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')

A cool story and some photos

A few days into the survey we've just returned from, Sara and I went to interview a pastor just up the road from where we'd dropped off the other two girls. We hadn't unpacked the things from the back of the pickup but I didn't think this would be a problem as normally we can see it from wherever we stop. However this pastor's house was over a small hill from the road. I asked the local man who came with us whether it was safe to leave our things in the back, covered by a tarp and tied down with rope, but not really secure. Em bai sef was his answer ('It'll be safe.') After a couple of hours we got back to the car and drove to where we were going to sleep that night. I went to get my bag from the back. I lifted up the tarpaulin and there was, well, quite a bit of free space. We had had two large backpacks and two smaller ones stolen.

Now, I don't tell you this story for any other reason than to show how amazing Papua New Guinean communities are when the people work together. We told our host village what had happened, the community leaders got together, discussed, talked with other village residents, found out who had been near the car and within 30 minutes we had one of the small bags back. Even though it was late afternoon when we realised the bags were stolen, that same day we got back both of the small bags and one large one. It took a few days get my large bag back because the guy who stole it was from a different village to our host village. But we got them all back. Although the contents of the bags had been shared out, some were found in different bags and some not found at all, most of the possessions were there, or trickled back during the next 2 days. The money, however, was not (about 100 pounds to be used for fuel and other survey-related expenses). That not all the money was retrieved is a shame and shows the limits to the community leaders' authority...times are changing and the strength of the community group is, in many areas, diminishing. However, it was absolutely amazing to be able to observe how this problem was dealt with by our hosts. They showed the utmost concern for our safety and spent hours finding the thieves and retrieving all the possessions they could. The most humbling part was when in front of the whole community the parents of two of the thieves (the ones who did not return everything) came to us to apologise, expressed their shame, said they did all they could to get our possessions back from their sons and offered us money out of their own pocket to cover some of what their sons had not returned. It was humbling: a lesson in hospitality, friendship and how to treat strangers.

Quality photography...about to depart from Ukarumpa

The Benabena language area - beautiful

After the first interview we did with a pastorA Benabena boy with diving goggles (useful when trying to spear fish)

Before noticing the camera......and afterA sports tournament in one village included volleyballThere has been a lot of fighting in this area. A homemade gun.

Old men. I like old men. Can't wait to be one, one day, and sit around and frown.A Benabena boy - an orphan now looked after by his grandparents

Back safely

Just a quick post to say that yesterday we got back safely from the Benabena Scripture Use survey. Although there were a few mishaps, generally the trip went really well. I'll write more in a day or two but for now here are a few photos.

Juliann and Sara with a guy who answered some questions for us about his language

Bonnie doing a group interviewOld man

A Benabena man with his son and I

Carrying kunai ('grass')