My Christmas TreeS

How to obtain a Christmas tree in PNG:

1) Go for a run and keep a careful watch on your surroundings, looking out for any stray pine branches.

2) As soon as you find a nice large branch laying in a field, put it over your shoulder and drag it away before a wild animal eats it. (OK, I don't know of any wild animals in PNG that actually eat pine branches . . . but you just can't afford to take any risks.)

3) Cut it up into several manageable pieces and wire them together with an old coat hanger.

4) Put the whole bundle in a laundry soap bottle surrounded by rocks, resting in a hanging flower pot, and then do your best to cover up the whole contraption.

VOILA!

Is he or is he not sitting?

A couple weeks ago I was sitting in a village writing down a list of words in the Kaser language. It went like this:


J: How do you say, "He is sitting."
Wordlist Guy: "Karimau"
J: How do you say, "He is not sitting."
Wordlist Guy: "Karimau"
J: Oh . . . and how do you say, "He is sitting."
Wordlist Guy: "Karimau"
J (getting really worried now): Mmmhmmm . . . and . . . uhhh . . . how do you say, "He is not sitting."
Wordlist Guy: "Karimau"

It was tempting to conclude that either my ears were broken or I had discovered a culture in which it was irrelevant whether any given action was or was not taking place. The truth, however, is that the Kaser language is tonal, which means that the pitch of your voice can change the meaning of a word. So when you say, "karimau", if you say the last syllable with a low pitch it means, "He is not sitting." But if you say the last syllable with a pitch that falls from high to low it means, "He is sitting." Pretty tricky, huh?

Waiting works both ways

I often feel that 80% of survey is waiting. Waiting for the fog to clear so the plane can take off, waiting for a boat to come, waiting for someone to find fuel, waiting for a truck to pass by, waiting for the village leader to come back from the garden, waiting for a church service to start, waiting for food to cook, waiting for a group to assemble, waiting for the rain to stop. Part of this waiting is the result of traveling in areas where we don't know what we'll find until we get there, which prevents us from making very definite travel plans. But another huge part of it has to do with the fact that Papua New Guinean culture is extremely relationship oriented rather than time oriented. So the church service starts when the important people are ready for it to start, not when the clock says it's time to start. The truck driver leaves when he's finished having breakfast and chatting with his family, no matter what time that is. The group assembles when, and only when, they are good and ready to assemble. This can be frustrating for a person (like me) who is coming from a culture where schedules are dictated by the clock and you interrupt a conversation with your best friend in order to get to work on time. And I have felt frustrated at times, but I have also grown to appreciate the fact that people are more valuable than time . . . particularly when I'm the person being valued. What I mean is that it's still tempting to feel annoyed when I've had to wait for hours for someone to arrive. But that annoyance quickly melts into gratitude when a boat driver waits all afternoon to see whether or not I need a ride, when a Papua New Guinean airline holds the plane for me because it took me a long time to get through customs, when someone spends two days hiking to show me where a village is, or when a truck driver goes four hours out of his way to get me where I want to go. Waiting can be hard for the waiter, but it sure is nice when you're the waitee!

How do YOU get to work?

There was a time in my life when I got to work by getting into my car, driving for awhile, and getting out of my car. That era ended the day I became a surveyor. The days of driving myself down the road have been replaced by all kinds of other days.

The days when I leave my house at 6am to drive to the airstrip and get on a 4-seater plane.

The days when I travel down a river full of crocodiles in a motor boat.

The days when I sit in the cab of a dump truck balanced on a narrow board with four other people.

The days when I stand in the back of a dump truck.

The days when I ride in an ambulance (not because I'm sick, just because it happens to be going in the direction I want to go).

The days when I paddle a boat backwards because the motor is broken. (Why backwards? Yeah, I'm still trying to figure that one out too . . . but that's what the boat's owner wanted, so that's what we did.)

The days when I stand in the back of a pick up truck along with seven other people, five backpacks and several large pieces of machinery, and there is no room to sit down.

The days when I hike across slippery logs, occasionally falling into a swamp or pulling off a leech.

And the many, many, many, many, many days (like today) when I simply walk 10 minutes to my office!

Fred

One day we were on a small island where there were no boats, no engines, no fuel, no fresh water, and no food sources (except pigs). Stranded on a tropical island, I suppose. Except that there are lots of people who live there quite comfortably. They canoe over to the mainland (which takes about 30 minutes) to work in their gardens, wash, and get drinking water. So we could have just settled down and made ourselves some canoes, but we kind of wanted to finish the survey, and the next island was too far to get to in a dugout canoe.

Well, I don't know what your preferred strategy is when you are stranded on a tropical island, but personally I prefer to find the nearest Dutchman and see if he has any brilliant ideas. So that's what we did. On the way back from visiting a school, two of my teammates "happened" to meet Fred, a Dutch sawmill overseer living nearby. He cooked us an absolutely fabulously deliciously scrumptious dinner of tortillas and spicy meat (gourmet luxury items during a survey!) and we spent a very enjoyable evening chatting with him, during which he told us that he owned a boat and he was planning to go to a town the very next day to buy fuel. He offered to give us enough fuel to get to the next island, and take us there in his own boat. Thank you, Fred, for unstranding us! And thanks, God, for sending Fred.

Lots of boats

Remember my rather confusing conversation with Boat Guy before the survey? After we'd finally established that four people could fit on one boat, I made a point of asking whether there were any boats in the area, and was assured that there were lots of boats. But (silly me!) I neglected to ask whether the boats had engines. So we arrived in Gasmata to discover that there were indeed lots of boats . . . but none of them had engines. Don't worry, though, we had only spent one night there before a very kind man tracked down a boat with an engine and we were speeding off through the high seas. Well . . . OK . . . through the sea at least. We were pretty close to the shore so it probably wasn't technically the high seas. As we passed an island (the island we planned to come back to the next day) our boat driver pointed to it and said calmly, "That's where the dinosaur lives."

THE DINOSAUR!?!?!?!?!?!?

Yes, that's right, the dinosaur. Apparently it is a water dinosaur that lives in an underwater cave on the back side of the island (where no houses are), and makes a very loud noise when it walks on the coral. It was last seen a few years ago by a man's little brother and it does not eat people. Reports differ as to whether it is larger or smaller than a house, but everyone agrees that it is very big indeed. We spent a night on that island, and even went around to the back of the island to have a look at its cave, but (sadly for us) it did not choose to make an appearance that day.

Another day we were in a village that had a boat and an engine, but no fuel. Around noon the village magistrate offered to go down to a nearby logging company and buy us some fuel, so we gave him money and he set out. Three hours later, Village Magistrate still had not returned, and a Second Guy arrived in a boat and announced that he had a boat and an engine and fuel, and he was on his way to the place we wanted to go, and did we want a ride? Did we ever! But we couldn't just leave when we had already agreed to go with Village Magistrate (not to mention that he was holding rather a large sum of our cash), so we sadly thanked Second Guy but told him we'd just wait for Village Magistrate. "Well," said Second Guy, "I don't think he'll be able to buy any fuel. The logging company is so short on fuel that they're not selling it to anyone who's not doing company business, so I really doubt they'll sell any to Village Magistrate. How about this: I'll wait for him to come back, and then if he has fuel, fine, you can go with him. If not, you can go with me." It was a very generous offer on Second Guy's part, considering we had no idea when Village Magistrate would return . . . and, in fact, four hours later, there was still no sign of Village Magistrate. When it began to get dark Second Guy drove off in his boat to find Village Magistrate and see what was happening, and he came back with the fuel Village Magistrate had bought and the rather distressing report that the engine on Village Magistrate's boat had broken! We were very sorry for Village Magistrate, but glad that this problem had been discovered when he was close to land, and not when we were all in his boat in the middle of the high seas! And we were WAY thankful that Second Guy was there!

