Dear Family & Friends,
Halo everyone, well I figure what a better time to reconnect with you all than at Christmas!! I firstly need to apologise for being so lax with keeping in contact with you all this year. I could launch into trying to explain why this was and at the same time try to explain the very random place our family has been in this year but that would probably take pages. And lots of you have heard bits and pieces either directly or indirectly via the grape vine, or as we say in Vanuatu the “coconut wireless!!” So instead I would prefer to skip all that and just share with you some of the stories and highlights from the year 2010.
Well life has been very interesting for us the last 12 months. For those of you that don’t know, in March Mal returned to Adelaide, to get the truck and the business up and running again. The girls and I stayed, initially living in our house at Bellevue which we were renting. But then around the same time I was fortunate to get a job working at the resort where we stayed when we first came to Vanuatu for a holiday, called Lagoon Beach Resort Apartments and in April I made an arrangement with the owner (now my boss) and us girls decided to move into an apartment here. This was a positive move on all fronts, closer to our ni-van family across the lagoon, easier for me to be at work and with the girls, girls take 2 minutes to walk to school, girls get to meet strangers (on holidays) and have made some very good friends from various parts of Oz and NZ, (this is where the majority of our guests come from.)
Initially I started out doing an inventory of the resort and making sure things got fixed and replaced. The owner was in the throes of buying another resort and so wasn’t keeping on top of everything. I then started doing all the enquiries and reservations and before long found I was left basically managing the whole place. This has certainly been a very interesting and challenging experience and it has definitely had its moments, but overall I do enjoy it as I have found all of my acquired life skills are certainly being utilised. My struggles have been that I am doing it with very little support, as the owner is usually too busy running the other resort (which she took over in July). And my other struggle has been that even though this is an amazing opportunity in many ways, (I mean how often does someone fall into a job managing a resort?) this isn’t really my field of work and definitely not what I came to Vanuatu to do. But I am learning that no matter what I am doing here there is plenty opportunity to shine Christ’s light. And there have been countless times where my Social Work skills have needed to come into play whether that be with guests or staff.
Mal has spent the year running the business in Adelaide and travelling back and forth to spend time with us. He is moving up very quickly in the frequent flyer world and now enjoys his rests in the Qantas club. Pretty sure he is on first name basis with all of the air hostesses who work between here and Adelaide. When he is here, besides spending time with us and as of late playing tour guide to friends that are visiting, he also has been trying to maintain the generator at Onesua college and being involved in the AFL here. Which is what, then led him to taking the group of boys away to Tonga for the Oceania Cup in December.
The first significant thing that happened this year was around late March, Alisha, Madison and I were all struck down with dengue fever, a quite serious virus spread by mozzie's, which was a horrible time. It is a terrible sickness and left us all quite weak for weeks afterwards. Alisha and I had it at the same time and Madison a week later. Heidi was amazing during these couple weeks as I was basically incapable of doing anything. She managed to keep up all her school work, the housework, be a mum to Zoe and Maddy and look after Alisha and me!!! (It was especially hard as Mal was in Australia at the time.) Thankfully some good friends helped out by bringing a meal to us and praise God He was caring for us and we all came through okay.
Now the girls will share:
Madison here: Besides school some things I have really enjoyed are going to lots of places with some of the guest we make good friends with. My favourite place to go is Blue Lagoon; it is an amazing blue hole which can get very deep in high tide. The water is a mix of salt water with cold fresh water. You can swim, climb trees and jump off, swim out to the ocean and my favourite is to go on Port Vila’s best swing rope! I love going on the rope and just swinging back and forth. Just down the road from Blue Lagoon is Port Vila’s best beach called “Eton”. At Eton beach there is a small hole that is so deep I have never touched the bottom which is just sand. At the end of the blue hole are some rocks that we love to sit on and have to push against the waves that come in from the ocean. There is one rock there which we jump off if it is high tide. In the hole there are some fish that are very bright and pretty. There are many other places I love to go to in Vanuatu but none of them for me beat Blue Lagoon.
