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:
One of the most common questions we get asked is, "What do you eat?" The photo below was taken in the store here in the Ukarumpa centre. As you can see, we are fortunate to have access to basic food supplies. We generally have an adequate range of key ingredients, though we can never guarantee that a particular product will be in stock at the time we need it! Since getting back from Home Leave, we've already gone through one week when there were no eggs for sale at all.
What might you expect to pay for these products? Here is what we would need to pay for them in various locations and at different times:
| US$
| UK£
|
Cheapest US Price
| 21
| 13
|
| Cheapest UK Price | 23
| 15
|
| Current Ukarumpa Price | 51
| 33
|
2004 Ukarumpa Price
| 21
| 12
|
(For more information about how I came up with these figures, see our next blog post)
I won't pretend to understand all the reasons for these price differences. I do know that some of these items are imported specially because they are not items that Papua New Guineans would normally use. The increase in strength of the Papua New Guinean Kina against the dollar and pound has made a big difference to us over the last several months; this is one of the reasons that the basket of food above costs more than twice as much as it did in 2004, when Andrew was already living here and I was preparing to come. And of course all of you will have noticed the increase in food prices worldwide over the last few years.
Fortunately we are able to buy fresh fruit, vegetables and beans from local growers at an early morning market here on the centre. The prices are often lower than they would be in our home countries, and so we are eating a lot of market produce right now!
Increased cost of food is one reason why our expenses are significantly higher than they have been in the past. Of course we also have one more mouth to feed now. So far, Heidi seems to be enjoying food as much as the rest of us do!
Praise God:
-Levi has been healthy and happy since we sent out our January update asking you to pray.
-For financial support from a range of sources.
-For those who keep the store stocked with basic ingredients for cooking.
-I (Clare) am balancing my time and energy better.
-Two new Wycliffe members will soon be arriving to work at Autoshop.
Please Pray:
-That we will receive sufficient support each month to cover our outgoings. (Our positions are non-salaried and so we rely on God to provide for our needs through churches and individuals).
