We’ve discovered a nice half-hour walk that loops around our neighborhood and allows us to take in the local flora and fauna. We’ve haven’t checked out a good bird book from the library, but they have several, so we’re going to work on that. We’ve also seen a number of interesting bug and butterflies, most of which have beautiful and bright markings. Diana enjoys watching the people as we walk, and has even tracked the flying birds a few times.

Emily was able to get out for dinner with a friend sans Diana this week, which was a big treat. The Lupe club is never disappointing with food (except the desserts, which Em has too high standards for). We also borrowed a bunch of DVDs from friends (bootleg DVDs are about $1 in Timika, so they had stacks and stacks). Only when we got home did we realize that we’d grabbed almost entirely heavy dramas, but we’d also gotten the first two seasons of the TV show “House,” so we’ve been catching up on all of the rare diseases known to mankind. Watching a few episodes a week does make the US seem not very far away.

Diana has been getting one “solid” food meal a day, and seems to be enjoying her rice quite a bit. Ben does the feeding since Diana is a little too distracted by Em to focus on eating. She is sitting up on her own quite well, and is starting to sleep on her tummy at night. It’s still so new to her though that she will sometimes wake up a bit disoriented and unsure about why she’s upside-down. But she’s been very happy lately. Her top two teeth haven’t broken through yet, still just little white nubs under the skin of her gums, but they don’t seem to be bothering her too much.

We grabbed lunch downtown on Sunday for a change. Em got the tofu with bok choy, and Ben got the “Chicken Gordon Bleu” (sic). Both were tasty, and the mini egg rolls were delicious. We’re still feeling pretty healthy food-wise compared to our life in Arizona, and we’re doing better about cooking at home rather than going to the café. The grocery store is also stocked with all kinds of new and different foods (the snack food aisles seem particularly strange – tons of jelly snacks and green bean flavored drinks).  When Em goes shopping on Saturdays, she likes to bring home at least one new thing to try or just laugh about (see pics).

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We started out the month of March with another wonderful brunch at the Lupe. We have been experiencing technical difficulties with our internet connection which has been a bummer. But Diana and I have been busy at home learning all sorts of new things.

Diana has been discovering the joys of her Johnny-Jump-Up and all of the new sounds she can make. When she’s fully rested, she also seems to be able to see and smile at faces on Skype. She at least can recognize high-pitched voices and she squeaks back accordingly. After two successful attempts with butternut squash, she seems no longer interested. We keep offering it to her every other day or so, but aren’t too worried since she’s clearly a healthy, happy baby. She still has never been sick which is a huge relief. In fact, none of us have gotten sick in the month and a half that we’ve been here, either from the food/water or the new germs, despite all of the dire predictions of some of the other ladies here.

Whenever Diana and I go to the little store down the street, the two ladies that work there both fuss over her, and we’ve learned some new Indonesian words thanks to their interest. Diana is still working out new faces, and is usually happy being talked to or held by a stranger, but sometimes she’ll do her full-lip pout and cry. I still haven’t figured out what causes it because she’ll do it to folks that she’s met before and been happily held by.

Otherwise we’re all happy and still enjoying things here. We’ve met a number of new folks and families we like spending time with, and have a couple of playmates lined up for Diana. Will post more photos (and possibly a video or two) when we have the bandwidth.

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Diana Skypes Grammy

Zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Sproing!

Earth Baby

I got to taste some butternut squash this week and it was good!  It took me a few bites to figure out how to swallow it, but then I was really excited to try more.  I also got to hold a sippy cup and try to drink from it, but I mostly just chewed on the spout. 

Beef, it's what's for dinner!

I have been staying up for 2 hour stretches during the day, and taking two 1.5 hour naps.  My naps are supposed to be 2 hours too, but I usually wake up early and start giggling to myself.  I usually get one shorter nap in the afternoon and then daddy is home when I wake up.  I always give him a big smile when I see him.  I have started getting a bath before bed which I really like, especially since I get to kick my legs and splash water everywhere.  I still don’t really like to go to bed at night, but last night mommy plugged in my little moon night light and that seemed to help me since I was able to put myself back to sleep when I woke up at night. 

Milk fiend!

It has been raining a little more this week, but that has been the most exciting thing going on.  Ben is starting to feel more comfortable at work and some of the stuff that we left lying around the house when we unpacked is starting to find its place.  Our new maid Annie started on Thursday, but we’re just having her stop by and help clean up for a few hours.  Most of the expats have live-in maids and nannies and our house has a maid’s quarters, but we aren’t ready for that!  Annie will hopefully help us keep things a little more tidy during the week.

Today we went grocery shopping, got new books from the library, put stuff away around the house and then went for a walk.  It was very foggy when we went to Family Shopping for our groceries, but it has cleared up a bit by now – although it has been raining off-and-on all day.  Pretty typical weather for a rainforest!

Life in Hidden Valley continues smoothly.  Our little neighborhood is a loop that is the perfect length for a brief walk after dinner (if it’s not raining too hard).  We’ve been meeting more people, mostly ex-pats.  Hopefully as we get more confident with our Indonesian we’ll be able to talk with more locals.

