Village life

Our neighbour lady and mother of the two girls in the photo below - MaToi, and one of our compound sisters - Betty.

'Our' girls, Toi and Halli.  They are the joy of many of our days!!

Three of our little friends, Toi is in the middle

Halli and her cousin Suki

Meal time.  They eat with their hands around a communal bowl.

The fishermen came in while Sonia and I were waiting for our boat.

Our garden with corn and watermelon

The ants came when the rain came.  Yuck!!

I found this on the path outside our house one day

The remains of a giant centipede who dared enter our house

Local food - Mataba

This is the beginnings of what we call 'Mataba'.  These leaves are from the Cassava plant, add some garlic, onions, chilli peppers and salt and away you go.

Pound it altogether in this giant mortar and pestle.

After pounding, it ends up looking like this.

Grate some coconut (thanks Becca), then squeeze out the milk.  To get the milk you add small amounts of water and squeeze the shavings.  You repeat this until you have your desired amount of milk or until it gets to watery.

Add the coconut milk to the leaves and simmer away until the milk has evaporated.

The green on this plate is the final product.  This was our Christmas lunch last year.  I forgot to take the final product photo of my cooking session.  It may not look like much but it really is delicious!!

Finger infection

A gross cuticle infection called a 'paronychia'

Minor surgery done by a doctor friend to release all the grossness (i.e. pus)

After the minor surgery and a week of antibiotics which we bought over the counter without a prescription for less then $2, the infection cleared up, but my fingernail lifted from the cuticle.

This is what it looks like today

A cold morning...

They are squished, but warm

Banana Tree

Our backyard and banana tree when we moved in

Our banana trees now, 8 months later

It has flowered

The bananas

Baking without an oven



Baby giant sea turtles

The baby turtles as they hatched and came out of the sand and headed to the sea.  How they knew which way to go, I don't know.

Reaching the sea...This was a awesome site, to watch them swim away into the deep.

This speaks for itself.  It was exciting and amazing.