But by this time it was dark, so we figured we'd have to wait until the next day to leave. Second Guy, however, assured us that he'd made that trip lots of times in the dark, and the moon was nearly full, so it would be no problem to travel at night. Well, off we went in the moonlight, and if you've never gone boating on the ocean at night you really should . . . it is incredibly fun! After about half an hour, though, we pulled up at a dock and Second Guy said that the sea ahead was rough so we needed to wait a few minutes for the wind to die down. So we waited a few minutes . . . and a few more . . . and a few hours . . . and . . . well . . . let's just say I have now spent a night on a boat in the Solomon Seas, because we didn't leave until 5:30 the next morning. It was kind of cool though . . . I actually slept pretty well, and once I woke up with a brilliant sky of stars over me, and even saw a shooting star!

On the other side of adventure

It's true, lots of unexpected things did happen . . . but most of them were unexpectedly good! We definitely felt God's provision and protection throughout the trip and, while there were hard times, there were lots of purely fun times as well.

Sitting on a white sand beach, taking a word list ten feet from the ocean and then drinking a deliciously refreshing kulau (green coconut), swimming in spring water inside a huge cave, eating perfectly fried bananas, sitting under a house singing to God with twenty Papua New Guineans I'd never met before, waking up and seeing a shooting star, having dinner with a Dutch gypsy, paddling a canoe through the waves . . .

Yes, it was a good survey!

On the brink of adventure

It's an odd feeling, sitting on the brink of a survey and wondering what will happen when you plunge into a three-week long hurtle through adventures you currently know nothing about. You see, most of the surveys I've been on have been chock full of unexpected events: trucks sliding off the road, medical evacuations, robberies, con artists, rescuing stranded backpackers, nocturnal hikes and broken airplanes. After every adventure I take a deep breath and think, "Well, that was fun! Now we can get on with things as planned." But just when I'm thinking that nothing crazier than what just happened could possibly happen . . . well, something crazier does happen! I'm finding myself wondering what crazy things will happen this time . . . what new stories will I have on November 10th?

I recently told my friend Lynn that I often feel that survey trips are a bit of a battle, that the enemy doesn't seem to want us to get where we're planning to go. She replied, "Yes . . . you are the Joshuas and Calebs spying out the land he has too long claimed as his."

The cool thing is that our crazy stories of unexpected events always turn into stories of God's provision and protection as well. I don't know what will happen over the next three weeks, but I rest in the fact that I'm a part of Jesus' body, and not even the gates of hell can stand up against that! I also rest in your prayers . . . knowing you are all talking to God about our journey means more than I can say.

Come back in three weeks for the stories!

The Kodiak saves the day!

The e-mail began innocently enough:

"Four passengers have been confirmed for the flight on 21 October 2009."

"Great!" I thought, "Now everything is set for our New Britain survey." It wasn't until I skimmed down to the middle of the page that I realized what was not so great:

"We can only offer around 300 kilos for the flight."

Some quick mental math told me that our combined body weights total 290 kilos, which would leave 10 kilos of cargo for 4 people, and I squirmed at the thought of spending 3 weeks with a backpack weighing only 2 1/2 kilos (about 5 pounds), most of which would consist of my life jacket, questionnaires and recording equipment. I do enjoy trying to be hard core, but I will not even pretend to be that hard core.

I'll spare you the tense details of the next few days as we explored every possible option, from driving several hours to a city where we could catch a commercial flight, to leaving one of us behind. But commerical flights don't go to the remote areas we need to get to, and it would be really hard to get all the data we need without all of us there.

Well, remember a few weeks ago when our brand new airplane, the Kodiak #8, landed on our airstrip and cars full of excited people drove out to welcome it? I believe I may have written something along the lines of, "To me, a plane is a plane, and as long as it gets me where I need to go I'm not too bothered about what kind it is." That may be true, but in this case the Kodiak is the only plane that can get all of us where we need to go! It is bigger than our older Cessna 206s, so it can take all four of us and our sleeping bags and dry clothes! But it is also able to land on the small airstrips where commercial flights never go!

This may be the very first time our Kodiak has saved the day, but I suspect it won't be the last! Thanks, God, for the Kodiak.

???

Anyone want to guess what this is for?

Oh, how I love the phone!

I think I mentioned that we'll be doing a fair bit of boating on this next survey. Yesterday I called someone in the area to find out a bit more about the boat situation. Since Tok Pisin is my second language, and English is a lot of people's third language, the language barrier always makes phone conversations an interesting challenge. Yesterday's went something like this (I've translated the Tok Pisin bits into English . . . at least, based on what I think was being said):



Me: Yes, hello, I was wondering how much it would cost to take a boat from Gasmata to Apalik?

Boat Guy: Well, it will take 15 gallons of fuel.

Me: OK, but we don't have a boat. We want to hire a boat.

Boat Guy: OK, well it will take 15 gallons of fuel.

Me: OK, but how much will it cost?

Boat Guy: From Gasmata to Apalik? Yeah, that will take 15 gallons of fuel.

Me: But if four people just want to hire a boat, how much will they need to pay to hire the boat?

Boat Guy: Ohhhhh . . . you can't fit in one boat. You will need at least two or three. Probably four. Yes, four boats should be fine.

Me: Oh . . . how many people can fit on one boat?

Boat Guy: About ten people.

Me (wondering where I went wrong): OK . . . well . . . there are only four of us.

Boat Guy: Yes, so you will need four boats.

Me: But we want to go in one boat. There are only four of us.

Boat Guy: Oh! There are four of you! I thought you said there were forty! Oh, yes, you can easily go in one boat.

Me (back at square one): OK, so how much will it cost for four people to go in one boat from Gasmata to Apalik?

Confessions of a Book Hoarder

One of my biggest fears about living in PNG was not having enough books to read. Maybe that's a silly fear, but I love books, and I love to read them, and the thought of having a whole ocean between me and the nearest public library or Barnes & Noble sent shivers down my spine. So I stuck secret stashes of books in the bottoms of my two trunks and may or may not have paid a small excess baggage fee to get them here.

And I now say, "Ha! How naive I was!" For honesty compels me to confess to you that I currently have no fewer than 40 unread books sitting on my shelf, 32 of which I have acquired since coming to PNG. You see, apparently other people had fears similar to mine, and stuck similar secret stashes into the bottoms of their trunks, and when they finish reading them, or when they leave the country, they give or sell them to people like me . . .

And really, who needs Barnes & Noble when you have The Wanted Board. On our intranet message board, under the "wanted" section, all you have to do is post "Green Eggs and Ham" (or whatever literary delight you happen to be craving) and some kindred Dr. Seuss lover who secretly stashed it will be sure to write and tell you that of course you can borrow it for as long as you like. Maybe someday I'll try that when I actually finish all the books I already have . . .

How to get there . . .

Right now I'm working on planning a survey on the island of New Britain for the end of October. One of the trickiest parts of survey planning is figuring out how to get there, and the trickiness becomes even trickier when you're trying to get to an island (other than the one you live on, that is). Unfortunately, you can't just go to www.flightstoremotevillagesonsmallislands.com, type in your date of departure and pay with Visa or Mastercard. Sometimes I feel a little bit like a detective, hunting down remote airstrips, questioning people who have traveled in the area before, making "optimal travel hypotheses" and then scrapping them when a new piece of evidence shows that they will be suboptimal, if not impossible. For example, first I planned for us to fly into one area, hike around and survey it, then fly to a second area and survey that. But then I discovered that we could take a boat from the first area to the second area, which would save us several days of hiking because we wouldn't have to hike back to the first airstrip. What a brilliant plan! Yeah, I thought so until I discovered that the first airstrip was closed down and there was a house built on it. Oh well. Maybe we'll helicopter into the first airstrip. Or maybe we'll fly into a third airstrip, take a boat to the area around the first airstrip, then take another boat to the area around the second airstrip, and have a plane pick us up there. Confused yet? Yeah, me too. But it's all part of the adventure! We always get there in the end, somehow or other.

