"Where do you get Your Food?"

“Where do you get your food?” is a question I’m frequently asked. The answer is that we get some by plane, some by motorbike, and some locally.

We brought a lot staple food items on the mission plane when we moved in – things like flour, sugar, eggs, cooking oil, rice, spaghetti sauce, spices, and peanut butter. A couple of times since then the plane has come in for various reasons, so we’ve reordered some of those staple items.

A number of men here have motorbikes, including our team-mates, and they can drive several hours down the road to a town that has stores and a market. So we sometimes ask them to pick up things for us – like kerosene, more rice or flour, a frozen chicken, or fresh vegetables.

Local pineapple, bananas, avocados, and guava.

A variety of fresh fruits and vegetables is available locally too. Everyone here has gardens, where they grow such crops as cassava, sweet potato, bananas, pineapple, and sometimes green beans, spinach and chili peppers. There is no local market, but sometimes mothers will send their children to walk through the village selling whatever crop they harvested that day for a very reasonable price. Other times we are given garden produce for free. If we want something particular, peanuts for example, we ask around to find out if anyone has some they’re willing to sell. In addition to garden produce there are also a few varieties of jungle greens that grow wild, which children often pick for us in exchange for pencils, elastic bands, or powdered drink mix.

Harvesting wild jungle greens.

Many people here keep pigs for meat and the men also hunt wild boar, as well as a tree marsupial which is quite a local favourite. From time to time someone butchers a pig or gets some wild game, in which case we likely have the opportunity to buy some. Occasionally we’ve been given meat too.

So...that’s where we get our food. It comes from a variety of sources, some far away & some close by. And although we may run out of eggs or brown sugar, I’m certain we will never have to go hungry here.  :)