Lae International Hotel

... In fact, when I was about fourteen, we were able to visit their village. I know some of their Papua New Guinean co-translators, too, and am looking forward to seeint them again. Plus, Bougainville is absolutely gorgeous!! It has been so wonderful being in Ukarumpa. Today I had time to wander, smelling in the familiar dust, smoke, kunai grass, ... ahh. I took lots of pictures, as well ...

... old daughter. "English, PNG Tok Pisin, Solomon's Pidgin, and a little of Mom's language and a little of Dad's..." As she spoke it suddenly struck me - the Otairobos have given up tok ples (literally 'the talk of their place,' or the local language of their people) so that others could be strengthened in development of their local languages. Tok Pisin is the language the Otairobos now use to talk to each other. But it is a trade language, a language developed for engaging ...

... most of the gang took off for Ukarumpa (our SIL headquarters). I stayed behind in Madang with Hannah Rittenhouse to collect stories from the Otairobo family. They work on a partnership effort between Wycliffe/SIL, PBT (Pioneer Bible Translators), BTA (the Bible Translation Association of PNG), and the Bible Society of PNG. We came joined the team in Ukarumpa for about a week, and began to work on some of the stories we had been collecting. Then we hit the road again ...

... showing 8 knots, what with the wind and the current and swell the satellite speed was showing us doing a whopping 2 knots. thus a disturbingly slow crossing. One thing you find out in a hurry is that sea sick tablets work really well, trouble is that once they wear out they stoop working and there is no going back to feeling good, so my advise is read the package and take as described, mine wore of around the 6 hour mark and by this time the boat ...

... diving the first one was a night dive to check out the small internal reef within the lagoon. all the usual fish for the region, hard and soft Coral. I did encounter a flamboyant Lion fish out for the hunt. this is just a short dive so nice to get wet and then out for dinner. The next day we did the same dive as the previous night div and it was as expected a completely ...

... stop as the entrance to the safe haven for the night was over a shallow reef entry point that should only be attempted at dead high tide. Well the weather had blown up and we were not there at high tide and the problem was the tide was in fact receding, not good news for any of us, the next tide was another 12 hours away and the water was too choppy for a good night sleep. The only solution ...