As you can guess from the title, we are now well into week 4 since we got washed ashore on these southeastern Asian island. The Australian Authorities finally recognized Daniels American license and he was able to finish the last Test which consisted out of an oral exam and a 3 hours flight test. Shortly after he passed we stood with our boarding passes and too much luggage at the Cairns Airport. We arrived in Dili just 3 days after our belongings from Switzerland arrived. They were missent to Indonesia and we have still no clue how they arrived all of a sudden. Must have been a miracle :-)
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| Bye bye Mareeba |
Our start was quite challenging, Deb arrived with a flu and here asthma was interupting here sleep. Dan got thrown right into action and joined a couple flights as an observer. On the first weekend we had our District Orientation with Mike and Mange. They are missionaries from Papua New Guinea and have been living in Liquica for the past 5 years. People leave really remote and primitive outside the city.They might have power and a satellite dish but their income is limited to a few dollars a day.
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| Village house |
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| Street Restaurant, limited to 75Kg per Person ;-) |
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| One man salt factory, 1 basket of salt = 5 Dollar |
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| Us with Mike and Mange, in front of a rice field |
Once back from the district orientation we were able to move into our beach house which just became vacant a couple days ago. It is a one room cabin located in Beto-Tasi, Dili right next to a so-called Beach-Resort. The street to our house leads literally across the airport area and a cemetery.
Deb started here job as a home school teacher in the same week. She is homeschooling 2 kids just 3 houses down the beach. speaking of a perfect location...
Flying wise we were quite under pressure. Dan was waiting for his license to arrive so he could start flying and at the same time the Program Manager had a well deserved vacation coming up. The license got issued in record time (within 5 days, normally it takes 4-6 weeks, another miracle?) and Dan spent his second week as ICUS (in command under supervision) and Michael was able to check him out on 6 out of 8 airstrips. From week 3 He was flying by himself and had 2 Medevacs in the first 2 days.
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| Loading the Patient in Suai |
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| our beach house in Beto-Tasi, Dili |
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| from the outside... |
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| The interior desperately needed some paint (and other things ;-) |
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| Our Beach, visitors welcome |
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| click here |
