Leaving on a jet plane

Tomorrow we are heading to Johannesburg, South Africa for a fun full week of celebration and the marriage of Sandy’s brother Allan to his lovely fiancé, Trish.

Rachel and Megan are over the moon with excitement as they have been asked to be flower girls for the wedding, and Sandy is a groomsman.

Sandy will return straight back to work in Mt Hagen following the wedding, but the girls and I (Narelle) will stop off in Melbourne for 3 weeks with my family.

My father (Kev) celebrates his 60th birthday in May, and all his kids are coming home for the celebrations. It will be a full house with Geoff, Sherry and their little boy Isaac and my younger brother Brad is also coming home for a holiday. All of us kids usually work and live overseas, so it will be a very special time to be all together with Mum and Dad, our first almost-complete family reunion for 7 years. We are sad Sandy cant join us all, but he will need to get back to work for MAF in Mt Hagen.

The beautiful people of PNG

Thanks to Caulders for sharing the pictures.

Buai Smiles -WARNING! The following might gross you out.

Many locals here in Mt Hagen chew ‘Betel nut’. It is harmless on its own, but mixed with lime it becomes ‘buai’. It gives people a high, (not unlike nicotine) and is addictive.

Our PNG cultural notes tell us that ‘betel nut is chewed in some areas to formalise greetings, cement relationships, conclude negotiations, restore peace and appease spirits.’ Any and every occasion calls for buai. You only have to observe the bright red stained smiles around town to know that it is certainly the drug of choice here in Hagen.

Once chewed, the remains are spat out, it is a red as blood and stains everything. Walls and walkways get splattered, and when it rains, the water runs red and pink down the street, washing the buai away. We will be driving along with a mini bus in front of us (taxi - jammed full of people), and out the window comes a stream of red spit. (I wont let the kids wind the car windows down for fear that we will get hit by some ones buai spit).

On top of all this, this delightful drug causes all sorts of cancer of the jaw and tongue.

No shoes required on a MAF flight