You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch... But Not as Mean as Me

Well, I've managed to make it feel a little more like Christmas in this tropical

wonderland. I'm quite proud of myself! I decorated the house, making use of random old kitchen items, pine cones snatched from certain death by car-squishing, and a myriad of candles procured from here and there. Does it seem a little odd that candles are more rare in this rural, tropical area than pine cones? I still think so, even though I've been here for some time now.

The other thing I've done to help my Christmas mood is to listen to Christmas music. I think I have 6 or so CDs worth of Christmas music on my computer, from Bing Crosby to Point Of Grace to New Song (I hate the Christmas Shoes song by the way… but I'll save that rant for another blog post!). One of New Song's, er, songs, is a grand rendition of Mr. Grinch. It's a recording that very obviously brought out the little boy in these grown men. Besides the exaggerated opera voices in parts and all around silliness, there's the line that says "you nauseate me, Mr. Grinch, with the nauseast of super naus!" and no joke, these guys have multiple belches recorded into the song - just in case you needed some help being nauseated, I guess! Still, even with the less-than-harmonious burping section, I really enjoy singing along with the rather heated indictment of the evil Mr. Grinch. And it made me thankful for Christ. Maybe I should explain a few thoughts in between those last two statements, eh?

I was thinking of how I enjoy the Grinch story, and it kind of hit me that even though he is called "mean" and he's supposed to be "evil" to some degree, he's not a real nasty bad guy. You know, you wouldn't put the Grinch in the same category as Hitler, or even Gaston from Beauty and the Beast. The Grinch isn't out to kill anyone - he's just mean. He's the guy who has just had a bad day or something, not the innately evil mind that plots to destroy the human race. The Grinch is, you know, kind of like… me. I'm not evil, I'm just mean sometimes. I just have those days that make me "want to kick baby ducks", to quote a friend who will remain anonymous. But I'm not the person who is evil to the core like the real bad guys.

Interesting, isn't it? We humans are so good at categorizing, and we even categorize our badness. I can agree with God that I'm a sinner in need of his grace… but I don't need it as badly as so-and-so. I'm a nice bad person, not a bad bad person.

Now, you probably know enough about me to know that my theology isn't quite so 'kranki', as they say in Tok Pisin. At least, the theology of truths that I carry in my head and spout with my mouth says that I'm just as bad a sinner as any dark character. But what about the theology of my heart, of my beliefs, which spills out into my actions whether I like it or not? I'm afraid that there, in the deepest corners of my being, I still struggle to believe in my own badness. But sometimes, even from something as innocent as listening to "Mr. Grinch", God reminds me that I am indeed evil and in desperate need of his wondrous salvation. For a moment I see myself as I am - helpless before a righteous God - and I cry out for his mercy. And then the moment is gone, as I look to Christ and know that I have nothing to fear.

Praise God for Christmas; praise God for the cross; and praise God for Mr. Grinch moments.

Totally and Completely Incomprehensible

I don’t know if everyone feels the way I feel when embarking on new stages of life, but it’s interesting to look back at those times of going through major changes. With at least three of the major changes that I’ve experienced so far, I’ve had a difficult time really picturing myself in the new situation. Even if I know more or less what it will be like, there’s the lack of experience factor that makes the future more akin to a sci-fi movie than to my soon-to-be everyday life.

When I was about to get married, I knew my husband-to-be well and had a pretty good idea of what our life would look like for that first year. But still, until I walked down that grassy aisle and was pronounced “Mrs. Carter”, I just couldn’t fathom what it would be like to be married. As a friend of mine very aptly put it, the thought of being married was “totally and completely incomprehensible”! I felt the same way when I was preparing for our first child to be born. For eight months my stomach had been growing and moving of its own accord, but I just couldn’t comprehend somehow that I would really be a mom till the red, squeaking baby was placed in my arms.

The third major life change was, of course, moving overseas and becoming a “real” missionary for the first time. After years of childhood dreams in which I was everything from an Amy Carmichael to a George Müller, I was finally going to get overseas, learn a new language, and help bring the Gospel to the dark corners of the earth. This time there were many unknowns, thus heightening the “incomprehensible” aspect of my future. But I’d been around missionaries and MKs long enough to have picked up a few things, so I wasn’t completely clueless.

I knew that it would be hard to be away from family. I had watched a guy I dated in college, an only child, as his parents left him in the US for their mission work in Africa. It really hit me then that this leaving family thing might be tougher than I thought! I loved my family, but I’d never had much trouble with homesickness before, and had happily gone off to a college that was a fourteen hour drive from home. Yet watching this family’s tears as they parted ways made me realize that this was a big deal.

Now, having been overseas for about two years, I’ve already had tears of my own at being so far from home. It’s not just that you miss people, but you miss their life, and they miss yours. That was the part I hadn’t really thought about. I didn’t realize that my child’s experience of grandparents would be only seeing them on a computer screen for her first few years of life. And I didn’t realize how much I would miss sharing that time of her life with family. I didn’t realize the lack of closure involved when you miss funerals. I’ve now missed 3 of my grandparent’s funerals while overseas. Missing the event isn’t all that tough, but when you go back home and their place is suddenly empty, your brain has a tough time understanding what has happened. And then missing weddings! When I heard that my husband’s parents had missed more than one sibling’s wedding because they were overseas, I was horrified. How could anyone do such a thing?! I’m really thankful that John made it back for his sister’s wedding in May this year. But between us we have six more unmarried siblings, and the chance of them all working their big days around our furlough schedule seems pretty slim.

I knew that I would have to eat different food as a missionary. But I thought I could handle about anything if I had to. Bugs? Slugs? Rotten eggs? Sheep dung soup? Sure, I could eat most things and not die. And there were plenty of foreign dishes that I really liked, so I’d be happy to try whatever came my way! What I didn’t realize is that I might have to give up foods that I liked. Eating new foods is one thing, but giving up pizza, chocolate chip cookies, bacon, peaches, grapes, apple pie – surely not! Fortunately here in Ukarumpa we are able to get lots of “normal” food (well, most of the time…). So I haven’t had to give up pizza and cookies completely, though they are much more expensive to make here than back home. But imagine not eating a single grape or a mouthwatering southern peach for more than a year! You can ask my mother-in-law how many peaches I downed when we came back for Tikvah’s birth – I think I was kind enough to keep it down to 3 or 4 a day.

I have to admit, I’m missing home right now. That first Christmas we spent here in Ukarumpa was pretty rough for me, and I’m not really looking forward to spending another one here. There are plenty of things to look forward to though – high-school Christmas concerts, special programs, lots of random activities, and last time there was even a group of carolers wandering the streets of Ukarumpa. I’ll do my best to make it fun and happy for John and myself, but I know I’ll still miss being home with family and sharing that time with them. Looks like this year it will be the “If only in my dreams” line of “I’ll be home for Christmas” for me.

There are things I love here. Yesterday I was in the office and thoroughly enjoyed helping people out and working on People Profiles for groups that don’t yet have a Bible translation. And as I was chatting with my coworker, swapping our worst puking-while-out-on-survey stories, I thought, “who knew I would be having this kind of conversation as a missionary!” It really is amazing to be here. It’s just that, a few times a year, I wish here wasn’t quite so far away from home.

Climbing Tavurvur Volcano

“And mommy stays home, again.” I sighed and looked at the little hands grabbing my skirt and smearing it with citrus juice. Oh well, I wouldn’t trade this little girl for volcanoes. Still, I sure would have liked to go climb one today with John and my other survey friends.

When John came back, he asked if I would want to go see the volcano the next day. “Really?” I thought. After struggling all day with feeling sorry for myself I almost felt like I didn’t deserve to go, or that it would somehow be irresponsible to leave Tikvah for a few hours. But how could I pass this up?

The next day I handed off a sleeping baby to my friend, giving her instructions about food and diapers while applying sunscreen on myself in preparation for hours in direct tropical sunlight. I felt a bit like a little kid going to a movie that mom and dad had screened first - but at least I was going! It would only be a few hours. Tikvah would be fine, I had to tell myself. We said goodbye and John began negotiating terms with the locals who would canoe us over to the base of the volcano.

Now, riding on open water in a canoe that is barely wide enough for my thighs is not high on my list of fun things to do. But it definitely added to the dramatic effect of the approaching anomaly. In a tropical wonderland teeming with banana trees and coconuts and exotic flowers, a deceptively unimpressive fixture arises, barren and gray against the tall, green mountains behind it. The canoe landed and soon we were crunching our way up the gravely hillside. An overwhelming feeling of nearing Mount Doom assaulted me as we walked. After checking my wedding ring to make sure it wasn’t suddenly sporting a fiery Elvish script, I followed close behind John, picking my way through the gray peaks and valleys.

Once we passed the lava-crusted base, the ascent to the crater was fairly monotonous. I looked back at the view around us every so often, as that was much more interesting than the bleak gray mass in front of me. This particular volcano is the shortest of several peaks on one side of a bay. Other volcanoes were visible, though most had been covered with greenery because of their relative inactivity. One large peak, we were told, had risen out of the sea in three days time, like Atlantis emerging from the depths. When we’d flown in, the volcanic nature of the area had been evident, as our birds-eye view revealed fingers of land stretched out at odd angles from the main part of the peninsula.

