Episode 9 - Goodbye and Goodnight PNG

#pngretold - retelling the events of exactly two weeks ago

So today was my last full day in PNG. It’s amazing to think how comfortable I feel here already, such a change in such a short amount of time. I’ve been really blessed by seeing so much in such a short time, it’s really helped me to settle. I did some more repair work in the morning and a bit of teaching to help prepare David for his radio exams too. I have a feeling that teaching here will have different challenges to teaching in England, but it’s nice to know that concentration and desire to learn aren’t going to be problems.

John enjoying the sense of power only gained through the use of a whiteboard

Just before lunch I was taken to ABWE. ABWE is a charity that provides health care and teaching to local communities. We visited the clinic and saw some equipment that we had repaired in the past as well as some that needed looking at. We also saw the classrooms. ABWE are looking at starting lessons in IT and technology and have enquired about how CRMF would feel about supporting them in such a venture. It could be very exciting! Half of the grounds at ABWE is used as a coffee plantation to support the work that they are doing, and the students all grow their own food.

Well that's be sorted for lunch, what's everyone else having?

For lunch CRMF put on a barbeque in honour of my last day. It was really good to have one last chin-wag with all of the guys, although I did feel a little awkward being the centre of attention. I spent the afternoon doing more repairs and teaching. Then I spent th evening being told by John and Wandson that I spoke English wrong! What would a Swiss and a Brazilian know about it! Just because I don’t speak like the queen! We spent the rest of the night on the BBC website searching for different British accents! An oddly fun way to spend my last night in PNG! And so this is it. Goodbye and goodnight PNG, see you in 9 months!

Episode 8 - Blues or Maroons?

#pngretold - retelling the events of exactly two weeks ago

Last night there was a big rugby league match in Australia called the series of origins. It’s absolutely huge here in PNG and the atmosphere was buzzing all day with people wearing the shirts and waving the flags and the only question on peoples lips being; “are you blues or marrons?”. We has a sudden increase in aerial sales as people tried to sort out their TV’s for the match. Some locals had set up a face painting stall near to our house, so Lukas and John obliged to their requests. Lukas proudly wore the colours of the maroons on his face, whilst John wasn’t so sure. He left cheek was supporting the Blues, whilst his right cheek was supporting the Maroons! Lukas showed the game on a projector in his garden and invited everyone from CRMF around for a barbeque. It was a great night and everyone had a good time, even if not everyone really understood the rules to the game!

Preparing for the big game!

After the game an off duty policeman was driving home. He was drunk and crashed into three people who were severely injured. The people who witnessed the accident dragged the policeman out of the car and beat him to death. There is very much an eye for an eye mentality here. This morning the police retaliated by burning down the houses in the village. Things escalate very quickly.

I spent my time this morning in the workshop with David and Ricky. It was really good to get to know them better. They’re really nice and I’m looking forward to working with them next year. They’re so eager to learn more and become better engineers, it’s really refreshing! We spent some time repairing a radio and a mic. It was nice to get stuck into some work and get a feel for what kind of stuff I’ll be doing.

Actually doing some work!

For lunch I went into town with John and Johnson (one of the learning technologies members of staff). We took a PMV into town. PMVs are the public transport, old people carriers which stop at designated locations, wait until they are full, and then move onto the next stop and do the same. It was good to experience. We had lunch in Papindo. Papindo is a supermarket, but it also has a café. The café was not too dissimilar to supermarket cafes in the UK. I liked it. The food was good, and it was nice that it was a place that the locals ate at too.

No, this isn't a traditional dish...

In the afternoon Lukas took me to the New Tribes Mission. It’s a large secure village where all the NTM workers live. It has a school, sports facilities, IT support, a clinic and a shop that only NTM works are allowed to go to! It is very good to know where the clinic is, although hopefully I will never need it! Most importantly the play football (or soccer as they call it) every Sunday, so I should still be able to get my weekly fix!

