The emergence of motorbikes....

Times, they are a-changin'

After my first couple of trips to PNG, a few people asked whether or not people rode motorbikes (like in SE Asia). After chuckling, with the slightest hint of condescension, I said no, it’s too dangerous. Besides the roads being of poor quality, the threat of being attacked or ‘bike-jacked’ would be too great.

However, in the past 10 months since arriving in Port Moresby, there has been a change. Little by little I am seeing more and more motorbikes on the roads. At first, it was the odd police motorbike. Then on one occasion, a group of expat guys arrived at the coffee shop I was at on their road-registered trail bikes. It struck me as odd, but figured that they must have felt there was safety in numbers.

And now I see at least two to three motorbikes everyday on the roads around Port Moresby. There’s the Dad that I see each morning taking his child to school on a bike near Boroko (wearing a bicycle helmet and thongs – I’m not even going there). There’s the middle-aged expat I saw yesterday riding some kind of cruiser that was nicely polished up. Not to mention the random nationals that I see around the place riding their bikes around town, too.

There really seems to be a change of atmosphere going on in POM, and the emergence of motorcyclists is just one of a number of minor observations that I’ve been making around town. I'm also seeing more and more expats walking freely on the streets. I’m not sure if this change is due to the recent Pacific Games, or what it is. However, it’s certainly refreshing to see more people (including expats) feeling much more comfortable and secure in what is generally considered an unpredictable environment.

What a difference a few weeks make.....

So, where were we?

I think last post I was talking about living at the Holiday Inn. Well, we've just moved out to a 2br villa out near the airport and are very happy. The sweetener was that we didn't have to pay a bond - awesome.

The downside is that we now have to pay for internet, electricity and gym fees (just like everyone else, really). And the commute to and from work/school is a bit further. However, where we are living is like a little village. We have a private courtyard, there's space for Matt and I to run, the kids can go exploring or bike riding. We've got a little IGA within the grounds, nice cafes and restaurants too. Matt commented to me yesterday that it feels more like a 'home'.

My biggest love of our new place is that we have an oven! Yes, an oven! At the Holiday Inn we only had a tiny microwave/convection oven/grill thingy that didn't perform any of those functions particularly well, and couldn't fit any cookware in it either.

Tonight, the kids are excited that we can make homemade pizzas because we can now fit them in the oven! Woot Woot! I even have a great paleo pizza base recipe that Matt loves, and allows him to eat 'pizza' with us.

It's the little things that make a big difference up here.

The most important and exciting news is that Mum is arriving today! I'm so excited to show her where we live. I'm heading off shortly to pick her up from the airport. Yay!

I will post some pics of our new surroundings soon.

Til next time....

We've hit the half-way point....

Today marks exactly 6 months since we arrived, and 6 months until we come home.

It feels like we’ve been here for a lifetime, and I mean that in a good way. While some of my family may not agree, this has been an amazing 6 months, and something that I never thought would ever be a possibility.

Whether we come home or not in 183 days remains to be seen.

There have already been discussions about the likelihood of a contract extension being offered. I’d love to stay a bit longer. I have suggested to some that the inclusion of school fees in any continuing contract would certainly sweeten the deal. However, our final decision will lie with the family as a whole.

Breanna has put in a request that our next overseas move should be to Fiji or Vanuatu – I like her thinking!

Whatever we decide, I have absolutely no regrets about embarking on this adventure to the ‘land of the unexpected’, or as I like to call it ‘ the land of the WTF’

Til next time…….xx

Sunday Serenity

Sorry for my rant the other day. I was feeling frustrated and torn and just needed to vent.

While our apartment might be tiny, it's still better than how many PNG nationals live. Plus, I can't put a price on the convenience of living so close to school and work. My colleagues that live in town are constantly complaining about the commute to Waigani. The traffic in Port Moresby is really bad. Between the terrible condition of the roads,  dodge cars, generally poor driving skills, and lots of congestion,  driving anywhere is often frustrating a slow.

As I'm sitting here by the pool, in resort style surroundings, I think that this place isn't all that bad. It's modern, clean and secure, with all the facilities that we need. Our apartment might not be spacious on the inside, but it meets most of our requirements, and it's a damn sight better accommodation than many of my colleagues have in the settlement areas.

In good news, my Mum is coming to visit next month. Yay! I can't wait to show her around. Matt is heading to Manila with some friends, so Mum will play 'house-husband' for a few days while I'm a work.

I'm going to try to climb back aboard the blogging wagon and post more regularly.

To finish, this is my view today

Til next time......

What to do?

So this is our dilemma. We’re living in a 2br serviced apartment at the Holiday Inn. It’s new, it’s clean, secure, there’s a pool, big grassed area, restaurant/bar, a gym, free satellite TV and internet.

But….it’s tiny. The apartment is essentially 3 rooms of similar size made up of two bedrooms and a central kitchen, dining a living area. The kitchen doesn’t have an oven, just a combined microwave/convection oven/grill that is about the size of a microwave, and the fridge can barely hold our weekly groceries The boys, because they stay home all day, are feeling isolated and trapped.

So we thought we’d look at other accommodation options. The problem is that anything we like either wants a 12 month lease minimum (I currently only have just over 6 months left of my contract), or they want and excessive amount for a rental bond – 6 weeks rent at K6,000 per week is K36,000 which we don’t have.

Matt is counting down until my contract expires and we can go home. However, Bree and I would love to stay for longer. In our current living arrangements there is no way Matt will budge on this. However I’m hoping he’d be happier if we moved somewhere where we’re not on top of each other, and thus possibly increasing our chances of staying a bit longer.

But we have such a sweet deal at the Holiday Inn – we have everything we need included (except space and other families around), we’re close to school and work, and we’re not having to fork out for expensive internet, electricity etc etc. The boy’s Homeschool meet ups are just across the road, and Matt can go to the gym every day. With the exorbitant cost of Bree’s school fees (just under AU$7,000 per term), we’re struggling to save any money, so getting all the inclusions at the Holiday Inn makes a huge difference.

However, some of these perks are also making life miserable. The unlimited wifi means Bree shuts herself in her room to stream music from YouTube and lives on Instagram. And having 3 TV’s with their own satellite decoder boxes has further fueled Lachie’s love of TV.

 Living up on the 4th floor keeps us fairly secure, but it means the kids can’t just go outside to play on their own. Plus the security guards tend to freak out if they see unaccompanied white kids roaming around the grounds.

It’s really hard when half the family wants to pack up and go home early when the other half want to stay longer.

Having said that, I am missing our beautiful ‘new’ house back home. We weren’t even there for a year before we packed up to take on this adventure.

But I’m genuinely loving it up here. It’s such a great adventure. Things frustrate the hell out of me every day, but its part and parcel of the experience. The official PNG tag line is ‘the land of the unexpected’, but I think that’s the politically correct way to say ‘land of the WTF?’ because I ask myself that question multiple times every single day.

I’m so confused and torn at the moment and there doesn’t seem to be any ‘right’ answer.

Sorry for the vent…….