Very soon, we reached a dip in the landscape, and I knew that the edge of the crater was just beyond. The day before I had watched the video John took as he approached the crater, and it had been very impressive even on his 13.3 inch laptop screen. I was thankful I didn’t have the video on as I approached the crevasse. As I slowly stepped closer, each inch revealed an incredible, steaming, and altogether ugly bowl of white jagged cliffs with sulfurous lime greens, oranges, and yellows staining the sides. John of course was standing far too close to the edge (in my opinion), encouraging me to come closer. I inched forward and looked shyly down the rocky slope, thinking of how it would suck me down into the abyss if I were to so much as trip or stub my toe too close to the edge. Between my fears and the less than pleasant rotten egg sulfur odor, I decided to walk several feet away from the crater’s edge.

John and I circled around to another side of the volcano and then began the descent to the valley below. Up to this point my tennis shoes had been great for the trip, but running down the loose slope gave opportunity for ample sand and rock to collect in them. It was funny looking up after we reached the bottom and realizing that what took about 15 or 20 minutes to climb took less than 5 minutes to run and slide down.

We crossed an empty river valley, a few more short, barren peaks, and passed a brick building still buried to the roof with ash that fell on it more than 15 years before. We were able to catch a ride on a passing pickup truck which took us to the market to find public transport back to the center we were staying at. As we crossed the ash covered landscape and more half-buried buildings and roads, I marveled to think that the small mountain I had just mastered was responsible for this wasteland. Even 15 years after the initial eruption, Tarvurvur was still showing man how feeble his best efforts are against the world he inhabits.

Back at the SIL center I was happy to see that Tikvah was doing well, and had even napped a little in my absence. I thanked my friends again for watching her so I too could witness the incredible sight. But of course, I had the joy of seeing Tikvah’s face light up when she saw me coming. And I have to admit, that is a pretty incredible sight too.

Back from New Britain!

We returned Thursday evening to a cold and rainy Highlands welcome. Thankfully a friend of the survey team had us over for a warm, tasty meal.


Our time in East New Britain was a success! Our team of six surveyors, one baby, and one friend/babysitter/cook extraordinaire split into two. Katie and I were in the North Team, tasked with living it up at the Kokopo Center and getting some work done on the side ; )

The task, in all seriousness, was difficult to picture ahead of time. Four languages, several of them possibly dying, two of them potentially large… how exactly were we going to go about assessing the vitality of each, if we didn’t even know precisely where they were? Traditional surveys here in PNG involve getting dropped off in some remote location, walking, and staying in villages. Though tough, we usually know more or less which villages will be included. This time around we really weren’t sure.


Our strategy, therefore, was to take advantage of the more-developed nature of East New Britain by using the modern technological wonders known as cell phones and paved roads. We made some initial contacts and played phone treasure-hunt to find leaders of the communities we thought we needed to visit. We hoped they’d be able to guide us to other villages to complete our research.


And it worked! During our first two days in Kokopo we were able to meet with leaders from two language communities and had arranged times to visit them. We celebrated by going to the pool at a local resort hotel… The supper menu had us wide-eyed about the prices, so we simply bought a plate of chips (fries) to share, enjoying the views of the volcanoes over Rabaul.


During Silisili (our survey in February) our adventures consisted of steep terrain and disappearing trails. In New Britain they involved avoiding axle-snapping potholes (we drove) and finding people who could help. Oh, and the volcanoes.


The South team, having surveyed Simbali, came to Kokopo a week into our three there and we all worked together to finish the task. Our four languages were Kairak, Taulil, Minigir, and Lungalunga. We were able to visit several communities from each language area and discovered, to our surprise, that all the languages continue to be learned by children and used by all generations. Meaning that each would benefit from literature in their language. A program is in the planning stages to train these communities to produce their own literature; please ask that this will indeed happen, and that it will be successful.


Thanks for thinking of us while we were out! The team dealt with several illnesses and some of our members are still recovering. Please keep them in mind.

As for climbing an active volcano… well, I’ll let Katie tell you about that.

Days 12 and 13 - Git 'er Done

Our list of places was down to one. Dangal, Sumaris, Bukandu, Bubuparum, Wawas, Madzim/Babuaf, Marauna, Bencheng/Tsile Tsile, Dungutung/Wampan, Onom, Uruf, Singono, and now Mafanazo. It’s always fun to say the names of places we’ve been. Bubuparum was perhaps my favorite from this trip, though the language name of Onom – mpubunum (the p is prenazalized) – was a lot of fun too.

Janell had been suffering from a stomach bug for several days by day 12, and was heroically struggling on. As we waited for a canoe to take us to Mafanazo, she sat on a log, head on arms, just wanting space. Of course right about then the PNG response to suffering kicked in, and another lady went and sat with her. Hurray for working cross-culturally.

A canoe, this one shorter than the last one and powered by a motor, took us down to the Mafanazo market, perched on the river’s edge. The Watut is carving itself a new channel constantly, and we heard the banks collapsing every once in a while into the river with a big splash. On this trip I had the brilliant idea to sit facing backward. This meant I didn’t see the logs sticking up everywhere or wonder whether that little ripple in the river was hiding a sandbank we were going to run aground on. The wind wasn’t in my face, and the water splashed my legs instead of my chest and face. I had a very peaceful experience, watching the skipper in mirrored sunglasses guide us downriver, seeing the mountains give way to flatland, watching the birds, enjoying the breeze.

From the Mafanazo market we walked about ten minutes to the village. On this final working-day of the survey we were eager to get our tools done, but the community was less anxious. We sat around and waited. And sat around and waited. There just didn’t seem many men around who’d qualify as leaders of the community – judging by age, that is – though we noted that the local government village leader was quite young. Finally we just decided to start, big men or no big men, and some of them showed up. They treated our tools rather unusually. Whereas in many of the other villages they’d been extremely organized in laying place names on the ground, here they tossed them carelessly into a pile. We didn’t really figure out what this meant, but we did get the work done, the information recorded, and celebrated with a last wash under a standpipe.

This last night turned out to be one of our most sleepless. Most other nights I’d slept great, doubtless aided by the physical exertion required in the earlier parts of the survey. This night, however, we had a friend. A little furry friend with a tail and scratchy little claws.

During village living (that was way back in Oct/Nov 2010, when we first arrived in PNG and were being trained), Janell had the wonderful experience of waking up to find a rat walking on her. She grabbed and threw it… but being inside a mosquito net, it didn’t go far. I’ve no doubt that would have been hilarious to watch, but not much fun for Janell. None of us wanted that experience, and she didn’t want a repeat, so we kept waking up to its noises and trying to find it without much luck. Between that, the roosters, and the dogs, there seemed to be more waking up than sleeping.

The sun finally rose and we packed up our stuff. A surveyor who’s not an expert packer is doomed to be left behind, especially if it’s the last day and you’re ready to be home. We went back to the riverside market where, miracle of miracles, our skipper from the previous day showed up almost exactly on time, and we started the 1:30 hour ride down the last curvy stretches of the Watut River, into the muddy Markham, and to the ‘dock’ near 40-Mile on the Highlands Highway. We were on schedule to arrive at 40-Mile with time to spare for our pickup. The two men who’d volunteered to fetch us, however, had some adventures of their own.

They’d gone to Lae to do some shopping, but in driving down a side road had been accosted by some raskols (trouble-makers who often resort to highway – or in-town – robbery). Our pickup man is a big believer in the ‘don’t stop for raskols’ policy, so he sped up when he saw them. A gun was waved though not fired, but a rock from a slingshot found the front windshield and made a beautiful spider-web crack near the top. Beautiful, that is, except for those who had to pay for it.

Between this little adventure (not all that terribly unusual here) and the fact that they were already running late, they forgot to top up the tank before leaving town, so by the time they picked us up they were nearly empty. We had to go 40 minutes out of our way to get gas (there aren’t gas stations just anywhere in PNG), which was rather frustrating for the rest of us, but we reached home by suppertime and took long, hot showers after dumping our gear to be dealt with later.

The Silisili survey, with its vertical beginnings and it’s many villages, was the most adventurous of any I’ve been on. We were each grateful to our Father for watching out for us, for those of you who heard of our adventures and thought of us, and for excellent teammates and teamwork that brought us through some challenging situations.

Since our arrival in 2010 we Carters have now participated in three survey trips and are only two days away from beginning a fourth. We’ve surveyed nine languages and helped to write five survey reports. The regional director who requested the Silisili survey said that if we found vital languages he would make it a priority to send someone to translate there. We hope he does, and that the good news will be written clearly for the Watut Valley communities, and speak to their hearts.

Please remember us as we are on survey 24 Apr to 17 May in East New Britain. All three of us are going.

Day 11 - Nah, That's Not Mud

We set off down the turbulent Watut River in a 35 foot long canoe. Five seconds into the ride the pole the skipper was using to punt broke…

Thankfully the current was slow, because all the guy had was a very sketchy homemade paddle, hardly able to stir the muddy water, much less propel a ridiculously long canoe with at least five adults in it anywhere. Our closest call during the next 15 minutes was immediately after the pole broke, when we bumped ungracefully over a mid-river rock. Certainly preferable to tipping.

