Data Entry

Here I am. A familiar sight really as this is what I usually do in my day, though my desk would normally be a bit more tidy. Yesterday, today and two days next week this is where I will be – auditing billing invoices for the Aviation Department. Yeehaw. But it is a few days of work for me that would take them possibly weeks, if not longer, so I am happy to be able to serve, as is the department. The Director of Aviation (da Boss Man) and the Assistant DOA (da Numba Two Boss) were just as excited, if not more, for my coming as they were Ian’s, even though I will only be there a few days. I start my “permanent” temporary position on the 22nd as, you guessed it, Office Manager & Consultant of the Finance office.

Working on Helicopters

Today was another exciting day at the airport. I spent the day on the Bell LongRanger. I have learned a lot about helicopters. I am starting to get to know the guys a little better, too. I am trying to work on my Pidgin as half of the guys in the hangar are nationals. The national guys are great to work with, and many of them have worked at the hangar for many years. I am still getting used to their personalities and relationship style. They are really hard to read and almost never smile. But once you get to know them, they are quite amiable and they know their stuff. When they do smile, it is usually at my expense.

Going Bananas

Today we met our yard man, Jenas. He seems like a neat guy and we look forward to getting to know him better over the coming weeks. He “mowed” our lawn with a machete and did a number of landscaping things with the various bushes and plants in our yard. He comes every Friday, and for lunch and a few kina he does an excellent job. He also cut this bunch of bananas from one of our banana trees in the yard. I can’t imagine how we will ever eat them all; that is a lot of smoothies and banana bread. Funny thing is there are at least three or four more bunches like it in our back yard.

Kitchen

Back at home my lovely wife is whipping up another marvelous meal. You can see we are not exactly living in a grass hut. What you can not see is all the ants, spiders, and cockroaches we do battle with on a daily basis. Oh the joys of jungle living. Please continue to pray for our safety and for that of our fellow workers here in PNG.

Brake Linings

We both started work out at the Airport today. Leslie was a huge help to the parts room guys with their computer filling system and is being recruited heavily to come and help in the aviation finance office. I think there are lots of people all over the center that would love to have her help and she is in great demand. I was thrown into the shop and given my first assignment. I spent the afternoon on the Islander checking the brakes. I found my first problem today with this worn brake lining. I ended up replacing several linings and got those breaks back in good condition. This is a good thing because we will be flying in that airplane to the dedication on Monday.

Kianantu

This morning we took a short drive with a few other people to the nearest town of Kianantu. It is accurately characterized as an unsafe place. It is also the only place around to shop for some grocery items and clothes. It would be impossible for me to explain fully or describe what this place was like. You know that town, Tortuga, from Pirates of the Caribbean. It is sort of like that only with a few second hand clothing stores. I was not 10 steps out of the car before someone tried to take my wallet. It was a short visit and we were happy to be back home when it was over.

Co-pilot

Ian got to sit right seat for our trip in the 206 from Port Moresby to Ukarumpa. I was in the back, pretty much with the cargo, but I was glad to have a good view of my hubby enjoying every second of the flight. Dave, our pilot, did an excellent job, and Ian I know learned more about this country and its flight requirements than he ever could have at home. Just one ride was worth the trip, and there is more to come.

Charlotte

Not my (Leslie’s) favorite sight, but I’m doing all right. These large spiders, Bird Spiders, we believe, are as big as your hand. Luckily they like to make their homes in banana trees and not across your path. Still, there is caution taken when walking out on to the porch. You never know, and I never want to.

Off Centre (or is that Center(Big Debate))

On Sunday, Craig and Stephanie Campbell, our fellowship family, took us on driving tour of the Centre. It gave us a better idea of the size of the town and our place in it. There are about 1000+ people here at any given time. Except right now that is, as it is school break and many people are on vacation. Our driving tour took us past the security fence that surrounds the Centre and out into the beautiful landscape of the valley.

