Episode 14 - Broadening Horizons

I always knew that when I moved to Papua New Guinea I would some crazy things. Things I wouldn’t do in England, and things that I didn’t expect I’d do. But now I have done something I truly thought I would never do, particularly in Papua New Guinea – I have joined a gym. Now before you conclude that I definitely must have gone crazy and call for me to be airlifted out of here, let me explain that I haven’t had a total character transplant. My motivation for joining is not that I have become fed up of my stick insect physique and want to become shaped like a bodybuilder, but rather one of brotherhood. Going to the gym is the number one activity for the folks at CRMF to do together and it feels good to spend that time together. More than that, in spite of myself, I have to say that actually going to the gym and working out (or gyming as I prefer to call it) is surprisingly fun! This is in large part down to the guys I go with, and the fact that getting exercise here can actually be quite difficult so finding a way to release my pent up physical energy feels good!

 

Those little dots in the centre of the picture are cyclists - I promise!

There are a few other fun forms of exercise which occasionally present themselves, this weekend was my first Papua New Guinea bike ride! The roads were mostly incredibly bumpy which meant that most of the time I could see two lots of the beautiful scenery. I have to admit I spent more time looking around than looking at the road, so that probably didn’t help! I was more out breath than I think I should have been, but I’ll blame it on the altitude! It was so good getting out on the tracks and stuck into the Papua New Guinean countryside, it’s so stunningly beautiful, I guess I must say that a lot, but it still takes my breath away (the steep incline helped with that too). We decided to turn around and back home by a small group of houses where a small group of people came out to talk to us and share stories. It was lovely talking to them (or mainly listening in my case as my Tok Pisin is good enough to understand what is going on, but not good enough to talk). As we were getting ready to leave a lovely lady gave me a bag (locally called a Bilum) and told me that if my Mum ever came to visit me I had to bring her there so that they could meet each other!

The turn around point