February Newsletter

Read more »

2.28

So you might think this is a weird picture to take, some jars on a table, but this is what we put one of my favorite things in, sugar! This past week there has not been ANY sugar in Madang province, at all. Just imagine in the US going into EVERY store and not finding sugar. You can’t, it just doesn’t happen there. But here it does (there hasn’t been baking soda in the country since I got here either). So we’ve been on sugar rations for a few days, meaning NO SUGAR! *cries* For me that means no tea :( (I’ve been a zombie too). But today I walked into the dining room and there they were, the precious reused jelly jars filled with yummy goodness! YAYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!! Mmmmmmm………sugar………..

Read more »

2.27

We learned to make tortillas this weekend, but of course as with almost everything I touch in the kitchen, it came out disastrous. They turned out more like really really stale tortilla chips or something (without salt because I forgot to add it) O well, next time hopefully I will be better. I’m still a complete failure at fire making as well. I can’t even steal other people’s fires right. If I try to put in a stick in someone else’s fire and let it burn, it will go out the minute I take it out of the fire. Maybe in the village some Papua New Guinean will see my ineptness and make my fires for me :D YAY :D

Read more »

2.26

This weekend is “boil water weekend” where we have to somehow purify all our drinking water by ourselves. Usually we just drink rain water that is collected from our tin roofs and gutter system into these big tanks (in the red circles in the picture). It’s perfectly safe; I’ve never gotten sick from it at all. But this weekend we had to get water from the other taps that is river water or collect our own rain water. We collected quite a bit at night, but not enough to get through the day, so I just boiled a bunch of other water when I made my tea in the morning. You can also purify water by adding a bit of bleach and letting it sit for 30 minutes, using “aqua tabs” which are really expensive to use long term but good if you need clean water in a pinch (like on a hike for something). Some people have water filters or iodine too. I just boiled it (the cheapest way ^_^). I didn’t get sick! So I did something right, but I have also used the river water to wash dishes and stuff without purifying it and I was fine.

Read more »

2.25

I don’t have much to say today, mostly because I’m so tired from not sleeping last night that I can’t think. RAWR! Must…….sleeeeeppppp…….At least I put a picture up though! In it I am in the room where we set up our mosquito net for sleep in the village. :D

Read more »

2.24

We went spent the night in the village Thursday night. It was…interesting…hahaha :D We had a good time with our family, played lots of games and talked and storied and learned how to make a bilum (a type of purse/bag they make from string). They fed us lots of food and it was yummy. Even the liklik haus (toilet) was nice. It was just a hole in the ground with two boards across to put your feet when you squat, but it was clean, no bugs…smelled bad, but I’d rather have a bad smell than a roach on my bum ^_^. Anyways, the only bad part was the sleeping. Since it was only one night and I didn’t want to walk with lots of stuff, all I brought to sleep on was a yoga mat. I used my skirt as a blanket and balled up meriblouse as a pillow. I didn’t sleep at all though. O well, at least Friday is an easy day and we get to sleep in on Saturday! :D :D :D YAY!

Anyways, there’s lots of pictures I will put as my photolog for next week. This one here is just a preview, it’s the outside of the house. That’s me in the bright blue and yellow. :D

Read more »

2.23

Just another day of learning Tok Pisin and stuff about PNG. One thing I learned (not in the classroom but on my own) was that anything and everything grows mold here! I looked under my suitcases (which are under my bed) and found lots and lots of it. :( Ewwww….Anyways, here are some before and after pictures. The little suitcase is on the right and the big one is on the left. The big one I’ve started to clean with bleach water. After I cleaned them all I sprayed them with more water repellent spray, but I doubt that will do much. Mold will probably eat it. It seems to like everything. It hasn’t gotten into my plastic vacuum packed bags yet though! And luckily our room doesn’t have mice (or at least I haven’t heard them) so nothing has broken those yet! YAY! I said goodbye to all my luggage today though because I’m shipping it to Ukarumpa tomorrow :D

Read more »

Photolog 2.22.11

Read more »

2.22

Today was “tropical delight”, a break day were we all went to this little shack on the beach and got to snorkel all day ^_^. My camera fell so it has a little crack in the side and isn’t completely waterproof anymore, so I was too scared to take it in the water. :( O well…. Anyways, it was a nice sunny day and I sat in a mangrove tree and read and snorkeled. It was a nice break from learning Tok Pisin and culture! We got to speak English all day long! WOOHOO!!! But now its back to work for real now :)

Read more »