For whatever reason the skipper was content to let all 35 feet of the boat float sideways to the current down the river, exposing us that much more to obstacles. I took a short video just as we were about to land of the other surveyors humorously bunched together on a tiny bench in the middle of this ridiculously long canoe, then jumped out onto solid ground.

Or so I thought. I immediately sunk halfway to my knees in a weird sand/mud mix that had convincingly fooled me into thinking it solid. I lurched my way out and watched as our skipper-turned-guide brought a branch back for the others to step out onto. It worked for the first person, then disappeared, and one then had to find it somewhere underneath to avoid sinking like I had.

All made it to shore, and we set off toward Singono. Unfortunately, we were right be the frequently-flooding river, and found ourselves being grabbed by mud determined to suck us down. We finally came to a little stream and our guide instructed us to rinse our black legs, as it would be hard ground from there on. Ha! Good joke, buddy. We continued to flail our arms madly at mosquitoes while trying not to fall face-first into slurpy mud holes. Some of us may or may not have said some unkind things to the mud and about swamps in general.

We made it to Singono, barely rising above the muck. There were an unusual number of men around and we thought, “Great, we’ll get our work done quickly!” Then they told us they’d all gathered for a community meeting, and we’d have to wait. Turned out, though, that they considered themselves in nearly every way identical to Madzim/Babuaf, where we’d been day 5. So some of the work we normally do, like the Word List, we could skip.

It turned out to be a beautiful afternoon. I had a sublime moment, sitting on a porch in the dappled shade, a breeze keeping the heat at bay, listening to music and watching my teammates throw the Frisbee. I felt very blessed to be where I was, doing what I was doing, and to have such good friends and coworkers.

Toward evening I ran the main questionnaire with the community, after which we settled down to a quiet night. Only one day of work to go.

Day 10 - Are You My (Dead) Daughter?

Sunday. Our last Sunday we’d been at the mining camp, so no service. This Sunday we were told people went to the church in Uruf, 45 minutes away, and that it started at 9am. So we started at 8:25am. This kind of math works in PNG. Must be the humidity.

We thought we would have a nice walk to Uruf. After all, the kids of Onom traveled there every day for school. The trail began through peanut gardens, then kunai grass. I took some nice video of the morning sun on the hills but first ran out of battery, then card space. Thankfully I had a spare of both.

Then we reentered the waterworld. It was kind of odd, because the grass was simply flooded. It wasn’t nasty-muddy, because the grass just bent over and formed a green, watery path. Actually there was some mud, and a nasty, mid-thigh-deep bog halfway, but otherwise it was green waterways.

We weren’t clean or dry when we arrived in Uruf, but didn’t need to be concerned about walking into church that way, because it didn’t start till 10:30am. See, told you the math works here! The regular pastor was away, so we were all in danger of falling out of our seats while the man at the pulpit read a sermon, never looking up. Oof.

Our work did not go smoothly that afternoon, despite a warm welcome from everyone. They were slow (reluctant?) to gather, and then kept asking us, “So why are you here?” We ran out of ways to explain it. This has happened before, and I can certainly sympathize with their mystification. But it’s still frustrating.

We were also surprised to have a man stand up and – in rather forceful tones – warn the villagers to be careful what they told us. We might steal the spirits of their water and ground, he said. Another man challenged us about the absence of PNG’ans on our team. We were a bit taken aback by the questions and the tone, but were reassured when one of the local men apologized for these two as they left. They were government health workers, and though we didn’t expect them to demonstrate the attitudes they did, we were relieved that it was outsiders – not Uruf residents – who were asking such heavy questions.

Our house was near the river, and that evening we hoped to have a quiet team meeting on the bank. No such luck. We were mobbed by people, and Janell exercised her storytelling skills to keep them entertained.

I’m going to cheat and tell a short story from the next morning. As we were packing our stuff to go an old man stopped outside the window and asked if Janell could go get coconuts with him. This was a strange question on several levels: 1) they usually bring us the coconuts, 2) people rarely ask us to do anything in the village, 3) men don’t go places with women unless they’re married.

We looked at each other confusedly, then Brian volunteered to go with him. He returned about 20 minutes later, looking slightly shell-shocked. He’d sat down with the old guy and had learned that he thought Janell was his daughter! His daughter who had died within the past few years, that is, and returned as a white person. Another man asked Brian if he was his dead son. I’d heard of this kind of thing happening, but it was surreal to run across it ourselves. Brian was able to talk to these men about where their children really were (they were Christian families) and to pray with them.

We set off down the turbulent Watut in a 35 foot long canoe. Five seconds into the ride the pole the skipper was using to punt broke…

Intermission (What We've Been Up To)

We interrupt our regular/not-so-regular broadcast to tell you what we've been up to since our last post. I WILL, BTW, finish out the last few days of our last survey. Sometime. Maybe after taxes are done ; )

It's been a busy time here. I've been in charge of writing the report for the Silisili Survey. It's one thing to write and edit your own work, but to coordinate the work of three others, edit it all together... and we're talking around 80 pages of prose, maps, tables, etc. Thankfully I'm not doing it alone by any means. I'm grateful, once again, for quality teammates.

We've sent the report off to the person who requested the survey. We plan to meet with him this coming week after he has read it to discuss our findings. The next to-do report-wise is to send it to a consultant for checking, and we're nearly to that point. In the meantime I've attended 2 of 6 days of a culture workshop designed to help you discover your own culture and figure out how to work with people from other cultures.

When I hear a course called 'Cultural Self-Discovery' my hocus-pocus warning flashes, but so far the course has been quite helpful. Being a culturally-confused individual (having grown up all over the world) thinking through some of these issues has been helpful personally. I anticipate that the increased cultural awareness I will hopefully develop will also increase my ability to work cross-culturally, which we do every day here.

My other major time commitment of late has been soccer. A noble endeavor, I assure you. In fact, some members of the community thought that hosting a soccer tournament on center could be a very positive thing for relations in the area, besides, of course, being fun. We formed a team several weeks ago and began practicing regularly and played some friendlies with local teams. Then this weekend we held the tournament - men's and women's teams. Katie played on the women's but it was a less involved undertaking than the men's, and consisted mostly of our high school girls' team. She enjoyed it though, and their team came in third place.

We men had a grueling schedule, with five games over the past three days. Thankfully most were not full length games. Today was the final, and I'm excited to say we came back from 0-2 down at half time to win 3-2! Our grand final opponents were the national high school team from five minutes down the road, and despite some very wet conditions, it was a pleasure to play them.

I really did enjoy the experience, both the soccer and getting to meet other players from the area. We hope to continue to play as a team in the coming months, both locally and perhaps in some of the Highlands towns.

Time to stop talking about soccer. Katie's been down a bit lately, partly no doubt because Tikvah has been up... at all hours of the night. She was such a great sleeper until about a month ago, and we're not really sure what's changed. Please remember them both. Katie has been very patient throughout; I am impressed by her abilities as a mother.

In just over two weeks we're off to East New Britain for our next survey. All three of us are going, which is exciting. We'll be out there for nearly four weeks, but will be staying at the regional center and driving to our survey locations. It'll be different, which can sometimes be a very good thing, right? No 49% grade hiking this time, but we'll probably encounter some 4-wheel drive fun.

He has risen!

Day 9 - Grass in the Eye

We got up at 5:30am and I recorded a video in the first light of us waiting for breakfast. Of course the idea of getting up early was to get going, and my growly voice protested the delay and the rain that was coming.

We grabbed a bite or two so the folks fixing breakfast wouldn’t feel that we didn’t appreciate their efforts, then set off. And it rained. This was actually the only day where we were wet due to rain. It had rained on day 3, but we’d been more wet from sweat than rain. Our hike here on day 9 was extremely pleasant (and short – under 3 hrs) by contrast to day 3. We hiked up the side of a kunai ridge, enjoying views of the gentle, green, mist-shrouded hills around us, and half regretting that we couldn’t see a little better through the rain. But better limited views than scorching sun.

Reaching the top of the ridge we began to descend. Here it got slick; rather, it had been slick, but heels are less capable of gripping than toes, so we were more likely to fall. At one point one of my heels slid out and my body reacted without first consulting my mind, jumping backwards off the trail. Everyone was kind of surprised. “Why is John jumping off the trail into what looks like a mini-canyon?”

I’d like to protest that as no parts of my body except my hands and feet touched the ground during the maneuver I technically didn’t fall ; ) Not that it really matters. I jumped back on the trail, grateful my body had merely threatened suicide without following through, and we continued on our way.

Here I must take the opportunity to point out that the flora of PNG must have something against John G. Perhaps it’s his accent. Who knows. Anyway, on day 2 a half-way fallen tree cracked him on the head, two seconds after I’d walked under it. He says he didn’t touch it, nor did I. Here on day 9 the trees had gone off the field, but kunai grass had subbed in. John had been poked near an eye, and, concerned it would happen again, put on his sunglasses. After another hour of hiking without incident, he took them off, since it was rather too dreary to be wearing them. On our way down the hill a particularly vicious blade took advantage of his lowered defenses and nailed him right in the eye. And this was no slight jab! He had blurry vision and was seriously concerned that it would not recover. Even the next morning he said it still felt like someone was just standing there poking him in the eye. It took him several days till it was ‘mostly normal,’ and the rest of that day he was out of the game.