Romeo and Juliet

My friend Correna works in the Soskundi language in East Sepik Province. During a visit to the language area she met a guy named Romeo. Jokingly, she said to him, "Oh, where is Juliet?" With a straight face, Romeo replied, "Well, she decided to stay at home today." Yes, there really was a Juliet, and yes, she was actually married to Romeo. Neither of them had ever heard the classic story. I guess it didn't end so tragically after all!

Picasa Web Albums - PNG Survey

Picasa Web Albums - PNG Survey

Kodiak #8

The rumble of the chattering crowd suddenly gave way to breathless silence as we heard it: the faint hum of the approaching airplane. All eyes were fixed on the sky as the plane came into view, and the crowd broke into cheers and applause when the wheels touched unpaved airstrip, raising a cloud of dust as it quickly came to a stop.


It was finally here! The Kodiak serial number 8, our shiny brand new airplane! Last Friday flocks of Ukarumpa residents made the bumpy 10 minute drive out to the airstrip to watch this new plane land in Papua New Guinea for the very first time, celebrating its arrival with music and donuts and thanking God for bringing it here. Why is an airplane so exciting, you might be asking? Yes, I had the same thought. To me, a plane is a plane, and as long as it gets me where I need to go I'm not too bothered about what kind it is. However, even I am aware that this plane is an awesome addition to our aviation department for several reasons: first, it's specially designed to be able to take-off and land on very short airstrips . . . and we have a lot of those in PNG! Also, our other airplanes that are able to function on short airstrips require a particular kind of fuel that is quite costly and becoming even more costly. The new Kodiak can run on a standard jet fuel that is much cheaper and easier to come by! Thank God for this gift that will allow us to bring His words to people in remote areas safely and so much more efficiently!


If you want to know more technical details about the Kodiak, check out this article:
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS237443+09-Jan-2009+BW20090109


If you just want to see pictures of the cool new plane, have a look at the slide show!
(All of the Kodiak pictures were kindly and skillfully taken by Michael Johnson.)

Successful Saut Manda Survey

In 2006 (before my time!) the survey team did a survey of the Saut Manda language area. Now Ryan and Crystal (the picture on the left shows them during their commissioning service) have decided to live with the Saut Manda people and help them translate the Bible into the Saut Manda language! It was very exciting for us to be able to give them survey reports to read through and hear that they had chosen Saut Manda! Here's a picture of the village in Saut Manda where they'll be living.

"I promise you, you'll see the sun again . . ."

And so we come to the end. Almost. After the Hike of the Kapul Liver we hiked for a couple more days and asked lots of people lots of questions, but I'm sure you don't want to hear about every time I fell in the mud or every time I asked, "So, what language do your children speak when they are angry?"

By Thursday night we had finished all of our work, and we were staying in a village that was a 30 minute hike away from the airstrip where we were supposed to get picked up at 10:33 am on Friday (pilots like to be precise, even when they are in the jungle). We got up early on Friday, said good bye to the people who had been so hospitable, and eagerly set out on our "last hike". But when we got to the airstrip, all we could see was white, white, and more white. The airstrip is surrounded by mountains, but you would never know it, the fog was so thick. Well, we sat down to wait for the fog to clear so the plane could land, and when late afternoon rolled around we were still waiting, and we had yet to see more than a faint silhouette of a mountain. Sadly, we trudged back down to the village where the hospitable people graciously cooked some sweet potatoes for us and let us fill up their house for another night.

On Saturday morning we said goodbye for the second time to the people who'd taken the opportunity to be even more hospitable, and set out on our second "last hike". Again, we arrived at the airstrip and saw nothing but white, but I refused to believe that the whiteness could last throughout an entire second day, so we waited hopefully, always thinking that perhaps in one more hour we would see a patch of blue sky and hear the plane approaching. It pains me to tell you that at the end of the day we had almost forgotten what blue looked like and we were beginning to wonder whether we had imagined the mountains surrounding the airstrip. Dejected, we sheepishly walked back into the village, where PNG hospitality did not grow weary and our hosts graciously cooked us sweet potatoes and greens and let us take over their house again.

On Sunday morning we said goodbye for the third time (I was beginning to have some real empathy for Noah, who announced a coming flood every day and slept in a dry bed every night . . . I wondered how many people were thinking, "Sure, you just keep thinking a plane is going to land here . . . we'll see you again tonight!") and started our third "last hike". But that day was different. We had known it was different since the moment we woke up and saw determined strands of sunlight bravely fighting their way through the clouds. We were even reminded again what blue looked like, as the more valiant sunbeams succeeded in piercing the clouds altogether! When we arrived at the airstrip, my heart leaped as I saw the mountains! The actual, real live mountains, not just silhouettes, and not just figments of my weary imagination! I simply cannot describe to you the agony of the next 30 minutes as we watched the sky constantly changing, and holes in the clouds coming and going before our very eyes. Would the plane be able to land? That was the burning question that each of our minds was asking but none of our tongues dared to articulate.

Well, it was able to land, but the soaring joy that filled our hearts as it touched down was soon replaced by bitter disappointment as we discovered that, due to a problem with the plane, we would not be able to fly home in that plane. We called back to Ukarumpa on the plane's radio to request another rescue, and walked back to the village again, where, needless to say, we were well cared for.

On Monday morning, as people waved good bye to us for the fourth time, it was all I could do not to call out, "See you tonight!" But I restrained myself, and I am happy to report that I did not trespass on their hospitality again that night, and our fourth "last hike", was truly our last hike! The rescue plane arrived, as scheduled, and left two mechanics behind to look after the first plane while it took us home!

That is my story. Yes, it was tough, frustrating, and at times even scary. Was it worth it? Absolutely.

Why outhouses should be deep . . .

Now, where were we? Ah, yes, I was venturing out to find the outhouse. Nearly wandered into a pig house at first, but was warned in time by vague snorting noises from within. Found the appropriate building, stepped inside, and before I knew what was happening I had broken through the floor and found myself in the curious position of having one entire leg beneath the floor. But before you start gagging or close your browser in disgust, let me assure you that (to the exceedingly great relief of my body, mind and heart) this was a new, deep outhouse. So new and deep, in fact, that although I was in up to my hip, not even the tip of my toe came into contact with any objectionable matter. I managed to pull myself up with a dry leg, and only a small knee scrape to show for it.

We worked hard collecting data that night, because we knew we had a lot of hiking to do the next day. People told us that it would take us a day and a half to walk to the next village, and there were no villages in between! There was, however, a "bush shelter" about a third of the way there, where people sometimes spend the night if they are out working in a garden far from the village. So we hiked as far as the bush shelter the next day, and spent the night there. You can see pictures in the slide show, along with pictures of the vine bridge we got to cross on the way! Very fun.

We got up early in our bush shelter, before 5 am, and started hiking while it was still dark. Again, we had to use our headlamps, but there is something much friendlier about morning darkness. It is a hopeful darkness.

That was another long, tough day of hiking, but we had an exotic snack on the way. The guys who were hiking with us saw a kapul, which is kind of like an opossum, in the trees high above us. After a very exciting hunt involving much running, climbing of trees, and shouting in the Setaman language, they shot it with their slingshots and a couple of them ran ahead of us to cook it. A few hours later, when we caught up with them, they dug it out of the ground where it had been cooking on hot stones and we all sampled this Papua New Guinean delicacy . . . I even got to try the liver. Here is one of the hunters, telling the story in his own words:

Hiking to Dimtikin

The pilot and the newly unstranded backpacker flew away . . .

. . . and we set to work, having finally arrived in the Setaman language area (or, so we thought . . . we're still not entirely sure which villages ought to be classified under which languages . . . give us a little more time to work on that!)

We got lots of good data that night, and some the next morning as well, before we set out on the first hike of the survey. People in the village told us that the hike usually takes them 2 or 3 hours, but that it would take us 5 or 6 hours. Fair enough. I have yet to meet a Papua New Guinean of any age who couldn't outhike me blindfolded. So we left around 9 am, figuring that would give us a good 6 hours and we could still arrive in the next village by midafternoon.

