Of traffic laws and trees

It had already been an eventful morning in Gulf Province, and it wasn't even lunch time yet. We had set out early in an ambulance that was going to pick up a patient in a village two hours away. To get there, however, we had to pass through a check point established by a local logging company, where we discovered that the guy driving the ambulance had an expired drivers' license and wasn't allowed to proceed. (Don't worry, though, the patient we were going to get was not in critical condition. She had already been treated and was just waiting to be brought back to her own village.) After several hours of searching for someone who had a valid PNG drivers' license and was willing to drive two hours each way, we finally set off again. We hadn't been driving for more than twenty minutes, when we suddenly stopped again, and as I looked out to see what was going on, my heart sank and I quickly hid the GPS I was holding. There was a large tree laid across the road, making it impossible for cars to pass, and on the other side of the tree several people were waiting. For us? I had heard stories of road blocks and hold ups . . . if you make it impossible for a car to get by, it's much easier to make the car stop and convince the people inside to give you all of their money. I had never personally encountered such an obstacle, but I figured my time had come at last.

Don't worry, though! We soon discovered that the tree had simply fallen across the road by accident, and the people on the other side were doing the same thing we were: wondering how on earth to move it. One industrious guy immediately set to work chopping it on one end so that it could be dragged away.

But dragging a large tree off the road is easier said then done. Thankfully, we barely had time to wonder how we would accomplish such a feat when the answer to our dilemma arrived:

And we were off again, driving down the gravel road in an ambulance in search of people who spoke the Kaser language.