3.31

This is a picture of our toilet. It’s a little house behind our house that has a big hole in it. The hole is covered by logs to make only a small opening. They put cut wood to make a an area to put your feet and then you squat over the holes. They smell really bad, but ours is new, so it doesn’t smell yet. And we put our fire ashes in when they cool to help keep the smell away and the flies from living in the hole (its so freaky when flies start swarming up the hole and hitting you as you go!)

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3.30

We finally got our kitchen today! (called a haus kuk). Before we were using the community rest area to make our food and everyone in the village comes and watches us cook. I kinda bribed them into doing it because I think they were going to wait until the directors came again, but I told them I would teach them to make banana bread when they made it, so our Waspapa made it really fast! :D

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Photolog 3.29.11

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3.29

Everyone here has string bags called bilums. Before there was plastic string at the store they made their own twine out of a special tree bark (they still make these too but they take forever, whereas a plastic one is quick) This picture is of a baby bilum, a bilum that is big enough to put a baby in. The babies sleep in them kinda like a hammock, all the way up to like 2 years old! Im making a bilum now to help pass the time in the village. :D

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3.28

Today we went to the garden with people to help plant food and then to another one to get food for dinner. A garden is nothing like the ones in the US, little small backyard things you plant for fun. These are huge, and have so much food growing in them you couldn’t possibly eat everything, even with a family of like 12. I planted corn, taro, sugar cane, some greens, and stuff. It was fun but so hot. I sweat a lot and they thought because I sweat I must be too tired, so they made me stop and rest the rest of the day, even though I told them I wasn’t tired at all. O well :D

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3.27

Today we had church in our village. The church building is literally like five steps from our house. They start by singing in their language, but the rest of the service is in tok Pisin (except for the other songs throughout the service). The pastor asked me to translate the Bible into their language, but I had to tell them its not my decision whether one language gets translated over another. I told them I could only put their name of the list of languages that want a Bible and he was satisfied with that. Tok Pisin is such a vague language, and you can interpret things to your liking if you want because its so vague, that’s why they need a translation they said. I agree.

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3.26

Today we walked to see our Wasmama. She lives in a different village because she is sick. She cant move her legs very well and they have a lot of pain. She lives with her parents so they can take care of her better. The local doctors office is very close, but it doesn’t have the medicine she needs and shes too afraid to go to the hospital. Im praying she gets better soon, its sad to see her so thin and weak (most PNG women are heavier and super strong, fat is a sign of beauty here and it’s a bad thing to loose weight)

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3.25

This was our first day in the village. When we got there the villagers had made an archway and lots of decorations to welcome us. They decorated our house with lots of flowers and leaves too. We thought we were living in the old house that I put pictures up of, but they finished the new one and gave it to us instead. Its nice, it has too rooms and a hallway and a little porch sitting area. The bad thing about new houses is that they haven’t had time to get geckos and lizards to make houses in them. Geckos and lizards are really good things in a house because they eat the giant spiders.

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Photolog 3.22.11

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PhotoLog 3.22.11

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March Newsletter

I will not be online again until May because I am going to live in a village for the next 5 weeks!

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Photolog 3.15.11

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PhotoLog 3.15.11

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Photolog 3.8.11

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PhotoLog 3.8.11

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Photolog 3.1.11

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3.2

Hey sorry for the long time no hear!!! Please keep in mind though that I’m in PNG and not America where you can just open your computer anywhere or play with your Ipod or Kindle even and find surf the web. The internet is not the greatest here! :D This picture is actually of our little internet stick thingy. It’s a USB wireless thing that you put money on (kind of like a calling card..yes…you have to pay for every Mb you use). It detects a signal from town (like a cell phone I guess) and that’s how the internet works. UNforntunately we are not in town, so sometimes we can’t find the signal, or the signal is just down. We have power outages at least once a day too, so some things don’t come back as fast. And there is only one stick for all the students (40ish) here. So please, if I don’t answer emails the next day, or miss a few days on my blog and have to upload 5 days in one, please be patient! At least I have internet! I thought I was coming and being incognito for 14 weeks until I went to Ukarumpa. ^_^

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3.1

This is how I bake on weekends when I have to cook for myself. It is a giant pot that I fill a little with sand at the bottom. Then I put in a small can or two (like a spam can) to raise the thing Im baking so everything gets evenly cooked. Then you put the thing on top. I’ve only baked rice pudding so far. When we baked bread it was in the staff kitchens, so they had stoves and stuff. :D

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