Six hours later

It had been a pretty tough six hours, constantly going up and down steep hills, crossing rivers, dealing with ankle deep mud and slippery roots . . . but when asked if we were getting close, the guys who had come with us to show us the way replied, "Nogat, em i longwe yet." (Which, if you haven't guessed, means, "No, it's still far away.") OK, well, it was still midafternoon . . . we had plenty of daylight left . . .

Three hours later

It was around 6 pm, and the sun would be setting in about half an hour. There was still no sign of a village, and on the rare occasions when our guides spoke there was an ominous absence of anything resembling, "We're almost there." As the sky darkened and the jungle insects began waking up and announcing their presence, I heard the last thing I wanted to hear: thunder. Thunderstorms are relatively rare in PNG, but I have noticed that thunder usually signals a torrential downpour in the very near future. This thunder didn't lie. Soon we were not only walking in absolute darkness, but also through pouring rain that made the ankle deep mud even deeper and the slippery roots even more treacherous. We stopped and got out our headlamps, which helped immensely, but our progress was even slower than before, now that we had to step by feel almost as much as by sight.

I really don't know how long we trudged on that way. It must have been a couple of hours, because I think it was around 8 pm when we finally arrived in Dimtikin village. As we approached the village, people came out to meet us with flashlights, and several guys grabbed our arms and helped us through the last few hundred meters. We were ushered into a large house with a toasty fire in the center, and given taro roasted in the coals, which I find delicious under any circumstances, but after an 11 hour hike it really is indescribably amazing.

Deeply thankful that we had arrived with all of our bones in tact, I changed into dry clothes and ventured out to find the outhouse, thinking what an adventurous day it had been. Little did I know that the day's adventures were not over . . . at least, not for me!

Rescued in Agali

What do you do when you're stranded in the middle of the jungle in an airplane that won't start? You could try calling Triple A, but last I heard they weren't servicing Western Province.

Our pilot had a look under the cowling (I just learned that word and I'm very proud of it . . . the cowling of an airplane is like the hood of a car) and decided that a spring in the starter clutch was broken. Wouldn't you know it, not a single one of us had packed an extra Cessna 206 starter clutch spring! Whatever were we thinking? So we called back to Ukarumpa aviation with our satellite phone, and a noble pilot and mechanic spent their Saturday flying out to Agali to bring us a spring and fix the airplane. Meanwhile, Sara and I rechecked our word list and had a nice chat with lots of curious people.
Finally, on Saturday afternoon, over 24 hours after we had planned to arrive, we touched down in Selbang. We were still sitting in the plane, as the pilot slowed the engine, when I saw someone with a large backpack walking towards us and I did a double take, because at first glance I almost thought he wasn't a Papua New Guinean. My second glance revealed that he was most definitely NOT Papua New Guinean . . . a Caucasian male of unknown identity was walking down the airstrip towards our plane! Now, bear in mind that this is an extremely remote area . . . the nearest town takes four days to walk to, and there are no drivable roads. I'm not sure whether we were more surprised to see him or he was more surprised to see us! Turns out he was on a backpacking adventure, hurt his knee near that village and decided to wait for a plane to land . . . and 12 hours later ours landed! Our pilot flew him back to Agali (where the pilot was asked to preach in a church service the next day!) and then on to his next destination.

When the plane didn't start in Agali, as our pilot was poking around under the cowling, we prayed specifically that God would somehow use this series of (from our perspective) unfortunate events for good. I'm sure He has and will in ways we may never be aware of, but He also let us see a few of the good things He did with it. We were able to help the stranded backpacker . . . if we had landed the day before, when we'd planned to, he wouldn't have been there yet! The pilot had the opportunity to share God's truth with people in Agali the next day . . . if the starter spring hadn't broken he wouldn't have been there long enough to do that!

As you can see, we had our share of adventure before the survey really even started. And if you think the adventure ended when the survey began . . . well . . . you just keep thinking that and come back later to find out how wrong you were!

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow!

One thing that originally drew me to survey was my craving for adventure. I never wanted to just live a "normal life" . . . and while everyday life in Ukarumpa honestly is pretty "normal", the past ten days have definitely fallen closer to the adventure side of things! There is no way I can do this survey justice in one blog post, so with your permission (or without it, actually) I'm gonna spread out the excitement and take the next few days to tell you about the past few days.

I see that the day before I left I presumptuously wrote, "tomorrow . . . the aviation van will pick us up at 6am and take us to the airstrip, where we will leave at 7am in a Cessna 206." A very wise man, inspired by the Holy Spirit, once wrote, "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city . . .' Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow . . . Instead you ought to say, 'If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that.' " James 4:13-15 should've been our theme song for this survey.

But I should start at the beginning. The aviation van did pick us up at 6 am and take us to the airstrip, where the Cessna 206 was waiting for us.

And there it waited for us, and there we waited for it, until 7 am, when we began waiting with it . . . for the fog to lift. It was too cloudy to take off, so we waited until 8 am . . . and then we waited until 9 am, at which time we began waiting until 10 am. Just when we were wondering if the aviation van would be taking us home that night, the weather cleared enough to leave, so off we flew, heading for Selbang village, our first stop in the Setaman language area.

Or, so we thought. Setaman is in a very mountainous region, and as we approached the area there were thick clouds hanging all around the mountains. Not so great for landing, or flying through mountains for that matter. So our pilot wisely turned back and landed at Agali, a nearby airstrip that we could actually see from the air. We waited there for a couple hours and then made a second attempt to fly into Selbang, but with no success. So there we were, in Agali for the night. It wasn't even in the language area we were trying to get to, but we didn't really know much about this language either, so we took a word list, chatted with some people, and did a whole mini survey within our survey!

It was a gorgeous area, and the next morning revealed a gorgeous day. Perfect for flying through mountains. We packed up our stuff, got in the plane, and . . .

THE PLANE WOULDN'T START!

What did the survey team do? Were they stuck in Agali forever? Did they spend the next 6 months hiking back to Ukarumpa, or did pterodactyls appear from behind the mountains and carry them to their destination? You'll have to check back later to find out! In the meantime, you can have a look at some of the new photos in the slide show.

Off tomorrow!

Dude, I feel like it's been ages since I've blogged . . . I've been madly trying to finish up one last report before we leave for

survey . . . tomorrow!!! I got the report sent off to our consultant right before I left the office yesterday and I am very relieved. Now I can focus on getting ready to go tomorrow . . . the aviation van will pick us up at 6am and take us to the airstrip, where we will leave at 7am in a Cessna 206 (for those of you to whom that means anything . . . it would have meant nothing to me before I came here), a tiny 4-seater plane!

The other day I made trail mix for our long hikes, this morning I got my backpack mostly packed, so now I need to print out the questionnaires that we'll use when we interview people, meet with the translator who's coming with us to discuss a few last minute details, make sure we have copies of maps to bring with us, return books to the linguistics library, find blank minidiscs so we can record the word lists . . . hmmmm, what else? Maybe clean my desk if I have time.

And now one of our friends has arrived in the office with a "last dessert" as an afternoon snack . . . so I'm going to go have dessert and I'll get back to you in a week!

Another report done!

Well, sorry if you're tired of good news, because I have more of it! We had yet another survey report approved last week, this time a report about the Domung language in Madang Province. Four guys from the Domung language area recently attended the Translators' Training Course (TTC) in Ukarumpa and they are starting to translate portions of Scripture into the Domung language! You can see them on the left, in the TTC dining hall, along with our team leader Bonnie, who went on the Domung survey. Pray for these guys and the huge job ahead of them!

You know you are in PNG when . . .

. . . you are neither surprised nor alarmed by "randomly" burning hillsides. Here is the view from my porch last weekend.

