Football!

There are things I like about Ukarumpa (the mission centre we live in) and things I don’t like. Sometimes life here can feel insular and claustrophobic. There are times when I just need to get out. I normally deal with that by kick-starting my aging Suzuki DR-350 bike and taking off to Kainantu, the local town, or just going for a ride into the valley and surrounding hills. The fresh air, different surroundings and different people normally set me up for the next week or two.

Something else that does me a lot of good here is getting involved in different community events. On Saturday, the high school on centre hosted football (soccer) and basketball tournaments. Three other schools turned up to compete. Over the past couple of months I’ve been helping out coaching the boys’ football team and yesterday I got to referee a lot of the matches. I enjoyed it, even with the passionate coaches occasionally making their thoughts known from the sidelines.

At the moment we’re planning another survey for December. It’s a bit of a last-minute thing, but it’s going to be a short one, and accessible by road...so no real problems. We hope!

Our team, in white, in the process of beating New Tribes

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Pictures

I've just uploaded pictures of the Benabena survey to my photo album. Go to '2008', then 'Oct 2008 survey - Benabena'. Here's a few to whet your appetite:

Can the car get across the bridge?

Reading books in their language for the first time

Survey diary 2

I wrote this on the 3rd evening of our survey in a village called Megabo.

It’s been dark for about an hour [i.e. it’s around 8pm]. We’re sitting in a large, smoky, one-roomed house made from bamboo and local wood, with a grass roof. In the centre there’s a dying fire, and the rest of the room is taken up with a raised platform where we sit and chat. Later we’ll sleep in here. Two paraffin lamps give off a dim glow.

Bonnie is doing the group questionnaire, Juliann is sitting in the corner with the women, Nelis is sleeping and I have been reading. Bonnie is about 40 minutes into the questionnaire so she probably has one and half or two hours left.

We haven’t eaten since lunch. Not sure if food will come. Should I snack on some crackers? Think I’ll wait a little longer. This morning we ate one roasted sweet potato each and for lunch I bought some roasted peanuts from a local market - very nice! In the afternoon we were given a pineapple which was delicious. Yesterday I’d been commenting to J and B how nice it would be to eat pineapple; and then today as we’re hiking from one village to the next a random stranger walking towards us stops, greets me, puts his hand into his bag and hands over a pineapple! Thank you God for your acts of kindness.

But no pineapple (or anything else for that matter) tonight. We’ll see what happens. Maybe it’s time for the crackers.

[I did eat some and then, of course, the food came.]

Bonnie update

For those of you who have asked, Bonnie is doing a lot better. We expect her back here on Friday. She walked without crutches for the first time the other day and the swelling has almost totally disappeared.

Also, regarding the previous post, yes the people pulled the car up. For every pull the car moved a cm or so. It took a while. Would have been nice if a car had driven past, but no such luck.

Survey diary 1

One of the fun parts of this survey was the driving. There was a decent amount of 4x4 driving needed, as the roads were pretty muddy. However, at one point, it almost got a little too ‘fun’.

As we approached a corner, I steered slightly to the right in order to keep the wheels on the driest part of the road. What I didn’t realise was that the dry shrubbery on the edge of the road wasn’t very solid. In fact, it was hiding a 15-18ft drop down to a stream below. The car started sliding off the road, the driver’s side tilting over the edge of the drop. Thankfully the two wheels on the passenger’s side caught on the edge and they stopped us rolling down the drop off.

Also, thankfully, there was no-one sitting in the back, as there had been for most of our other trips between villages.

Local people rushed to help us, and after a few hours we got the car back on the road. Men, women and children all worked together, in good humour, whether pulling on the ropes, giving advice or just watching.

We were really thankful that this one guy knew what he was doing. He immediately took control of the situation and guided us all through it. It turns out he’s worked with Wycliffe before. He wouldn’t accept any payment for his time. Thank you Father for protecting us and providing perfect help when we needed it.

Cool picture

Isn’t this a great picture? I got it from a Facebook group called ‘The Africa you don’t see on the news’ or something like that. It’s taken from above the Zambezi river, on the Zimbabwe/Zambia border where you can do all sorts of adrenaline activities like jumping into the gorge like this guy, zip-lining across it, bungee jumping off the Vic Falls bridge, and white water rafting.

When I was there I did the rafting which was amazing. I went to the bridge to do the bungee jump, but after looking down went to town and spent the money on clothes. My excuse is that I was only 15 so I was allowed to be scared, and there’s something about diving headfirst off a bridge I just (still) don’t like. Sky diving would be different – I’d like that.

But this blog is supposed to be about how great Papua New Guinea is...so I better stop here as this it totally unrelated :-)

Next I’ll post some stories and pictures from the survey trip.

Medical evacuation

No, three weeks are not up. Yes, we are back from the survey. Bonnie, our team leader got a nastily infected cut on her ankle, and on Thursday, after she also got a fever, we came back to Ukarumpa. Yesterday (Saturday) she was medivaced to Australia. The antibiotics weren’t working and the infection had spread quite a way up her leg. The doctors here thought maybe the infection is in the bone. Haven’t heard any more news.

We think the her leg got cut on a long hike last Friday when there were quite a few leeches biting and doing their thing, and a lot of scratches and cuts from just hiking through the bush.

Never seen leeches in action before. I got a few on my feet. They really don’t come off once they start sucking your blood. Seriously! They’re small and slimy and you have to repeatedly scrape them off with your fingernail or a knife or something...they’re determined suckers (hehehe).

Ok, enough for today.

So it’s back to the office. I may start to analyse the data we got from this survey. Though from Monday to Wednesday, I’m helping out at strategy workshops. Maybe more on those next time.

Thanks for your prayers for Bonnie.