The Starbucks Experience

In Ukarumpa, it’s uncommon to have just one job, and one of my many jobs is working in the community library once a month. The library is housed in the basement of what is called the Elim Haus (pronounced “house”). Upstairs, there are small meeting rooms, and many Saturdays a team of people on center host a coffee house for two hours with food, tea, and coffee, so we get the “Starbucks experience” for a few hours each week!

My responsibilities at the library include opening it up for two hours on my scheduled Saturday, re-shelving books, sorting check out cards, and preparing donated books to be added to the collection. We have quite a large selection of books, including fiction, non-fiction, classics, and science fiction, as well as a children’s section with everything from early readers to teen selections.

After my shift ends, I often stop by our local movie rental place on the way home! Many of the houses here have outbuildings, and one family has turned their outbuilding into the Ukarumpa version of Blockbuster. For three kina (roughly one dollar), you can check out a movie from their collection for three nights. The family who currently runs the movie rentals (called R&R) came back from furlough at the beginning of this school year, so they brought some new movies and TV shows with them. We were thrilled to discover they had brought the most recent season of NCIS (which is no longer the most recent season) because we had left for PNG in the middle of the season. Several months later, we were able to find out what happened!

May the Fourth and Revenge of the Fifth Anniversary

May the Fourth: Star Wars Day

The fun started at school with several students dressing up as beloved Star Wars characters. Eric and I wore our matching Leia/Han shirts that we were given for Christmas and had been saving for the occasion. We were invited to a Star Wars party in the evening, which included a viewing of the most recent movie, Rogue One. It was our first opportunity to see it, since we don’t have movie theaters, Red Box, online streaming, etc. here. Guests were encouraged to bring Star Wars-themed food. Last year I made R2D2 sugar cookies for Star Wars Day, but this year I had just sold my cream of tartar in a pre-move cleaning of the pantry, so I had to figure out something to make with what I had. I decided on peanut butter ball Death Stars. Other items at the party included Jabba the pizza hutt, 7 Leia jello, Han Solo (Solo is a popular type of soda here), choose your side cookies (one side light, one side dark), a masala dish sculpted in the shape of Jabba the Hutt, and many other delicious treats.

May the Fifth: Anniversary

How do you celebrate a special event here? We reserved a “date night” at the Guest House, which is a candlelight dinner in a private room. The room was decorated with Christmas lights and had music playing in the background. We were given a bell to ring when we finished each course so the hostess would know to come clear our dishes because she was also serving the guests who were staying at the guest house in the main dining room. We were also able to give each other special gifts because the store was re-stocked recently: Cheez-Its and SweeTarts!

Eighteen Hours in Melbourne

Since we had to fly through Australia to get back to PNG from New Zealand, we decided to stop in Melbourne on our way home to visit a college friend who lives there. She is also a missionary, and we have supported her for about two years now—what a unique and wonderful opportunity to be able to visit a missionary you support in Australia!

The flights from Queenstown to Melbourne don’t depart until late afternoon, so we had a relaxing morning of walking around the beautiful city of Queenstown, including a stroll through an artisan show we hadn’t known about. Our flight was supposed to get into Melbourne at 5 p.m. on Friday, after which we would spend all of Saturday with our friend and depart on Sunday morning. As we were sitting at the gate in the Queenstown airport, awaiting our boarding call in about an hour, an airline worker stepped to the microphone and said the dreaded words, “Your flight has been canceled.”

Queenstown, New Zealand

It’s a very small airport, so that was the only flight to Melbourne that day on that airline. Since we had already turned in our departure cards, we had technically left the country, so we spent some time waiting in an area between the terminal and the tarmac until we could officially be allowed “back” into the country. After a long period of waiting and eating free food, we were booked onto a flight going to Auckland that evening, put up in a hotel there for the night, and given a flight to Melbourne from Auckland the next morning, getting us to Melbourne around noon. So what was meant to be a day and a half stop turned into a half-day stop!

Once we finally got to Melbourne (and got through the hour-long line at customs), we had a great time. Our first stop was lunch at an Asian restaurant (I forget which variety). The menu included a jellyfish salad, and since I’ve never had jellyfish, I decided to add that to my list of interesting seafood eaten, which also includes squid and octopus. It was pretty good, though I suspect that was because it tasted mostly like soy sauce in this case!

Following lunch, we went to a park where we saw gum trees, several varieties of birds in the wild, and a gift shop! Yes...I love gift shops and all things touristy. 😊 Sadly, no koalas were spotted in the trees or kangaroos on the roads, though we did see a sign for a kangaroo crossing. 

We had fun going to a grocery store and trying to figure out what the unique Australian fruits were, and I got to cut up and taste a rock melon! Okay...it’s really just a cantaloupe! The final piece of the adventure was trying to figure out when to get up the next morning...it was the day they switched their clocks in that region of Australia, but since they are in the southern hemisphere, it was opposite of the way we switch our clocks in the spring in the northern hemisphere (and we don't do it at all in PNG)! Once we figured out what time it was, we made it to the airport with plenty of time for our final leg of the journey.

Travels in Middle Earth

Hobbiton

Little did we know when we booked our tour to Hobbiton that our tour guide was one of the first to take visitors to Hobbiton, with a wealth of knowledge about the filming of the movies! We had about a 2.5 hour drive from Auckland to Hobbiton, and our wonderful driver entertained us with stories there and back again. Hobbiton is set on a serene farm on the North Island of New Zealand, and it was beautiful as well as hobbit-y! Following our tour of the hobbit holes, we had a quick stop at the Green Dragon and then a private lunch in a party tent—I felt like one of Bilbo’s special guests at his birthday celebration!