As one of my friends from California recently said, "If I was at home right now, I would so be calling the fire department." It is very common in PNG to clear an area of land for a garden by simply lighting a fire and letting it go. These fires are rarely attended, but it is so moist here that they never get out of control. Well, OK, I guess one should never say never, because maybe it happened one time a hundred years ago or something. I have never heard of one getting out of control. I have been told that these fires can also be useful for getting rid of tall grass that raskols (Tok Pisin for "criminal") could hide in, or for chasing out animals during a hunt.

Here, let me play you a video of the fire across from my house, so you can hear it crackle!

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fabulous 4th of July party on Saturday night. It was fun because there were people from five different countries there, so we ended up singing everybody's national anthems! We even had a couple of our British friends there to help us celebrate.

Fireworks are not readily available in PNG, but we have found a very fun substitute in "flaming steel wool" . . . you know, that stuff you use to scrub really nasty pots that have lots of stuff burned on to the bottom. If you get a little piece of steel wool, tie it to a string, light it on fire and then swing it around in a huge circle it gives a pretty specatcular show, as you can see for yourself in the photo. You just have to make sure that you swing it in the right direction so you don't shower flaming bits of steel wool onto your audience. Hmmm, now I feel like I should give a disclaimer: do not try this outside of PNG!

LCORE

Yesterday I got to give a tour of our linguistics building (shown on the left) to a group of college students who are here visiting for a week. We call our department LCORE, which stands for Language Collaboration, Opportunities, Resources and Encouragement . . . basically it's a resource centre for all the language work going on in PNG. Lots of people work in LCORE besides our survey team: consultants, an ethnomusicologist, literacy specialists, people who specialize in finding creative ways to help people use Scripture, people who are working to get our linguistic papers published. It was fun for me to take this group of students around and hear everyone explain what they do . . . I always enjoy hearing people who love their work tell other people about it. Who knows . . . maybe someday one of those students will be working here themselves!

Approved!!!

We got a survey report approved last week!!! I think I may have mentioned the process before, but here's a recap: we write a report, then a sociolinguistics consultant goes through and makes lots of wise comments. We read the wise comments, edit the report and send it back to the consultant, who makes more wise comments and sends it back to us again . . . and so it goes until everybody is happy with it. This process can take quite awhile: the report that was approved last week was from my very first survey, in March 2008. Here's a picture of the team that was involved in that survey:

Jello for breakfast?

You will never believe what appeared in our office this morning. Someone has taken pencils, bent them, set them in the middle of jello molds, and left them on two desks in the survey office! Perhaps Jim Halpert has taken a trip to PNG. What a way to start off a Monday morning . . . makes you wonder what the rest of the week will be like!

Planned Power Outage

The other day we had a "planned power outage" in the office. Sounds exciting, I know! Ukarumpa (along with many PNG cities) runs off of electricity generated at a nearby dam. However, this is not a particularly reliable power source, so we also have several generators for back up power. It is an extremely common occurrence for the power to go out and then within a few seconds the generator kicks in and everything comes back on. On Wednesday, our brilliant electrical guys were switching many buildings (including our office) from one generator to another (for many very good reasons that they could explain better than I can), so we lost power for over an hour.

You never realize how much you depend on something until you lose it! When the power goes out, our computer network goes down, and when the network is down we can't access any of the files that are saved on the network . . . and what do you do in a survey office when you can't access any of the survey reports you are working on? I know, you save the document onto your desktop before the planned power outage . . . but somehow we always forget that losing power means we are going to lose the network as well, and my computer battery isn't really up to running for an hour anyway. So we found some good "manual labour" to do while we waited . . . we had pictures from previous surveys hanging up all around the room but paper tends to get a bit soggy with the humidity here, so we took them all down, "de-sticky-tacked" them (do you think I could get that word accepted in a dictionary?) and got them laminated. Maybe I will show you a picture sometime once we get them all back up.

Damp Season

Hmmmm, it's another gray, rainy Wednesday morning during dry season in the highlands. So during rainy season we get torrential downpours most afternoons and many nights, but when it's not actually raining it's often gloriously sunny. Dry season, on the other hand, really ought to be called "damp season" (in my humble opinion) because it is more like one long steady trickle from a gray sky. Almost like living inside of a lightly raining cloud. Oh well, that's what raincoats are for. Sometimes on my way to and from the office I put my raincoat on over my backpack so my computer doesn't get wet. I look a bit like a hunchbacked turtle and lots of small children stop in the road to stare at me, but my computer stays dry!

A happy day

My friends Liz and Joy are coming back to Ukarumpa today!!! They have been in a village doing literacy work and leading a children's Bible program over the past month, but they will fly back today, if the weather cooperates and our little 4-seater plane can get there and back without running into too many clouds. When I talked to Liz on the radio on Monday, she said that they were helping people in the village get the airstrip ready for the plane to land. It is a grass airstrip, so it has to be mowed, but the village's mower isn't working so about 20 people spent an entire day cutting the grass with their bush knives. This is what a PNG bush knife looks like:

Guess . . .

. . . what I'm doing today?

Yes, working in the office again! How did you know?

Today I'm working on editing a survey report to be published on the internet. I really enjoy editing, actually . . . there's something so satisfying about taking out all those unnecessary words and rewriting unclear sentences.

Rhino Beetle

This guy camped out on my front porch for a few days. Hope he never gets much bigger!

Wanted . . .

Well, you must have actually been praying for rain because it has absolutely poured over the last three nights! To me, this seems a bit unusual for dry season, but it is only my second dry season here so I suppose I'm not quite the Dry Season Expert Extraordinaire. I was curious, though, so I posted something on the Ukarumpa intranet "wanted board" to ask whether it was normal to have this much rain during dry season. There wasn't really a clear consensus, but I do want to thank all of you who have been remembering me as you talk to the One who "supplies the earth with rain" (Psalm 147:8) because He has supplied me with the rain I needed to drink!

Speaking of the "wanted board", that is something I think is pretty cool about Ukarumpa. It's a message board on our intranet, and anyone who needs anything can post their need there. Whether you want to borrow a few eggs until the store opens (it's closed on weekends), find someone to help change a lightbulb you can't reach, borrow a particular book, alert people to be on the lookout for something you have lost, or ask a question about travelling through Australia, the wanted board is the place to go. And the coolest thing about it is that it actually works! People seriously check it often to see if there are needs that they can meet. Thanks to the wanted board, I have found someone to fix my blender when it broke, a coat to borrow when I was climbing Mt. Wilhelm (it snowed up there!), and e-mail addresses for people I needed to get in touch with. It's also fun when you can give back and meet other people's needs. Yesterday was a public holiday in PNG for the Queen's Birthday, so the store was closed, and I had an extra packet of cheese that I was able to lend out. But I never would have known it was needed if it weren't for the wanted board! It's just a cool way that we can function like one body and carry each other's burdens in a real way.

Morning Tea

Most days in the linguistics building we really do stop for morning tea! It's a much needed break from staring at our computer screens, a chance to hear what other people are working on, and often good for a laugh. I've noticed that morning tea conversations often turn to cultural differences . . . not surprising, I suppose, since we have had people from Australia, Canada, Colombia, England, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Switzerland, and the United States, all working in the same building!

A life well spent

Before our Sunday morning Ukarumpa worship service, there are lots of announcements about various things, and people often clap for this or that. But the only times I've ever witnessed a standing ovation have been after announcements that a New Testament translation has been completed. Last Sunday it was announced that this guy and his wife are in the process of typesetting their third New Testament translation!! Can you imagine? Truly, I am in awe of these people who have poured out their lives so that three more groups of people can have God's words in their own languages!

Praying for Rain

Did your mom ever tell you not to waste water? Mine did, and I really did try to listen to her, but I have to confess that growing up with city water in the northern United States this did not come naturally to me. Sure, I knew there were people living in deserts, who prayed for rain so they could have a sip of water to drink, but I was not one of those people and in the world I knew, water was a seemingly infinite resource. The idea of running out of water was as inconceivable as the idea that the sun might not rise some morning.

Well, two days ago the inconceivable happened, and I ran out of water. That's right, I turned on the faucet and nothing came out!