MADDY’S SCHOOL: I was in year 7 this year for me in Vanuatu but I would have been in year 6 if I was back in South Australia. I have had a great experience this year at school, it has been great for me to be with so many different cultures and seeing and learning how others live. I had people in my class from Australia, New-Zealand, Vanuatu, China, South Korea, Ethiopia, Germany, Scotland, Switzerland and America. Our teacher was very good, helpful and was great support to me when I had problems with my friends. I got picked as house captain of Nakabu (red) and it was lots of fun and another excitable time! We have three main sports events each year, swimming carnival (term 1), Athletics day (term 2) and cross country (term 3). In the swimming carnival I came second in the heat for freestyle and breaststroke. Nakabu bet the other two teams Vanua (green) and Elo (yellow) by 200 points. Then in the athletics I came 3rd in the 100m and 3rd in the 200m but I had a very miner asthma attack so I could not run in my 200m final. We also did tug-of-war and Nakabu won that against both teams. We once again won the athletics day too!! The cross country was also very fun, we go to the local horse riding club and run a 2km track around the riding paths. Sadly I did not get to run because I was unwell so I helped sell cakes for fundraising. In class I really enjoyed doing art, sport, music, and writing but mainly I loved doing the math. In math I got about 90% on our tests that we had two times a term. Some other things that I really enjoyed that were new to me were the class canvas to give to the school for the art auction to raise money. Also at the end of the year our principal chooses a theme and all the classes pick a song and make up a dance to it then we perform it to the school. I found it heaps of fun being able to help choreograph our dance with lots of movement and energy!!
In September Madison decided she was missing dad too much and had a 10 day holiday with him in Adelaide all on her own. This was a very special time for them both.
I really enjoyed going to visit Dad it was an exciting time. I left with dad on the 5th of September. On our plane flight to Adelaide we could not land so we got diverted to Melbourne for the night and got to Adelaide the next morning. On Monday dad and I went to Coles to get supplies. One odd thing that I liked having was fresh milk because we only get long life here. Then I went to school to visit my friends they were all so excited to see me and it was so cool to see them. That night I went to bed and it was so weird to have so many layers on when you are sleeping, as we only ever have a sheet on us here. On Tuesday we went to the Adelaide show. It was strange seeing so many people in one place. We went on the “power serge” ride first it was so much fun even though it stopped when we were upside down. Once we had finished rides we went and did lots of food tasting, one of my favourites was the honeycomb ice-cream. We went to the pigs racing and fed and pattered some animals I loved patting the little lambs. We also went to the wood chopping and wine tasting (for dad). Most of the next days I went to work with dad in the truck which was fun because I had not gone with him in a long time. It was fun driving around and seeing Adelaide and also playing fun games with dad. On Saturday we went by bus to the city and then after we went for a long bike ride, it felt good going on a bike again I have always wanted a bike in Vanuatu it would be lots of fun. Over the weekend we visited family and friends, I enjoyed seeing everyone again, it was fun. It was really great to see Jake (Jocelyn & Jarrod’s new baby), he is so cute and Olivia was such a great dancer also made me dance. On Tuesday dad and I caught a plane to Melbourne where we spent the night at the Spikes. It was very sad to leave dad (who flew back to Adelaide after we had left) but it was also fabulous knowing that very soon I would see all of my family again and be back home. I came back with my cousin Sarah, it was great fun flying with Sarah, and she was fun and helped me when I was not feeling very well on the flight back to Vila. I had a fabulous holiday!!
ZOE here: Hey everyone!!! I don’t have much to share, so I will try and be short. My year at school has been really enjoyable. I was in year 9 (Year 8 Aus) at PVIS which is the International school in Vanuatu. I have loved being at the school because it has allowed me to become great friends with many locals (ni-vans) in my class. They are amazing people and incredible friends. School activities that I enjoyed were; a hockey program that my class did for a week, the school dance concert, athletics day, cross country carnival, swimming carnival and also giving a local kindy puzzles and books that we had made. A huge positive about going to PVIS and living at Lagoon Beach Resort (for most of the year), was that they are not very far apart. Every morning I would walk to school (which would only take a few minutes) and I was rarely late. Another positive about schooling in Vanuatu is that the school day at PVIS finishes at 1:45 pm. This is heaps awesome as it means I could finish my homework and still have hours before the day was over. Most afternoons I would enjoy swimming, kayaking or playing volleyball at the resort. Another way I would spend the afternoon is by swimming or kayaking across the lagoon to our friends in the village. I love hanging out over there with Royline, Robin, Kilip, Natasha, Keith and little baby Naomi. I love it because anytime I go to the village I know I will be welcome. Their house feels like a second home to me.
