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.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
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!
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!
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!
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