Week 5 already



With the start of Week five the half way mark for this term arrives. Five more weeks and we head to Hawaii for R&R.

 Nothing outstanding has happened, although cause to celebrate as we have had a record string of about 4 days with no interruptions to the water supply.

 Cooler weather is also now the norm, particularly in the evenings and morning before the sun rises at 7am.

 Last week we went to a Quiz night at a Billfish, in Nuka'Alofa. While our team of five (the maximum allowed per team, without penalty) were keen our enthusiasm did not reflect in the final results unfortunately. It was the Tongan round and the mystery location (Osaka) despite many photos we were unable to identify it. Still a fun night. It's monthly so we will try again in June to do better.

 Form 5 (Year 11 age group, but academic standard slightly lower) had their first National exam on Friday. It was an Aural with the passage recited over the radio for all of the country. It is still to be marked as we are given the answers next week. Quite a quaint experience, not without its hiccoughs, including the deputy suggesting he'd tape the passage in case boys missed the answers in the first two recitations. I suggested that may not be kosher.
A slow weekend after another victory for the schools First XV on Friday afternoon.

 Lettuce picking was Saturdays highlight. The school has a Chinese sponsored program where 5 Chinese blokes have a farm is all funded and organised by the Chinese government. They plant, care for and grow capsicums, lettuce, beans, aubergine, tomatoes, corn and run a bio diesel plant (using pig waste) to power a couple of houses.
Sounds good?? Well their role is not to harvest but to grow so... the food predominantly falls to the ground and then they plow it over and start again. Waste?? You bet!!

 Greg in his wisdom has marketed the produce to the local cafes and restaurants very successfully so with the dilemma of who is responsible for harvesting we (yep Greg and I are now seasoned farmers) go and collect 30-60 lettuce and myriads of beans and capsicum on Saturday evening for Monday delivery. (Absolutely no work Sunday) this is all currently on the floor in our spare room!!

 It was terrible to see beautiful ripe big red tomatoes on the ground rotting (they sell at market for between $3 and $5 each!! But our home made pizza Saturday night had fresh capsicum, salami (we brought from Sydney), very tasteless US olives, NZ onions, Italian imported Mozzarella cheese with garlic/chili/tinned tomato base. All in all, very pleasant.

 Thursday will be the highlight this week as we have a dinner invitation to the home of a local business woman. An urbane 40+ cafe owner, Western Union office owner, landlord extraordinaire and generally great woman with a 14 year old son and a 17 year old daughter at boarding school in NZ . Looking forward to it.

 News is that the cyclone relief container is due this week, it'll be a bit like Christmas. That's mostly because we have little recollection of what is in it so lots of pleasant surprises.
That's it for this week,
Cheers
Mary

Comments

  1. SarahN @ livetolist13 May 2018 at 00:46

    That spare room seems to have a very organic decorating style hahaha... I often wonder if I was labouring whether our bodies would be better than desk bound? But I suppose it's a lot of crouching?

    ReplyDelete

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