Ten Days in Sydney

This is the Sydney Opera House at night (even though we didn't see it at night). It almost looks like it's floating on the water of the harbor. Very beautiful sight!

We did walk around it during the day, though. Here it is with the city behind it. Quite a different architecture. The roof is completely covered with 4-inch ceramic tiles!

We discovered our first morning (about 5 am!) that Sydney has many more and different birds than we've ever seen in Auckland. They're beautiful, but make the most unearthly racket, squawking, screeching and being obnoxious! Dad managed to coax these beautiful cockatiels onto our balcony to feed them crackers. They pick up the crackers with their beak, then hold them in their claws to eat. All the white dots on the grass below are also cockatiels. Below are the magpies, which came in droves for crackers as well.

The purpose of our being in Sydney was a Welfare Training Seminar for all the Welfare, Humanitarian and Employment Center employees, missionaries and volunteers from the Pacific Area. We had thirty attendees from nine different countries! Every flavor and color, and we had a great time together! Dad spent the week training on emergency response to disasters, humanitarian projects, and other welfare issues. He'd spent weeks before creating PowerPoint presentations and really put his heart into it. The Country Welfare Managers learned alot from that. My job was the logistics of the whole thing, and, once we were there, to make sure they had breakfast, "morning tea", lunch, and "afternoon tea", get reservations for dinner, etc. We were busy bees, before, during and after the seminar. Good experience! But it's taken me a week to recover.

Days began with breakfast at 7 am, then training till afternoon. In the evenings we had various activities planned together. This is most of the group in the training room. We were a varied group, representing the entire South Pacific.

This is our fearless leader, Steve, the Area Welfare Manager. He was raised in New Zealand by British ex-pat parents, having been adopted as a baby. His heritage is Samoan and Lithoanian.

Our Country Welfare Manager from Samoa, Felix. He is of Samoan and German descent, and his wife is of Maori descent. He has a Ph.D from Cornell University, and is a chief in his village, and pretty influential in Samoan government.

This is our Fiji Country Welfare Manager and his wife sitting with us. He is an international businessman, frequently traveling to Asia, and has been involved in politics in Fiji in the past. (You did notice the flower in Dad's ear??)

Our Country Welfare Manager, Desmond, from Papua New Guinea and...

...Burentia from Kiribati.

They were both astounded and fascinated by the tall buildings and everything about such a busy, vibrant city. Nothing like that at home! PNG and Kiribati are both very poor countries. These are both very humble men who spent their working lives employed by the government, and are now retired (mandatory). Their time is now spent trying to make a difference in the lives of their people. Desmond is funny and bubbly and just giggles when we talk on the phone. A cute guy! Burentia is very quiet and almost shy, but currently has more humanitarian projects going in his little country than anywhere else in the Pacific.

And these are our newly called Country Welfare Managers from Tahiti. This was quite an adventure for all of us! This couple speaks only French - and we sure don't! Tahiti belongs to France, and is really called French Polynesia. We did a lot of pantomining and had a great time.

I had to include another picture of him. He reminded us of a short, stocky little French version of Robin Williams.

This lady on the left is also from Tahiti, and manages the Employment Center there. Her daughter, Miriama, lives in New Caledonia, and just flew in to spend the week with her mother. She speaks great English, and offered to do the French-English translation for us! Whew! She, Miriama, grew up in Tahiti, attended school in France, BYU-Hawaii, and BYU-Provo, married an MBA student from New Caledonia, and now lives in New Caledonia. Really added alot of life to things, and was our unofficial photographer besides. She was a ton of fun and everybody loved her. Her mother is just as outgoing and enthusiastic. They made wreaths of fresh gardenias to wear in their hair for our cruise. For those of you from Houston, Miriama reminded me alot of Puanani.

Here's our cute Miriama with the Harbor Bridge in the background.

A true Polynesian at heart, she was by no means shy and retiring. Here our group was walking around at the Sydney harbor, and just spontaneiously decided to entertain. Some of them had brought their guitars and a ukulele, so they began singing and Miriama danced. Quite a hit with the bystanders!

Later on in the evening, on a downtown Sydney street corner, again they broke into song and dance. You can see from her mother that Miriama came by her outgoing nature honestly!

In fact, nearly everyone joined in. Again, the bystanders were very entertained!

That evening all thirty of us boarded a boat at Circular Quay for a Harbor Dinner Cruise, cruising around Sydney Harbor, under the Harbor Bridge, around the Sydney Opera House, etc. It was a nice night and everyone was enjoying it. After dinner, again the islanders again brought out their instruments and sang and danced for all those on board. Miriama's mom grabbed two spoons off the table and played them, and the guys playing were a Tahitian, a Tongan, and a Samoan. Even though their languages arent' the same, somehow they're able to perform together and all seem to know the same songs. I have no idea what language they sing them in, but it was great! All the other passengers gathered around and took pictures of them performing and Miriama dancing. Then one of our Auckland guys picked up a serving tray and began passing it around for collections - and got some! We all had a good laugh out of that!

Our French-only speaking lady gave me a flower she'd made for me to wear in my hair. It had a black pearl in the middle of it. However, my hair and ears were never made for that and I couldn't get it to stay in for a minute.

We'll never make it as Polynesians, but we had a great time with our island friends this week. We've had personal invitations from each one of our Country Welfare Managers to come to their country on our way home! Boy, how do you choose?

One more group picture before we left the wharf after the cruise. There were more of us there, but so many were taking pictures that they didn't all get in it!

And last but not least, on the last afternoon before everyone started back to their countries, Dad handed out genuine Australian boomerangs to each participant as a souvenir of their trip to Australia. These were made by Aboriginals of native wood, and painted with their distinctive "dot painting", their traditional art. Each boomerang had a different design. Really quite pretty! Many of those attending, like us, will probably never get back to Australia, so the boomerang and all our pictures are the mementos we'll take back with us.