On the descent to Onom I got to chat with Katie on the mobile phone for quite some time. It was very nice just to chat about how things were going, to describe the scenery, hear how she and Tikvah were doing. It was kind of weird to be chatting while walking through the PNG bush, but that’s life in a lot of places these days!

We left the kunai grass and the patch of mobile phone reception and plunged into mosquito infested forest for a brief period before arriving in Onom. It was a little village – 23 houses – that felt more ‘bush’ than anything since Dangal, our first village. For the first time we guys were put up in a haus boi (house boy), so Janell stayed separately from us in another family’s house.

We spent the afternoon getting our work done, then taking a wash in a beautiful clear stream. We had some sunshine to dry our clothes and packs… what more could you ask for? We even got supper, albeit a bit later than usual.

Day 8 - Soccer

[I just uploaded two videos to FB, one of some of our hiking on Day 3, one from Day 8. Check them out!]

Sometimes you can’t help having fun. You do everything you can to resist, but it’s just no use…

We had a short, DRY hike from Bencheng to Dungutung. We took two Word Lists (I did one) which were a lot of fun. Two because there were two dialects in the village. We did the Main Questionnaire with something close to 100 adults! I don’t think we’ve ever had half that before (see FB video)! They gave us a bag full of fresh peanuts, and several fresh coconuts to drink each.

Finished with work, we walked to the house we were to stay in. We washed in a clear, fast-flowing, waist-deep stream that was the perfect temperate. No goosebumps. A nap, before which I listened to music for the first time on the survey. Do you know how sublime that can be?

Then a soccer game on a nearby field, where I, to my own surprise, scored the first goal. Another wash. A feast, with greens, chicken, and other goodies. Then a lovely service under the stars, complete with lyrics on New Life put to traditional melodies. An early bedtime, a cool night. Glory.

Day 7 - The Slough of Despond

In each village the survey team gets a different reception. It depends partly on when we arrive, on whether they knew we were coming, and of course on who is around to welcome us. In some villages they make us feel very special and communicate that they are honored by our visit. Other places, for whatever reason, we’re given food and a place to stay and mostly left alone. The latter can actually be rather welcome following an abundance of the former.

We set off breakfastless and without much of a goodbye from Marauna, but that didn’t worry us. We had a guy to show us the way, and we had work to do! So off we went. Our hike began on dry ground, through gardens, past houses… pleasant. Then we entered the swamp.

Brian was trying to keep his feet out of the mud, as they were still covered in sores from our mountain hiking. He had no chance. We’d go through a bit of slippy-slidey mud and think “that wasn’t so bad” only to sink ankle-deep the next step. Hmm. Then we’d come to standing water. I don’t know whether to call it swamp, bog, creek, or just NASTY, but it wasn’t much fun. Generally there would be several feet of murky water under which lurked bottomless mud.

We were, of course, walking on trails frequented by people, so there were ‘bridges.’ This generally meant that somewhere under the water were logs and branches which you were supposed to balance on. Some of us made it across some of the time. Let’s leave it at that, and just be grateful that no one disappeared permanently.

Whenever you hike with a group, pace can be a tricky issue. The fast ones are annoyed at the slow ones and vice versa. In the mountains waiting on teammates wasn’t too big of a deal, but in the swamps, when you’ve got a swarm of 100 mosquitoes following you just waiting for you to pause, you really want to keep going! The trick was to keep the pace down so that constant movement by the whole team was assured. Oh, and bug spray. Thanks to Janell for that. I might have lost my mind otherwise. I hate feeling helpless against creatures smaller than my pinky toe.

We did survive this hike – it was under three hours – and, thankfully, we were able to wash in the river shortly after our arrival in Bencheng. Like most of the other villages we’d visited, Bencheng had standpipes, but apparently they hadn’t been laid very deep in the ground, so the water heated up in the pipes. Everyone made a practice of washing in the river (not the Watut, but a clear river), which we had no objections to.

I helped with the Main Questionnaire and also did the Walkabout Questionnaire for the first time, which I quite enjoyed. Sometimes when you get to a village you do your work, then sit around. You never see what most of the village is like. If you do the Walkabout Questionnaire you’ve got a great excuse to explore. It was a nice day, Bencheng had some lovely views, and I got to talk with some men about the possibility of Bible translation in their area. I returned very invigorated.

Let me give you a little tour of Bencheng. Hopefully you’ll get a picture of what life in PNG is like.

Grabbing my questionnaire and a pen, I follow our host Timothy away from the house. A stream runs just beyond his haus kuk (house cook – the separate building used for cooking, pot storage, etc), and I walked out onto a log jutting over it and hop to the other side. We walk up the dirt track – dry now and easy to walk on – to Nok’s house. He’s to accompany me on the walkabout.

His house, like everyone else’s, has plank sides. These are hand-hewn planks, but whatever wood they use, they’re able to split it pretty thin and even. In other parts of the lowlands I’ve usually seen woven bamboo for walls, but not here. And whereas on the coast sago leaves are woven for roofing, kunai grass is used here like it is in the highlands. This is clearly an in-between zone.

Step into the house and you’ll see its whole skeleton. No drywall here. No wiring to hide. Nothing fancy, just shelter from the weather. Some clothes, probably mattresses and mosquito nets. In some houses, a few books. Tools, like a machete. Maybe a bow and some arrows. Really not much in the way of things, or of decoration. For a PNG’an, a house is for sleeping in. Most of their time is spent out in the garden, in a community area, or out in a house cook or haus win (yes, house wind).

Nok and I head out. I’ve learned the local word for ‘good morning’ and use it at every opportunity. Thankfully it doesn’t sound like an English swearword, as it did in some of the other villages we visited. People are generally thrilled or amazed to hear their language spoken, and it’s a great way to demonstrate interest in them. We pass some folks cooking over a fire. At other houses women are preparing garden produce for cooking, whether that’s peeling various tubers, cutting up greens, or scraping coconuts. Some houses are empty, their occupants likely working in their gardens or perhaps gone to town.

We pass a ‘modern’ (non-bush) house. It’s the house of the APO (aid-post orderly). Aid posts sometimes have personnel, and they sometimes have medicine. Larger or central villages usually have them. It’s often the least traditional part of a village. Not far beyond this house is the school, a series of longish buildings housing different grades. Inside several grades are singing, which seems to be an important part of school in PNG. This is a primary school, meaning grades 3-8. Theoretically. It will often depend on what teachers are available, how many students there are, and whether the teachers think they are ready to move on to the next grade or not.

We’ve reached the upper area of Bencheng, and for the first time I can see out away from the village. To the west is a series of kunai-covered hills (kunai is very tall, tough grass), behind which are tree-covered mountains, their bulk imposing. We know what they can be like. To my east is a long view, since I’m looking across the Watut River – not visible – to the other side of the valley. The team would come up at sunset to this same spot and observe a strange phenomenon, where it looked as though the sun was setting both in the west AND the east.

Nok and I move on. We’re talking about the houses as we go. “Does this house have any immigrants?” “Yes.” “Ok, do their children know your language?” “Yes.” “Ok, how about this house?” 60-something times. We’re doing every other house here, so it’s quite a big village.

Our trail varies. Sometimes we cut through yards, ducking under guava trees or clothes lines. Other times we’ve got a hibiscus hedge bordering the trail, showing us the way. I salute everyone I see with ‘bong naru,’ good morning. We leave the outskirts where houses were scattered helter-skelter and enter the village center. Here the ground is cleared of trees and bushes, which keeps the bugs away. Houses aren’t exactly organized, but each has its own area. The church sits in the middle, an impressively designed building, all bush materials except for the gaudy purple curtain covering the stage. We pass a house they are thatching with kunai, as well as a few liklik (little) houses – outhouses. They’re using WWII oil drums for part of the pit structure. Bencheng was a big US air base back then, known as Tsile Tsile.

Finally we cross the river, mid-thigh deep, and I concentrate on resisting the fast current so I don’t slip and drop my questionnaire in the water. Wouldn’t want to do all that work again! A few more houses, and we’re done. Nok discusses translation possibilities with me earnestly. He says there was a survey back in 1990 (there was) and they thought a translation team was going to come. I explained that we have so few people, but that we’d really like to send someone. We talked about what that would look like. Would someone come to Bencheng? Maybe, or perhaps another village. Given that people go to town a lot, they might even run some training there. Who knows? Nok seemed genuinely passionate about needing the Word translated… it’s a pleasure to meet people like him. I just wish we were able to help in the more immediate future.

Day 6 - Was That a Gun?

Our day began well. Day 5 we’d done little work because people had been gone during the day and it had rained in the evening. But on the morning of day 6 we had a crowd for our Main Questionnaire. I lead it for the first time this survey. It’s really quite enjoyable to use our new and improved tools: they flow, each question has purpose… we just feel like we’re getting things done and aren’t taking people’s time needlessly.

