Around Port Vila Friday 3 August 2018

A few happenings for us over the last week

The mango trees are out in flower.  Already the fruit are around 2 centimetres long after a week.  The fruit will be ready to eat about the 2nd or 3rd week in October.  

Bronwyn Fraser arrived in Vila with Natasha from Uniting World Church in Australia.  Bronwyn was showing Natasha around Vila and introducing Natasha to the PCV. Natasha will be taking on the roll of Gender Programme coordinator for Uniting World in the Pacific.

Natasha on the left and Bronwyn on the right.

Before Bronwyn and Natasha's arrival we had a major crisis, we ran out of Marmite and we were reluctantly using Vegemite.  The SOS went out on Messenger, send emergency supplies. Bronwyn and Natasha arrived with two jars of Marmite. Two 250 gram jars, tank yu tumas yu tufala.  Not sure where they found it in Australia, as I suspect that Marmite is a prohibited food in Australia 😂

We are watching the progress of a building not far from our flat.  It has a great view over the harbour.

Campbell, a New Zealand builder, arrived this week to build a house for the Ni Van family of a NZ friend of his. Neville Jones was in contact with him and asked me to assist Campbell (Neville is in Australia for a 10 day holiday). The concrete slab for the floor had been poured before Campbell's arrival.  Campbell spent his first few days in Vila sourcing materials and here is the timber arriving.

Our Friends Rosemaree and John Redshaw arrived this week. They work for Crossing Cultures International, providing theological training for trainee Pastors. They also saw our SOS for Marmite and they arrived with a further 2 jars of Marmite (500 gram jars) So we now had 1.5 kilos of Marmite! They took one of the 500 gram jars and will pass it onto a Ni Van pastor they know who likes Marmite.  Here we are together, a break during a Farkle Game

Farkle is a game played with 6 dice. Here are some of the rules. It is very similar to the game of Greed, though much easier to carry around as you only have the 6 dice.