Articles

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Here are the articles that were in the local papers about the student trip to Goroka, one is in ‘The National’ and the other is in ‘The Reporter’ (Unitech’s paper).

The National001

The Reporter001

Avocado

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

I bought an avocado the size of a cantelope today:

I cut it open and it’s perfect!

So I make chilled avocado soup, yum!

This is one of my favorites that I have developed here based on some internet recipes and the availability of local ingredients.  Super quick.  The basic recipe:  avocados, onions, garlic, cucumber, yogurt, some ice, limes or lemons and some spices, no measurements just add based on preferred taste.  Blend and chill.

Anzac Day

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Today I woke up at 4:30 to attend a dawn service for Anzac Day.  It is at the Lae War Cemetery and the Aussie’s and Kiwi’s go to commemorate the soldiers who were killed and wounded.  The War Cemetery is immaculate, which is very unusual for Lae, and it’s a nice place from which to watch the sun come up.  It is followed by a breakfast at the Yacht Club.  They serve coffee with a shot of rum because apparently all the soldiers were given a shot of liquid courage before going into battle.  Hm…?

For some reason a beer follows my coffee and I think I’ve hit a new ex-pat low – drinking before 8 in the morning.  Somehow another beer shows up before the first is gone – seriously guys!  I don’t finish the second, I really can’t bring myself to.

Now I’m at the Melo, enjoying the peace and quiet of a Sunday afternoon, catching up on posting pictures and news in New York.

Curtains

Saturday, April 24, 2010

After two months Wendy has moved into her new place which is directly behind me.  It’s great, we just yell off our back porches (our neighbor is going to hate us).  We talked about building a screened in bridge to connect our back decks, but maybe that’s going to far…  

She is slowly settling in, Cain has been working in her yard and the gas was hooked up yesterday, she’s still waiting for a hot water heater and her cargo to arrive (now estimated for mid-May – 4 months!)…  We went to pick out material for her curtains this week.  Wendy wants to use the bright fabrics you can find here so I helped her, and considering the available options, I think we did pretty well…

Office:  

Living / dining room:

Guest bedroom:

Graduation Day

Friday, April 23, 2010

It is all pomp and circumstance today for the Class of 2009 Unitech graduates and campus is exploding with the 910 graduates, family and wontoks.  It’s an amazingly beautiful mixture of the traditional western 12th century scholastic gowns worn with various traditional Melanesian headdresses from many different regions of Papua New Guinea.  The mothers, sisters and aunties decorate their graduates with shells, feathers, billums, armbands and other symbolic pieces.

It works out well having a professor who graduated from the same grad school so I am able to borrow his gown for the ceremonies since he wears the official Unitech gown.  As we are waiting (a couple of Melanesian hours) for the guest of honor, the graduates stroll around taking pictures and then finally line up by department.  We watch them walk by and then the lecturers line up behind the students to enter the big tent where the ceremony will be held.  The drumming starts and then the war cries and dancing – no Pomp and Circumstance playing here.  I can feel the war cries go right through me.

As we walk towards the tent the family members line up against the ropes taking photos of us – I take pictures of them in return.  Family members and wontoks sit outside of the tent during the ceremony listening intently and cheering every once in a while.  There are the usual graduation procedures, prayers, introductions of important people, handing out of diplomas, congratulations, and then the speeches.

The speeches have the tendency to go on and on here, and today is not an exception.  They talk a little about the graduates, their potential, their new responsibilities to their country and a lot about the state of the country.  There is one mandatory ‘Yes we can’ reference but the highlight, for me, is during the  Vice-chancellor’s speech when he states that his grandparents were cannibals.  Then the acting PM speaks, he also assigns them a task.  Near his village he sees young girls walking 5 miles three times a week to cut firewood all day before walking 5 miles back.  He wants them to find a solution for these girls so that they do not have to spend all of their energies on these tasks.  Both the speeches are mostly politically/economically oriented and it seems to cast a slightly somber mood over the occasion as we proceed out of the tent at the end.  There is no throwing of headdresses, no cheers, and no beach balls being tossed among the graduates.  They are very respectful and the event is observed as a serious occasion – the celebrating will be done later.

Seasons

Friday, April 23, 2010

In much of the world there are four seasons and it is a common ‘fact’ that in the majority of other parts of the world there are two seasons:  ‘hot’ and ‘wet’.  At first glance Lae seems to fall into the second category with Dry Season (very hot and humid) and Rainy Season (hot and more humid).  But, tonight I learn that there is actually a third season which seems to have begun this week:  ‘Earthquake Season’.  Earthquake season typically occurs before the rainy season  Tonight was the third earthquake in 6 days, all over a category 5.  We have a game for this in which we all guess what scale it is, at the end of the Earthquake Season the person with the most wins will get a prize.