Crossing the river was another hurry-up-and-wait, but we got a closer look at the placer mining/gold panning process. We went across part of the Watut River, wading about thigh deep, and found ourselves on an island in the middle of the river, the main current yet to be crossed. While we waited for a boat we observed the industry all around us. Temporary shelters had been set up on the island, some people were cooking and eating, others were already putting the dirt onto the platforms and washing it. One man was hollowing out a huge drift log, and it looked close to its future shape – a huge dugout canoe.

We finished our crossing in two canoes and made our way through some nasty river-side bogs to Marauna. We quickly realized there wasn’t really a village center as there often is. Instead, it was just a series of houses linked by trails through the tall grass. As usual we simply followed our guides to a particular house where they deposited us. They generally have more of an idea of whose place it is proper for us to invade than we do.

John G once again got itchy feet and set about doing the Walkabout Questionnaire. And once again he was gone several hours, hiking quite some distance (I think he said 15km) to reach all the hamlets of Marauna. Thankfully, unlike Dangal, it was mostly flat.

The rest of us, meanwhile, set about doing the Main Questionnaire. I’ve never seen a crowd so intensely interested! People were crowding in so closely I was concerned Brian and Janell weren’t going to get enough oxygen! I was doing the ‘observing’ portion of the questionnaire – which consists of counting people present, noting who leads the response, writing down any comments that don’t reflect the consensus – so I was on the periphery and had room to breathe.

After this part of the work was complete Brian got his pictures out and showed them around. I was relaxing post-Frisbee fun, when I suddenly got a jolt. Ridiculously loud popping and cracking from my right! Was it a gun? Firecrackers? I looked over and saw a crowd of women and kids scattering in fright. What was happening?

I leapt up and took a defensive stance, prepared to defend our priceless sociolinguistic research at any cost… Well, actually I just sat there, as it all happened too fast to respond coherently. The women and children in the middle of the crowd looking at Brian’s pictures disappeared downward while those on the outskirts scattered. Children started crying, and heads began popping up from where they’d disappeared. Then everyone began laughing. The platform the ladies were sitting on had broken, completely collapsing in the center and effectively swallowing its burden. The popping sounds had been logs 3 and 4 inches in diameter breaking under the weight! I don’t think Brian excepted his pictures to ever be THAT popular!

No one was hurt, though the frightened kids took some calming. I went back to relaxing, looking up a short while later to see them already repairing the platform. We thought we were sleeping there that night so I was glad, but it turned out we walked about fifteen minutes to another part of the village for the night.

They held an outdoor service that night, and we listened to some lovely singing as we prepared for sleep. We’d be back to walking the next day after mostly riding in canoes the past several days, and we weren’t sure how that would go. But we’d gotten work done in two villages that day and felt the satisfaction that doing one’s job brings.

P.S. I forgot to mention the dinosaur. On the evening of day five Janell went to wash. Having used the lovely standpipe shower, she went to the bush briefly, then returned. Looking around for her soap in its ziplock, she saw only an enormous pig, foaming at the mouth. It had eaten the entire bar of soap, in its plastic bag! I guess it’ll have clean innards…

Day 5 - Gold Dust

We woke leisurely. In days 1-4 of the survey we’d only completed work in two villages, which meant we were behind schedule. But we’d also passed by Gumots and now planned to pass both Maralangko and Zinimb, which meant we’d be ahead of schedule! We would have liked to have visited these locations but it would probably have meant a lot more bush walking, and the team wasn’t capable of much more after the brutal time we’d had days 2 and 3.

There was another reason we weren’t in a hurry. John G had left his headlamp at Bubuparum. Not only would it be a major annoyance to not have one the rest of the survey, but it would take quite some time to have one shipped from Australia or Britain on our return. He decided he’d go back for it.

He returned from his canoe ride no worse for wear except being wet; more importantly, he came back with his headlamp. It had fallen through the sleeping platform. We got all ready to go… then waited. Hurry up and wait. Grumble.

I sat down with two of the elderly men of Wawas. They pulled out their gold. It was very strange to have people pull gold out of their pockets, but in Wawas it happened several times. They made hardened spheres of gold dust and kept them somewhere about their person in little bits of plastic, or small containers. The previous day a man had pulled out three such, worth about 550 kina, or nearly $300! This is very unusual in a country where cash is hard to come by.

Though unusual, it wasn’t surprising. After all, the sand we walked on by the river’s edge was sparkling with gold glitter. At least one major gold mine operates upriver, and of course we’d visited the Sumaris mining camp, where they were doing exploratory drilling. Our first day in Dangal we’d seen some of the locals placer mining, though we didn’t get a close-up look at the process till later. They’d build a platform – often of bamboo – which they’d prop at a tilt. Sand and dirt from the river-side would be piled at the upper end and water poured over it repeatedly. I didn’t understand the entire process, but of course gold being heavier ends up at the bottom, and it is then separated out. By some chemical process, I believe involving mercury, the dust is then hardened into little spheres which the locals take to town and sell.

We were told a person could get one or more grams of gold per day from the river, each gram selling for 55-80Kina, or $25-40USD. That’s a great day’s earnings in a country where the minimum wage is something like 2.50Kina/hr. In Dangal we’d wondered what the locals did with the money they made (besides paying for things like kids’ school fees), because we didn’t see evidence of it. In Wawas, we got a glimpse. Someone had a generator, a big TV, and a bunch of DVDs. Boy was it weird to look out that night and see the TV lighting up the village!

Our hurry-up-and-wait was finally over, and we piled into the same dugout as the previous day and set off down the river. It was a lovely ride. There were a few rapids, but having successfully navigated the ones the day before I was less preoccupied by them; additionally, there was of course nothing I could do to keep the boat from tipping, so there was no point in being worried. We accelerated smoothly down the river, passing huge boulders, untouched forests… it was wonderful just to sit back and enjoy. Of course I were getting soaked by the river’s spray, but that was certainly preferable to being soaked from my own sweat.

Being the trip’s logistics guy, one of my responsibilities was keeping track of route data and also thinking about travel plans for the days ahead. We landed near Maralina, prepared to do our work there that afternoon, then return across the river to Babuaf. But that would mean returned across the river again, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately this dawned on me just as our motorized canoe left, so when the others realized the logic of my thought, we were left with a very narrow dugout canoe without a motor to take us across. It did so in three wobbly trips, but afforded us the opportunity for a laugh: the canoe was too narrow for some of the surveyors to sit in the bottom… their hips got stuck halfway down!

We did all make it across, then experienced our first bit of flatland hiking. Boy were we popular here! We each had a cloud of mosquitoes following us and latching on if we paused on the trail. Talk about motivation to keep moving!

The rest of that day was very unproductive. We arrived in Babuaf to find almost no one there. They were all in their gardens or perhaps at the river getting gold. We were able to do only the work that doesn’t require a group: the Word List and the Walkabout Questionnaire. We’d hoped we could do the Main Questionnaire with a group in the evening, but it started raining and they had no building large enough for our purposes, so we agreed to do it the following morning.

I shouldn’t neglect to mention that the stars aligned that day… or rather the mobile phone signal. For the first time in our trip we had a signal, though a very sketchy one. It being Valentine’s Day we men each got a call or text through to our wives, and I even squandered 9 minutes on the satellite phone talking to Katie after the cell phone signal quite on me (gasp!). The sat phone is, by the way, a semi-sacred object to a surveyor, and is generally used only after great deliberation ; )

Day 4 - Mr. Cow and His Size 56 Pants

I recorded in my journal that I didn’t wake till after 8am this morning, quite late when you usually wake with the sun, pigs, and chickens. I woke feeling fairly good, despite two tough days.

We didn’t know exactly what this day would hold. We’d discussed the possibility of a rest day, giving ourselves the chance to heal physically and recover mentally. We were certain that several folks either couldn’t or shouldn’t do any walking that day. The alternative was getting a boat.

We’d descended the Watut River far enough that this was now a possibility. A number of boats were operated from Wawas, which we were probably still a 3 or 4 hour hike from. The guy who’d met us with a rifle the previous evening and who’d put us up in his home had offered the previous evening to hike down to Wawas and ask for a boat to come upriver for us. We’d said, “Yes, please!”

Our concern was the report that all of the boats would have gone down to Lae, the big city in the area, which they apparently do quite regularly. I say we were concerned, but actually we were resigned to the possibility of staying where we were for a day, and perhaps even a little bit happy about it ; )

We decided to go ahead and do some work in Bubuparum since we were there, even though it hadn’t been part of our original agenda. Brian took a word list while John G, Janell, and I went up the short, steep trail to the village. We anticipated finding more folks there, but it turned out that there were only 4 or 5 houses and that we’d probably already met the majority of the population. So we decided not to do any further work except to ask a few questions.

The rest of the morning was restful. Having no need to pack up, we lounged around on our Thermarests, writing in our journals or reading. Three of us had brought e-books, and boy was I happy to have one along! On previous surveys I’d take real books along but always found I read through them in the first half of the survey and had nothing left. With the e-book you can, of course, take tons of books along, and your only limit is the battery.

