Arrival and Day One

Hi everyone – here we are in Papua New Guinea!

We arrived late on Friday afternoon in a torrential rain storm. The nifty pilot ducked and dived and found a spot through the clouds and got us safely onto the runway at Mt Hagen Airport. We were warmly welcomed by the MAF team and our host families, collected our (by now) soaked luggage and were scooted off to temporary home at a MAF compound near the airport.

It is wonderful to be here!

On our first day, we were up early to unpack and organise the house a bit. The house that we have been assigned to live in is being painted at the moment, so we are here for about 3 weeks until it is ready.

The kids were dressed and out the door by 8am to play. We were taken on a tour of the compound and we meet almost all of the families who live here. Three expatriate families, and five national staff families. Lots of kids and lots of dogs.

Sandy stayed home with the girls and one of the MAF pilots wives (Tina) took me for a drive into town to check it out.

They say there are about 100,000 people who live in Hagen, I reckon they were all at the shops this morning! It was wall to wall people. I was pleasantly surprised at the variety of stores and the stock available in the shops. Half way through our shop in one of the bigger stores, we noticed that all roller doors at the entrance had been rolled down. When we asked, the lady on the till said that there was a big fight outside, so they had to close the shop until it had cleared away. A few minutes later, the doors were up again and people carried on with their shopping. They say that there are often scuffles in the streets in town, but they are easily spotted and we are told to just stay away from the action. Apparently, it is very rare that they have guns, mostly sticks and knives. Keep clear of it and you’re fine.

After the trip to town, it was back to our place to do some washing and more sorting. Lots of our luggage had got wet, so we had clothes strewn all over our house drying out. They have had heaps of rain in the past couple of weeks, so the ground is really water logged and there is mud everywhere. We have been walking around barefoot as it is easier to clean feet than it is to clean shoes.

The kids rode their bikes around the compound, jumped on the trampoline, climbed trees, played 'flying doctors', had an afternoon tea party, and then decided to create their own mud slide. They collected buckets of water, poured then from the top of a great pile of dirt, then slipped and slide to their little hearts great delight. Their clothes will never be the same again! It took a bath, followed by a shower and three hair washings to get them clean. Our girls went to bed very tired, but oh so happy!

Today we have the morning free to organize ourselves a bit more, then we have been invited to the Hagen Hotel for lunch to celebrate Fathers day and meet some other MAF people.

They have got us on a pretty tight schedule for the next few weeks. Tomorrow is shopping day. Set ourselves with all the basics that we need to survive.

Then Tuesday we are setting up our drivers licenses, bank accounts, internet accounts, and getting tours of the MAF hangar and office and having meetings with those in charge.

Wednesday we start language. It is supposed to be a full load, so I am not sure if we will manage any school with the kids for the duration. But that’s okay. It is very important that we get a good grounding in the language. We have two weeks of lessons, and then we go and spend a week living in a village. All very exciting and exhausting!

Thanks to all who are praying for us.