The scene of goal of the season next year?

Episode 7 - In the Middle of Nowhere

#pngretold - retelling the events of exactly two weeks ago

What a busy day! I spent the first part of the morning installing a fan and a light fitting into one of the CRMF properties before heading to the local eye clinic (run by CBM) and the hospital. We have quite close links with the eye clinic and I was shown their equipment that I might be asked to fix in the future, as well as an old steriliser that we had fixed, a new steriliser that we had helped to source, and a UPS (uninterruptable power supply) that we had installed. The later had made a massive impact on the eye clinic as power cuts are prevalent in Goroka When these occurred during eye surgery, they would have to stop and wait for someone to turn on the generator before being able to carry on. Now the UPS keeps the power on long enough to finish surgery before the generator needs to be turned on.The hospital has very limited technical support and much of their equipment is donated without spares. As a consequence, often when equipment breaks, it doesn’t get fixed and there is no replacement. CRMF often gets called to help, but with limited staff numbers and experience, we are too often not able to. However, they have heard that a new member of staff who used to work in a hospital is joining the team (that’s me), so they’ve been keeping all their broken equipment in a spare room!

Just for me!

In the afternoon, Lukas had arranged for me to tag along on a MAF flight to a remote village. The pilots (Holger and Brent) were very friendly and even gave me headset to hear what they were saying, messages to the control tower and all! Apparently over speeding on this particular runway is common because the consequences of falling short can be catastrophic. I can’t help feeling that that comment was just for my benefit. We arrived in Owena (visible on google earth). It can take three days from Goroka if using public transport (one day of that is a hike through the mountains to the nearest road), but it only take twenty five minutes by plane. Owena is beautiful.  The very definition of unspoilt natural beauty. Stepping out of the plane my first reaction was that I couldn’t believe that we had just landed a plane on that tiny flat patch of ground. It was only later when talking to Brent that it occurred to me that the small village of maybe 100 people had dug that airstrip out of the side of the mountain by themselves using only spades and digging sticks! And they finished it in a year!

Yes, that is the airstrip

Brent walked through the village with me, it was so helpful to have him with me to explain what I was seeing and to help me understand the culture. When we got to the middle of the village, everyone was sat around in a big circle with four men in the middle. They were holding a court case. For attempted murder. And they were deciding… how much compensation was due! Brent told me that the thinking here was very different to that in the western world, but that he had never come across a situation that when he took the time to think about it, he couldn’t understand how they came to that way of thinking. When I got back to Goroka in a short 25 minutes, I couldn’t help thinking how different the two places are. Both hold true authentic PNG experiences, but they truly are worlds apart. CRMF do radio installations in villages like Owena to connect them to the wider world to make arrangements and to call for help in emergencies. David (a CRMF technician) was telling me that you get dropped off by plane with nothing but your tool box and the hope that you’ve brought everything that you need. They give you a day that they will come back, but not a time. When they day comes you just sit, wait, and hope that the plane will come and the weather will hold!

Village court

Episiode 6 - Back to School

#pngretold retelling the events of exactly two weeks ago

This morning I have been helping with the learning technologies branch of CRMF. Today they have been giving computer lessons to pastors who have never used a computer before. We were based in a big church. A large building, but quite sparse on the inside, with plastic school chairs and old wooden tables. At the front however, it had it all! Projector, guitars, even a drum kit! I’m told that this isn’t common place in Papua New Guinean churches! I fought the temptation to jump on stage and do my best John-Lee Bonham impression, and helped to set-up instead. A few of the laptops had various faults on them. Apparently this was due to their “refurbished” status.

Just waiting for a rock concert!