You might ask about us having time to read. Actually we usually do have time in the evenings on survey, and at least for myself, it’s really important to my mental health to be able to escape the pressures of survey and being in the village. This survey I read some very interesting books. The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life by Francis Parkman, written around 1847, was one. I actually found a lot of parallels between the challenges the author faced on his wilderness experiences and ours, and even many similarities between the way the Indians responded to him and the way PNG’ans respond to us.

Anyhow, around noon the owner of the house hurried up with a boat skipper! They seemed in a bit of a rush, so we packed up our stuff quickly and walked the few bends down the Bitap River to where it joins the Watut River. It was brown and moving very quickly! Which brought a few stories to mind…

In Dangal we’d been told numerous tales of people dying on the river, mostly tourists who’d come to run the rapids. Three Israelis had come and had lost their boat. Two had died, one had been put up in Dangal till a helicopter had come for her (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watut_River for a potentially more accurate version). Others had similar experiences. We were well warned.

The most humorous story concerned Mr. Cow and his pants (this one’s not on Wikipedia, sorry ; ). Two tourists, river-running, had lost their boat. The water had treated them so abusively that they’d lost all their clothes, and their skin had been sliced by the rocks. They wandered into the village naked, desperately needing help. The problem was that Mr. Cow was a rather large man; the storyteller kept repeating that he needed size 56 pants, as if that were the funniest thing in the world. PNG’ans in the village are generally quite small, owing to their diet and the amount of physical work they do.

I think in the end they found some stretch pants or something… anyway, we weren’t in a hurry to die or be denuded by the river. When I first saw our boat I thought it was about 10 ft long and that we were, indeed, likely to die, but then I saw it was at an angle to us and was actually rather too long for good maneuverability than too short. We’d taken the precaution of putting all sensitive items into water-resistant sacks, and had additionally put essential items – satellite phone, GPS, water, food, etc – into small bags we carried on ourselves in case we capsized and lost our backpacks.

The ride to Wawas was mercifully short – just ten or fifteen minutes. I’ve encountered plenty of whitewater in my time and have certainly seen rougher rapids, but we definitely went through some class III’s in our 30ft dugout canoe with a 25hp Yamaha Enduro motor on the back. Thankfully we got wet IN the boat from waves rather than OUT of the boat.

We arrived in Wawas and conducted some quick negotiations. We said to the boat skipper, “If you want to go on to Lae, would you be willing to let us do our work here in Wawas – maybe three or four hours – then take us down to the next village?” Looking at the map the road to the next village looked just as long as some of our previous hikes, and we were not eager to repeat the experience.

Turned out our driver was actually happy to stay the night in Wawas and would transport us the next day. So we began our work, in no hurry. I again helped with the main questionnaire, then made a point of taking some pictures of the others doing their work and of the village. Wawas was a nice place. It was on the border of the true mountains and the hills that gradually petered out into valley. So it wasn’t so steep everywhere as it had been, but there were still some nice hills in the view. Plus it had a minor miracle: standpipes.

Little did we know that EVERY village from Wawas on would have standpipes. Most had been either installed or improved by one of the mining companies in the area as part of their community development efforts. They would dam an uphill water source and pipe it into the village, providing pressure and constant flow using gravity. I can tell you that clear water running from pipes in close proximity to the house you are staying in is wonderful. It’s a HUGE improvement over walking 30 minutes to wash in a muddy river and returning through swampy muck. What’s the point of trying to wash under those conditions? Getting drinking water is also made that much easier… we were very grateful for the standpipes.

That evening we pulled out the Frisbee. Commence hilarity! Everyone – from children to village elders – attempted to throw this odd piece of plastic, all meeting with laughable results. We whites enjoyed being better physically at something than our PNG friends for once. They threw the Frisbee around till it was too dark to see it any more, then collected en masse around the haus win (house wind) we were staying in. None of us really felt much like telling stories, so Bryan got out his pictures and passed them around.

Just after we went to bed it started raining, large drops coming through the roof onto my head. Grumble. The others had placed themselves more fortuitously, so I maneuvered around till I wasn’t getting dripped on as much. The guy to whom the house belonged came along and fiddled with the roof a bit, and I fell asleep, not concerned about being a bit damp.

We were, after all, going back on the river the next day.

Day 3 - On and On and On

We woke the morning of the 12th, in the dark, to a tropical downpour. I’d woken up several times during the night and it had been dumping rain then too. “I have a bad feeling about this” doesn’t begin to capture my dark thoughts that morning. The vertical ascents and descents had been tough enough the previous day without the rain, and what about creeks and rivers we might cross?

I had felt similar dread in Montana, waking up in a quinzhee (a snow shelter) with the temperature at minus 5 F, knowing that my boots were frozen solid and that I had absolutely no desire to climb out of my sleeping bag.

Dawn brought a new perspective and a stop to the rain. We had breakfast in the camp canteen and bid our host goodbye. With improved spirits we set out… straight uphill another 200m (650ft) to our highest point of the survey, 1021m (3,350ft). We rested there before plunging down the north side of the mountain. And plunge we did! In the next two and a half hours we descended 681m (2234ft) over a distance of about 2km (1.24mi). This is a grade of about 34%, and would NOT end up being our steepest descent that day.


By the time we reached Bukandu at the bottom of the mountain it was just after 1100. Despite a slow and slippery descent, we all felt pretty good. We asked the folks there whether they thought we could get to Wawas that day. Some said yes, others said no, it will be dark. Based on the evidence of days 2 and 3 of the survey, pessimists should be respected. They proved right again and again.

We said, “Well, we’ll give it a try,” and set out. We were soon to realize that Lazarus, our guide, had not walked this portion of the trail before. If we had known we may have attempted to do something differently, but actually there was no one else available to take us; he may have been our only option.

We filled our bottles from a questionable water source (putting into it, as always, water purification tablets) and crossed a landslide. That turned out to be the easy part, because we promptly turned straight up an extremely steep kaukau garden. Kaukau is a staple food in much of PNG, somewhere between a regular and a sweet potato. And guess what? We went straight back down an equally steep kaukau garden on the other side.

A lovely boulder-filled creek quickly cheered us, and we walked upstream in the clear water. Lazarus kept disappearing ahead of us, and I had to track him by his wet footprints. We started yelling at him to wait up, but finally we didn’t see him for such a long time – nor was he answering our yells – that we decided we’d better stop and let him come back to us. We’d gone up the stream quite a ways by this time. We found some rocks to sit on and had ‘lunch,’ which meant that we all snacked on something or other.

Katie had made me some fruit leather from banana and strawberry – very tasty! – as well as some granola bars with chocolate in them. The flavor of chocolate, by the way, is greatly enhanced by physical exertion and the consumption of PNG food. John G had some delicious dried bananas and some trail mix. Brian had bees, and Janell butterflies. Well, not to eat.

Brian had been extolling the wonders of his skin; that wherever he went other people would get bitten by sand flies and mosquitoes and he would remain untouched. We took great pleasure, therefore, in the swarm of bees that began to cling to his pack and his clothes there at the creek, and which followed him for several days. We never did figure out why.

As for butterflies, there were some lovely ones flitting around. Janell took some pictures of them, then spent a few minutes sitting in a pool in the stream, soaking up nature’s splendor. Finally Lazarus returned with some glum news: he didn’t know where the trail was.

Turns out a lady had given him instructions in Bukandu. “Turn at the tree,” she’d said. The tree? We’re in a stinkin’ jungle, lady! Not knowing what else to do, we ventured back down the stream, poking into the bush here and there to find the trail. Finally it was indeed a tree that steered us right! A huge tree had been felled, completely blocking the path, but we found it zigzagging up the hill beyond.

It was now after 1pm, and our day of hiking was only just beginning.

Looking at the map some of us had guessed at the number of valleys and streams we’d be crossing. This gave us a measure of confidence as we went along, checking them off the list. Turns out our map-reading was overly optimistic.

We later learned (why is it you always learn things AFTER you need to know them?) that this trail was ‘built’ only within the last year or two, and that very few people used it. This meant that the trail was barely there in many places, in terms of being able to see it and in terms of having a place to put your feet. If you look at the elevation profile at the top of the page you can see this portion of the journey from Bukandu to the spot labeled ‘Kunai Over Bubuparum.’ We kept expecting the trail to stop going up. Indeed, if it was sentient, we would have commanded it to cease doing so. We were, after all, following the Watut River downstream. We didn’t anticipate going up, and up, and up…

Several things frustrated us during this time. Naturally, the interminable trail had us concerned, and it didn’t take us long to figure that yes, we were going to be hiking in the dark. But perhaps equally frustrating was Lazarus, who kept disappearing ahead. We’d shout at him to wait for us, that we didn’t want to lose the trail, that we had headlamps and could hike in the dark, etc. He persisted in disappearing up ahead. I could possibly have kept up with him if I’d pushed myself very, very hard, but of course I wanted to stay with the team.

The team was suffering from a variety of challenges. The trail itself was quite daunting, with only small footholds keeping a person from falling a very long way down the mountain. This was, of course, both physically and mentally challenging. Our weariness and the technical trail was also resulting in injury. One member’s feet were getting rubbed to pieces by his Chacos, while all three of the others suffered from cuts to hands and arms from grabbing onto sharp grass and plants to keep from falling.

