Into Town

We can now legally drive in PNG! Last Tuesday some of the new arrivals toUkarumpa (including us) made a trip into Kainantu (about 20 minutes' drive) to get our driver's licenses. It took a few hours, but we now have them in hand. There was no test seeing as we had valid licenses; we were happy as we haven't had much practice driving on the left side.

Thanksgiving

On Thursday, November 24, Paul & I had the pleasure of going to a "non-country specific" potluck to celebrate Thanksgiving. There were some Americans there celebrating their country's official Thanksgiving day, as well as people from Peru, Netherlands, Germany, Papua New Guinea, Germany and England. We had a grand time and there was so much delicious food.

New Friends

We are also enjoying the social and entertainment aspects of life here. The first Saturday that we were in Ukarumpa, we had the pleasure of taking in a performance of Les Misérables, put on by the students of Ukarumpa International High School. It was amazing, but surreal as I sat in my seat thinking, "Two weeks ago I was living in a village, and now, here I am watching a play." We also have enjoyed spending time "hanging out" with friends from POC and with new people. We play lots of games, our favorites now are Blokus and Settlers of Cattan. Because there is no TV or movie theatres or bowling alleys around, we are learning how to make our own fun here!

Market

One of our favorite things here in Ukarumpa is the market, which takes place every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning from six 'til eight. Papua New Guineans from around the valley here bring fresh produce to sell, such as: cabbage, carrots, potatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, zucchini, flowers, avocados, papaya, lemons/limes, and my very favorite, STRAWBERRIES! The local people also sell artifacts at the market.

Ukarumpa

We have arrived; we are getting settled but are still finding our way around some places. Ukarumpa is home to about 800 expats so we live in a nicelittle town with a store, post office, finance department (bank), school,clinic, library and airport. We have a nice cozy 2-bedroom duplex that we are renting. The clinic is about 2 1/2 minutes' walk away for Heidi and my office is about 2 ¾ minutes away (never thought I'd have an office, bet you didn't either). Heidi and I have both started working and are enjoying our new co-workers. There are nine surveyors currently on the team. Five of them left on survey on Nov. 21. They will be gone for three weeks; please keep them in your prayers. Here are some things we are getting used to in our new town:

- Cooking on a gas stove (which is nice because things heat up so much quicker, but which can also be scary when you try to light the burner, and suddenly the flame goes "poof" and you think you'll lose your eyebrows).
- Our hot water is heated by a solar panel on the roof, so we are learning to time our showers when we know the water will be nice and HOT.
- Wet season. We get a big rain shower almost every afternoon and usually in the evening or night too. Because there is so much rain, our water tank is nice and full (our drinking and washing water is collected from rainwater off the roof) and everything is nice and green.
- The cooler highlands weather. During our training in Madang the weather was hot and humid. It is much different here in the highlands, with a much cooler climate. I am wishing I had brought slippers and flannel pajamas with me!

the road to Ukarumpa

Off to Ukarumpa

We will be leaving POC and the beautiful Madang Province tomorrow morning (Wednesday, Nov. 16) and set off for Ukarumpa in the Eastern Highlands Province. We are excited to get to our next destination. We will have internet access there, but may not be set up for a few days. We will update again as soon as possible.

Village Living

We arrived back to POC in Madang on Thursday, November 10^th, just in time for lunch. We are happy, healthy, and safe. Village living was a life changing experience for us – we know this was an invaluable learning time for us that what we’ve learned will be useful for us during the rest of our time here in PNG. A few years ago, neither one of us would have ever guessed that we’d be living in a village in Papua New Guinea for 5 weeks, tromping through the jungle, and loving it!

We were allocated in a village called Nag (named after their drinking water source, the Nag River). It was a village of about 60 people, all related family, with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and lots and lots of cousins. We were given our own house, which had 2 rooms and an outdoor kitchen/cooking spot. The family to which we were assigned was 2 parents in their early 40’s (we think, nobody is quite sure of their age) and their 5 children, ranging in ages from 3 – 16 years old. They took excellent care of us, and made sure we were never wanting for anything. Often, we would wake up at around 6:30 a.m. and find that all our pots were sparkling and shiny because our Mama had already taken them down to the river and scrubbed them with a special leaf that puts steel wool to shame. They were very helpful, and always wanted to make life easy for us in the village, knowing that this was a very new experience for us. They often worried that we would trip, stumble or fall and hurt ourselves, and so were very protective, sometimes to the point that we felt like children again instead of grown adults. But gradually we were allowed to go on some hikes on our own, and were given more independence.

