Thank you for so many questions. I counted 15, that is an awful lot to answer so I will do my best and Charlie will try to answer some of them in more detail later.

What is the wild life and plant life like in Papua New Guinea? This is a great question. Nearly all the rare and exotic animals and plants are far away from where I live. They are in the forest in the mountains by Indonesia on the western border of the country or near the Sepik River where the Sepik tribe live. A lot of these villagers live on island rafts on the river. They have wild looking masks. It would make a great search on the internet. Where we live is high in the mountains in the middle of the country. Lots and lots of people live here, not in big towns but in little villages spread over the mountain sides and in valleys. Most of the land is used for growing things to eat. In the countryside all the houses have land around them for growing so the houses are often spread out. This means there is not much room for wild life.

Lots of the trees are fruit trees. Many people grow bananas in their garden. There are many types of bananas here, some are just for cooking and not for eating raw, people fry them. Some of the fruits are not grown in Europe and do not have a European name. You can see some of the fruits on Charlie's market blog. The best wild life I have seen are large birds of prey, they are a type of Kite, we don't get many kites in Britain but they are common here in the mountains. The prettiest creatures are the large butterflies. I saw a huge iridescent blue one yesterday, it was as large as my hand just flying down the road by my house.

The worst things if you don't count mosquitoes are the rats. They are very big here and can infest the house. Fortunately they do not live in our house. The only way to get rid of them is to use rat glue. Paint the glue onto a large piece of wood and leave it a night where they run around. The rat gets stuck on the wood. Then in the morning, I am afraid one has to hit them on the head to kill them. Not nice! A friend of ours had to do this and the only hard thing he had to hit the rat with was a bottle of beer. He broke the bottle hitting the rat and lost all his beer.

What is the local food (kaikai) like? You would get quite a good idea looking at the market blog. There is not a lot of meat available and it is very expensive. The traditional main food is Kaukau, which is a sweet potato, there are several types. The older people are especially fond of Kaukau, younger people prefer to eat rice. People eat lots of greens. These are a mixture of plants most of which we don't find in England. People boil greens and eat it with Kaukau. A favourite way to eat greens for a special treat is to cook it with coconut. The white inside of the coconut is shredded with a bush knife and mixed with the coconut milk from inside the coconut and when the greens are nearly cooked the coconut mixture is stirred in to make a creamy coconut sauce. You can't buy fresh milk here as there are no cows and only a few goats. You can get long life milk or dried milk powder. Heather and I were pleased to find there was a baker in Kundiawa who sells good wholemeal bread, so we have toast for breakfast here not porridge or cereal like we would at home.

The favourite meat is definitely pig. Lots of people keep pigs but they are very expensive and only eaten on special occasions. If a man wants a wife he will have to give his bride's family "plenti" pigs for a bride price. I have asked several teachers how much they had to pay for their wife and they always said how many pigs and then how much money. There are usually other things as well. Try asking your teacher how many pigs she is worth, but stand well back when she answers!

A really funny thing is seeing people take their pigs for a walk. Often in the middle of the town you can see someone walking a pig along with a rope tied to a leg or if it is a "Liklik pik" (little pig) they carry it in their arms like a baby.

Are there many religious buildings? There are very many churches all over the countryside. Churches are very important in Papua New Guinea. Christianity is widely accepted, many people go to church on a Sunday. Although many people also do not go to church nearly everybody would say they were a Christian. Some of the types of churches are the same as in England. Heather and I are going to a very friendly Baptist Church at the end of our road. Other church denominations common here are less well known in England. Two big denominations are the Lutheran Church and the Nazarene Church. The Catholic Church is also very big with many churches. One of the biggest universities in PNG is a Catholic University called Divine Word University. Very many schools are church schools. This means the school has been built and is now owned and run by the church. The government pays the money for children to go to school.

Churches are not big grand buildings. They are usually built the same way the local houses are built. They are usually very simple. People will have ordinary chairs or benches to sit on. It is lovely walking on a Sunday morning as one moves from the sound of one church singing to the sound of another. Lots of churches sing without music, in other churches some of the congregation bring an instrument often a guitar to sing along to.

This Easter was like most Sundays. On Palm Sunday in the Catholic Church lots of people brought huge banana leaves to church to wave, to remember how people broke down branches and threw them in front of Jesus to welcome him into Jerusalem. In the Baptist church we sang Easter songs in Tok Pisin which was a bit funny for us as we often knew the tune but the words were very different. We sang, "Yu em a bikpela God" which means a you are a big fella God or great God. Then we remembered Jesus last meal with his disciples by taking what is called the last supper. In other words we had a tiny drink of a red juice, to stand for the wine and a small piece of bread. The service is mostly in Tok Pisin but the Pastor preaches in a mixture of Tok Pisin and English so we can understand it.

Well this has taken me a long time so I am going to break your questions up into shorter numbers and have another go at answering them on another time. You have given me some great ideas for photographs including diferrent types of trees that can be found here. To answer one question I think Charlie needs to visit a traditional house so we can take pictures

We are looking forward to hearing from you again. See you soon or "Lukim yu."