Bird's Eye View

A shot of Ukarumpa from the air on our approach to land in the Aiyura Valley. In the bottom left hand corner is the Ukarumpa International High School. The small houses to the right of it are employee housing for some of the nationals who work on Centre. Beyond the high school on the backside of what is a rather steep hill, is our house, though you can’t quite make it out from this shot. We are rather near what the Center calls Downtown. The post office, administration buildings, translation center, market and store are all within a few “blocks” of our house.

Leslie on the bridge

Then it was back across the bridge for lunch and shuffle board with the walkers and dinner with the Campbell family. We will share more with you about life on center soon. We have a tour scheduled for Sunday afternoon with Craig Campbell and we will post some pictures of our home and talk a little more about what it is like living here in Ukarumpa. In the meantime, if you have questions about something specific or want to see more pictures, please email us and we will be happy to include you in our email list. It is very expensive to post to the blog but it is free to email. Go figure. That's PNG.

Neighbors

Here are few of the people that we walked with for a while. They were showing us how they carried their bags and also how they make them. They buy yarn in a nearby second hand store and then unravel it from three strands into two. They rub the two strands into a tight single string that is much stronger and easier to knit. Then they build each bag according to unique patterns that each women has in their head. The patterns are also unique to different regions in PNG. A little like Scottish plaid, we were told you can identify where a women is from in PNG based on the pattern of her handbag.

Broken but Still Good

The next morning we met up with David Smith for a chance to meet our neighbors in the Ukarumpa village just off center. They live just across the river on a hillside overlooking the valley. The village is constructed in family groups with sets of houses arranged like small cul-de-sacs. Papuans are very individualistic. Although they are a village and a family, every individual builds his house and earns a living very uniquely. Some people live very traditionally in round houses and raise pigs. Others have windows in square houses and operate “stores.” Some grow coffee, others corn and taro. It was amazing to see how diverse the community was and how each person had carved out a unique way of living from their neighbors. I could write a whole book on all that I saw and learned from just those few hours of visiting with those people.

Approach

The approach into Ukarumpa was very interesting. It gave me a great appreciation for how good these pilots are. The clouds were only about 200 feet off the ground and we spent the last few miles just above the trees. Leslie took this picture as we were clearing one of the last ridges before landing. It was neat. We were greeted at the airport by the Campbell family. It was so nice to see a friendly face. They took us to our house and had already stocked it with great stuff for breakfast and had planned out lunches and dinners for the next three days. That night we went to dinner at the Blakes and had a great time hanging out with them. We felt very welcome.

We took the little one

After a few hours in Moresby we headed back to the airport for our flight to Ukarumpa. We took the 206 and the Orientation crew took the King Air. (Sorry Dave and John, I sure wanted to ride with your Dad too. But I have dinner scheduled for this Saturday, wish you were here.) It was a 2 hour flight up to Ukarumpa and I had a wonderful time in the front seat with our pilot David. It was pretty cloudy so we were in and out of IFR and did not get to see a lot of the ground. However, the clouds were amazing and there were a lot of rainbows.

Air Niugini

Wow, Port Moresby is quite the place. 80% of the people are unemployed and wander aimlessly about watching traffic and chewing beetlenut. We stayed for a short time at the missionary guest house Mapang. It was right next door to a “house cry.” When someone dies, all the relatives and friends travel for miles to come to the house of the deceased. They play drums, sing songs, feast and cry for days. At Mapang we met a number of fellow missionaries on their way out to an orientation on the north side of the country. We had a great time talking about our travel and reminiscing about that last hot shower at home.

Eyeball

Woohoo, we made it to Singapore. We had a nice layover in Singapore for 23 hours. After getting some sleep in the airport hotel, we headed out to the Zoo to make peace with the wild, at least with the wild safely behind bars. This was one of our friends we made at the zoo. I am not sure who was more interested in who. But we enjoyed good eye contact. It was a pretty neat zoo, but we were pretty sure it would never work in the states. Many animals were just roaming free with the tourists. We were able to walk right up to all sorts of monkeys, birds, bats and kangaroos.