An extra-curricular activity that I enjoyed was playing netball. I played in a team at the VNA (Vanuatu Netball Association) and was honored to be a part of the under 14 national squad. This was very enjoyable for me socialising with other locals and playing a sport I love!!!
I certainly had a very memorable birthday this year. As Vanuatu sits on the “ring of fire” it is prone to earthquakes, most of the time they are just small tremors, which we have gotten very used to. I think most of you heard that on the 10th of August, we experienced a 7.5 earthquake which was as much exciting as terrifying. I will always remember my 14th birthday because of this and never forget what that earthquake felt like. It was truly an amazing experience. The aftershocks were also quite frightening as they didn’t stop for the next 48 hours and many of them were 5 and 6’s. So everyone was a bit on edge for those few days not knowing if it would get big again. None of us slept that night as the ground just didn’t stop shaking!!
Another memorable thing of 2010 for me was going to youth group every Saturday evening. A family from our church and my family organised it and ran-it. My job was to organise the weekly games. This was a privilege for me as I enjoyed leading and helping to make youth as fun as it could be. This youth group has also helped me to develop my faith with Christ.
So anyway, I love living in Vanuatu and I will always remember 2010, it was a very significant year in my life!
Hey everyone Ali here. I can't write in words how amazing this year has been. I have done so many things and learnt so much that, this past 18 months, has been priceless. It has had its ups and downs but the ups definitely outweigh the downs by miles! For the first six months that we lived in Vanuatu I attended the Port Vila International School, but as it only goes up to year 9, I then had to change to distance education (the same as Heidi) for this year. I have to admit this was a struggle at first but I did eventually get used to the idea. It was a struggle because I just didn’t feel like I was at school! Doing schoolwork on the beach and choosing when and where I want to do my work seemed a little bit too easy to be actual school. I also found that I wasn’t getting much work compared to face-to-face school, but when I thought about it and added up the amount of time spent “actually” working in normal classroom situations it was probably about the same!
One thing that Heidi and I thrive on is teenagers staying at the resort. We have lost the social interaction in the classroom and there aren’t many expat teenagers our age living here. So that’s always fun, checking out the bookings as they come in and trying to find people our age!! I now love doing school by distance, sometimes I get a bit frustrated with it but it really is great. I admire Heidi for being able to do year 12 by distance; I have motivation but not that much! She made it look too easy. I had eight subjects and seven amazing teachers. The best thing about Open Access College (the college we school through) is its amazing teachers. They were there for us whenever we needed help. You might think that that’s what would lack in doing school by distance - the teacher support. But I felt that the teachers were way more supportive than at my old schools. They all had personal numbers and email address that we could use whenever we needed. Next year I am going to be doing year 11 by distance although I’m a little nervous, I’m way more excited!!
Apart from schooling there have been other great things about this past year. I learnt a new language (Bislama the local dialect, which I am pretty much fluent in now), I got to help teach at the local Pre-Kindy/Kindy which is onsite at the resort we live at. This was amazing and is the reason I can speak Bislama really well, even though I started helping in there to help them improve their English before they start school. (All local schools here are either in French or English). I have gotten to spend heaps of time with our local Ni-Vanuatu family who live across the lagoon. We have gotten so close that it seems strange that we’re not blood related!! I was the music leader of our youth group, which meant I led the singing time every time we met and organised for us all to lead the music in church once a month.