My water comes from the tank you see on the left. Rain water is collected from the roof and piped into the tank to be stored. When my faucets began sputtering and producing more bits of leaves than water, I went out check the water level in my tank. You can tell how high the water is by tapping on the side of the tank, because it echoes where it's empty but makes a dull thud wherever there's water. Sadly, my tank echoed all the way down to the ground. I was very surprised at this empty state of affairs, because dry season has only just begun, and we had daily downpours at the end of rainy season. When I climbed on top of the tank to investigate further, I discovered that the screen over the opening where the water comes in was entirely covered with pine needles and a healthy layer of dirt. Probably very little of those daily downpours ever actually made it into my tank!

Now, do not panic: I did take a shower this morning and I am not dying of dehydration! Thankfully, we do have an alternate water system, in which water is pumped up from a nearby creek, although that water isn't safe to drink. After cleaning the filter screen on my tank, I crawled under my house to investigate the various pipes and knobs (shown on the right) that would allow me to switch over to the creek water. There were three knobs, and no labels, and after trying various combinations of knob turning with no success, I called my neighbor, who told her friend, who called her husband, who told their son, who came over and showed me how to switch it over. Thanks to the creek, I still have a functioning shower and toilet. Thanks to my friends and neighbors, I have plenty of bottles of drinking water from other people's tanks. But now I am one of those people praying for rain!

Alpha 338, standing by!

For lots of people working in Papua New Guinean villages, two-way radio is still the only way they can communicate with Ukarumpa or the wider world! I love using the radio . . . it makes me feel so official to say, "This is Alpha 338, calling Foxtrot 288! Foxtrot 288, do you read me? Over." Only one person can talk at a time, so you have to hold down a button to talk, and say "over" when you're finished.






Last week, while we were planning our next survey, we wanted to discuss some things with our survey consultant, but he's out in a village right now . . . so we talked to him on the radio. Here's a picture of Sara and Bonnie discussing survey methodology with our consultant.

My friend Liz is out working in a village now, so I get to talk to her on the radio every week to see how she's doing, pass on all the big Ukarumpa news, and give her messages from people at home.

A glimpse of Ukarumpa culture . . .

Last night I went to a "farewell auction", which is one of the unique aspects of the Ukarumpa subculture. When someone leaves, either permanently or for furlough, a few days before they go they invite lots of people to their house and "auction" off all the things they don't want to take with them. But the thing about these auctions is that no money is exchanged: all you have to do is raise your hand, shout "Me!", make an excited sound, or even a sarcastic remark, and the item on display is thrown at you.


One can obtain a wide variety of products at farewell auctions: I have observed snorkel gear, books, clothes, nearly empty bottles of barbecue sauce, spices, envelopes, partial bags of flour, a pineapple, (used) socks, old magazines, shampoo, a paper clip, a palm leaf fan, and even a fake engagement ring. Last night I became the proud new owner of a waterproof paper holder (great for maps on survey!), a pad of post-it notes, a green pen and a bottle of nutmeg. Who needs Wal-Mart?!?

Pterodactyls!

Just in case you're not already convinced that PNG is one of the absolute coolest places on earth, did you know that there have been reports of live pterodactyl sightings here?!?

I know, I know, it sounds like I'm making that up . . . but whether or not the reports are true, it is definitely true that there have been reports. In fact, only last week I had the privilege of eating dinner with a possible pterodactyl eyewitness! During a hike in the Finisterre Mountains, this guy saw three enormous flying creatures that sure looked like pterodactyls and seemed far too big to be birds. And he's not the only one! In 1944, Duane Hodgkinson, stationed in Papua New Guinea during World War II, reported seeing a large flying creature with a long appendage on the back of its head and a 10-15 foot long tail.

Later, in 1971, Brian Hennessy reported a similar experience. “It was so unusual." he said, "I actually heard it before I saw it. A slow flap . . . flap . . flapping sound. The air was still, and our truck had stopped on our downward journey from the top of the range to the coast way below . . . it was very big (wingspan at least two metres, probably more . . . possibly much, much more). It was black or dark brown. I had never seen anything like it before. . . . I recall seeing this creature with a longish narrow tail . . . the head was disproportionately large compared to the body [no feathers in sight]." (http://www.ropens.com/hennessy/)

Still not convinced? Well, you can hear the testimony of three Papua New Guinean eyewitnesses! People living on Umboi Island (just off the northeast coast of PNG) call these gigantic flying creatures "ropens". Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tynNqRvMrd8

Of course, we don't know what any of these people really saw . . . but what if there are still living pterodactyls???

Translators' Training Course

This is why we do surveys!!! Here are three guys from the Wagi language area (which we surveyed in March) at a Translators' Training Course (TTC), learning about principles of translation so that they will be better equipped to translate God's words into their own language. TTC is a five week course that is offered every year in Ukarumpa, with the goal of training Papua New Guineans to be translators themselves. These three guys have a real passion to see Scripture in the Wagi language . . . praise God for that and pray for encouragement, wisdom and protection during the long road ahead of them!

A brand new house . . .

Traditional PNG houses are built with wood and bamboo straight from the forest, and thatched with dried palm leaves for the roof. When someone needs a new house, his relatives and close friends get together and help him out until it's done . . . and later on he'll do the same for them.

Particularly in the lowlands, where it's very hot and wet, houses are usually built a couple of metres off the ground, to keep them dry and let lots of air flow under the house.

Great day in the survey office!

Our Bena Scripture Use survey report has been approved by our survey consultant!!!

Maybe you're not jumping for joy, but this is a very exciting occasion in the survey office!

Did you remove your helmet?

A petrol station near Madang town

Free haircuts!

Well, if any of you are in need of a haircut, you are welcome to come to Papua New Guinea and get a free one, because I went to a haircutting class this weekend! There's a lady here who is quite good at the aforementioned skill and on Saturday she gave a free demonstration of her talents . . . so since I watched someone give three haircuts, I'm clearly an expert now, right? One thing, though, before you book your tickets . . . I WILL require signed evidence that you will in no way hold me responsible for any loss of style and/or bits of ears. Seriously, though, if I had to give a haircut now it would be much better than it would have been before. I like it that people here are always ready and willing to share their talents and experience.

Maybe after your haircut you can have a delicious Papua New Guinean meal, like this one we had in Wagi . . .

Corn, greens, cabbage, fish and sweet potatoes . . . probably all cooked in coconut milk. Mmmm!

Cool Playground!

I just finished comparing the Wagi word lists, which, I must say, is my favorite part of any survey report. I took five lists of 170 words, lined them up and decided which words were similar and which were different (there is a detailed set of guidelines for this process, I don't just follow my own whim, but I will spare you the details here!). Then I used a computer program to calculate the percentage of words that are similar. So at the end of the process I'm able to say, for example, "If you're comparing Village A with Village B, 95% of the words on the list are similar between these two villages." This helps us get a general idea of where dialect boundaries are and which villages can probably understand each other.

On another note . . . who needs a playground when you have a tree like this?!

Evening service

Here's a Papua New Guinean evening church service in the Wagi language area. Churches are usually built with very low walls and huge, wide open windows, as you can see here. There are two very useful things about this style: one is that it allows lots of air to flow through. In the lowlands of PNG (where Wagi is) it is very hot almost all of the time, and in a crowded space everyone wants as much air as they can get! The other benefit is that if the church fills up, people can just stand outside along the walls, lean in the windows and worship along with everyone else! Who needs a building expansion when the walls don't keep people out?

I work, ants play

I think I already mentioned that Sara (my survey team mate) went to Australia to help take care of Krista, who needed surgery on her foot. Well, Sara's shoulder has really been bothering her, so she decided to go ahead and see a doctor while she was down there, and it turns out she needed surgery too! So I guess they're kind of taking care of each other. Please do pray for Sara and Krista, especially because Sara's recovery time is going to be a little longer than she first expected. They're hoping to be back in Ukarumpa later this week.

