Past Adventures
We spent 7 years living in Papua New Guinea working with a religious non-profit. Five of those years were spent deep in a jungle swamp, living among a remote, isolated tribal group. These are some of the posts that we wrote from that context!
First Day of School
We had the first Iski-language literacy class the other day! The school day started out like you might expect, everyone smiling and excited, all the students dressed in their best clothes, and the entire population of our village lined up in the “town square” to shake...
Hello Mudda, Hello Fadda
Dear Mom and Dad, I wanted to write you a heartfelt e-mail, letting you know that we made it back into the tribe, but I also really needed to get a blog post out before the weekend is over. Being as I am on the cusp of death as I type, I don’t think I’ll have time to...
A Noticeable Contrast
Comparing life in the bush with life back in one’s home country is generally an unwise and unhelpful thing to do. The comparison will always be biased towards the culture and living situation of your home, and it can sometimes cause one to feel a slight amount of...
The Language-Learning Arena
This last Friday, as I sat at my desk with smoke coming out of my ears from all the mental circuits that had recently been fried attempting to learn the Iski language, I thought up an analogy of my situation. It’s not a perfect depiction, by any means, but to my...
Bananas Part – 2
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post bemoaning the fact that we hadn’t gotten fruit on the last heli flight that came in, and we weren’t going to have an opportunity to get more for several more weeks. Even though I was being kind of whiny and pathetic about the whole...
Sometimes It’s The Big Little Things
We didn’t get our bananas on our last supply flight. The chopper came, the chopper left, but alas, there were no bananas amongst our bleach, propane bottles, and crackers. That may not sound like a big deal to you, but it nearly brought my poor wife to tears. And,...
Language Check? Check.
Our team just went through our first language evaluation since Rochelle and I have moved in. We were all a little nervous, because a lot was riding on the outcome, especially for our two lady co-workers (Aurelie and Nisae). We were also a little nervous, because our...
My Fair Lady
Rochelle has been hinting lately that she doesn’t feel she is talked about enough in our blog. Her cues have been subtle, but, thankfully, I have a fairly acute sensitivity to these types of things. It’s almost a sixth sense. So, when my wife makes a vague comment...
Troubled Times
Every once in a while life is especially sucky. Like this weekend, for instance. This weekend, Francis* came back to our village. Francis came back to our village, and now everybody is upset. And not the kind of upset that can be resolved over a cup of coffee and a...