2.21

We had another hike today going down the mountain and back up. At the bottom was an awesome little creek filled with awesome little mosquitoes that seem to have never eaten a meal in their lives! :D But the creek really was beautiful and on the way back up we saw lots and lots of vanilla vines growing and even a tricycle tree! :D

Read more »

2.20

“Haus kuk” weekend again! WOOHOOO!! Lots of people hate it but I think its fun! We had a kaukau cook-off today. Its kinda like a potato but sweet (but not like the sweet potatoes in the states) It has a completely different yet DELICIOUS flavor! I love it, its my favorite food so far! Anyways, I was ambitious is my competition entry. I made kaukau pasta ravioli noodles with kaukau cheese filling. Then I made a kaukau candy for dessert! YUM! It didn’t all turn out exactly right, but that’s okay :D I didn’t win though :( Poooooooo! Someone made pancakes and those won, but my candy got second place! Unfortunately I don’t have a picture of the kaukau, I didn’t have time, but here is a picture of us grilling some spam bacon! :D Other than that I made French toast, pizza and rice pudding! :D :D :D

Read more »

2.19

BAHAHAHA well, I think I found another bug I just don’t like (which isn’t many really. Bees are still at the top of the list) This actually happened on Friday night, but I forgot about it. This giant spider was on the wall in our room, and our roomie is as afraid of spiders as I am of bees, so I decided to try to get it away. But when I got close to it, I could only look at it. Then I went outside and got two guys to kill it for me, which was really funny. I wanted to take a picture of it but it kept moving towards me….not cool….I told them I didn’t much care if the spider was dead in the picture or not, but they said they were going to step on it (poor spider…but that’s what you get for sittin on my wall). So yes, its alive in this picture, although highly intoxicated with half a can of raid. Then they stepped on it. :( Anyways, that’s my adventure for the weekend! :D

Read more »

2.17

These are pictures from our bread baking class today :D I had to put up lots of evidence because I know some people wouldn’t believe it without pictures! But yes, I did bake bread, WITHOUT burning things down. Its actually nice and fluffy and pretty too! (NOT a brick or doorstopper) YAY! WOOHOO!!! Now, the only this I need to learn is how to do this over a fire instead of an oven! YIKES!

Read more »

2.17

Today we went to our “wasfamili”’s house to eat dinner. We brought some rice and stew and banana bread and they had veggies from their garden. Sorry I couldn’t get any pictures of their house. It was night and Its kind of awkward to ask to take pictures of someone’s house and village if its only the second time you met them. Next week we are staying overnight, so hopefully I will get a tour of the village and be able to take some pictures :D. Anyways, it was fun, they were much more relaxed in their house and more talkative, they told us stories of World War 2 (which is like the biggest thing to ever happen to PNG, so everyone remembers it. Actually the kids got to go on a field trip and see an old WW2 plane crash site in the bush!). We taught them how to play old maid (we called it lapun meri) and they loved it! It was fun :D

The picture above is NOT their house! It’s a small rest room type place on campus that is nice and cool during the day. But its just to show you how their houses are made. The walls are these beautiful reeds they strip from coconut branches and weave together. The roof is made of sage leaves (another find of palm), sewn together and layered. The floor is either more reeds or bamboo. Our “wasfamili” had just built theirs (meaning for the last 6 months). And they have a veranda and wrap around porch, its all on stilts for the pig house underneath. We didn’t go inside but there are at least 2 rooms. It was amazing! :D

Read more »

2.16

Today we heard a myth/story. It was called “muruk na kokomo” (The cassowary and the Hornbill). A long time ago there were two birds, the cassowary and the hornbill. The Cassowary lived in the trees above all other birds. He would eat seeds, even the Hornbills seeds. The Hornbill didn’t like this, so he called out to a small bird to cut the branch that the Cassowary slept on. The small bird cut it and left. Later the Cassowary sat on the branch and it broke. He fell to the ground and broke his wing. Before, when the Cassowary had wings he lived in the trees over all the other birds. When he fell he broke his wing and couldn’t fly anymore. That is why he only walks on the ground now.