One of the most amazing experiences for me this year was my work experience that I had to complete for PLP (one of my subjects). For this week of work experience I helped out at the Vanuatu Society for Disabled people because this is a field that I am interested in working in later on in life. This society is the only organisation in the whole of Vanuatu (80 Islands) that offers anything to people who are disabled. There are only 8 workers in total who work there, half of them being disabled themselves. The society mainly works and offers help by being an office building and a place for anyone who is disabled to come to for information and a place to go. When someone is thought to have a disability they contact the society and a referral is made, then maybe a few months later, when they can, a field worker will go out to the person and assess them. Then any help or equipment (if the society has any at the time) will be given to the family, then check-ups might happen if needed and the worker can find time. This is what happens throughout the main island of Efate.
There are another 30 or more main islands throughout Vanuatu that only have a visit from a field worker every ten years, from a lack of funds. The society is a non-government organisation which means that they stand alone and don’t receive any support from the government. The society’s only way of producing funds is through fundraising and donations. I was amazed at how the people in the society were so happy every time I saw them, even though they don’t have near enough resources or equipment to help them. I went on a few referral trips with some workers to assess some children who were disabled, which was a real eye opener. I went with to assess a little 2 year old girl who was thought to be disabled. She has severe cerebral palsy and the sad thing is she would have been a perfectly normal and healthy child, except that she was abandoned at 1 month old and became severely malnourished, resulting in severe brain damage. She will never be able to walk, talk, sit up by herself or eat without assistance. I instantly compared her to all the western children in similar situations and how their parents can order a special chair and equipment for their child, when all this girls adopted parents can do is put a piece of material in a cardboard box and hope it will be a good enough support for her. I am so passionate about this society and the work that they are doing that I talked to my old primary school principal while I was in Australia last month about doing some fundraising for them, I feel like I have stepped inside and seen what need there is and now I feel compelled to help as much as I can.
Okay I have probably written too much but there is so much to share! When Heidi and I came back to Aus last month I really enjoyed seeing all our friends and family but stepping back onto that Vanuatu plane to come home, felt right and I felt like I was going home not on another holiday. Even though we are living here and Vanuatu is home now, Australia is where I am from so I feel like I have two homes now!!
Halo olgeta, (hey everyone!) Heidi here! My turn now to give you all a bit of an insight into my life this year and what I’ve been up to. Could you really think of a harder task?! Anyway I will try my best to keep it short unlike my novel-writing sisters above but I’m thinking that may be difficult!! So I guess I should begin with the most obvious - school! To continue high school in Vanuatu, my only option was to do dist. ed. so this year I completed year 12 through the Open Access College. Pretty much in short, year 12 was awesome! I loved it. I studied English Comms, Biology, Maths Methods, Psychology & SOS and thoroughly enjoyed each subject and teacher I had.
Every week I participated in one 50min lesson for each subject, where the teacher introduced new assignments and outlined the work we needed to complete but then the rest was up to me. Thanks to Skype, I was able to join in with the weekly phone lessons but it was quite an interesting experience living overseas! The weather seemed to be the decider as to whether the internet connection would be strong and therefore how good the lessons were. Some days I would have perfect lessons and on others it would be a nightmare trying to figure out what work we were doing or what homework I had to complete! Often I would spend more time calling back AAPT (the conference centre) and waiting to be reconnected than actually listening to my lesson as I would drop out so often! Many times mum would ask “how was your lesson?” and I could only answer with, “well I learnt that AAPT have a new song as their holding tone!” I think I even got to know the callers at AAPT much better than I did my classmates!
My teachers were absolutely fantastic though and were available almost 24/7 for any help at all. I found it was an incredible experience trying to juggle my assignments and the work which had to be learnt with only the one lesson. It was a challenge but I loved that it was different and I was able to extend myself in ways I never knew I could.
At one stage our house was hit by lightning which destroyed our modem. I then had to work without the internet for a couple weeks - very interesting! There were also often small earthquakes during lesson times and the 7.5 earthquake on Zoe’s birthday was during my biology lesson. It was a tough call, trying to decide if my safety was more important than hearing the week’s homework!! But after the table gave a seriously big jolt I ripped my head set out while screaming, threw it down on the table and ran out the house wondering what my classmates must have been thinking!!!
