What is next.....how much more exciting can it get?

The Bakso man!

Rather than eating at the base again, we decided to travel  the few kms to Kusiri township, where there is a mobile restaurant, otherwise known as 'the Bakso' man, trading in the side street.  In the pouring monsoonal rain we got our bowls of what was basically a broth with tofu, boiled egg, beef balls, and noodles.  About $8.00 for four of us.

Bule

This is a term that we have become quite familiar with.  It means 'foreigner'.  And the Bule, were certainly a sight for the locals on this occasion.   

  Then back to the house for cola and Farkle(go on look it up).

The local taxi. Ox cart.

Sunday the day of rest began with a fruit salad breakfast, and it was surprisingly almost a tropical fruit salad, who'd have guessed!

Lisa, Rheese(NZ) Kevyn, and Sandie.

A Sunday visit to the hospital saw us eat at the base, rice chicken and noodles.

The 'ladies' were invited to the Scarborough's on Sunday afternoon for a local cooking class, led by Esther, and they made puffy steamed pastry, with coconut stuff inside it, and steamed banana stuff in banana leaf.  As you can deduce, cooking, too, is not the author's strong point.

The steamed pastry thingies.

Electricity.

The electrical infrastructure on the Island of Halmahera is such that, with apparent randomness, sections of the island are just cut off the grid for , one, two, three, or more hours at a time.  I am sure that there is a plan, but it always pays to have a torch handy, especially for the medical staff, even in the middle of the day.  The mission has a big diesel generator that is turned on if the power goes out at night, it kicks in.  During the day, it is just get along without it.  This is fine, unless you want water from more than one tap at the hospital, as the pumps supply all but one, gravity fed tap in the toilet.   There is a mission to sort out how we can get more taps that work, when the electricity goes out.

The tap thatworks

The medical reality

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