We have been back in the Solomons for almost a week now. It has really gone fast. The first few days we concentrated on getting our cargo that was shipped off the wharf. We accomplished that on Friday afternoon and have slowly been getting things put away.

This week we have opened a checking account, gotten our cell phones up and running, purchased internet time and dongles and learned how to purchase power for our house.

When we left the Solomon Islands four years ago, we closed our account with the electrical company. When renters started living in the house, they had to have ‘Cash Power’ installed. The same power company provides the service, but a special meter was connected to the house that uses a pre-pay system.

Now when we need power we go to the electricity office located in one of the shopping malls and tell them how many dollars of power we want to purchase and they sell us a voucher with a special code. When we get back to the house, we punch the code into the control panel of the meter and we are good to go.

We will need to be on our toes to make sure we don’t run out of power unexpectedly. The power is generated by diesel fuel-fed generators. The fuel is imported and expensive so electricity is expensive as well. Tim calculated the cost of the power here – we are paying ten times as much as we did in Dallas. I can tell you that I have become fanatical about turning off lights and ceiling fans.

Another project for this week was to complete Sarah’s application for her student visa for PNG. We needed a couple of documents we didn’t have including a medical report and a chest x-ray.

We found a doctor who could do the exam right away and she sent us to the hospital for the x-ray. Once at the hospital we had to walk to the far end of the complex to the cashier’s office. This is the window where you pay for x-rays, medical tests, morgue charges and embalming. The charge for the x-ray was $20 Solomons – less than $3.00 US!

There wasn’t much of a line in the x-ray department and soon we had the film in our hands. There is no radiologist at the hospital to read the x-ray – the one radiologist the Solomon Islands has is currently in Taiwan for six months. We took the x-ray back to the doctor who read the film and signed the x-ray form for the visa.

We were able to lodge all the documents at the Papua New Guinea High Commission and were told to check back on Thursday – the last day to pick up the visa before we leave on Saturday.

On Tuesday, Tim was at the High Commission to lodge our visitor’s visa application and was given Sarah’s passport with a TWO year student visa stamped inside. Yeah!

(It’s now Wednesday)

Today I went back to the bank to pick up our checkbook. You know you live in a small place when the woman at the bank saw me and went and got my checks without asking who I was or what I wanted. She pulled out the ledger for me to sign for the checks when she noticed that the checks said, ‘Watzke’ instead of ‘Matzke’.

The remarkable thing about getting checks here is that someone with a rubber stamp with removable type and an inkpad actually stamps the account number and name on each check. So, it’s back to the bank tomorrow to pick up another checkbook with the correct spelling.

While I was out this morning I went to a small grocery store that often has a ‘mark down’ area. Usually things in this section are nearly to their ‘best buy’ date. With the high cost of food here, I’m happy to buy things that are marked down. Today there was a bag of ‘icing sugar mixture’. Icing sugar is the Australian name for powdered sugar and ‘mixture’ means that some corn starch was added to keep it soft.

In this case, the corn starch didn’t work and the bag was full of hard clumps of sugar. It wasn’t enough to put me off – I figured I could sift it again and it would be ok. I took the sugar home and sifting it was slow and not very effective. I tried hammering it with a small meat mallet, but that only turned the big lumps into small ones.

Then I decided to try something drastic. I pulled out the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchenaid mixer and started feeding the lumps into that. Warm, almost finely grained powdered sugar began falling out of the holes. Success! I’m not sure when I will need the sugar, but I will have to try and use it before it returns to cement again.

a new use for a meat grinder – powdered sugar grinder

Sarah is transforming her bedroom from the Narnia theme of her youth into bright and funky teenage colors. She won’t be using this room much, but she is enjoying making it look fresh and new again and ready for her return at Christmas.

Out with the old Narnia theme

Another project we will need to tackle is cleaning out our rain water tank. Rain water is collected from the roof, runs through gutters and into a fiberglass water tank below the house. Tim filled our 5 gallon water cooler and carried it up to the house for us to use for drinking water. He held a small plastic strainer under the watertank tap as he filled the cooler to catch anything that might be in the water.

Apparently the strainer isn’t fine enough because today when I filled a jug with water, I noticed little mosquito larva ‘swimming’ in the water. We will have to clean out the gutters and put in the gutter screens we brought to keep them cleaner. The water tank will need to be cleaned out and then refilled when it rains again. Basic living in the tropics takes a lot more time than it does in the USA. We are looking forward to being well set up and functional!

Our small neighborhood valley has changed over the years since we purchased this house in 1998.  Houses have been built on small strips of land that we never would have guessed could be big enough for a house.  With more houses have come more people and dogs.  It’s much more common these days to have the quiet of the valley displaced by the sound of a radio and children playing.