As for me, I am still deep in the world of survey reports. Today I'm taking a break from writing about Wagi language use to edit our Bena Scripture Use report. Whenever we write a report it gets checked by consultants, who write lots of useful comments before they send it back to us. Then we read the useful comments, make lots of brilliant changes and send it back to the consultants so they can read it again and make more useful comments. This process continues until everyone is happy with it.

I know this picture is a bit random, but it makes me laugh. There were about 20 ants partying at the drinking hole when I started getting my camera out, but I guess I scared most of them away.

Inventing new words . . .

Languages are always changing. That's a fact. Tok Pisin, the common trade language in many parts of PNG, is no exception. In fact, because Tok Pisin originally developed as a mixture of several languages, and because in many ways it is still developing, I would venture to say that Tok Pisin may be changing even more quickly than the average language. Tok Pisin has a relatively limited vocabulary so, although it is possible to say anything you want to say, sometimes it takes several words or even a whole sentence to explain a particular concept. That's no problem if you're not in a hurry, but sometimes people take a "shortcut" and simply stick in an English word, often adding Tok Pisin verb endings or changing the sounds to fit with common Tok Pisin sounds. If a particular English word is used often enough, by enough people in enough places, it eventually becomes "adopted" into Tok Pisin and people begin to think of it as an actual Tok Pisin word rather than a borrowed English word.

For example, take the English word 'catch', change it to 'kets' (since 'ch' is not a common sound in Tok Pisin), add the Tok Pisin verb ending -im, and you have 'ketsim', a brand new Tok Pisin verb. When does it officially become Tok Pisin? Please let me know if you ever find out . . .

PNG Cooking 101

Probably the most typical Papua New Guinean meal is sweet potatoes (the Tok Pisin word is 'kaukau' and it's pronounced like 'cow-cow') boiled in coconut milk, often with some cooked greens on top. To make this succulent dish, you first must 'sigarap', or scrape, the coconut, which is what this handy little bench is for. If you look closely on the far end (the end the coconut is sitting on), you'll see a strip of metal sticking out. Break open a coconut, sit on the bench, and use the metal edge to scrape the coconut out into a bowl set below. You can then squeeze the milk out of your scraped coconut, add some water and kaukau, and you're ready to go!

Traditions and Tones

It's a bit late, I guess, but Happy Easter! On Thursday night some friends and I had a passover seder dinner together. It meant a lot to experience that little window of Jesus' life, to have a glimpse into what He was doing the night before He died, and see when it was that He washed His disciples' feet and handed Judas the piece of bread to show who would betray Him. It was also cool to see how the passover celebration pointed to Jesus for thousands of years before He ever came to earth! At one point during the meal, there are three pieces of flat bread in a napkin. The middle piece is taken out, broken, and hidden. Later the kids (or the adults if there are none!) hunt for the broken bread and whoever finds it gets a prize. Just like Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, left His home to be broken and hidden in the earth so that whoever finds Him will have the greatest reward! And that tradition was established before He was even born!

Last night a visiting Australian linguist gave a presentation about some work he's done in Cameroon. Many languages there are "tonal", which basically means that the meaning of a word can change depending on the pitch you use when you pronounce it. It can be pretty complicated to devlop an alphabet for a tonal language . . . how do you mark the tone? Should you mark ALL the tones or only the tones on words that could easily be confused with another word? This guy did an experiment and found that, in one language, people could actually read it MORE quickly and with FEWER mistakes when tone was NOT marked at all! Fascinating.

Mud, Saws, and the Complex Body of Christ

Oh, the joys of rainy season! We had a soccer tournament last Saturday and the linguistics office got together a team of fearless women who (as you can see) met with a fairish bit of mud. I watched. Spectator is my favorite position in soccer . . . the ball and I never seem to be able to come to an understanding. The mud did look pretty fun, though!

Later that evening all the many talented people here got together and performed their unique talents for us all. Did you know you can play a saw with a violin bow? Well, this guy can. It was pretty cool: he changed the pitch by bending the saw and drew the bow across as if it were a violin!

That evening I was reminded how interconnected we all are. Even the little things we do affect so many people in so many ways. Honestly, I don't know how God keeps track of it all. I hope you can keep track of this story . . .

My friend Krista had hurt her ankle pretty badly and needed to get to Australia for more extensive medical care. Sara was going to go with her but there weren't any flights out of Ukarumpa for a couple weeks so they were trying to figure out how to get to one of the cities that has an airport. But I didn't know that. At the talent night I *happened* to sit in front of my friend Esther and during intermission she *happened* to mention that she and her husband were driving to one of the cities early the next morning. I then went over to talk to Sara only because something in the first half of the show reminded me of something funny one of our other friends had told us. Sara told me they were trying to get to a city, I told her Esther was going there, and less than 24 hours later Krista and Sara were safely in Australia.

Pretty cool, huh? But being interconnected works both ways. When I don't get along well with even one person, it's tempting to think that it only affects me and that person, when in reality it affects so many people around us, perhaps in ways we'll never realize. This week we're in the middle of "Conference", the time when all of Ukarumpa gets together to plan strategies, elect new leaders, and renew our vision. Imagine over 300 people in one room . . . no, wait, you don't have to imagine, you can see for yourself . . .

Now, as I was saying, look at this room full of over 300 people, representing at least 14 different nationalities and a broad spectrum of church backgrounds. Do you think they're always going to agree on how things should be done? Do I really need to answer that question? "Being of one mind" can be hard work. But I'm firmly convinced that because of (not in spite of) the challenges our diversity brings, God will be even more glorified as we work through our disagreements, set our differences aside, and work together for the goal that has brought each of us here: to see God glorified and adored when people are able to hear Him speaking in their own language.

Another day in the office . . .

Back to the office! Now it's time to start looking through all those hundreds of questions I asked people and figuring out what they mean. "What language do you speak at home? What language do you speak when you go to the market? What language do you use when you pray? What language do you use when you argue with someone? What language do you use when you talk to your parents? What language do you use when you talk to your brothers and sisters?" I asked these questions (and many more) of young men, middle-aged men, older men, young women, middle-aged women and older women. Now I get to sort through all the answers, look for trends, summarize, and hopefully write a report that will give a clear picture of which languages are used when, where, and by whom.

When we were out in the Wagi language area, we had lots of kulau (pronounced koo-low . . . rhymes with 'now') to drink. Mmmmm . . . just seeing it in the picture makes me want one now. If you pick a coconut when it's still very young, you can cut a hole in the top and drink the water, which is lightly sweet, slightly fizzy, and incredibly refreshing. Sadly, they don't grow here in the highlands where Ukarumpa is . . . I'm sure I would write this report much faster if I had one today. By the way, have you ever wondered how you pick a coconut growing 30 feet above the ground on a tree with no branches? This kid's an expert!

Happy National Liklik Haus Day!

What is National Liklik Haus Day? Well, "liklik haus" in Tok Pisin literally means "little house", but in some parts of the country that's what you call the bathroom. On this most blessed of days (March 19) one of my fellow surveyors had a very close, personal experience with the bottom of a "liklik haus" . . . and by 'bottom' I don't mean the floor. I mean the bottom of the pit. In the survey office we celebrate this day in her honour. Here's a picture of 'my' liklik haus in the village where I lived for five weeks when I first came to PNG.Yesterday was the last day of "Interact" . . . a time when all the language people (and a few others) here in Ukarumpa get together for a week and present interesting things about their work to each other. I presented a bit about our Bena Scripture Use survey, and it was exciting to get a chance to tell people about that, since Scripture Use surveys are such a new thing for us. The most exciting thing, though, was how excited everyone here is about their own work! I loved seeing how much all these people love what they do. Someone from the aviation department told us about the new airplane they just bought. To me, it's just another machine that will get me where I need to go, but this guy's eyes shone as he pointed out the new technology and specially designed rudder pedals that apparently make this airplane amazing for aviation in PNG. With animated gestures and real passion in his voice, a computer specialist told us about some of the new things in the computer world that can be really useful in our work. Linguists shared thrilling discoveries about directional verbs and the differences between Austronesian and Papuan languages. God has called each of these people here to do something they're good at . . . and last week proved to me that He's also called each of them to do what they love! Reminds me of something Fredrick Buechner wrote: "The place where God calls you is the place where your deepest gladness, and the world's deep hunger meet." I've often felt that way about my work here, and I'm clearly not the only one!

