"Barbie Girl" Stamp

I was intrigued with Santi's status on facebook, it says: Santi still feeling hysterical with the 'barbie girl' stamp :D.


The term came from after chatting with moms at her kids' school.


And of course I was curious and want to know what is "barbie girl" stamp, so here is the definition:


Wives who follow husbands moving around the globe have the tendency to live like happy go lucky girls forever. In a sense that those wives never really touch the reality of the local culture, hardly ever need the urgency to earn money. When...ever they start doing something, it's time to pack and usually it shatters their focus, which, most of the time changes their initial goals when arriving at the next destination.

I miss you all, heaps

Nearly 2 years since I left Jakarta my home for 30 years and move to Canberra, it has not been easy but I have to admit it that it has not been that hard too because not long after we arrived in Canberra we joined the AIFA (Australia Indonesia Family Association) which has been great to help me settling in. And voila I met new people and make friends.

The hardest part living in a new place is leaving your comfort zone, family and friends, I really miss my friends in Jakarta and it's hard. But I am grateful that I met new friends well in fact good friends in Canberra, yes you know who you are ;).

Shinta's Arabian birthday celebration, Canberra. I wish I was there with you ladies

Hike to Liduduhniap Twin Waterfalls

We join hiking club in Pohnpei so every Sunday afternoon we gather at the appointed place to meet up with others before we head off to the hike destination.

Today is our second hike, we gather at the movie theater parking lot (oh yes in case you are wondering Pohnpei has cinema and the movies are quite up to date Wall Street is playing there now) at 1pm and wait for the others before we head off to our hike destination. This is an easy hike to Liduduhniap Twin Waterfalls in Nett, those waterfalls are on Nanpil river. The administrator of the hikers club will inform on the email about the difficulty level on each hike and as this one is easy so we are eager to go and also our hiking shoes just arrived on Friday. In this hike you can swim in the pool at base of one of the waterfalls.  We carpool part of the way up the road and walk the rest.  

This time no guide is needed, but there is an entrance fee of one dollars/person charged by the family that stays near the waterfall. 

Well to be honest this time is not actually hike as we parked way too close with the waterfalls, so we just walk for 5 minutes and we have arrived at the first waterfall yeah it was a hard work :p. Some of us are really eager to get sweaty so we decided to walk further down to the second waterfalls, it was a bit slippery and steep and the result I fell on my bum, hard. Guarantee of sore bum tomorrow :(

It was a good day to swim on the base of the waterfalls.

Tour to the Pohnrakiet Nahs village

Two weeks ago Saturday, October 2nd, We were invited to attend and ovserve the cultural weaving, carving and ivory nut jewelry making at the Pohnrakiet Nahs village with the FSM Vice President's wife and other diplomatic corps. It was an interesting experience to know their culture as We are new to this island.
The Polynesian moved to Pohnpei in 1918 brought by the Japanesse administrator because the island that they used to live in experience drought. Now the Polynesian live side by side with the Micronesian in Pohnpei.

My Project Update - Grow babies grow

This is dwarf bean 1 week old, it's growing and looking good.

The Iceberg Lettuce 1 week old

I think I mixed up the Cos lettuce seed with Broccoli, let see when it grows which one is this one.

 

My Project Update

Sam helped me to do the dirty job, preparing the potting mix in each pot and plant some seeds. I also started to plant more seeds yesterday so hopefully in couple of weeks I can see it grows, fingers cross.

Saying goodbye in Pohnpei

This post triggered by my book club reading last night about the Grief Ministry, so We shared about what We know about death and how we handle the funeral as the last effort to say good bye to the deceased.

In Pohnpei, the funeral feast is the largest and most important form of feast held on the island today. Interment usually takes place within twenty-four hours of death. The funeral feast lasts for four days. Family members, fellow clanmembers, and close friends remain together for an additional three days of feasting.

One good example of Pohnpeian culture is funeral or "mehla" in their language. When a person dies, the family has a lot of responsibility to do. The family with some members of the community will get together to set up their place before the big crowd comes in. They will clean their place, set up the cooking place, etc,etc. In the meantime, somebody representing the immediate family will go to the radio station and put up an announcement of the deceased. Some men will go to the king or "nahnmwarki" for invitation or "luhk". This invitation goes to the nahnmwarki of the place the funeral will be held at. For example, if the funeral will be held at U municepality, the invitation will be given to the nahnmwarki of U.

My Project

As you know from my previous post that finding fresh produce is a challenge in Pohnpei, so I decided to start veggies garden.

I have brought over the seeds from Australia: cucumber, capsicum, iceberg lettuce, cos lettuce, italian parsley, curled parsley, tomato, oregano, corriander, thai chilli, broccoli & dwarf beans.

The gardener has cleaned up the 6 unused pots I found in the garden, what I need to do is to buy the soil and the potting mix from Ace Hardware and it ready to go. The soil around the compound isn't good for growing things as it full of rocks, well maybe if I go to the drive way and get the soil from there it could be work but I'm too lazy to do it so I will settle with buy the soil instead. Another thing I need to buy is the glove for gardening, mind you that I don't like my hands to get dirty with soil :)

I have succesfully grown chilli and basil back in Canberra but no luck with the tomato, I don't know what went wrong with the tomato. The basil and chilli has grown beautifully, but when the Winter is approaching I have to give up my basil and chilli before it all freeze and dead from the cold.