The students came in. Some of them had clearly at least seen a laptop before, whilst others, well I’m not so sure. It was really interesting watching them progress. I was really impressed, having taught my dad from scratch with limited success (if you’re reading this Dad, then I take it back, you have clearly flourished if you’ve managed to find my blog!). They started off with the very basics – how to use the mouse pad and how to double click – actually far more difficult to explain than you would think. I left just after lunch and already by that time they were causing havoc with a word document – cutting, pasting, highlighting, justifying – the whole lot. Not always on purpose, but still. It was a real privilege to help teach these people, to make a direct impact into their lives. It was also really great to talk to them at lunch, to hear their stories and about their lives. I asked them what difference they hoped these lessons were going to make to them. They were all really excited about the change they expected and so grateful for the opportunity to learn. One pastor was excited about no longer having his sermons all over the place, but all in one small location. An administrator was looking forward to the ease in workload it would provide; no longer would he have to hand write each individual church letter, but he could write one generic letter and print off multiple copies! What a change! I will never look at a printed church meeting agenda in the same way again!

Studying hard!

Episode 5 - Clarity

#pngretold - retelling the events of exactly two weeks ago

After I woke up last night from my nap, I sat down, closed my eyes, and talked to God. I told Him all that I was thinking and all that I was worried about. And I felt a peace inside of me. All of it was still there, but it no longer seemed overwhelming. It no longer too much, because this feeling inside was telling me that I wasn’t doing it alone, nor in my own strength. And so with this new found peace, I went next door to Lukas and Mahala’s house for the nicest homemade pizza that I have ever eaten. Jael (their five year old daughter) challenged me to a game of “where’s Noah” (the same as where’s Wally only with, well, Noah). She beat me. Badly. But I do have a sneaky suspicion that she may have read the book before, given her uncanny ability to know where Noah was even before she has turned the page. Over the course of the evening we talked about everything and nothing, and somehow, by the end of it we had dealt with almost everything that I had been worried about. Then this morning over breakfast I met John for the first time, and instead of it being awkward talking to a stranger when only half awake, it was really comfortable, like we had known each other for a long time already (except without knowing anything about each other) and without trying, any worries that had been left remaining were finished off. I should at this point explain that John and Wanson are volunteering with CRMF for a year and I am staying in their house, only they had been on holiday and only got back late last night.

The daily comute

We walked to work and started the day the same way they do every day: with morning devotion. This involves singing worship songs (some of them in Tok Pisin), praying together and reading the bible together. It’s a great way to start the day and a great way to get to know the guys I’ll be working with. By the end of the session I already felt a great heart for the guys and felt like I belonged here.

My new work bench?

I was given a tour of the building and formally met all of the staff – so many names to remember! But they are all really lovely! I was pleasantly surprised by the equipment too, although I did have low expectations… All the equipment you could want is there, it’s all older than me, but that just makes it experienced right? They even have a water sensor in the sink to alert you to when large water bottles have been filled up because it takes so long!

Electronics makes everything better

Mahala took me into Goroka to see the shops and the market. At first glance it just looks like absolute chaos! All these bright colours, and so many people all milling about. Once you brace yourself and step into it however, it all seems to make sense. Each seller only sells one type of produce and they write the price on a piece of cardboard, so you know that they’re not going to rip you off unlike some countries that I’ve been to. I think that I actually prefer it to supermarkets!

The local supermarket

In the afternoon Lukas took me around Goroka to give me a feel for the town. I think he managed to get me into every establishment in the whole of Goroka; the MAF base, the sports centre, the boss’s house, the steak house, the university, and I’m sure many places that I’ve forgotten! Whenever a security guard asked why we wanted to go in, Lukas would just point to me and offer that I was from England, which oddly always seemed to be reason enough!

Soon to be my new home

We went up an old beaten track that not only went up steeply, but that also had huge potholes which seemed bent on throwing us off the side of the hill. Fortunately, Lukas is quite the rally driver! Once at the top, the views of Goroka made it all worthwhile and did a good job of putting everywhere into perspective. Looking back, I can barely believe that I’ve only been here two days! Who knows what the next four will have in store for me!..