Read more »

2.15

Sunrise

I keep seeing these two really cool bugs that I want to take a picture of, but they are so fast and finicky! They don’t like me I guess (unlike the mosquitos and ants). One is a grasshopper that looks like a leaf. If you saw it out in the bush you wouldn’t even be able to tell it’s a bug, that’s how much like a leaf it looks (kinda like the other leaf moth I took a picture of, but the grasshopper is green). The other bug is a dark red dragonfly that looks like a plane the Wright brothers built. The tips of its wings look like they are cut off (like the square wings of the Wright planes) but if you look at them really close you can see that they are actually rounded like regular dragonfly wings, only the rounded part is completely clear! Its so cool looking! I don’t think I gave a good description. :( There are so many cool bugs here! (minus the bees of course!) You should just see how many different kinds of moths there are too! Giant ones the size of your hand or teeny ones the size of an ant. And to think God imagined them all! Amazing! :D

Read more »

Photolog 2.15.11

Read more »

2.14

Today we went to a garden AND on a hike! This is a picture of a garden we saw on the hike. You can’t really tell because pictures don’t show depth really well, but its almost a shear cliff (the end of the garden in the pic is NOT the actual end, it’s the part that is sloping too steeply to be in the picture). When they make their gardens they have to cut down the trees and weeds with a bush knife. Then they wait for it to dry and set in on fire. The fire doesn’t spread because the rest of the jungle around is too wet. Then they take a huge stake and drive it into the ground, twist it around to turn the soil (every like two inches, its crazy!) and then they take the seeds and plant them. Nowadays sometimes people use a spade if they can find one to turn the ground, but stakes are free because its just a big stick they sharpen. Can you imagine doing this on a sheer slope in the hot tropical sun?! And most people have about 4-5 gardens! They are so amazing and strong!

Read more »

2.13

This is Glenda, the most spoiled goat in all of PNG. Everyone who passes by her gives a nice rub between the horns and then she baaa’s after you to come back. She gets to roam around and eat whatever plants she wants all day long. Sometimes she even gets to roam free or Missy (her owner) runs after her to play chase. When she strays to the other side of the bushes though sometimes the nationals see her and say “OOOOO! Em I gutpela kaikai!” (OOOO That’s good food!) AHAHAHA! Poor Glenda, always being looked at like food! She’s only about 6 months old, so she doesn’t give any milk or anything (she has to bred too). I dunno what they will use her for, but she makes a great hedge trimmer!

Read more »

2.12

Today was the first “haus kuk” weekend where we cook our own food outdoors over open fires. No, we don’t have to hunt our own meat or scrounge the jungle for our veggies and fruits, climbing coconut trees! We started the day by walking a little ways up the mountain to see the market ladies waiting for the dyna to take them down to the bottom market. We bought some fruit and went back. Then we tried to make our fire :( It took a LOT of matches :( TEARS! Eventually we gave in and used some kerosene (teehee!) The nationals that taught us made it look so easy! They take their bush knife and cut long thin strips of kindling from a piece of wood, then take one match and it’s a blazing fire! But me, I chop at the wood getting little fleks of kindling for like 20 minutes, then I used half a box of matches trying to get even a little flame going. Then of course it goes out and I do that about 10 more times until I give up and just spray a bit of kerosene on and throw a match at it :( FAIL!

Read more »

2.11

This is the translation house on the edge of the POC campus. The language on this side of the mountain is called Nobnob. It has a New Testament and some worship and song books. The translators are also working on the Old Testament now. They say that it’s all be translated, and now all that’s left is to take it to the villages for checking, revise it, check again, revise and print! They are hoping that they can get done in the next few years because of the main national translators is getting very old (in his mid-late 70s) and they want him to see the whole Bible before he dies. He still walks up the mountain to work on it at the translation house every day though!

Read more »

2.10

This is a really cool moth that looks like a leaf! Sorry, it has nothing to do with the post, but it was super cool. (and I couldn’t get a picture of my wasfamili)

Anyways, today we met our wasfamilis (wasfamili literally mean watch family). They are the people who will be caring for us in the village when we do our first village visit (Next Thursday), and village overnight stays. The people doing the six week course (not me) will be having the family they met today as their host for the village living phase. People doing the longer course are having a different family in a village farther away. It was kind of awkward to meet them because I don’t know much Tok Pisin, but it was fun at the same time. Our waspapa and wasmama brought their 3 kids, nephew (who they consider a son I think) and the wasmama’s brother, so 6 people total. We had food and talked (tried to talk) and played uno. I brought my camera with me but forgot to get a picture of them. :( But that’s ok, next week we are going to their house, so I will take lots :D

Read more »

2.9

This is the inside of the dining room, which I will be missing a lot this weekend! :( We have our “haus kuk” weekend starting Saturday and we have to cook all our own food on fire we built all ourselves and in our houses we built ourselves! Me and my roomies have split the next 3 weeks so that each of us is responsible for a weekend. This weekend Lindy is making rice and peanut sauce and pancakes for dinner, eggs for breakfast and PB an J for lunches. Next weekend is mine and we are also having a kaukau(a type of sweet potato) cook off. I haven’t completely decided what I’m going to make, but I hope it will be yummy! (and I really want to win the bag of M&M’s as the prize!) Anyways, I won’t have internet on the weekend again, but I will post pictures and stuff on Monday (if the internet cooperates….its kinda cranky sometimes!).

