My First Birthday (In PNG)

People often ask us what we do for entertainment here in Ukarumpa. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, there are fairly regular community activities, especially as the end of each school term approaches. Last week we attended a chorus concert and a marching band concert, both of which were held in the meeting house. Since it wasn’t outdoors, the marching band actually marched around the benches in the meeting house!

However, there are often times when we have to make our own fun—particularly during school breaks. One common pastime of ours is to play games. We shipped over three games, but we soon found that game nights are such a frequent occurrence here that we got tired of our three games really quickly! During our current school break (last two weeks of September), Eric borrowed a game from a friend for us to play. It has so many components that we just left it out on the table for a week to play when we weren’t busy preparing for next term (or teaching English lessons!).

My birthday also occurred over the school break, so Eric designed a scavenger hunt that led to my birthday present. He had a hard time finding a gift because there aren’t many present-y items available here! Eventually the clues led to a ziploc bag of Red Vine bites. Our store is not well stocked at the moment, so the best thing he could think of to do was buy a combo bag of red and black licorice and take out all the black pieces! It was the sweetest birthday present I’ve ever gotten.