All I Want for Chrithmath...

Christmas Cus-Cus

By request, here are a few shots of our very cute – if not so very cuddly – cus-cus hanging out in the branches of our artificial Christmas tree!





Cussy getting into the Christmas Spirit

Cussy also likes to hang out in the hangers!

ORO RELIEF TRIP #2

Follow up to RICE RELIEF:

On our boat’s second trip up to Oro Province earlier this month, I (Tim) went along to help deliver over 5 tons of rice and a bunch of donated clothes to 7 coastal villages.

The Maisin people were very grateful for the contributions. I learned later that a group from Uiaku (oo-YAH-koo) village (one of our drop off sites) hiked about 4 hours inland carrying clothes and relief supplies (presumably some they had just received) to a less-accessible, neighboring language group that had sustained very heavy damage from the flood.
In the worst-hit areas I went ashore to tour the damages and take documentary photos. Although I saw quite a few houses that had fallen down, it was encouraging to see the villagers already working together to rebuild homes for the families that had lost everything. The food gardens were decimated by the flooding. In some areas, the crops are buried by up to a meter of silty mud. Even in areas that appear only partially buried, the underground crops like sweet potato, taro, and manioc root are rotting under the saturated blanket of clay. The new topsoil is nutrient-poor, fine-grain sediment that will dry very hard when the rainy season up there ends in a few months.
Even if the gardens could be replanted immediately, they wouldn’t produce sustainable food crops for a year or two.

Please keep praying for all the flood victims in Oro Province. They have a long lean road ahead of them. If you are interested in helping out, we can help connect you with coordinators working on long-term disaster relief.

Rice Relief

The Kwadima left on Saturday for its 2nd relief trip to the Oro Province. Tim is currently underway and his coordinates as per our last radio contact, for those Google Earth fans, are 09*29', 149*15' (with * being degrees). Check it out. He left with a crew of 3 and a boat filled with rice, fuel, and other miscellaneous relief supplies. They have encountered a recurring fuel filter problem on this journey. Pray that this mechanical issue will be resolved in the next few weeks. Pray also for his safe return on Tuesday.

The kids and I opted not to go on this trip as the boat was very full of supplies and the journey was a long one. The kids did, however, get to help load the boat in preparation for this trip.

Alotau, Texas???

If it weren't for the fact that no one says y'all, I would think I had moved to Texas. Isn't everything bigger in Texas?

We have giant roaches that love to creep up on Kylah and me. I would put a picture of a roach on this site but then I’d have to see it over and over. I recently ran screaming out of my room after finding a roach on the curtain. Kylah bravely grabbed a fly-swatter and said, “Mom, I’ll kill it for you!” I told her to wait because Tim was just coming up the stairs but she said she could do it. A moment later I heard a terrified shriek come from my room. I ran in there and grabbed a screaming, shaking Kylah. Apparently, the roach flew at her as she tried to kill it and landed on her. (Oh, I’m getting the goosebumps just writing this story.) She was very upset and has since retired as a Roach-Killer-Warrior-Princess. I am still so proud of her for her courageous attempt.

You can hear the beetles as they hit the wall on our verandah. This is one of the smaller ones. The butterflies are larger than our hands (picture to come if I can snap one fast enough),

the snails are palm size, and the frogs at the river are so loud, I thought the villagers were playing drums the first week I was here. (It really is a lovely sound by the way!)

Kylah and I found this ginormous spider in the house. He was about 5-6 inches in diameter and scared the living daylights out of us. I had to use the broom to sweep it out. We kept screaming as I swept but we finally got him out the door and off the verandah. None of the boys (except for Weston) were home at that time, wouldn’t you know it?

I bought a small watermelon at the market only to discover it was really an enormous cucumber.

I made cucumber salad for 19 people, with leftovers!

Our pineapples are as large as a gallon-sized pitcher.

Thankfully, our troubles are small and the hearts of the people here in Alotau are large.

The View

The view from our front porch.

Breathtaking, isn't it?

The view from my kitchen window.

Fortunately, far enough away to not be breath-taking.

Flat Out With Fever

Austin started running a fever Monday night and then, on Tuesday after it steadily rose, I took him into the clinic. He was terrified about having a blood test done. The Dr. looked him over and recommended that we begin the malaria treatment and if there was no improvement by Friday, he would do a blood test then. I am a little frustrated that I didn’t request a blood test as Kylah is now running a low-grade fever. Could it be just a virus or is it malaria? Or worse, Dengue fever?? Back in the states I would not rush to the Dr. with every fever but here I always wonder if it is some deadly tropical illness unknown to me. I know, I’m the paranoid American Mom. The people here see malaria so often, it is treated like the common cold. Even the ex-pats who live in PNG have a respect for it yet don’t panic. Maybe next year I’ll be saying, No Worries. Bring on the Chloroquine.

