Back in Alotau

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  Alotau, Papua New Guinea
Sunday, July 15, 2007

I'm back in Alotau:

Hey to one and all! I cannot believe that this summer is almost over!

We fly out of here on Saturday (21st) and will be in Australia til the next Sunday (29th). We will fly out of Brisbane at 11:00am on the 29th and land in LA at 7:00am on the 29th! We will land in the USA four hours before we leave Brisbane! SOOO confusing!

This week is being called our "dis-orientation week." We have a going away dinner tomorrow from the church members at Gama and are going to hike to another waterfall on Tuesday (I'm not wearing a skirt this time!). Wednesday we are going fishing with Leslie and then are going to spend the night on some random island. Thursday will be more island and fishing, and Friday we will have to pack and are having a going away dinner from the town church members.

Our flight leaves here at 4:30 PM...supposedly... and then we will stay the night in Port Moresby. Leslie has connections and is getting us a room in a hotel very close to the airport...missing flights is a BAD thing people! We are still trying to plan our Australia time, but since we have been so busy lately we have not gotten much done. I'm sorry I have not been able to upload pictures, but I will do my best to get some up when I get home!

This past week was completely insane! After being on the island for seven days we had to come back here and plan a camp almost from scratch! We had been having meetings and had a place to hold the camp, but not much else...except a few kids. Monday morning I went with Luke and Daniel to the North Coast to help pick up the group from California.

We drove for about an hour and a half and saw some beautiful mountains and grass lands. PNG is divided down the middle by a mountain range. On one side of the mountain is grassland and on our side is forest. On our way out there we saw a beautiful rainbow that seemed to touch the ground right in front of us!

When we got to the pick up point we waited for about 45 min. Luke, Daniel and I had not eaten anything for breakfast so we scavenged for coconuts, but the only one we found had been cracked and the juice had come out! Sad day! Daniel tried to open a dry one, but those are really hard to open and the meat is...well...dry! Young coconut, also called "koolaw," is one thing I am going to miss!

The boat finally got there and we got all their stuff loaded into the truck. Luke drove while Logan, Daniel and I rode in the back of the truck. We were a little wary about it though because on the way there we had fishtailed on one curve...have no fear...we lived! We had to move two coconut trees from the road on the way back. It had been raining for a few days and the wind was blowing pretty hard that day. Apparently coconut trees have about as good a root system as pecan trees!

When we got back to the house, the California group took over the showers so I helped Susan, Naomi, Juliet, and Priscilla peel taro and cook bananas for the camp. There was not going to be a ton of room for cooking at the camp, so it was easier to have it all done first and then freeze it. We also baked tons of rolls for camp and 6 pizzas for dinner (the California group ate with us).

Tuesday morning came very early! We had four pick up locations and I was supposed to stay at one of them until a truck got there to pick us up...well....TIPNG (Time in PNG)! Luke, Marcus and David arrived to take a load out to the camp, which is a 45 min drive one way, and they were running late. I was elected to drive to two of the locations to pick up kids, but Logan would not let me drive around by myself...and I didn't really want to anyway! We went and picked up the kids at Red Hill (most of which were total hooligans) and then we drove out to Gama to get the kids, but none of them were ready. We drove over to the Reese's house and got the money to buy bananas for lunch for all the kids. I took Scott, the guy that was here for two weeks, and went to the market to buy 200 bananas and a bunch of star fruit. Logan drove back out to Gama and picked up the kids out there and then came back and got us. Logan and I took a load of luggage out to the camp while Leslie and Luke took kids out. Luke and I drove back and got the last load of kids. By the time we got everyone out there we were already behind our "schedule."

After Marcus left, we, the interns, were left in charge of 43 kids! They are all really good about doing what you ask them to do...unfortunately we did not specifically say to be quiet and stay quiet until we woke them up! We also did not make them go to the outhouse before bed. Daniel, Rachel and I slept in the hall in front of all the doors since we had all the kids in one house, just genders in separate rooms. Luke slept in front of the main door so he and Daniel had to get up every time anyone had to go out. We were ok until 3am...then they all decided that they needed to go to the bathroom! The first girls I took out were really proud of how early they woke up...I was not as pleased. I really considered strangling the next girl that got up ...but I didn't! I had to take two groups out, Rachel took one and Daniel took one. We had been told by Marcus to wake the kids up at 5:30 since they would probably be up anyway, but when we interns got up at 5am, it was still really dark. We just lay on the front lawn in a big pile of blankets and biscuits (I baked some because we had been told that we would not get breakfast until 8:30...after waking up at 5:00!).

We were pretty dead that day. We had three classes, two bath times...we had to go to the river to bathe..., three game times and three meals. Some of the ladies from the church out there were cooking for us and they were great! We only had one issue with the cooks....on the first night they heard the girls moving around at 3am and decided that it must be close to 5am...they proceeded to scrape coconuts! At 3am!! If you haven't ever heard this sound it is kind of like a scraper on wood...not a good sound at 3am!

Everything went really well the first day and that night we had a talent show. Each group had to do a skit or sing a song so my group did the "invisible bench" skit. It was a big hit! Before we sent the girls upstairs for bed we made every last one of them go to the bathroom! That night I woke up at 4am and was SO happy that I had slept that late! Isn't that sad? Rachel and Daniel woke up about the same time and we were all so happy to have slept until then!

The group from California came the next day, Thursday, after we had the cabin cleaned out and all the luggage organized by drop off. The skits the group did were great and afterwards the kids played some more games and ate lunch. We handed out cucumber slices, star fruit slices, bananas and a half of a roll...no really...we handed it out to them. We didn't want to have to wash the plates again...so we just put it in their hands! We had everything packed up and ready to go when the most wonderful thing arrived! Leslie had hired a flatbed truck to come take all the kids back at once! It was amazing! He also had a huge trailer to get the luggage back. The best thing about PNG is the lack of luggage! Each child might have a backpack and maybe a mat...but that is it! We were out of there ten minutes after Leslie pulled up.

That night we had a send off for the CA group and then we interns went out and got some cokes at the local hotel. It was really nice to relax.

We haven't really done anything since then...just trying to recuperate from all our craziness!

I wanted to thank you again for all of your prayers! Please don't forget that it will still be another two weeks before I am home, so please keep praying for all of us...including my family whom I have not been able to call the whole time I have been here! I love you all and hope you are having a great summer! I will probably have two more posts before this is all over! God bless you all!