My school work was very flexible so I could schedule when I felt the most productive and give myself spare time to be involved in other activities. I taught English to native primary school students, taught swimming to kindy kids at the resort, tutored friends in maths (primary, high school and Uni students), run and co-led a youth group and was a part of the national U17 netball squad.
These other activities were a great outlet for me to be passionate about helping the people in Vanuatu and give myself a break from studying. The school year went extremely fast and the final exams were here before I barely had the chance to organise where I would be doing them! As it turned out, I sat them in the Aus High Commission office here. It was a little daunting but it was nice to just be on my own, without the stress of being surrounded by nervous peers. It was not exactly how I had imagined sitting these important exams but it went very well and they were over before I knew it. I was very thrilled to have finished school but it was harder than I thought to actually believe it was all finally over.
At 8am on the 16th Dec. I was online like all other students in Australia, waiting to see my final year 12 SACE results in anticipation. I was only too pleased to find out that I had scored an A for each of my subjects and a 20 (Merit) for Studies of Societies! My ATAR score, (which is the new name for the old TER) was 97.5!! (We are so proud of her!!!) I couldn’t believe it; I really hadn’t expected such a high score but was obviously very happy that all my hard work throughout the year had paid off.
The next big decision I have had to make is to finalise my preferences for Uni and decide what courses I want to apply for. At the start of last year I really struggled with deciding what I wanted to do at Uni and pretty much just trying to work out what I can see myself doing in the future and what I am the most passionate about. I have considered many different career pathways but none of them have really seemed very ‘me.’ Over the past few months I have decided I want to be a paramedic so I have applied for paramedical studies at Flinders Uni as it is the only place where it is offered. I am very excited about this and at the moment I feel this is what I really want to do. I am hoping to then go on and get extra training as an intensive care paramedic, but who knows?! During this year I have had a lot of random ‘work experience’ with accidents with my sisters, friends and guests at the resort, which I think has confirmed my passion. One incident was a young girl at the resort who fell on her back from quite high up in the playground and it was a suspected spinal injury! I was able to be there helping mum out and then once the ambulance arrived I was able to stand by and give assistance, which was pretty cool!! Last Thursday I found out I was accepted into a Bachelor of Health Sciences - Paramedic course at Flinders Uni. I am very excited about this but I have deferred the course for a year and in the meantime I will have a gap year and enjoy being in Vanuatu, without the stress and pressure of school!!
TRIP TO OZ & HEIDI’S GRADUATION / FORMAL
At the end of November Alisha, Dad and I travelled back to Australia for our end of year awards ceremony, graduation and my senior formal. It was a great chance for Alisha and I to catch up with family and friends who we had not seen for 18 months!! Our days were very busy going from seeing one friend to the next as we had a long list of people we wanted to catch up with and only limited days. It was a lot of fun but we also both suffered from culture shock and struggled to adapt to the very busy, strange and unfamiliar culture and lifestyle. We tried our best not to be too shocked at all the people, their different coloured skin or the fact they all spoke English and blend into the crowd! It was hard to believe that Adelaide had once been our home and yet it now felt like another world! Alisha seemed to cope with it a lot better than I did, (apart from one afternoon when we were shopping in Target and she almost fainted because of all the people!!) For some reason I couldn’t seem to accept the wealth and money people had in Australia and yet so carelessly thought about how they spent it, all the Christmas shopping and advertisements made me feel uncomfortable and I also found it hard to justify why so many young people spend all their time working, for what reason, mostly to buy stuff?!! Despite these few difficulties and on some days wishing I was in the jungle with my village family away from civilisation, we managed to survive and enjoy our time there. Some days were better than others but on the hard ones, Alisha and I just spoke Bislama, ate coconuts and listened to reggae music!
So, December 2nd was a pretty busy day and the reason we went to Australia in the first place. The morning began with Alisha’s awards ceremony where she won an excellence award for academic achievement. Art work and outstanding student assignments and projects were displayed on the walls and it seemed more than half was Alisha’s!! She also had the chance to meet most of her teachers and some classmates who she had talked to on the phone for a year but never seen a face. This was something Alisha and I both very much enjoyed, finally getting to match the voice on the phone to a face. Especially as some of them were very, very different to what we had expected or imagined for a year!!
