busy all day pushing people around and around. I decided to cut them a bit of a break and I just watched.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
News from the kitchen
For those of you who read my blog during my year in Vancouver, you may recall that I would regularly post reviews of various meals I had enjoyed cooking. I realised that I have not been doing that lately so I thought I would take this opportunity to tell y'all about my recent experimentation with the middle eastern favourite falafel. Sorry I don't have a camera any more so there are not photos to accompany this review, you will have to use your imagination.
Falafel are little fried balls made mainly of chickpeas (or Garbanzo beans whatever you want to call them). As the selection of meat here is not all that great I have been finding vegetarian dishes to be more and more of an appealing option lately, especially dishes using chickpeas. I first tried my hand at making falafel a few months ago, the first attempt was not bad, definitely a recipe I considered worth trying again and experimenting a little with. The second time I forgot a vital ingredient, flour is essential to help the falafel hold together, after trying to shallow fry a couple of them I found that my oil was extremely dirty and my falafel were very small. So I added the flour and reshaped all my falafel then tried again, still using the dirty oil. They were
not all that good and it kind of put me off attempting them for a couple of months. Then last week Chris and I were deciding what to have for dinner and I suggested trying falafel again. As good as falafel are, they really need something to go with them, some kind of sauce or dip or something, so I decided to try another chickpea staple, hummous. Wow, what a great meal that was, who would have though the humble chickpea could so easily be made in to 2 wonderful dishes. The unfortunate side effect was the strong taste of garlic left in my mouth for the rest of the evening, but that is a small price to pay. I was so impressed by the falafel and hummous that I thought I should share the experience with others, and as Deb has frequently had Chris and I over for dinner I thought I would repay the favour. So on Wednesday I invited Deb over to share in the falafel experience. This time I decided to try a slightly different recipe, as I had not been entirely happy with the texture of the previous attempts. This recipe involved rolling the falafel in sesame seeds before frying. It was a great idea, the sesame seeds added a little crunch and tasted just superb. As I had planned this meal a few days ahead I made sure I had other sauces available as well, well actually it was just more hummous and some unsweetened yoghurt, but it was certainly a great addition to the meal. Then to make the meal complete I baked some pita bread, and to my surprise they actually worked pretty well, good enough for us to stuff them with hummous, yoghurt and falafel without them falling apart.
So now after these last 2 falafel experiences I am right in falafel mode again, and each time I go to the store I can't resist buying another can or two of chickpeas, just in case. I have my eye on a rather yummy looking eggplant dip that I spotted in a magazine the other week, so maybe I will have to try that with my next falafel adventure.
The Golf Course
Well once again it has been far too long since my last blog update. In my last post I hinted at an upcoming review of the Ukarumpa golf course so I guess I should start with that.
On my first day here in Ukarumpa I was having lunch with the Hinton family and was pleased to learn that Ukarumpa has it's own golf course, and whats more membership fees are non-existant (well I think they are anyway). I was eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to display my prowess with a golf club, and pretty excited at the prospect of driving a golf ball while at such a high altitude. The boost that would do to my ego would be substantial I am sure, I mean who wouldn't be impressed by 350 meter drives? After expressing this to a few people I was informed that the golf course was not really that kind of a course, it is more of a pitch and putt kind of arrangement. Furthermore it is not a full size pitch and putt, there are 3 holes and 3 tees so if you play all combinations then you get a 9 hole course, play every hole twice and there is your 18 holes.
I didn't hear much more about the golf course for a few months, when I made a passing comment to someone that I had heard there was a golf course somewhere but I had not yet seen it. In reply I was told that I have walked or driven past it numerous times. When they explained exactly where it was I couldn't get myself to believe them, it looked like a small vacant section, awaiting the time when the number of staff here necessitated the addition of a couple more houses. Melanie and I decided one day to find out once and for all if this was in fact the golf course, so went in search of tell tale signs of a golf course, the holes. This was not an easy task as the grass was kind of long at the time, but eventually I found evidence of the existence of the golf course, 1 hole partially covered by grass but most definitely a hole non the less. It turns out that the guy who was maintaining the course is not in Ukarumpa at the moment, he is either on furlough or gone for good, I'm not sure which, so the course was in a state of disrepair. Rumour has it that there has been a renewed interest in the golf course and it has been mowed now so I will have to check it out some time.
The entire course, all 9 holes
On my first day here in Ukarumpa I was having lunch with the Hinton family and was pleased to learn that Ukarumpa has it's own golf course, and whats more membership fees are non-existant (well I think they are anyway). I was eagerly looking forward to the opportunity to display my prowess with a golf club, and pretty excited at the prospect of driving a golf ball while at such a high altitude. The boost that would do to my ego would be substantial I am sure, I mean who wouldn't be impressed by 350 meter drives? After expressing this to a few people I was informed that the golf course was not really that kind of a course, it is more of a pitch and putt kind of arrangement. Furthermore it is not a full size pitch and putt, there are 3 holes and 3 tees so if you play all combinations then you get a 9 hole course, play every hole twice and there is your 18 holes.
I didn't hear much more about the golf course for a few months, when I made a passing comment to someone that I had heard there was a golf course somewhere but I had not yet seen it. In reply I was told that I have walked or driven past it numerous times. When they explained exactly where it was I couldn't get myself to believe them, it looked like a small vacant section, awaiting the time when the number of staff here necessitated the addition of a couple more houses. Melanie and I decided one day to find out once and for all if this was in fact the golf course, so went in search of tell tale signs of a golf course, the holes. This was not an easy task as the grass was kind of long at the time, but eventually I found evidence of the existence of the golf course, 1 hole partially covered by grass but most definitely a hole non the less. It turns out that the guy who was maintaining the course is not in Ukarumpa at the moment, he is either on furlough or gone for good, I'm not sure which, so the course was in a state of disrepair. Rumour has it that there has been a renewed interest in the golf course and it has been mowed now so I will have to check it out some time.
The hole.
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