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.