The village's water source is the river, so for every activity involving water, you go to the river. That is where we bathed, washed our dishes, and collected our drinking water (which we had to boil before drinking, very tedious). All these activities have a designated place in the river.

Nag was an hour’s hike from the nearest road, so it was very quiet, and we never heard traffic. This was the perfect place for us. We hiked so often that if we sat around the village for more than a day we began to feel restless and wanted to get moving. We hiked to many of the other villages where other POC students were allocated, so we got to see lots of other villages other than our own; the farthest hike

we did was 3 hrs each way.

Activities

Though we were in the bush and away from technology, we were rarely bored in the village and there was always something to do. Paul went with Papa to check his wild pig traps one morning. They did find a pig but it had been dead for a few days so the meat was bad. It could have been an exciting experience had the pig still been alive. We did get the chance to eat wild pig one day when a young man from the village caught his first pig in one of his traps. Everyone in the village was given a piece, and they included us. (Paul even had eggs and “bacon” for his birthday!) Another day we both went out to a garden and helped plant taro - the physical work was exhausting! (They were very careful that we didn’t overdo it and made sure that we rested often.) Heidi spent some time with the village ladies teaching them how to bake bread, banana cake, and scones. She also spent some quiet afternoons sitting under the mango tree with a small group of ladies talking and making bilums (string bags).

Food

Are you wondering what the food was like??? We ate a lot of food that the people from the village would bring us - sweet potato, cooking bananas, corn, greens (some nice, others quite bitter) and taro (part of the tasty root family). These were usually all in one pot, cooked in coconut milk. We also had the chance to try some of the meat that the village eats, including chicken, wild pig, wild fowl, hornbill, eel, fresh water shrimp, bandicoot (medium sized rodent, looks like a big gopher), kuskus (a fuzzy possum-like animal with short ears), and bat. These meats ranged in taste from lovely to horrible. But we were willing to try them all (at least once)! People would also bring us cucumbers and watermelons - these 2 and corn were our favorites. We did also bring along our own food so that we were able to eat things that were more familiar to us, such as pizza, spaghetti, baked beans, and 2-minute noodles.

Church

Feeding their souls through fellowship and reading the Bible was also important to this village. They met under some mango trees for a Sunday morning “lotu” (worship) service, and again on Sunday evening for singing and a shorter sermon. Wednesday evenings there was another “lotu” service with singing and a short sermon/devotion, and after, a potluck.

Farewell

Our village gave us a big goodbye party, complete with a singsing (singing, dancing, lots of drums, and people in traditional dress), a comedic play, heaps of food and many gifts of string bags and clay pots. It was an all day event that left us exhausted but very happy. It was a beautiful way to say goodbye to our village.

So what did we learn???

We learned much about communicating with people who speak a different language and have a different culture, and different learning/teaching styles. This kind of communication can be challenging, but is worth the effort. Our attitude was that we wanted to go into village living to learn and observe the people, not to change them. During our time in Nag we observed several community needs, such as better access to medical care (there was no aid post nearby so people had to go into the Madang hospital for medical care, which is an hour hike and then a 1 ½ hour PMV ride). Many parents struggle to pay their children’s school fees. This opened our eyes to the daily challenges that Papua New Guineans face and helped us recognize even further how blessed children in North America are and how many resources and opportunities are available for people there.

The Next Chapter…

We are currently enjoying 6 days of debriefing time back at POC just outside of Madang. Our next step will be moving up to the SIL center in Ukarumpa, in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. This is where we will make our home for the rest of our time in PNG. We are both looking forward to starting our jobs there; Paul with the survey team, and Heidi at the medical clinic.