Let see how it goes this time, hopefully I will be success with my veggies garden. I will keep you posted on the progress.

Wish me luck!

Flower Power

 Enjoy the flowers that grow in my garden, you will see that there are some flowers grow in Indonesia.

My First Book Club

I went to my first book club tonight and it was fun eventhough I haven't read the story but the ladies were welcome and nice.

The Book club started in February this year if I'm not mistaken and become regular activity for some women who like to read and interested to get together and discuss about the reading. The book club is a regular meeting every week on Wednesday night. Since we would like to meet more often than once a month so the administrator choose short story instead of a book for the reading material. But usually in every book club meeting we are not only discuss about the reading but we also talk about anything. Mind you we are women, we like to talk!

Tonight's story is about Cactus. Don't ask me about the story because I haven't read it yet, because PW told me about the book club at 4pm when I was in the middle of my exercise and since we're going tonight so I have to cook dinner earlier. Yeah that was my excuse :)

Mr. Husband and I have different interests in what kind of book we read, yeah of course I like to read girly book (his nick name for my books) because there are no car chasing or fighting or blast or whatever men like to read. So this book club is a good opportunity for me to meet new people, share thoughts about the reading itself and about any things related to living in Pohnpei since I'm the newbie.

So who said that living in Pohnpei is boring?

It's so far than boring, there are a lot of stuff that I can do. Book club every Wednesday night, volunteer at the public library every Thursday, tennis lesson every Saturday, hiking every Sunday and functions yes lots of functions.

I will write more about my other activities in the coming posting, it's my bed time now. Ciao!

It's a tough life

Living in a small island in the North Pacific like Pohnpei can be a tough experience.

Especially if the scenery you see is something like this on a daily basis ;)

Week 3 in Pohnpei

Time flies and it's week 3 already, We have moved to our house for 2 or 3 years and our personal affects have arrived from Australia.

I worked really hard for 3 days to unpack and arrange our stuff so We will feel at home at last. With our stuff inside this house We defenitely feel at home. Before come to Pohnpei I have printed and framed some Canberra photos I took, those photos will remind us on our home in Australia.

I'm still adjusting and settling in but so far I can say that it's been good. Although there are compromises and sacrafices that We have to make, well it's a small island in the North Pacific after all it's not developed country like Australia.

Fresh produce is a bit hard to find, the supply depends on the shipment came to this island which is every 2 weeks. Sometimes the shipment didn't bring any fresh produce but something else like canned food and other stuff, then We have to wait until the next shipment comes. There are local produces like cabbage, eggplants, banana, cucumber, papaya, kedondong (I don't know what you call it in English but the locals call it toys) that We can find all year long. Apples have steady supply so usually in the big shops you can find it everyday, but with variety quality some are good some are bad. Good tomato is really hard to find even after the shipment came, usually the tomatoes are moldy when it gets here. After the fresh produce shipment came the shops will be full with fruit & veggie like lettuces, capsicums, red cabbages, broccoli, nectarines, peacheas, carrots, celery and bakchoy and etc. I went to the shops last Tuesday after heard the news that shipment came on Sunday, and when I walk in to the shop I was in panic mode seeing all those fresh produce, I want to buy it all :D. Easily available doesn't mean the price is cheap, some are bloody expensive some about the same price with Australia. A big and beautiful looking nectarine cost $5.75/pounds so when I pay at the cashier I was in shock to find that 4 nectarines cost me $14.70. Sometimes I just don't care about the price and just buy it because I really want it and I don't know when that stuff will be on the shelves again.

Meat & chicken supplies mostly frozen, so there is a special trick to see which one has good quality and edible. The fish mostly fresh and the best place to get fresh fish is Simon market. We can not scale & gutted the fish so when I go for fish shopping I always ask Simon to do it for me, I miss fish fillet like in Australia. I bought yellow fin tuna once and ask him to fillet it but when I got home I find that he cut it in big cube. Canned fish like tuna sardine and mackarel are everywhere, so we stock that up too for alternative of fresh fish.

Most food in this island came from America which I find it too sweet for my liking. All the cereals are American products with full of sugar, even the baked bean is sweet. Good thing We brought over 12kg of weet-bix from Australia. Even the bread is sweet here, but the good thing is we can go to Grace's bakery and order wheat bread without sugar, although you have to buy more than one for special order like that.

There is no fresh milk here, but there are heaps of long live milk. There is an Australian and New Zealand brands like Pauls and Anchor milk. We have 2 cartons of Anchor milk to stock up because people keep saying that stuff can dissapear and won't be back until God knows when.

Doing the groceries shopping is an adventure because you will not find everything you want in one shop, usually I have to go to 4 different shops for every groceries shopping, it's fun hey. The trick is grab and stock up. When you see something you like just grab it and stock it up, because if you think that it still be on the shelves next time you go to the shop you are wrong. Well you might be lucky if they're still there but mostly they won't be there. I was looking for canned mushroom the other day and can not find it in 3 shops, so I have to go to every shops just to get canned mushroom.

Good cheese is really hard to find and really expensive too. Like other stuff most cheese are American's product, the cheddar is in orange color which we're not used to. And no blue cheese :((.

There is one asian store called Yoshie, but they sell mostly Japanese products.

It takes time but I am sure that we will used to this stuff eventually, bear with us.