Thanks to my experience in mountains and to my excellent footwear (the Salomon TechAmphibians I was trialing this trip), I fared well. I enjoy being out in the wild and don’t mind steep terrain. Though it was a long day for me, I never reached the same degree of weariness I had the previous day, and in fact it was more waiting on people and our runaway guide that wore me down.

Before I begin to sound proud in my abilities I want to say that I was immensely impressed by my teammates. Each was challenged by different things, but each faced their challenges with a great deal of fortitude. I suspect one team member reached the ‘can’t go further’ state long before the end of the day, but just kept going. Another became hysterical with exhaustion and strain, yet kept putting one foot in front of the other. They each had a much harder day than I did, and I had to remind myself of that when I was tempted to become impatient.

I can’t really give many more details of that portion of the trip. It just kept going on and on. We’d cross tiny trickles of water in shadowed gullies, then swing out on long, dry, gravelly portions of the trail. We kept being disbelieving about our continued ascent… surely this trail was taking us somewhere we didn’t want to go? Yet there were no other trails, no other options.

Darkness fell, and we turned on our headlamps. And plodded on. A few times there were moments of hope. A sudden breeze curving over that next ridge surely meant a clearing, right? Hey, Lazarus is saying no more uphill! Dare we believe him? In each case hope was unwise; perseverance was a better companion.

Finally, and somewhat suddenly, we came out onto a ridge covered in kunai, the head-high grass of PNG. The last of the light, which hadn’t reached us under the trees, showed us to be on the edge of a precipice. We could see the river down to our right, seemingly miles below. “Wawas,” Lazarus said, pointing over a distant ridge, “Is over there.”

It was 7pm. There was no way we were going to get to Wawas. Could we camp where we were? We had no tents, no shelter at all. We did have some matches, so we could start a fire. We had some food we could eat cold. We had mosquito nets. What if it rained? Would we sleep at all, even if it didn’t?

We debated our options. Lazarus told us that there was a small village at the bottom of the valley that stretched away to our left. Could we send someone down to check? Get some locals to come up and take our packs down? I was voted the man for this job, but expressed my dislike of the idea. I felt that we were within reach of houses and people, and wanted to push on as a team.

There was little argument. I think we were too tired to debate. We decided to descend.

Remember our 34% grade of that morning? Check out the elevation profile again. From Kunai Over Bubuparum at 650m (2,133ft) at around 7pm we descended to Bubuparum at 278m (912ft) by 9:20pm. That’s 372m (1,220ft) descent in about three-quarters of a kilometer. That’s a 49.6% grade! Of course the trail zig-zagged slightly, but it really was extremely steep, and, by this time, completely dark. Not to mention we’d already been hiking 11-plus hours by the beginning of the descent.

Back in my college days I took groups of high-schoolers out on hikes. One of the ways I got over my boredom at their slow pace when hiking in the dark was to go to the back of the line, then switch off my headlamp, walking by the light of the kid in front of me. Frequently he’d forget I was there, and would at some point turn around and get quite a fright to find someone following him in the dark! You can guess what kind of a childhood poor Tikvah is going to have…

Anyway, my evil habits helped me on this night, for I gave my headlamp to our guide so that he could find the trail, and walked between the other surveyors, getting enough of an idea of the ground from their light to keep from falling down the mountainside.

You may be feeling (and rightfully so) that this entry is going On and On and On like the title says, but I have one final detail to relate. Disputes over land are frequent in PNG where one’s survival depends upon gardens; these disputes sometimes lead to violence. Some of the members of the people group we were surveying had killed three young men of a group on the opposite side of the river within the past few years. Our guide started hallooing the village from some distance away, and some time later a young man came up the trail holding a rifle. He wasn’t sure who he would encounter in the dark, and was worried that his enemies were coming to retaliate. Firearms are, by the way, illegal in PNG.

Thankfully he and Lazarus spoke a common tongue, and naturally we whites weren’t after him or his family. So he cheerfully led us down the final descent to his house. The village of Bubuparum, it turned out, was quite tiny and up the opposite side of the valley a ways. Thankfully the guy who met us had a house right on the water which he invited us to stay at. We washed under a spout by the river, ate a bit of food, and went straight to bed.

We’d left that morning at 7:45am, arriving at 9:20pm. Once again we’d only gone 7km horizontally, but had actually ascended 869m (2,851ft), more than the previous day. Unfortunately I hadn’t recorded total descent for day 2, so figures for total descent on day 3 would be a bit of a guess, but it must have exceeded 1,053m (3,455ft).

I spent the night wedged between John G and Brian in our mosquito net, but my weary body didn’t have any problem sleeping…

Day Two - Stairs Anyone?

The pigs did keep it down… till 6am, apparently their feeding time. Then they went crazy, and we opened our eyelids to a gray morning.

If we’d have known what this day would hold, would any of us have rolled out of bed? Perhaps not. We may have waited in Dangal until teleportation was invented.

Before the trip I’d studied the maps of the area. None had great detail, but they showed high ridges around the river valley. We assumed, though, that people traveled from village to village, and that there were trails along the river. Both of these assumptions proved false.

We left Dangal at 8:10am, intending to go to ‘Gumots.’ I say ‘Gumots,’ because it turned out this was the name of an area, not a village, and because we never actually made it there. Our revised target, on discovering this, was Wawas, but even still our one day trip turned into two days of extreme hiking and a third day in a canoe. But I’m getting ahead of myself.


On this day, the 11th of February, we found ourselves crossing slippery rocks that sloped down into the roiling, brown Watut River. It was hazardous stuff. A slip could easily send a person into the water, and with a heavy pack on…? These rocks didn’t last long – thankfully – but we found ourselves facing another challenge: vertical hills.

Our guide explained that the trail we followed was built by the Australians in 1942, during WWII. This area was an important supply route for the intense fighting that happened around Lae. Australian troops would have had PNG’an carriers tote the supplies over this trail. An interesting book by Peter Ryan, Fear Drive My Feet, tells of war efforts in the area. I need to pick it up again to see if he was in the Watut Valley, but if memory serves, I believe he was one valley to the east near Wau.

Take a look at the elevation profile at the top of this page. The section from Dangal to Sumaris Mining Camp is the portion we hiked today. The GPS says we only did 6.35km that day, but that includes 806m (2,644ft) of elevation gain. I’ve done more than that in a day in the Canadian Rockies, but never in as vertical a fashion as we did this day. It felt like going up very steep stairs, and then down very steep stairs. Then up very steep stairs. And down again. Oh, and did I mention that it’s all quite slippery, so that every muscle is straining just to keep from sliding off the trail? An additional hazard was homicidal trees; one leaning over the trail cracked and gave John G quite a whack on the head as he passed under it.

We stopped at a hamlet along the way, one of the locations John G had been the previous day in his epic Walkabout Questionnaire. This was the hamlet where the council – the village-level government authority – lived. On the previous day we’d been unable to get consent from the people who participated in our work. Consent for what?

Well, in the research world it is considered unethical to run around collecting all kinds of research, then publicize it without getting the consent of the people to do so. We as a survey team have discussed what consent means in the PNG context. After all, the vast majority are unfamiliar with academic writing and the like. So what we do is 1) carefully explain who we are and what we’re about, 2) explain the purpose of our research, 3) describe the particular papers we write, and 4) who we want to share them with. Then we ask them whether they agree to us doing so or not. Generally, after being clear on our purposes and values, they agree.

Thankfully, though the council had left, apparently looking for us, there were some other community elders who said, “Yes, you may use and publish your research.” So we went on our way.

Our guide, a Dangal man named Lazarus, as well as two or three teenagers accompanied us. In true PNG fashion, they each carried a small bag with virtually nothing in it. Thankfully one of them was willing to carry one of our packs when a team member found himself more weary than anticipated. Who wouldn’t be? By about noon we descended/slid down yet another precipitous hillside and found ourselves at a lovely little waterfall. Our clothes were completely drenched from sweat, so we had no hesitation about jumping in and cooling off. We each ate a little bit, knowing we had one final ascent to Sumaris Mining Camp.

You may remember that our original intention was to go to Gumots, later revised to Wawas. We knew Sumaris was less than half of the way there, but by the time we reached the waterfall, we knew we could go no farther than Sumaris, at least uphill. My quads were beginning to cramp even before that final ascent. We had our fingers crossed that the “American” who was “learning our vernacular” – the boss of the mining camp – would extend us hospitality. We were at the end of our physical abilities for that day.

Up that final, interminable ridge we climbed. And climbed. And climbed. John G requested that I shout out our elevation at regular 10m intervals. Just so we could feel like we were getting somewhere. We each made a guess at the elevation we’d find the camp… unfortunately Brian’s guess, the highest one, still fell short. We finally saw pole structures covered in brightly covered plastic sheeting above us, and knew we’d made it.


What followed caused us to dub the camp the “Watut Hilton.” The boss, actually an Australian who didn’t even know Tok Pisin that well, was extremely friendly. He said we could stay for the night, could eat their food, could take showers, and could even wash our clothes in the washing machine. Say what? A washing machine in the middle of the PNG bush? Yes indeed!