Then later in the afternoon was my awards ceremony. This was a great afternoon for me as I won a couple awards that were much unexpected. I was the dux for three of my subjects; Maths, English and SOS and I also won the overall year 12 dux award for the Open Access College! It was very unexpected but made it even more worthwhile that I had made the trip over for it. I also gave a speech at the awards ceremony on behalf of the students; I shared my unusual and different learning experience of studying distance education overseas. (Which I’m told she got a standing ovation for!!) It was very difficult for me, to miss this significant day in Heidi’s life but I had decided that I would stay here so Zoe & Maddy could attend all their end of year school events.
Later that evening was the senior formal which Alisha and I attended. It was a lot of fun dressing up as we have become very comfy in daggy village clothes! It was a bit strange but we felt very special for the night! I had borrowed a pair of heels from a friend to wear for the night, thinking I should go all out considering we were dressing up - bad idea!! I fell down about 7 stairs on the way into the room at the Intercontinental Hotel when we arrived … and then again in front of all my classmates when I went up to receive an award!! Very very funny, all I could do was laugh about it!! I guess it was a silly idea thinking I would be able to wear heels when I’ve barely worn shoes for the past 18 months! Ahhh well, it makes a funny story! Anyway, it was a fantastic night spent meeting more classmates and teachers.
Alisha here again remembered some other news! Over the past 18 months I have found a second home, the hospital!! Yes it’s true, it feels like it is always me out of the family that if something is wrong and if someone needs medical attention it’s me haha! Well so as most of you have probably heard I have had quite a few nasty scares with my allergies and with infections. Firstly, on 8th of Dec 09 I went to school like any other day but with a little bit of an achy knee. (At that time I was attending PVIS and it was the second to last week of the end of the year) so it was the day that we year 10’s, as the last grade at PVIS, had our graduation dinner that night. So I was going over to a friend’s house that afternoon to get ready. Anyway I just had a tiny infection on my left knee that had gotten slowly, but progressively worse throughout the day. It then continued to get swollen and really sore to the point that I couldn’t move, bend or even put any weight on my leg; it was too painful and swollen. So at 8pm in the middle of the main course all dressed up nicely and out to dinner with my class I was in tears and ringing mum telling her my PE teacher is taking me to the hospital!! That night I was given some drugs and a brace was put on my leg and was sent home. It didn’t get any better and the next morning I fainted and had to go back to the hospital. When we got to the hospital we were seen by a different doctor who immediately admitted me to the more “hospital” part of the place and I was put on a constant IV drip. I ended up having an infection inside my knee that had gotten in through a small pimple. I was in hospital on an antibiotic drip for a whole week and for the first 48 hours I was on standby to be medi-vac out of Vanuatu if there was any sign that it was getting worse. Fortunately the doctors were amazing and I was quick onto recovery. After I was released from the hospital I was on crutches for another week while I re-gained strength in my leg. It was definitely an experience I don’t want to repeat but on the plus side I now know the doctors and nurses really well!! Unfortunately though I don’t have anything to show for it not even a scar!!
I have also had a couple of scary episodes with my allergies, the first one is a bit unexplained but at 3am in the morning on Saturday on the 28th of August I woke up a bit wheezy and short of breath so I took my asthma puffer, thinking that it could just be asthma but then when I went to the toilet I noticed that I was really puffy around my eyes and mouth, this frightened me as the only other time I had been that puffy was when I was having an anaphylactic reaction in 2006. So I went and woke up mum and showed her that I was increasingly getting puffy quite quickly so she rushed me to the private hospital. We ended up using both of my EpiPen’s and the doctor gave me a couple of shots to stop the anaphylactic reaction. I stayed at the hospital until Saturday lunch time. He prescribed some medication for me to continue taking as a prevention of a further episode because we didn’t know the cause. I was fine then a few hours later, just tired Saturday and Sunday. The doctor sent some samples to Australia for testing to try to work out the cause. The results showed that I had a parasite called Giardia. It is a common parasite in developing countries and majority of the time it is asymptomatic and you won’t even know you have it. The symptoms of it are tummy discomfort and things similar to gastro and in some the side effects of Giardia are that it can cause anaphylaxis in people who are anaphylactic. So unluckily for me because I am anaphylactic it happened to me. So I was given the right medication and the parasite was gone!! This reaction scared me quite a bit because I have always thought that if I watch what I put in my mouth I will be fine. I thank God that he was watching over me and that we got treatment in time. Although it was an unfortunate thing it has some good come of it, I am now comfortable that if I have another reaction the medical staff here are capable of helping me, these are things that I have always wondered but now I know!
