Geriatric OE

The weekly musing of a couple of Kiwis on their geriatric OE in The UK






Tuesday 13 August 2013

A little more PNG

The Man and I have been away for the last few days, hence I've been posting things that I have prepared earlier. Here's a bit more about PNG. I'll tell you all, well some at least, about where we've been.

1996 Life in PNG  was different from anything else I had experienced, it could have been another planet. 
I joined up with a group of wives and began to play canasta every Wednesday. Joined the CWA and took part in coffee mornings. A bit of normality in the midst of living in another culture. 
I bought veggies at the local market and tried the different looking vegetables. All green leafy veggies were ‘kumul.’ That word covered a huge variety of greenery, anything from what looked like watercress to the tips of young been shoots.
Generally I could buy tomatoes and cucumbers and potatoes, The local potato was kaukau, a kumara cousin but much sweeter tasting, especially the golden one. 
Apart from the plentiful banana, especailly the tiny ladyfinger variety that tasted divine,  and the  heavenly sweet pineapples we thought that the tropical fruits such as mangoes or pawpaw were a bit insipid.
I missed the sharp tang of apples, juicy sweet peaches, and tangy nectarines.
Andersons, the local, European style, supermarket imported ‘ordinary’ food from Australia, but at a huge cost. Two litres of ‘real milk' sold at fifteen kina, almost fifteen NZ dollars,  So The Man and I got used to long life milk.

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