Winter in the Tropics

While many of my friends back home are posting about the beginning of summer, we are heading into the throes of winter in the southern hemisphere. What does “winter” mean in the tropics? Technically they don’t have winter in PNG. There are only two seasons: rainy and dry. On the coast, “winter” (dry season) means slightly cooler temperatures and less rain. In Ukarumpa, which is at an elevation of about one mile, it often means very chilly mornings and evenings!

On the morning we woke up to move to our new house last week, it was 48 degrees F. For my New York friends, that probably seems downright balmy for winter. However, the houses on center have no heat and no insulation. That means often it is colder (or hotter!) inside the house than it is outside. Luckily we have a fireplace in our house, but we still have to drag ourselves out from under the covers in the morning to build a fire.

Another factor in our chilly mornings is that if there wasn’t enough sun the day before, the water will not be warm for the shower! All the houses have solar panels to heat up their water, so cloudy days mean tepid water. You also have to think about your hot water consumption at night; e.g., if we use the hot water to wash dishes, there will be less hot water to use in the morning. Often, we heat up water for dishes rather than using our supply of hot water. Don’t forget that since we’re on the equator, the sun always sets between 6 and 7, so there is no chance to collect more solar power after dinner!

Over the River and Through the Woods

We stood at the base of a steep hill, tired from all the climbing we had already done that day, wondering if our legs would survive ascending the hill AND carrying us all the way back home. Were we back in training? Nope; we were hiking to Lone Tree Hill, a nearby mountaintop from which you get a stunning view of the missions center and the valley.

Our group—those of us from training who live in Ukarumpa now—started off in the morning, looking forward to a pleasant walk after three months of increasingly intense hiking at training. We had barely left the center when we came to a river. This was not the refreshing experience of crossing water during the hot and humid hikes on PNG’s coast; this was the chilly water of mile-high elevation, knee-deep in the middle. We removed our socks and shoes and proceeded across the river, discovering on the other side that we had no way to dry our feet. Not wanting to hike the rest of the path barefoot, we shoved wet, dirty feet back into our socks and shoes.

The trek was really not very arduous, but being at mile-high elevation, breath is often harder to come by. When we arrived at Lone Tree Hill (which actually has more than one tree), one of the girls asked us to be in a video she was filming for a school project. Her assignment was to do a book report on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and she chose to direct a scene from the book. So the majority of us played “extras” in a battle scene while her mom and dad portrayed Peter and the White Witch! We haven’t gotten to see the movie yet, but we heard from her teacher that our acting was superb. J