Safari of the Scenes

After a few days in Auckland, we flew to Queenstown on the South Island. Flying into Queenstown was breathtaking! Mountains, snow, and lakes abounded. It looks just like Middle Earth—which is why several scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed in the area! We took a four wheel drive safari tour to visit some of the sites, including Argonath (the Pillars of the Kings), which is the place I have always wanted to see most in New Zealand. I will admit that I felt close to tears as we drove along the mountain road looking down at Argonath (technically the Kawarau River) because I was so in awe. After visiting some mountain filming locations, we forded the Ford of Bruinen in our Land Rover (several times!) and got to try our hands at panning for gold in the Arrow River, which was the location of a gold rush in New Zealand years ago. None of us came away rich, except perhaps in sand fly bites.

Milford Sound

Just a half hour plane ride from Queenstown sits Milford Sound, which is actually a fjord that was carved out by glaciers. However, if you don’t want to pay the big bucks for a flight (either a helicopter or a tiny plane like we use to fly from Ukarumpa), there is only one road in and one road out...and it’s a four hour drive from Queenstown! Getting there actually took closer to six hours because we stopped for tea and pictures a few times. The most exciting part was driving through a tunnel through one of the mountains of the Southern Alps. If you look back at the tunnel from the other side, it looks like just a tiny mouth on the face of a gigantic mountain. Upon arriving at Milford Sound, we took a two hour boat ride around the fjord. Apparently it rains about 360 days a year there, but we were there on one of the rare days without rain, with a beautiful blue sky and sunshine overhead! (Though that did mean fewer waterfalls.) Twice we passed seals sleeping on rocks, and as we pulled in close to one of the bigger waterfalls, a group of dolphins was swimming at the base!

First World Problems

Being in the South Pacific certainly has its share of advantages, and one of them is being very close to New Zealand! We took advantage of our proximity by taking a trip to Middle Earth during our March school break (between terms 3 and 4). More on the adventures we had later, but first, a taste of the adjustments we had to make going from third world to first world.

1. It was REALLY hard for me to be okay with rinsing my toothbrush with hot water. We don’t use the hot water tap to rinse our toothbrushes in PNG because the hot water in our bathroom comes from the river. I had to remind myself it was okay to rinse (and wash my hands) with hot water every time.
2. It also felt strange to drink water straight from a tap without filtering it.
3. Being an introvert, I don’t love greeting everyone as I pass them, but it felt very strange/awkward to NOT greet people as we walked by them while we were in NZ.
4. I was glued to the window for our first car ride from the airport to our hotel in Auckland, amazed at the smooth, paved roads and six lane highways.
5. I was terrified a few times driving at such high speeds on the road. We don’t go that fast around Ukarumpa where the roads aren’t paved, so it’s been quite a while since I’ve been in a car going over 30 MPH!

What I Wouldn't Give for a Hot Shower

Of all the adjustments we have had to make in PNG, for me, bathing has been one of the hardest. Here are a few humorous stories about what it is like in the village and on our center at Ukarumpa.

You may recall a post from about a year ago in which I described an incident that happened after I had hiked several hours to a village, arriving sweaty and tired. Some women in the village led me and the other ladies with me to the spot in the river reserved for women to wash. The river was so shallow that we had to lie down to submerse ourselves! We didn’t have any containers with which to douse ourselves. Our village guides sat on the bank and watched us—probably laughing to themselves about the crazy women who didn’t know how to bathe properly!

In the village where we lived for a month last year, mercifully the water was deep enough for full submersion. It was quite refreshing on most days to cool off in the river. However, on cloudy days, I often found it too cold to bathe, shivering through my “bath,” the 5-15 minute walk from the river to our house (depending on how many people stopped us to talk), and as long as it took for my hair to dry. On those days when I didn’t go down to the river, the neighbors usually stopped by our house to inquire if I had bathed! They didn’t seem to think my excuse of being too cold was a good reason to skip a day.

At POC (Pacific Orientation Course), we had hot showers—sometimes. A family was assigned to “fire duty” each week, which meant getting up at 6 in the morning to start a fire to heat the water. Each shower stall had a bucket that we filled with the water that had been heated (sometimes lukewarm, sometimes scalding!), which then functioned as our shower. In Ukarumpa, we have modern plumbing, so theoretically warm showers are available...as long as the sun is out to heat the water! In our house, we use water pumped in from a nearby river for the hot water in our shower, but occasionally something happens that shuts off the river water for a period of time. A few weeks ago, I prepared a mixture of apple cider vinegar and water to apply to my scalp because I have been having issues with dryness. After massaging my whole head with the vinegar solution, I turned on the faucet to start my shower...no water! There I was with vinegar-scented hair and only cold water available for showering. So, I used a squirt bottle to dump cold water on my head so I could shampoo. It was still quite cold, but a bit better than the alternative!

Guest Blog: Eric (on Coaching Basketball)

Bright and early at 6:30 on a Saturday morning, the Ukarumpa International School’s boys’ basketball and girls’ soccer teams loaded up in a convoy of four 15-seater vans to make the trek to Goroka for a day of sports competition with teams from the New Tribes missions school. The roughly 50-mile drive led us along winding ridges and pothole-infested roads for two and a half hours!

The games against New Tribes were the first official games for our teams this term. The games were also a unique experience for our boys’ basketball team; most of our games and practices take place on an outdoor court, but New Tribes has a full-size international court in their gymnasium. For the first, and possibly the only time, our players had to deal with a raucous crowd. I lost my voice by the end of the day trying to shout over the crowd to be heard.

There will be another tournament in the middle of March, which will be the only other set of official games the team has. Every Tuesday, a group of nationals who work on center play a scrimmage against the team, and a game against a group of expatriate men in Ukarumpa was also organized earlier in the season. I have had to share reffing responsibilities at these games, since we don’t have any official refs!