Off to Village Living

On Friday morning all the students at POC will be getting into vehicles with all their needed supplies and be sent off to different villages. We will be gone for 5 weeks, none of the villages have electricity, let alone a phone line so you probably won’t hear from us. Heidi and I have a 45min – 1hr hike into our village, Bemal 3. The people of Bemal will meet us and help us carry in all our boxes. We are situated in a valley close to a river, where we will wash ourselves, our clothes, and our dishes. We will be living in a village house of our own, which we are looking forward to. All the POC student families are within a fairly small area, and we can all see each other if we are willing to hike up to 5 hours. The closest POC students to us will be Peter & Jessica Schaafsma, another young couple who we get along well with and enjoy spending time with. Our village has a basketball court (probably a hoop, and a packed mud court floor), so we’re bringing out a new basketball for them, and are already planning to have basketball tournaments with Peter & Jessica’s village! So five weeks from now, we know we will have lots of stories to tell and lots of pictures to post for you all.

3 Day Hike Report

Heidi providing first aid for a little boy in Girau.

We left POC to head out on our 3 day hike bright and early on Tuesday morning. Our group of 5 POC’ers and 2 national staff were dropped off at a side road off the highway about 1 hr drive from here, where we met our 4 guides. The first day of hiking was challenging, and also very beautiful, hiking through lots of rainforest and stopping at a beautiful natural swimming hole at lunch, where we all took a refreshing dip. We arrived at the first village, called Moad, and were warmly received by the very friendly people of that village. We had a very enjoyable evening with the people, and had a short singsing with them too, when they sang praise songs in their mother tongue, as well as in Tok Pisin. The next morning we set off at around 10:30 for the next village, called Girau. We got there about 2:30 in the afternoon, and also enjoyed our time there. The highlight of the evening was making popcorn for the people of the village. The last day, we had a 1 hour hike to the highway, where we were picked up by POC staff. Though we felt that the hike was a little bit too short (we would have loved to stay in the villages longer) we had a great time, and are now even more excited for village living…
When we came back from our hike, we had the joy of taking care of little Jonathan while his parents were gone on their hike. Below is a picture of Jonathan & Paul saying night time prayers.

Back to POC Safe and Sound

We have arrived back safely from our 3 day hike!!! We had a fabulous time, and met some amazing people in the 2 villages where we stayed overnight, and also in other villages, where we stopped briefly to rest. We were treated so well, and had a great time of singing and fellowship in one of the villages. It is beautiful that wherever you go in the world, you meet fellow believers of Jesus.

We are now busy getting training in parenting! We are taking care of a little boy named Jonathan, about 17 months old, while his parents are away on their 3 day hike. We had a VERY early morning today – Jonathan was up at 4:30 am, and didn’t want to go back to bed. We are having a lot of fun with Jonathan, and he is a great little boy.

We will post some pictures soon, we’re just sneaking in some time on the internet now while J. is sleeping.

We are also very busy now getting ready for village living. We have spent the last 2 days buying supplies and groceries to take along for the 5 weeks we’ll be away. Please pray for us during this very busy time, as we prepare for a new, challenging, and exciting experience.

3 day hike postponed

We were supposed to leave this morning (Monday) for our 3 day hike. Then at 8:00, an hour before we were to leave, we were called to the office, and informed that we would not be going on the hike, because 16 convicts had escaped from the local penitentiary on Saturday night and it is not safe to be hiking around the bush at this point. We had all been excited and ready to head out, all our packs were ready to go, so we were all more than a little disappointed, but also understood the very good reasons for not going.

After some discussion between the staff, it has now been decided that we will hike in a different area, starting tomorrow. Some of the workmen, the director, Paul and another orientee have gone out to survey the new hike, and let the people in the villages along the way know that we would love to visit with them and sleep on their verandas on the nights we’ll be hiking. So we are hoping this new plan will work out, and that we’ll be heading out on our hike tomorrow. Please pray for safety, health, and a chance to connect with the Papua New Guineans that we’ll meet along the way.

Update again: We leave this morning!!! (Tuesday, Sept. 27)

My high-tech oven

Did you know you can bake in an old kerosene drum? Yes, it’s true. Paul made me a drum oven from a kerosene drum and sheet metal. It works beautifully, and I have made pizza, bread, and banana cake in my drum oven already. The trick is to keep the fire going nicely under the oven while you bake without too much smoke blowing in your face. (Heidi watched our wasmama

manage her fire and quickly perfected the art!)

The people you meet on a wokabout

Today we went on a training hike, preparing for the 3 day hike we’ll be doing on Monday. We rested at a village along the way, and Paul enjoyed conversation with our guide, and his brother. Looking into the faces of these old men, you see wisdom and knowledge – a treasure for the next generation to discover. And they love to laugh! They have great senses of humor and are always eager to make jokes…

Making a bilum

Here in PNG nobody carries backpacks or purses – everyone carries all their things in string bags called a bilum. My wasmama is teaching me how to make, and Magdalene helped, of course.

