"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!