The corned beef sandwiches were prime rib, the watermelon the most succulent, refreshing fruit imaginable. The showers were ridiculously hot. We collapsed mid-afternoon on mattresses – not our Thermarests but real mattresses – and either slept or wrote in our journals.

That evening we schemed much about the coming trail. Could we make it to Wawas? How many ridges and valleys were between us? What was the trail like? Our Australian host put himself at our disposal, helping us with some maps, even letting John G get on a laptop with satellite internet so he could put an update on our survey facebook page! (http://www.facebook.com/pngsurvey?sk=wall#!/pngsurvey?sk=wall check out the Feb 11 entry) We asked about the possibility of helicopter transport, as one had flown in at least three times that day to deliver supplies. We figured the chopper could probably drop us in Wawas in about ten minutes. Our host was optimistic about the possibility and contacted his boss, who – concerned about public image – said no. We didn’t blame him. Public relations and who-helps-who can be a delicate thing.

We went to bed feeling that we’d done all we could do, and just happy to have a dry place to rest. We woke the next morning before dawn to a tropical downpour. I’ve rarely felt so much dread…

Silisili Survey - Day One

Well folks, the survey team has returned! The Silisili Survey was a success, despite some challenging circumstances. Namely, vertical terrain. Here’s an introduction and day one; stay tuned for the whole story.

Preparation and Day One

Once upon a time there were four surveyors. Sitting comfortably in their office in the Highlands, they heard of the Watut River Valley and of their lack of the Word in their own language. Several languages bordering this area have translations or are in the process of completing them, but the Watut Valley had no language development projects.

Other development projects were in plenty. The lure of gold had brought several mining companies to the region, so that despite the extreme remoteness of parts of the valley, helicopters could be heard overhead several times a day. What a strange juxtaposition! The most modern of technologies used for the extraction of gold while PNG’ans living within hearing of the helicopter’s blades still live as they did hundreds of years ago.

The regional director asked the survey team, “Will you please go to the Watut? If you find a thriving language there, it will be first on our priority list for a translation project.” That’s the kind of thing we like to hear! Because, in fact, two surveys had been completed in the area, one in 1965, one in 1990. Both had recommended a project, but either no translation teams were available or no one considered it high priority.

The survey team spent several weeks considering the questions the regional director wanted answered and developing questionnaires and other research tools for the job. Then, the morning of February 10th, we four – John G, Brian, Janell, and myself – boarded the Long Ranger helicopter and took off.



A 45-minute flight found us over our first village. Remarkably, the coordinates I’d given the pilot for its position were actually correct! We grinned to ourselves as we noticed a man acting as traffic director; he was waving his arms vigorously to show us where to ‘park.’

Hopping out, we ducked under the spinning blades and yelled, “Is this Dangal?” It was, so we thanked our pilot, and he was up and away. That quickly we left behind the comforts of our modern age: motorized transport, electricity, western food. We were in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea.

When we first arrive in a village we try to never be in a hurry. Often people are out in their gardens, or perhaps a village leader is not present. Because we are looking for community consensus and the attitudes and intentions of its leaders, it would be pointless to pick a random fellow and ask him what he knows.

So we sat around, talked a bit, got stared at, answered some questions… finally we decided to start some work that wouldn’t require everyone, since we didn’t have much of a crowd yet. I began the word list. Our current word list consists of 170 lexical items and 20 short sentences designed to get at grammar, sentence order, etc. I quickly found there weren’t many strange phonemes (sounds) to record, but that [l] and [r] were in free variation, meaning that the people don’t distinguish between these sounds! One time my informant would say [bola], the next he’d say [bora], and he wouldn’t know the difference. This caused a bit of confusion when speaking Tok Pisin with them. For example, ‘road’ frequently became ‘load,’ which naturally made getting trail information a bit tricky.

Anyhow, the word list went fine. Meanwhile John G had gone on the Walkabout Questionnaire, a tool he’d helped design to get at immigrants and their influence on language use. He was gone about four hours, and returned absolutely wasted, saying he’d just done one of the hardest hikes of his life and that we couldn’t possibly do some of what he’d done with packs on our backs.

We were to prove otherwise, but in the meantime we took his cautions quite seriously. We’d heard of a village – Sanang – that was straight up and over the mountain. We’d not heard of this village before, so suddenly our travel plans were brought into question. Do we try to get to Sanang or not? Watching John as he collapsed to rest, we were convinced that Sanang – even supposing we could reach it – would not be worth the struggle of getting there. What’s more, the Dangal folks said, “They speak just like us,” so theoretically our research in Dangal applied also to them.

Our Main Questionnaire had to wait till late that night, and we never really got a great crowd together. But as we were to discover, the population of this area is extremely low, so there just may not have been many more folks around.

Some other memories from day one include seeing the young guys go off to pan for gold (apparently they can make a very good wage this way) in the Watut River; getting soaked to the skin because I decided to go take some pictures just before the clouds let loose; seeing the church building with one bench in it; and washing under a short pipe they’d stuck into a clear stream.

We crawled into our mosquito nets and hoped the pigs would keep it down so we could get a good night’s rest, wondering what the morrow would bring.

Even in Australia

I decided to do the good motherly thing today and read a couple of books to Tikvah. Before we left Papua New Guinea last August, I had the chance to buy some stuff from a family who had left the field. They had a lovely collection of kids books, which I was only too thrilled to snatch up (I bought them all for Tikvah… really!). Henry the Duck, Lyle the Crocodile, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and even Doctor Desoto were among the treasures I rescued to be loved by a new Ukarumpa MK.
Today was a lovely sunny day, the kind that have been greatly missed of late. The kind of day that makes you feel guilty for not doing laundry, even if you didn’t need to, because at least it would have dried. So I grabbed an old blanket, my mug that tells me to “Drink PNG Coffee” and which I dutifully obey, and headed for the great outdoors of our yard to read to my darling daughter. I admit that at five months of age she is a little young to truly appreciate reading. But she didn’t complain. So I made my voice as animated as I could and read the words while Tikvah did her best to eat the pages.
Tikvah listened (and grabbed and chewed) as I read the tale of Alexander’s “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day”, a story I remembered enjoying myself as a child. Well, I mean I enjoyed hearing it, not eating it. Alexander, the boy sharing his woes, recounts how everything that could go wrong in his life one day did go wrong. His solution to the problems unexpectedly made me laugh out loud. When his brothers get toys in their cereal boxes and he doesn’t, he declares, “I think I’ll move to Australia”. It’s such a cliché desire, to be somewhere else or be someone else or have something different. I should know better than to think those thoughts, and yet I still fall prey to such wishes.
For example, I would love to be on survey right now. At least, that’s how I feel. Never mind that I’m in PNG, never mind that I’m a bona fide missionary, never mind that I have a wonderful husband and a sweet daughter. I want to be on survey! Survey is COOL! Yes, I wanted all those other things, but I wanted to be a surveyor too!
John called me on the satellite phone last night, and I loved talking with him. He said he’s doing well after their crazy hikes, though the boat ride down the river through rapids was a little on the scary side.
“Is Tikvah walking and talking yet?” he asked. Wanting to make him feel like he was missing something, I replied in a dubious tone, “maaaaybe.” It worked. “It’s not fair!” I heard him exclaim after the half-second it took for his voice to get to a satellite and then reach my phone. Wow, I thought. YOU’RE one to talk! Here I sit, wishing I could be where you are, wanting to feel like a part of the team, wishing I could be doing survey on the rugged PNG countryside like I wanted to do. And you envy me because I’m changing poopy diapers, living two-thirds of my day with only one arm free, and taking care of a grouchy baby all by myself? Thanks to Alexander, I now know exactly what I should have said to John - “I hope the next time you get a double-decker strawberry ice-cream cone the ice cream part falls off the cone part and lands in Australia.” So there.
It really isn’t as bad as I’m making it sound, of course. I’m loving having Tikvah around, loving her smiles, loving her spit bubbles, and even loving watching her dance and grunt because she’s trying to fill her diaper! And I’m loving the fact that I have many friends to help make the time pass quicker. It’s just that some part of me still wants to do survey, to have at least a tiny part in helping Bible translation happen here in PNG. Is it wrong to want that? I don’t think so. Do I need to give it up for a time and be “just” a mom? Perhaps. Am I a worthwhile person if I don’t do survey at all? Of course! Then is it just my selfish pride that makes me feel I should do something with survey still? Oooooh, good question. I’m not sure I have a solid answer either. I do hope that God will grow me and teach me, however, and help me answer it in time. And, to help me answer each of these questions as they come up each day.
But for now, I’ll work to be content where I am. I’m confident that it was a good thing for me to stay home with Tikvah this time. And though I wish I were out with John, I know that there are hard things about being on survey too. So I’ll work to be content while I work to find my new niche - even if I find that it means being “just” mom.
It seems like contentment might be an important thing to learn, no matter how much better another situation might look. After all, as Alexander’s mom tells him at the end of his terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day - “some days are just like that. Even in Australia.”