Sometimes in the night the ‘Howl-lelujah chorus’ of dogs disrupt our sleep.  And sometimes we wake to the sound of intoxicated young men in a taxi with the radio blaring or sitting on our cement driveway in the wee hours of the night.  That is not so pleasant.

This morning I heard some young men just outside our gate talking in loud voices.  I suspected that they had just come up the path from town where they would have been drinking.  I have to admit that I find the noise and beer cans left on our driveway an irritation.   I decided to walk out and talk to the young men and ask them to move on to their own homes.

As I walked I tried to brace myself to be firm, but kind in the way I talked to them. It doesn’t pay off to get anyone angry.  When I got to the gate I was surprised to be greeted by name.  ‘O Mata, yu kam bak nao!’  (Oh, Martha you have come back!)  Two of the young men are nephews of our neighbor.

The third young man walked up to the gate and greeted me as well.  He told me he was the son of a friend from our church.  When he was a young boy, we gave his mother, sister and him a ride to church.  The father did not attend church and this faithful mother worked hard to encourage her children to follow Christ.

As I began to talk to this young man with his glazed over eyes, I asked him, ‘Why are you letting alcohol destroy your future?’  Maybe the alcohol loosened his lips, but he began pouring out his story.  He was the only one in his family who had gotten to the level of schooling that he has reached.  He had dreams and ambitions, but he had caved to peer pressure.  And he hasn’t been attending church.

I reminded him that God loves him and he allows people to turn their lives around.  I reminded him that he has a gift – his intelligence and he shouldn’t waste it on alcohol and not doing his best at school.  I reminded him of his faithful mother who must be praying for him and crying over him.  He got teary eyed and replied, ‘Yes, always.’

The conversation continued and as I spoke, he kept replying, ‘that’s true’ and ‘you’re right’.  It was if he has been waiting for someone to speak the truth to him

I asked him if he would like to do a job for us – cleaning out our gutters.  He said he would like to and would come back later today.  I told him I thought that was a good idea since I wanted him sober if he was going to be on the roof!

He reached though the grid of the fence to try and shake hands.  I put my hands up to the gate on my side and he pressed his hands up on the other.  “Thank you” he said.  I don’t know if he will truly change his ways, but the conversation at the gate sure turned out differently than I thought.

I’m thankful to be here.  Thankful for the years we have had here that have lead to long term relationships like this one.  I’m even thankful for gray hair and being listened to like an ‘aunty’ would in this culture.

Please pray for this young man I’ll call, ‘Sam’. Pray that when he is sober, he will return to church and return to his walk with Christ.

We got an early start this morning as we had a lot of ground to cover.  The morning’s travels took us through rolling farm lands covered with velvety green grass and dotted with sheep and cows.  Being winter the sun is low in the sky and the cows and sheep cast long shadows across the grass.

We traveled to Napier to where we enjoyed morning tea with our friend Jenny and her 3 little girls.  Husband Morgan was at school and we didn’t get to see him.  We know them from the Solomons.

Then back in the car and we traveled to Whakatane where more Solomons friends, Sarah and Ivan live.  It was great to spend the evening them and their lovely daughters. After a yummy dinner, they surprised me with a birthday cake.

Tomorrow we head back to Auckland and prepare for an early morning departure for Australia and on to the Solomon Islands.

[Show as slideshow]

We woke up to overcast skies and it wasn’t long before it was rain was falling.  We had hoped to get up early and see the sun rise over a lake, but the weather didn’t cooperate.  Our next stop was to be Franz Josef Glacier, but again the weather made hiking in to see it difficult so we kept driving north and toward the west coast of the South Island.

By lunch time we found ourselves in Hokitika – a gold mining town.  We decided to walk around town and look in some shops. Today was my birthday and Tim was encouraging me to pick out a present from New Zealand. The first stop was a glass blowing shop.  They had beautiful pieces, but truthfully, after just packing up the house in Dallas, I don’t want more knick knacks in my life.

The next shop we visited was a jewelry store specializing in jewelry made from locally mined gold.  We found a small sterling silver pendant filled with tiny gold nuggets.  I decided that it would make a good souvenir and it’s easy to pack!  So i picked out one and we went on our way.

We wanted fish and chips for lunch and checked the restaurant next door to the jewelry store.  The fish and chips were $20/plate which was too much. So we stopped a teenager and her grandmother and asked where we should go for fish and chips.  They sent us to a small shop on the beach front.

The total bill for the three of us was about the same as one plate at the other restaurant.  This shop didn’t accept our debit card so we had to go to an ATM and get some cash.  We have been in New Zealand for more than a week and today was the first time we had to get cash.  Pretty incredible.The fish and chips were yummy and we enjoyed sitting in our car and eating lunch.

