Culture events are one of the big ideas that we use as missionaries to learn language. Getting a notebook out and asking someone to list off every verb they can think of might help you learn a few verbs, but it’ll be hard to remember. If instead we experience a Read more…
Not only is the PNG culture constantly surprising even those of us who live here the fluid, logistically challenging work of our mission keeps bringing up ‘askims’ (favors). A missionary family is due to arrive back in PNG next week after the birth of a baby in the US. They shot those of us at Madang a quick email asking us to help them get the car road worthy so when they return they can head straight to the tribe.
With it taking multiple times longer than we ever dreamed it would we’ve come up against a problem – there was to be nowhere for us to stay in Madang. The interface program was to begin and would be taking over the entire Madang centre and we’d have to go and had had no luck finding alternative accommodation. We still needed to paint our plywood sheets with more coats of varnish, the hardware store needs constant encouragement from us to keep processing our order and when they finally do deliver we need to be around to take delivery – but we’d run out of time.
We were fretting about this, but unknown to us the Interface team were fretting about being short on teachers.
Buying building materials takes AGES! Part of that is our own inexperience. None of us have managed a construction project before; or thought about an entire house’s plumbing needs; or anything else for that matter. We’ve managed to cobble together a list but is it all we need? Is the thing I just got a quote for something that was on my list? I need something to join PVC pipes together is that a join, coupling, union or collar; or something else? What do we call it in Britain, what do Americans call it and what’s it called here in PNG?
So we spent a few days getting quotes and familiarising ourselves with what we needed. The rest of the time though has been dealing with hardware stores here, and we can only sigh deeply when we think about it.
Stanley’s May update
We’ve set aside 3 weeks to do it, which is a really long time for shopping, but we’ve found hardware stores to be endless sources of delay here in PNG. You want to buy those screws? Sorry the system is down – try again tomorrow. We’ll deliver it tomorrow, 2 weeks later…
The thing I noticed about going in by helicopter was how small everything looked. We flew over countless ridges and dozens of hamlets built on hill tops as we traversed the Adelberts to get to Kovol. It’s a constant spectacle as every second unfolds more of PNGs rugged landscape
The guys in the Kovol team are just back from spending 6 days in Kovol for a land signing agreement. The goal of our trip was to get a contract signed that would give us a bit of land we could build our houses on.
Tomorrow we’re heading back into Kovol for the first time since our allocation survey. A helicopter is available and we’re taking the quick and easy way in this time.
Preparing to move to a new house is a big deal. Building a house requires even more preparation. Building a house in the bush – that’s even more work!