From the Oceans White with Foam to the Mountains

Nine people plus the pilot crowded with their luggage onto the tiny plane sitting on the runway. Since we were new, I got the opportunity to sit in the front next to the pilot, who warned me not to touch the pedals or the steering wheel (what do you call a steering wheel on a plane?) because they would move on their own during the flight. Having never been on such a small plane before, I wasn’t sure what to expect as we started taxiing down the runway.

Despite the plane size, the flight was much like any other flight on a larger airplane. Madang is situated on the coast, so we flew over the beautiful blue ocean for a bit (brown in the places where rivers ran into it), and then we started southward toward the mountainous interior. Tall mountains rise and fall through the highlands of the interior, rivers cutting through the landscape here and there. About half an hour later, we soared over a community of buildings and landed on a dirt airstrip just beyond. We were in Ukarumpa.

A friend we had met last year in Rochester was there to meet us when we landed. He and his wife were our “welcome family” who helped us take care of things the first few days. And what a lot of things there were to take care of! We had to learn how to dispose of trash—one can for items we burn, one for food scraps that we bury in the garden, and one for non-burnable items (which are collected weekly). We had to learn to buy groceries—most people here don’t have cars to take their groceries home in, so we pack up our purchases in an orange bin, put our house number on it, and a small truck drives around to deliver groceries. Our washing machine and fridge didn’t work, and we couldn’t take our clothes down to the river anymore to wash them! Several families had us over for dinner the first week, but eventually we had to learn to cook with a gas oven. And much, much more…

After three and a half weeks, we (mostly) know our way around and (mostly) know how things work. We are glad to have many friends from our orientation course to go through the transition process with us, including our neighbors from orientation who are now our neighbors here!