On the road, we drove along until we came to the “Pancake Rocks”.  We got there just at dusk.  From there we drove on to Westport where we are staying in a backpacker’s lodge for the night.

dsc_0319

Image 1 of 16

Today we left beautiful Queenstown and drove up to the top of the mountain to see one of the ski resorts.  From there we drove through Arrowtown – an old mining town which was quaint and full of beautiful cottages.

Then we took the road less traveled through the mountains to the west coast.  The road took us alongside two beautiful lakes and the views were just stunning.  The amazing blue color of the water surrounded by majestic mountains was almost unbelievable.

Once out of the mountains the scenery changed and we began to signs of agriculture again.  The road led to the coast where the sun was beginning to set over the pounding surf.

We arrived in Fox Glacier just in time to take a walk up to where we could see the lower end of Fox Glacier.  It was getting dark, but tomorrow may bring rain so we wanted to see it while we could.

The place where we are staying tonight has a small kitchenette so we bought some groceries and we made our own dinner tonight.

It’s hard to believe in less than a week we will be in the Solomons.  We are enjoying this trip very much, but I think we will be ready to be done with long days in the car and settle into our home in Honiara and our work.

Enjoy the photos from today – which REALLY don’t do justice to what we saw with our eyes!

[Show as slideshow]

We woke to overcast skies and before long the heavens opened up and it was raining quite steadily as we left the home of our hosts. Our first stop was the Dunedin Train Depot – Victorian era building which boasts being one of New Zealand’s most photographed buildings.  It was interesting and had an art gallery upstairs that we walked through.

From there we went to find the worlds steepest residential street.  We drove up to the top and then had to turn around as it is a one way street.  Now we can say we’ve been there and done that.

We traveled through some amazing country today.  We decided some of it would have been perfect for Lord of the Rings filming (but it wasn’t as far as we know).  The rain slacked off as we traveled and the sun started breaking through.

After arriving in Queenstown, we traveled on to Glenorchy – a small village at the end of Lake Wakatipu. The lake is surrounded by steep mountains and we were told that the lake is as deep as the mountains are high.

Tonight we are being hosted by a family in Queenstown – again, friends of friends.  Soooo grateful!

[Show as slideshow]

Today we traveled on from Christchurch to Dunedin.  It was another beautiful day and we were blessed with warmer than usual temperatures and more clear skies.  The scenery was breathtaking in places as the ‘Southern Alps’ stretched out before us. We traveled a more interior road for most of the way rather than the coastal road which would have been a bit faster.

Our hosts last night told us of a place where Lord of the Rings was filmed.  We were interested in seeing it but were sure where to go and if the road would be open due to the heavy snow last week. A farmer was working with his sheep, so we stopped and I asked him about the film location.  He thought the road was still closed so we gave up on that idea.  However, we did get to watch the farmer on his ATV and his sheepdog herd the sheep from one pasture to another.  It was fun to watch them in action.

We stopped in a town called Oamaru.  It was so fun.  Many of the old buildings in the city were built of marble because the close proximity of a quarry.  Walking the streets in the older part of town truly felt like a walk back in time.

We also managed to visit a beach were penguins come in.  It was so fun to see some penguins in the wild.

We are in Dunedin tonight.  The sister of a  friend in the Solomon Islands helped us hook up with this lovely couple.  We have been truly blessed by the hospitality of New Zealanders.

[Show as slideshow]

The ferry arrived in Picton – the tip of the South Island at 9 pm, 30 minutes earlier than scheduled.  We stayed at a backpacker’s lodge and took off in the morning.  The South Island looks less green, but still has pastures of cows, sheep and even deer.

One of our stops was Kaikoura where we wanted to see seals.  We stopped at one point where we could pull off and saw a man climbing on the rocks.  It turned out that he was with the Department of Conservation and was looking for a seal wrapped in fishing net.  He asked us to help him look for the seal and when we spotted it, he put Tim to work to try and help corner the seal.  The seal evaded capture and slipped into the sea.

The man then invited us to go to a nearby waterfall where the seal pups navigate the river and go play in the falls.  Each year the new pups find this waterfall.  We had a delightful time watching the pups play.
From there we traveled further south.  The views are amazing. We stopped in one small town and bought buns filled with cream.  A yummy treat to enjoy as we walked along the boardwalk.

Then on to Christchurch.  We drove through downtown where so much damage was done a few years ago by two earthquakes.  There is much construction going on.

Today we travel on to Dunedin.

[Show as slideshow]

1 2 ►

Our opportunities to be online are not predictable.  I’m trying to catch you up on our travels and will let the photos tell you about yesterday in Wellington. The photos are in a new format – be sure to see all of the photos by clicking on the ‘next’ button.

We had a lovely visit with Heather, our family friend who we got to know in Honiara.

We took the ferry to Picton – in the South Island and head to Christchurch this morning.

His eyes followed us everywhere

Image 1 of 17