YAY! Lukim yu gen! (See you later!)

Read more »

PhotoLog 2.8.11

This is from Jais Aben, a local beach resort that you can go to for free and spend a few hours snorkeling (you have to pay to go to the pool or the houses though!)

Read more »

2.8

This is a picture of the shower in the dorm area. The bucket is for hot water because there is no hot water coming out of the shower head like in the US. There is a shower head but you can’t really see it because it’s behind the bucket, but it’s there and it’s always cold water. The temperature depends on the temperature outside, so if it’s rainy all day, like today, it’s really cold, but if it’s hot and sunny all day it’s kinda nice. Anyways, there is a water tank above a fire place behind the bathroom, and if you want hot water, you just light the fire (it’s lit twice a day or you can light it if you want a shower at a random time or if the fire goes out) and wait a little while. The hot water is pumped to a spigot in the bathroom and you put a bucket under that then pour out all that water into the shower bucket. The shower bucket has a little shower head on the bottom that you turn if you want to release the water or close it. It’s actually a good bit of water. You normally can’t wash your hair in one bucket (especially if it’s long), but it’s good for a regular shower. I’m too lazy so I always take a cold shower except for today because it was rainy and overcast all day and the water was freezing :)

Read more »

2.7

This is the sign to enter POC. I've never been so happy to see this sign before!

I am sooooOOOOo EXHAUSTED!!! Today was really hard, but I feel so happy! In the morning we went to town with our Tok Pisin teachers and a list of things to buy for the kitchen. We had to use our Tok Pisin in the market to find all the things and how much they cost. Our group had to buy green onions, brown onions, kawawa(ginger), bata(avocado), suga(sugar cane), carrots, corn, pitpit(this isn’t in the states, its hard to describe, but it’s a starchy veggie that looks like corn on the outside and potato on the inside?). It was fun, but sooo sunny and hot. Our dyna was down so we all squeezed into the back of 3 pick-up trucks (Toyota Hilux-don’t think they have those in the states either). But it was fun!

Then we went on a big hike in the afternoon. We walked all the way down the mountain to a fish cannery. POC is about 1500 feet high, and it was a long winding twisting up and down road. We only had to walk down, which was pretty hard. I used flipflops because the hiking shoes I have hurt my feet. After we got to the bottom we had the option to walk back up. When I said I wanted to walk back up everyone laughed (seriously, they laughed and were like “what?! Ange’s walking back up?!” :( dislike!) But I didn’t care, I did it anyways. We started as a group but I stopped after like 3 feet and had someone fix my shoes for me and realized afterwards that I was like 100ft behind everyone! I wanted to run to catch up, but I knew I would die on the way up then. So I walked slow and eventually met some stragglers a few minutes later. We were the slow group but we made it all the way up! GO UNDERDOGS! Too bad I didn't have my camera with me though. As soon as we got to the top and saw the center there was a big rainbow waiting for us!

Read more »

2.6

The first part of the day we went to a local church at the very top of the mountain. It was mostly in Tok Pisin, the trade language, and some of the “tok ples” (mother tongue) of the mountain (called Nobnob). The Nobnob people have a New Testament in their language, but they are still working on translating the Old Testament. They are also making song books and other things to use in their language. I didn’t understand anything, but it was interesting seeing all the people. The church is small and has simple wood benches. Men sit on one side and women on the other and most of the children sat in the front next to the guitar player. The songs were the highlight of the service and EVERYONE sang! It was fun ^_^

Then in the afternoon we had the option again to go to the resort for snorkeling. It’s called Jais Aben and looks like a completely different world from the mountain. There’s manicured lawns and little houses you can rent (WITH AC!). But we couldn’t go in those because we didn’t pay. We just went to lounge in their restaurant and snorkel. I took some pictures with my underwater camera! The top one is part of a bright blue starfish and the bottom is a close up of some super bright yellow coral!