Emily’s met a few ladies who are starting a Tuesday/Thursday play group.  Most have at least two kids (several have 4 or 5!), and Diana is one of the youngest, but it’s nice to know that there are lots of other children in the neighborhood.  There may also be a toddler/baby swimming class coming up soon, so there are plenty of organized things for the stay-at-home moms and their kids to do.  Diana has been adjusting really well to life here so far (as you can read below).  She’s able to focus on smaller things now, and enjoys grabbing at the flowers and ferns that we stop to look at.  She’s a little short compared to the average baby, so she’s just fitting in her 3-6 month clothes.  Luckily she’s stopped spitting up so much too, so we don’t go through so many outfits in one day.

Our dining experiences have continued to be very good.  The café down the street has wonderful food for about $4, so we’ve gotten take-out a couple of times a week.  Neither one of us has gotten sick, and we’re certainly eating healthier than we were in Morenci.  We’re able to get enough familiar food at the grocery store to feel comfortable, while also getting some things that weren’t readily available before like fresh lemongrass and passion fruit.  We are also having fun noticing the Asian knock-off products in the store (Happitos, instead of Doritos, Mister Potato – who is Mexican with a sombrero instead of the Pringles barbershop-looking guy, and a Dolce & Gabbaa handbag, etc).  

Working for the Underground Geology Department has been a lot of fun so far and also difficult since Ben doesn’t have any specific projects or duties to work on.  The department is small with only fourteen geologists (one other expat) and five samplers (hourly guys).  The other expat is originally from Holland so Ben is the only native English speaker in the department.  Most of the other geologists know some English, so he usually kind-of knows what’s going on with work, but can’t understand the small-talk & gossip.  Most of the geologists are younger than Ben and they laugh a lot and often sing a bit when they’re driving underground to wherever something needs to get done.  (Maybe a result of karaoke or maybe why they like it…)  After three weeks Ben has visited all of the underground mining or development areas which have fun names like Big Gossan Mine, Deep Ore Zone, Kasuang Drift, Grasberg Ventilation Drift, Amole Tunnel, and the Common Infrastructure project.  The project that Ben might end up working on involves the development for the Grasberg Block Cave mine which will eventually be the underground mine directly under the Grasberg open pit.  Right now, they are drilling rock core holes to determine if one section of the rock is solid enough for a room about the size of three football fields (!) where they can put the underground crushers.  (The Grasberg Block Cave will be the largest of its type when finished with only El Teniente in Chile being close.)

We’re finally here!  After wonderful vacations with our families in Vermont and Michigan, we got on the long
flight to Indonesia.  We stopped over for a three day mini-vacation in Bali, which was a life saver.  We were
able to catch up on sleep and get over our jetlag a bit.  We stayed at a wonderful little resort, and never
left!  We were feeling a bit like we should go out and explore, but decided it was better to relax and let Diana
catch up on sleep and have regular naps.  Plus, the food was great there, and we enjoyed a bit of Asian television to help adjust ourselves to life here.  The resort also had a spa, so we got massages before heading off to Papua, which was wonderful! 

We got to Papua without incident and Zulfiadi, our HR liason, drove us up to Tembagapura.  The drive is
unbelievable!  Near-vertical at times, gravel, and all kinds of twists and turns.  Diana slept through it all,
which was a huge relief.  We got shuttled around town to set up bank accounts, get library cards, a PO box, phone service, etc.  We also picked up the one box of airfreight that was waiting for us.  We were really excited to see what it was, but a little dissapointed to find that it was just baking supplies.  Maybe we’ll make cookies this week while we wait for the rest of our things to arrive.  We had lunch at the cafe at the Family Shopping Center and were immediately set upon by a horde of ex-pat wives.  It was great!  They were really welcoming and helpful, and then two came over to our apartment that first night to bring Em the Ibu (Ladies) Phone List and make sure we were settling in ok. 

We ventured on the bus to the shopping center on Saturday and ran into Jamie, a co-worker from Morenci who has been here since November.  It was nice to see a familiar face, and we decided to meet up for brunch at the Lupe Lelah Club on Sunday.  Grocery shopping was a little stressful since almost all packaging is in Indonesian.  Food was pretty easy to figure out, but we had a hard time trying to figure out which of the various chemicals might be a bathroom cleaner.  They seem to have a lot of Windex-like products, but nothing to fight soapscum.  Maybe if you have a maid who cleans the bathroom everyday, you just don’t have soapscum… 

Sunday we got a ride to the Lupe for brunch which was unbelievable!  Aside from the pasta/omlette/crepe/schwarma/dessert bars, there were plates of smoked salmon, avocado salad with walnut dressing, roasted duck, pork loin, an amazing eggplant and cheese cassarole, and much much more.  The variety and quantity of food available was far beyond anything we expected.  And it was an expensive $12!  We’re already planning to have dinner there on Saturday which the calendar says is “For the Gormands.”

Emily, Diana and I are currently on our Family Tour of Vermont and Michigan!  Emily and I have sooo much to talk about after a whole 10 days apart.  The Morenci house was left mostly empty and we managed to sell all of our appliances thanks to the last minute purchase of our heater by our friends Russ & Laura.  We are awaiting the arrival of our new laptop and our passports, but everything is on track for a January 10th departure.  Also, Diana is still cute: