Chronicles from the Fields...: First Few Weeks Back

We arrived back in Sentani a few weeks ago. With the help of our househelper, we unpacked our whole house in just a few days. This was great, because once the house was in order, I had to get my classroom in order. The first week of school felt like I was just keeping my head above the water! It's difficult teaching new classes and having a short time to get ready for them. This second week of school seems to going much more smooth.

Here's some photos of our first few weeks here.

This is our first meal that we cooked at home. There's stir-fried veggies, chicken crispers, and (of course) rice. :)

We took a trip to the local mall where the pizza place is. They had a stage set up in the middle of the mall and crowds of people were surrounding the stage. People were lined up around the second floor so they could look down on to the stage. It was a highschool dance team that was doing a pop-and-lock dance (I think that's what it's called).

I watched them dance, and this little one was watching me.

After we got our pizza to take home, the place was empty because two guys started singing karaoke. :)

This first week we did some airport pickups. Some other friends were coming back from America and needed rides from the airport to their house. We picked up two families, but I only took photos of one. I'm sure you'll see some more photos of our friends. :)

One of our favorite things to do is to watch American Idol each week with some friends. We watch it with a couple and then a single gal who works with me at the school. Our group is a bit different than last season, because the couple moved to a different part of Papua, Indonesia. So on our first time together, our friends brought over an Idol cookie cake. :) It was so good. We don't LOVE American Idol, but we like the chance to hang out with people on a steady basis.

While we were away, YAJASI, the Indonesian organization that Josh works for, got a makeover. The process had begun before we left but made a lot of progress while we were away. The man overseeing the project has done an absolutely fantastic job! He has been patient, even when supplies didn't show up. It looks great!

A more recent adventure we had was filling up the car with gas. We have two gas stations in town. One was out of diesel, so we headed to the other one. The line was about six trucks long. We had a bet going about how long it would take. We only waited for about 10 minutes before the attendant allowed us to go into an extra place to bypass the long line.