Read more »

2.5

We finished our “haus kuk”s today! It was raining all day, so it was nice and cool, but we got so dirty! You can see in the picture the table we made and the counter for chopping and whatever. In town we have to get linoleum (like the tiles you can put on your floor) and put them on the counter as a good surface for making bread and cutting veggies and stuff. On Wednesday we’re going in to town to get all our food for the weekend and on Friday we have a bread making class! :D

On “haus kuk” weekends we can’t use the center’s internet, so I won’t be able to update. That’s why I also didn’t update this weekend. Even though its not an official “haus kuk” weekend, I didn’t want to get used to it and then have to stop. There also won’t be any updates while I’m away at village living for 5 weeks because there won’t be power for my laptop, let alone internet. :D

Read more »

2.4

We started to build our “haus kuk”s (like outdoor kitchens) today. You can see the structure in the picture. There are no nails at all, its all twine (well, ours is plastic twine, the demonstration one done by the nationals was made of real twine found in the jungle). I GOT TO USE A MACHETE (we call it a bush knife ^_^) I tried to cut some pieces of wood, but Im not that good yet (the workmen can do it in like 3 strikes!) We got it eventually though. Then we stuck the big pieces in the ground and made the structure. We tied the tarp down and prayed it wouldn’t fall over! Tomorrow we are making the benches and tables and whatever else to make it fun! :D :D :D

Read more »

January Newsletter

Read more »

2.3

The first is a picture of making a basket out of a coconut palm frond. The second is a weaved thing they use as blinds or the inside walls of their houses, made from part of the sago palm trees. The last is a basket made for cooking rice. You fill these half way with rice and put them in boiling water and the rice comes out perfect! SO YUMMY TOO!

I don’t think I can properly describe today without lots of pictures. Some of the local people came by the show us how to make the things they normally make, like mats and bags and stuff. These people are so creative and innovative with how they use the nature and their surroundings to their advantage without killing others or the environment. (And we with all our technology and education can’t get find peace with others or keep our air clean!) They are so strong too! I’m having doubts that I can climb up the mountain without dying, let alone doing it with my groceries! And they do it every day like its nothing! Some kids walk 3 hours to school and back, up and down the mountain trails. They are simply incredible people. I can’t wait to get to know them more and live with them in their villages!

Read more »

2.2

Today we went on one of our “conditioning swims” again. It was also raining again, but not thundering and lightning like last time. We were riding down the mountain in the dyna and it was just pouring! On some stretches of the road there is a steep cliff and you can see out over the landscape to the ocean, but you could barely see ten feet off the cliff, that’s how hard it was raining! Of course it made the dirt road more like a muddy slip n slide, but we had a really good driver this time that went nice and slow, and thankfully we got to Nagada (the beach) with our bottoms still attached!

The jungle in the rain isn’t something that you can describe or show in pictures (it would just come out like a massive green blob fuzzied up even more by the wall of water). But it gives you chills because it’s so beautiful. It kind of looks unreal, like something from a fantasy movie, with these giant trees, hanging vines and flowers. The rain comes down and it looks just like clear lines and then the mist comes up and it looks magical. The sound just puts you to sleep too! The bugs are taking shelter and the all the leaves sound like little drums. Too bad I was on the dyna though; I couldn’t take a nap :_(

Read more »

PhotoLog 2.1.11

Sorry it took so long to put this up!

Read more »

2.1

This is part of our dorm area...


This weekend we are going to have to make our own outdoor kitchens in the back of our dorms and then the weekend after that we start our “haus kuks”. In Tok Pisin “Haus kuk” literally means house you cook in, or kitchen. In POC “haus kuk” means we cook our own food in our own homemade kitchen, kind of “village style” on the weekends. It’s an exercise to help us get more used to cooking how we would if we were to live in the village (and we will live in a village for 5 weeks at the end of the course). I think it’s going to be really fun!

But anyways, today we had our first orientation about “haus kuks”. The kitchen manager (Missy) showed us a bunch of the different types of food you can find in the stores here. There’s lots of canned tuna (which I can’t eat because I’m allergic), canned mackerel, canned corn beef, and spam. The main thing is that we won’t have any kind of refrigeration, and she told us lots of surprising ways to keep some “refrigerated” things good. Did you know that eggs can keep for 10-12 weeks without a fridge?! All you have to do is turn them once a day to make sure the egg yolk doesn’t settle again the shell (so that there’s some airflow). You can keep mayo if you only use clean knives (no double dipping) and add a layer of vinegar to the top. Unfortunately there’s some kind of baking soda shortage and you can’t find it anywhere in town. Maybe it will be there by the next time we go shopping! :D

Read more »