Mijts Blog

Last night we went to a dinner party – held at the house of a member of the local Chinese community. As usual we were offered a wonderful banquet of food and enjoyed a great variety of delicious dishes such as lobster salad, coconut battered prawns, fish, pork and beef didshes, spring rolls etc. The […]

Garbage collection is a bit ‘hit and miss’ here! It is also very different to the automated garbage trucks they use at home. The company pays the local government authority to have our garbage collected once a week but it is rare for the truck to come weekly. It had been over two weeks since […]

Last Saturday was Kayline’s second birthday and Toshi will turn 4 in a few weeks time. We will be in Australia when Toshi has his birthday so told Stephanie (our housemary – and their mother) that we’d fund a combined birthday party for them. We view Stephanie and the children as part of our PNG […]

As I have mentioned before, we regularly have gurias (earthquakes) here – but they are relatively minor and you get used to a gentle rocking of your chair or bed. We had one about 20 minutes ago that seemed to last longer than usual and when the whole house started to shake sideways so much […]

Nick and I are both prolific readers! With no books available to purchase here in Kokopo, we have both purchased a Kindle (electronic bookreader) and we constantly use them – they are probably our most valued possessions over here! At first we bought just one but soon realised that sharing just wasn’t possible! We soon […]

After 3 weeks in Brisbane, I returned to PNG just two weeks ago. A couple of days later we joined some friends with a boat to go to Little Pigeon Island for a Barbeque. Little Pigeon is a small Island about a one hour boat trip from Rabaul. There are no residents on this Island […]

I now have quite a collection of baskets and a few bilums too! Most of these crafted items come from the highland areas of PNG. They are hand crafted and real works of Art. My BASKETS serve a variety of purposes – as well as just being for decoration. This recent addition to my collection […]

In PNG, children generally don’t start school until they go to Elementary school (Yrs 1 to 3) in the year they turn eight. Primary school is Years 4 to 8 so most children are at least 16 years old when they finish Primary. Many children do not go on to Secondary school. There is still […]

At Open bay, the company has an area in which special guests plant a tree in memory of their visit. Nick planted his tree on his first visit a year ago. I was quite ‘tickled’ when told that I would be also planting a tree. We went out on the Friday afternoon in pouring rain! […]

On the Friday that we were at Open Bay we drove to various sites at the main camp and then in the afternoon one of the managers took us for a tour of the plantation. A visit to the clinic was interesting – the only medical service in the area. Open Bay timber company assists […]