For the last year, I've been working hard to produce healthy meals. Of course a lot of items have to be cooked from scratch.
Our staples from the store are wholemeal flour, eggs, meat, brown rice, vinegar, olive oil, milk powder, tomato sauce/paste, salsa, refried beans, some herbs and spices, and occasionally low-fat cheese.
From the vegetable market and our garden we enjoy broccoli, green beans, carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, onions, asparagus, a couple of vegetables that I don't know how to describe in English, and black beans.
I like to cook big batches of different foods, so the freezer has become one of my best friends (or often, my biggest enemy, as I try to cram everything in)!
This is what is in our freezer at the moment:
It's probably not too obvious from the photo what in there, but the list includes wholemeal tortillas, chicken, crocodile meat (not home-produced, obviously!), Italian sausage, frozen chicken stock, chicken bones to make into stock, black bean soup, frozen yoghurt (to be mixed with with water and milk powder and made into fresh yoghurt), BBQ sauce, grated cheese and black beans (raw, cooked and refried).
That wasn't the most exciting picture ever, so here is one of Heidi watering the mint growing just in front of our house:
Faced with large electricity bills (often over £150/$200 a month), we decided to follow the lead of other families on centre who have reduced power usage by switching to LED tubes. Here's Andrew (apparently just home from work given the grease smudges on his face!), installing a new LED in our kitchen.
As well as the lights inside our house, we also have several lights on the outside to deter thieves. So a lot of the electricity we use is for lights. We also, of course, use electricity for appliances and electronics. Our oven runs from gas bottles, and the sun heats our water (or doesn't heat it, if it hasn't been a sunny day!)
We are often asked where our electricity comes from. We get much of our power from the national grid; power is produced at the hydroelectric plant at 'Yonki Dam', which is located here in the Eastern Highlands Province. We also have back-up generators on centre that start up if the national power is down. Andrew has been involved in working on these generators, as well as on generators at other centres around the country where Wycliffe members work.
Here is a photo of Andrew and colleagues helping upgrade the power cables that bring electricity onto the centre.
In the last month we had the excitement of a visit from my (Clare's) parents, Rob and Jenny Noble. We all had an excellent three weeks. The bulk of their time was spent here in Ukarumpa, but we also spent a couple of days on the coast. My parents were struck by the beauty of the place and enjoyed getting to know friends of ours from many different countries, all here to support Bible Translation in various different ways. The best part was being able to spend time together as a family, and of course Levi and Heidi loved every minute that they got to be with their Grandparents.
My parents were excited to eat bananas from their garden!
Have you visited Andrew's blog? If you'd like to know about vehicle rescues, bridge crossing problems, international travel and many other fascinating topics related to being a missionary motorbike mechanic, visit http://pngandrew.blogspot.com/ and read stories written from Andrew's unique perspective. As of this week you can subscribe by email, and have new entries come direct to your inbox.
For those of you who would rather see pictures of family life than of vehicles and machinery, here is a photo that you won't find on Andrew's blog:
Winter may be approaching for many of you, but that's certainly not the case here in Papua New Guinea. While there is no chance of riding in a sleigh, Levi and Heidi are enjoying their rides in a one dog open wagon!