Independence Day

Independence Day

Today Papua New Guinea is celebrating its 30^th year of independence. PNG was given peaceful independence from Australia in 1975. The city of Madang was packed with people celebrating. On Sunday all the churches of Madang joined together in the park and had a 4 hr service, with singing, several choirs performing, and a great sermon. The country’s motto for the 30^th anniversary is “Put PNG First”, but the preacher encouraged all those in attendance to change the motto to “Put God first for PNG”. We were encouraged, but are still getting used to this event oriented culture, where it doesn’t matter how long the service goes, rather than our time-oriented culture, where everyone is looking at their watches if the service goes longer than an hour!

First overnight with our wasfamili

On Thursday evening, we headed out to our wasfamili’s house loaded with overnight gear, and ready for a night in a village house. We enjoyed the supper meal of kaukau (sweet potato), tinned corned beef (surprisingly good!), rice, and kindam (crawfish that our waspapa caught himself, with a bamboo spear). We had banana bread for dessert, with sweet tea. We sat with them and “storied” for a few hours after supper, the common thing that people do in the evening, when they don’t have the distraction of television! Storying – a part of PNG culture that I am growing to love more and more. It happens when a group of people sit around together (usually on the floor) and just tell stories. It can be stories of things that happened in the time of their ancestors, events that occurred here during World War II, or maybe about the “crazy whiteskins” and the silly things they do!!! The stories are always so interesting to listen to, and the Papua New Guineans love telling them. We are at the point where we are able to understand more and more, but at times it can be frustrating to not be able to tell our own stories as well as we’d like to. We are encouraged though, that we are getting more and more comfortable with the language, and so don’t get corrected in our tok pisin quite as often J

One of the highlights of the time was watching the kids play with the bubbles we brought for them – they were a real hit! We were so happy, because usually Magdalene and Jeffrey are so shy, and don’t talk much, but the bubbles worked some magic, and they came out of their shells. It felt like a small victory when Jeffrey started talking non-stop all evening, and Magdalene sat in my lap! We went to bed about 10:00 and slept in old US Army hammocks (we kept them on the ground) with mosquito nets on top so we didn’t get eaten alive. We got up around 6:00, and after a breakfast of coconut cookies, Paul went off to the garden with Miani and Jeffrey and learned how to plant banana, taro, etc. I stayed home with Judy and Magdalene and got my first lesson in making a bilum, which is a string bag that all the ladies in PNG know how to make. All in all, we had a great time with our wasfamili, and our looking forward to our next visit with them. We are learning more and more about the pasin of PNG (culture, way of life) as we spend more time with the people, and we are growing to love the land and the people more and more.

Tropical Delight

This Tuesday, we all had the pleasure of going to our directors’ beach house, at Rempi (about 45 minutes away). We had a day of relaxation, renewal, and refreshment. We snorkeled, swam, read, ate, and had a beautiful day. This one will not soon be forgotten…

saturday hike

Weekends are not so scheduled here, so one Saturday afternoon, 5 of us decided to head out for a hiking adventure…with no guide! We didn’t get lost, and had a great afternoon tromping through the jungles of Papua New Guinea for a couple hours.

Haus kuk weekend

It may look like we’re just camping, but it seemed harder than that. This past weekend was our first haus kuk weekend, where we cooked all our meals in the outdoor kitchen (which we built using only a tarp, sticks, string, and a machete). It involved a lot of matches, at times kerosene to get the fire going, and a whole lot of SMOKE EVERYWHERE, because it was not just our fire going, but about 6 or 7 others going at the same time in a small area. The wind blows up over the hill, and voila!!! Smoke everywhere, in your eyes, smelling up your clothes and hair. To tell the truth, we did have many fun moments, and made some great meals out there too! We had nachos, stirfry and rice, and homemade tortillas! Not bad, eh?

The purpose of these weekends is to teach us how to prepare meals with no running water, no traditional stove, and no refrigeration. Eventually, we will be spending 5 weeks out in a village, and so will have to cook this way for that whole time. We are glad for the preparation now, so we’ll be ready later!