Naomi here bakegan and I will just share briefly some other highlights for the year as wow this is turning into a very long letter, probably more a novel, but it is difficult to condense a year into a couple pages. And if it takes you a couple months to read that’s okay, cose it will probably be at least that long before we get to write again.
A very wonderful event was on October 30th at 3am we rejoiced in the arrival of Nancy’s baby (mum of our ni-van family). This was a significant event as Nancy & Keith have been trying to have another child for years, (and one day back in January 2009 when we came for a visit before moving here, we prayed with Nancy for this to happen). So it was wonderful to be here for this and as Nancy always says “God Knows,” I was then very humbled with the special honour of them naming her Naomi Esther Kasia Jacob.
We have really enjoyed having some friends come to visit us this year. Heidi had her friend Thalia Wesselingh visit for 10 days last January. Then Alisha’s friend Karla (from her old high school) visited in July for two weeks. Another of Alisha’s friends Megan Klaer came for a week in December. The girls had a ball showing their friends around and taking them to all our favourite places.
Some family friends have also come over for a holiday and to visit us. At the end of August Tim, Karyn, Ben & Chloe Thiel came over for a week. In September my niece Sarah Gregor was here also for a week. Then in October Matthew, Carolyn, Tim, Daniel & Sarah Zadow came for 10 days. In November Andrew Mclean & Carol (his new partner) and their 6 children (3 kids each) came for a combined holiday and wedding. It was a very special privilege and honour to organise their wedding for them and we also got to be a part of their celebrations as well so that was really cool.
Part of my job is organising the weddings we have here at Lagoon Beach, and I have organised 16 weddings this year!! The craziest month was October - had 5 weddings and 2 of these on the same day!! 10.10.10 was the day to get married this year. That week was actually insane and by far my most challenging one ever, 3 weddings, a resort full of guests, friends visiting and Mal over!! All of my organising skills certainly came in very handy. Heidi has also done the flower bouquets for many of the weddings which she has really enjoyed. Who would have thought her work experience at a florist in Year 10 would have come in so handy.
It has taken us weeks to write this and we hope that you have enjoyed hearing about some of our ventures. We always appreciate hearing from any of you and are sorry that we don’t always get to reply. We do miss being with and seeing all our family and friends but we are also enjoying this experience of living in a different culture. Please know that we think about you all often, we just don't always get time to communicate it.
STOP PRESS!!
Well just when we were on the verge of sending this as we thought we were finished our news, we have had a significant turn of events. After deciding at the end of last year, that we would stay here for a further 12 months, our future has now become uncertain. 3 weeks ago I was given notice for my position at Lagoon Beach, which was very sudden and unexpected. Bookings are way, way down and I think there is possibly a bit of a cash flow problem happening with the owner and the 2 resorts she now owns. (That’s the very condensed version). Anyway, so the past couple weeks have been crazy with us having to find somewhere else to live. Even though the owner said we could stay living at Lagoon Beach, we felt it would be too weird going from being manager to basically a guest. So we have moved out and are now living in a little 2 bedroom house just out of town and I am job hunting again!! (Mal is keen for us to stay here as he wants to continue his involvement with AFL Vanuatu) & we had all kind of set our hearts on being here just another 12 months. So now we have given ourselves about a month for me to find some work or else we will probably be returning to Adelaide!?!