Joyce, my friend and next door neighbour, telling us about the language where she's working

Wagi Survey

After visiting five villages, driving for over twelve hours, writing down 950 Wagi words and phrases, and talking to more people than I can count . . . it's back to life in the office.

Since the Wagi language area is close to Madang (one of the largest towns in PNG) there were roads leading to every village and we were able to drive the whole way. Also, because Madang town was so close, people had a lot more stuff than they generally do in more remote villages. We saw TVs, a stereo system complete with speakers, a digital camera, electric lights, a refrigerator, and even a shower! (Yes, it was outside with a tarp for walls . . . but still!) It was an odd feeling to walk into a village house and have our hostess ask if we would like to put our fruit in the refrigerator. And during a church service someone's cell phone rang!

One of my jobs on this survey was the "Language Use" questionnaire. Basically, we want to know who speaks which languages, when, where, and to whom. Knowing how often people (especially kids) speak the Wagi language helps us get an idea of how likely it is that people will still be using Wagi fifty years from now. In some places in PNG, kids are speaking Tok Pisin (the trade language) more than their local language. In these places there is a chance that when today's kids grow up, their local language might be lost.



Papua New Guinea has both millipedes and centipedes that are longer than my index finger and nearly as wide. The difference (besides the number of legs?) is that millipedes are round and harmless and centipedes are flat and extremely poisonous. If you make them angry they excrete a poisonous juice that burns you and is apparently extremely painful. A woman who has had three children and been burned by a centipede said that she would rather give birth again than be burned by a centipede again.

One morning I was taking down my mosquito net when my arm brushed against my shirt and it was cold. My shirt, not my arm. Looking down, I discovered that the feeling of cold came from the hard shiny back of a millipede, crawling up my side! In terror, not remembering which variety was more painful than childbirth, I shook it off and stood there trembling. Sara, my generally unflappable teammate, informed me that it was harmless and scooted it outside with her water bottle.

As always, we were welcomed into every village and given loads of amazing food. How's this for a fabulous breakfast?

Oh, sorry, goodbye!

Me again (Dan).

I'm writing this from Dubai. I arrived here a few hours ago and have a couple of nights here. I'm staying in Dubai's only youth hostel (which the taxi driver had never heard of). It's alright. The guy sitting next to me on the plane had a Dubai Lonely Planet which he lent me. I made lots of notes and once we'd landed and I'd checked into the hostel I made my way straight to the place they recommend you get lost in: the old part of town with little streets, alleyways, spice and gold markets. It's fun. Last time I came here it was 37 degrees celcius when the plane landed at 5am before the sun came up. That was in July. Now it's a bit more civilised...around 30-35 during the day, I think.

Well, as Juliann said, I've left PNG. My two years is up. If you would like to keep in touch with me or to know what I'm doing next, email pngsurvey@gmail.com and Juliann will forward your email address to me. I won't be posting here any more. It's been fun. Hopefully hear from you soon. (The survey team are currently out on survey so Juliann won't get any emails from you for a week or so.)

No, you didn't accidentally go to the wrong blog. And, no, Dan did not suddenly grow his hair out and undergo major facial surgery and, well . . . nevermind.

What Dan did do was leave Papua New Guinea. If you don't believe me, here's a picture of him getting on the plane at the small airstrip from which we fly in and out of Ukarumpa, where we live.

I guess he's been telling you he was going to leave . . . well, he's really done it. Which, by they way, is one of the things I love most and hate most about this job: meeting so many cool people and then saying goodbye to them. I've already said goodbye to a couple of close friends, and so far it hasn't gotten any easier to see them leave. Each time I have to ask myself . . . is it worth it? And each time, even through the tears, I have to say yes. I would rather have known the people I've met here, as much as it hurts when they leave, then miss out on knowing these amazing people who have taught me so much about enjoying life, God and people.

But enough of all that, when I haven't even introduced myself! Well, here I am, you can see the picture. I've been living in PNG for about a year and a half now, which is hard to believe because it's absolutely flown by. I never meant to be a missionary . . . I just loved God and people and languages, and this is the job that tied those loves together. While it has its fabulous moments and not quite so fabulous moments (like any job), overall I think I pretty much have the coolest job in the world and I wouldn't trade the past couple of years for anything!

And I'm going to stop now, because we're leaving in 12 hours (and it's 6pm right now . . . ) for a survey near the north coast. This one will be short, only five days, so check back soon for an update and some (hopefully) cool pictures!

A bit of a late one...

...in two ways: late because I haven't blogged in ages and also because it's 10pm here and I've just come back to the office to do some more work.

In the last post I said I was about to start analysing the data. Well it's taking me a bit longer than I thought it would. I had hoped to have the whole survey report completed by last Friday. But, alas, that hasn't happened. I have three more work days here and unfortunately things aren't going as quickly as I would like. I prefer to be 'too' busy than bored though, so not too bothered.

On Thursday the linguistics section are having a little goodbye thing for me, on Friday evening I'm opening up my house for anyone who'd like to come and hang out and say goodbye and get some free goodies I'm giving away because I can't take them home with me, on Saturday the people who were on the same orientation course as me are getting together to have a goodbye meal, on Sunday I pack and on Monday at 8:30am I board the first plane of a few on my journey home to England.

I'm enjoying the business of it all and I'm wondering what I'm going to forget. I feel sad to leave friends and I'm looking forward to making new ones. I'm a little intimidated at having to leave the security of a community like this where I'm liked (on the whole...I think) and my work is appreciated and I'm intrigued to see what the future holds. I'm amazed to see how God has been good in bringing me this far and I try to have faith that he will continue to lead. I guess that's life sometimes: conflicting emotions and an uncertain future.

But right now I concentrate on getting all my current work finished. I think I'll do a couple hours work now and maybe go into work an hour late tomorrow. Until next time...

Shudders and testosterone

Last night we had an earthquake. Get them pretty frequently here. If I'm standing up I don't feel the smaller ones, but sitting down or lying in bed (like last night) they're pretty noticeable. On Thanksgiving the year before last (I think), I was at someone's house when we had the worst one I've experienced here. Mirrors and pictures started falling off walls and we all grabbed the nearest breakable item that was in danger of falling over. That was pretty dramatic. Normally the situation is more like, "Are you feeling that too? That's an earthquake, right?" Normally they last for a few seconds...maybe 5 or so. Last night I was lying in bed at 1:30am, felt the quake, and thought, "hmmm....I wonder if this will be the one where the walls collapse and I have to dig myself out of the rubble." But no such drama.

It's now 5:40pm, I'm in the office, about to leave for the day. Have just finished typing up data from the survey into Excel. Tomorrow morning I'll start analysing it. Where are the trends? What are they? What do they tell us about Scripture use in Benabena?

I've just read some journalist's thoughts on how the footballer Robbie Keane did at (my club) Liverpool and why he got sold back to Spurs. Interesting. I get an email from the BBC at 6am every morning with the headlines...then I have to click on the link for the full story. Internet is expensive here so I try to click as little as possible.

However, sometimes I do get drawn in. For instance I also just read an article in the Economist on why men with ring fingers significantly longer than their index finger (signifying higher levels of testosterone) are good at competative sports and jobs like high pressured financial trading. In the study done on traders in the City, "those with skewed hands earned more than five times as much as their more even-fingered brethren." I just checked my fingers out...I'm not sure how you define "significantly", but, yep, the ring finger is definitely longer. Hmmmm...a job as a securities trader... (click here to read 'Financial success begins in the womb')