‘Pre-Goth’

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

So yesterday I collect my third-year students sketchbooks for a review and as I am going through them I come across a list of about 12 typologies which includes ‘casual’, ‘professional’, and so on with names attached to the various qualities: ‘Casual – Dr. S – car + clothes,’ ‘Professional – Dr. G – dress’ –  Within that list I see my name attached to ‘Pre-Goth,’ the cause – my dark clothes.

Yes, admittedly I own a lot of black clothes, I am an architect and lived in New York City, what’s wrong with dark clothes?  Black always looks good, it’s easy and it’s a ‘requirement’ of my profession.  I’m not sure if  ‘Goth’ has the same associations here as it has in the states but am curious to find out.

Today as I’m doing desk crits the first student I meet with is the owner of this particular sketchbook – I can’t help it but have to ask so I decide to tease the student a little bit about the categories.  He turns bright red and explains one of the girls in the class wrote that and he forgot it was in the sketchbook.  I laugh, it’s quite funny.  He comments that when I first got here I wore a lot of dark clothes and they were putting people into various categories for fun, I was assigned ‘pre-goth.’

The girl who actually categorized me happens to be one of the last students I review and so when I get around to her I ask about it.  I think she about dies of embarrassment and covers her face.  ‘It’s really ok, and quite funny I tell her’.   She explains that because of all my dark clothes she thought that maybe I was ‘Goth’ in high school – so it does mean the same thing here.  Interesting because I haven’t seen anyone dressing ‘Goth-like’ at all.  What’s even funnier is I don’t know if I could’ve been further from ‘Goth’ in high school.

We chat, she wants to know if New Yorkers really wear black a lot, I say yes, not everyone but a lot of people.  She asks,

‘Sorry, can I ask?  How do you find us?’

Hm…well, hm…what does she mean?  How they dress, how do I answer?

‘You guys are students, you dress like students anywhere.’

And it’s true, they dress casually like any group of students I have seen anywhere (minus those on Gossip Girl).  There aren’t shops to buy ‘cool’ clothes here, only the second hand stores.  She tells me most of their clothes are second hand.  Which I am aware of, but the second hand shops here are actually decent with plenty of stuff that is brand new (I just don’t like to dig through overflowing racks of clothes, plus a lot of them are not air-conditioned, and so to be honest, in some of them I have a very difficult time handling the suffocating heat and the ensuing smells.)  However, a lot of people find some very cool stuff and I have to say they are quite well-dressed.  The second-hand shops carry, if you are willing to really search, some very nice and fashionable items for next to nothing.  I keep hoping someone will do the digging for me.

Then she wants to know

‘Sorry, can I ask?  How do you find Lae?’

Hm…how do I answer this one,

‘Well, I was told Lae is a city, so when I got here, I kept looking for a city (still haven’t found it).’

She laughs.  Lae isn’t a city by international standards but for Papua New Guinea it is the second largest in population in the country.  I continue

‘The town itself isn’t that great, but the people are great.’

This surprises her, she tells me that most of the expats she knows complain about the people.  I suppose if you don’t bother to get to know anyone then it’s easy to complain (not much else to do here), but when you get to know the people here they are really great.  We chat a bit longer, and this is what I love, getting to actually know the people.

Am I going to keep wearing black?  Yes, as a matter of fact today I am wearing all black.  It’s easy, everything matches and it’s what I have.  Although, now I mix in some colors and beige thanks to Wendy’s handy-me-downs and my mom for sending me some light colored shirts.  Admittedly, black does get really hot in the sun.

Tahini

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

After months of not being able to find Tahini in any of the 3 grocery stores a friend of Wendy’s sent it for us and it conveniently arrived yesterday, on her birthday.  Just in time to make birthday olive hummus before going out to celebrate at Jack’s Bar – pizza and SP’s.  Today we are at Anderson’s looking at the limited olive selection and what does Wendy see, but jars of Tahini sitting in between the mayonnaise.  It seems that you will go months here without being able to find stuff and then suddenly the grocery store will carry the item, well, for a limited time.  When you see something you’d better buy all that you could possibly use (before it goes bad) because it will likely not be there the next time you want it.  Needless to say we now have a year’s supply of tahini.