It is Thursday now and Austin continues to run a fever, has eaten very little and has thrown up stomach bile. GROSS! I think it’s because of the malaria meds on an empty tummy. He feels much better after throwing up. I told him now he knows what it feels like to be pregnant. He laughed. He is up and smiling now and has eaten 2 banana muffins but tomorrow we will go to the clinic if he still has a fever.

A visit to the clinic is quite interesting. We first go to a small wooden “shack” with a tiny window with bars over it and tell the registrar why we are here. He gives us the choice to see a Dr. or a nurse practitioner. If we choose to see a Dr., we pay the equivalent of $7.00, and are seen within 10-15 minutes in a simple room, filled with 7-8 beds, shower curtains, a wooden Triage table, a medicine supply cabinet and a sink. If we see the nurse practitioner, we pay nothing for the kids ($0.75 for us) but you have to wait outside in a very long line that leads to a Nurse at a wooden table with a bottle of disinfectant and basic examination tools. (Stethoscope, scale, thermometer and Otoscope.) There are wooden benches to sit on while you wait. I waited once with all 4 kids for over 2 hours because I didn’t feel like I had to take the Dr’s time for an easily diagnosed ear infection. It was not fun. You can probably see why we usually choose to see the Doctors. Dr Lee and Dr Vakadem are the two main clinic Doctors. There are others in the Hospital wards but hopefully, we won’t have to meet them. It’s nice living in a small town because we have bumped into Dr. Lee and Dr. Vakadem in town and they know the kids, stop and talk, ask questions, and have even given us their personal phone numbers in case we have any questions/concerns. Ah, a taste of the lovely days before HMO’s. Sigh. I know there are great advantages to our modern medical world, but let me bask in the beauty of this old-fashioned personal care for a moment.

Please do continue to pray for the good health of our family.

Kwadima II - Relief supplies to Oro Province

This weekend we sent out the boat on the first of two scheduled relief runs to areas up on the north coast that are trying to recover from Cyclone Guba. Several of the translation teams we support work in areas that were heavily impacted by large-scale flooding. Rivers rose to unprecedented levels taking out large chunks of villages and low lying gardens. Massive rainfall caused mudslides that buried many gardens planted on hillsides. The people in these areas are subsistence farmers relying primarily on their banana, sweet potato, and taro crops to feed their families.

Pray for Maisin people living near the coast, and also the Maiwa people of Biniguni, a village further inland. A first-hand report from the translator in Biniguni village is that the flooding caused 3 deaths, 50 out of 80 houses are gone, the gardens (and the whole village) are buried in about a foot of mud, and the river shifted its course several hundred meters and now runs down the middle of what had been the active airstrip.

Thankfully, some government relief supplies have been brought in. However, that supplemented by the "band-aid" of four tons of rice we took out on this trip are just scratching the surface of what will certainly be a long recovery process.

A Whole New World

We are hesitatingly entering the Blog world. We have admired other blogs for some time now and are hoping to use this method to keep our family and friends up to date on our lives in Alotau, PNG. We apologize in advance for the rough drafts you will see. We don't have the luxury of speedy internet nor heaps of spare time and therefore won't spend much time on editing. You get to enjoy the ramblings of a busy Mom/teacher/errand runner/nurse/home-maker/cook with the occasional input of a busy Dad/center manager/boat manager/PR man/bug-killer. I hope it's not too confusing.

Because I journal so inconsistently, I am always tempted (and waylaid) by the need to catch up. But, I am forcing myself to plow ahead and just start with today December 1, 2007.

It is morning and it is hot! 9 am and the sweat is dripping. Okay, not dripping but if I cross my legs at the computer, they tend to stick when I uncross. It hasn't helped that I just finished a cup of tea. Too hot, I know, but a habit I haven't let go.

Tim is out preparing the boat for a relief trip to the Oro Province. (The North Coast) That area was hit very hard by a recent tropical storm. Whole villages were washed away and many people lost their homes and gardens. Our boat is filled with rice, food, and clothing to be sent up to those unfortunate families. It is good to be able to help out in a tangible way. Unfortunately, corruption is always a factor to consider in relief efforts. Please pray that these supplies will be distributed honestly and fairly.

The kids are chomping at the bit to go to town to watch a Rugby game. It is World AIDS day and there will be a march as well as some other educational presentations. World AIDS day has a whole different meaning here as the premise is not politically driven but is a call for compassion and morally based education. AIDS is a sad reality in this country.

Yes, I will post pictures as soon as I figure out how. I must run now as my diaper-less wonder Weston has just left his mark. (He has a bad rash and we are airing him out.)

See, I told you this wouldn't be pretty! :) :)

Pink, Glorious Pink

If it were entirely up to me, you know this whole blog page would be in Pink! But since I have to share, I know that Tim and the boys would not go for that. So, I'll be content to throw in a little pink here and there on behalf of Kylah and myself.