I can't find Autumn

Sometimes I am at a loss about what to blog about and yet I feel the need – must blog, haven’t blogged for 6 weeks, must blog, must blog…and so here I am sat at the laptop on a sunny Friday morning. Reuben has just begun his morning nap and I am listening to the competing sounds of the bread machine, the washing machine and the birds singing outside.

My thoughts are a jumble. There are so many things I could write about and yet nothing seems big or important enough. I feel overwhelmed by small stuff, but I am not sure any of it is the stuff of blogs. I am momentarily put off, distracted by other things I could or should be doing, and yet…

Something I have started thinking about in the last few days is seasons. People are posting pictures of their children playing in piles of leaves, friends here talk of yearning for ‘fall’ days and trying to wear orange scarves even though it’s too hot for scarves, and it has gradually dawned on me that this is the first autumn we have missed. In 2012 we experienced ‘fall’ in the US when we drove along North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Parkway in late October – the colours were incredible, burning themselves into my memory with their intensity. Last year, we were in the UK with new baby Reuben and I remember walking through a forest near our home with him sleeping on my chest in the baby carrier. This year, there are no visual changes in my environment that refresh memories or thrill with their vividness. And yet, the more I ponder, the more I see that there are ‘seasons’ here – some that are predictable , but most that are not.

We have noticed that the jacaranda trees bloom at this time of year. The centre is a patchwork of purples and they are truly beautiful. Indeed, we have just planted some where the much missed trees were in our garden. They are tiny now, but we hope that they will grow. You can buy mangoes again at the market and the kingfishers are in residence for a time. Other markers recently have been the end of the financial year (here, it is the end of September), so everything has been shut for stocktake. Worst of all, the store was shut for over a week, but the inconvenience of its closure has now been replaced by the relief of reopening and the reminder of how lucky we are to be able to access so much, so much of the time. It is easy to forget that we live 5,000 feet up in the mountains and expect things to be the same as they are in the UK.

The seasons I feel the most here are those that occur in relation to people. July is the main time people leave for furlough (a year in your home country) and everyone braces for a time of loss. But then new people arrive and the cycle begins again. But other exits are more unpredictable – people suddenly disappear for a whole host of reasons and suddenly a season has changed and you had no warning. It’s unsettling, confusing and occasionally frustrating, but it is just part of life here and being in this job. And then there is the constant hum of homesickness that unpredictably starts to buzz so that you can’t ignore it and makes you spend hours languishing on facebook, emailing and yearning for family. It stings, it subsides into the background, it stings, it subsides, it becomes like a season that I dread and yet desire.

On the home front it feels more like we are navigating milestones than seasons as Reuben grows and develops. He is really walking now and into everything. He is weaning, stacking rather than destroying, opening and closing doors, trying to talk, sharing, finding his ‘will’, waving, high-fiving, mimicking, making friends, wearing shoes, moving things, exploring and and and…surprising us with his energy, yet reminding us of his vulnerability. He is even experiencing some independence as I begin some teaching again in the next few weeks. He is very sociable so we hope that going to nursery regularly will be fun for him. But it’s definitely a season change for him and me. I am going to teach a short course on basic critical thinking skills to new Papua New Guinean Bible translators. I haven’t taught adults before, so no doubt it will be a steep learning curve.

I told you that my thoughts were a jumble, but here they are anyway. Now, I must hang out the laundry, finish dealing with today’s vegetable haul from the market and do some more lesson plans before Reuben wakes up. Tell autumn that we miss her.

The trees

On Friday morning, as I prepared our weekly fruit and vegetables for the fridge, I looked out of the kitchen window and contemplated an empty patch of sky I am not used to seeing. The thing is, our trees are gone and worse than that - we had them cut down. To me, cutting down trees is like burning books and so to say that it hurt to watch the trees fall, would be an understatement. But, the hard facts were that the trees were too tall and they couldn't just be topped without killing the trees anyway. A similar tree had fallen on a house in recent years and some were worried that that might happen again or that someone might be injured. People who know about trees said they needed to come down and so come down they have.

When our organisation moved to Ukarumpa 55 or so years ago, we planted trees in the valley that was just covered in kunai grass. Now, the centre is covered with trees and I am so glad, but they do get too tall...So we employed a team from our 'Construction and Maintenance' department to do the work and last Monday they arrived.

It is hard to find a picture that really communicates the height of these trees...

I watched in awe and quite a lot of fear, as Tama, the Papua New Guinean tree man, scaled the first tree (the one on the right) and began cutting off branches with an axe. Another man stayed on the ground and collected the branches after they fell.

As you can see from the pictures above, it is pretty precarious work, but amazingly skilled too. It was interesting to watch Tama prepare to go up the tree each time he had to re-ascend. He would approach almost reverently, stare up at the tree, take a few minutes and then finally begin the climb. Later, he told me that in the stillness before the ascent, he always prayed. Tama carefully created 'steps' for himself as he cut, and all his movements were very slow and considered. I hope he didn't mind me watching. 

Very soon, there was a very big pile of branches.

At the end of day one.

On day 2, work began on the middle tree. Half way up this tree, the trunk split into three separate trunks, so it presented some new challenges. At one point the man on the ground was holding a rope attached to the middle trunk and Tama was working on cutting it through. Unfortunately the wind blew in the wrong direction at the just the wrong moment and it fell towards the house, instead of away, as was intended. The man holding the rope fell on his face, but his actions saved the roof of our house. I happened to be outside videoing at the time. I dropped the camera in my surprise (fortunately, I was wearing the strap), but everyone was okay, if a little shocked.

The end of day 2.

After the excitements of day 2, it was decided that they would just cut the trees down without removing any further branches. So on day 3, 12 men arrived with chainsaws and more ropes and Reuben and I were asked to come out of the house so that we could watch from a safe distance. Tama climbed up each tree in turn to attach ropes and then all the guys held onto the rope to direct the fall of the trunk down the the road. Then he came down and whilst another man used his chainsaw, Tama used his axe to help as well. The three trees were safely felled and the trunks cut into 5 metre lengths and removed by a large digger, and all by lunch time! The ground shook as each tree fell, and friends all over Ukarumpa said they heard the noise as they hit the ground. It was sad, horrible and impressive all at the same time. When the first tree was about to fall, Reuben reached out his hand from the stroller to take mine. I don't know who was comforting who.

Tama and his axe.

Some of the team.

:(((

And so they are gone. I think there is a little more light in the kitchen. We might, perhaps, get more hot water because our solar panel won't be shaded at certain times of the day and we can plant something else. Suffice to say, we will miss the trees. Maybe I have read too many books about trees that talked and even walked. Maybe I have been too emotional about this, but I'll always wonder what they could have told me if they could talk...but now we can plant new trees and give them new stories to tell...

As I typed the paragraph above, Reuben took three steps towards me. HE TOOK THREE STEPS TOWARDS ME. I have my perspective back.

Losing my voice

When we first started blogging we had a particular audience in mind - people who didn't receive our prayer letter updates, but who wanted to follow our adventures in PNG. We imagined that only our friends would read it - people who knew us, our personalities, our senses of humour, our voices. We have both blogged from the different perspectives our different roles have given us and  tried hard to portray our lives here honestly.

Early on we realised that it wasn't just people we knew who were reading the blog. We were pleased and excitedly looked up the statistics page, enjoying how our readers seemed to be spread across the world. What I didn't do was think about how this would affect how I wrote and how it would affect how I would be understood. I didn't think about how our voices might change either, or the ears that might be hearing them. This is interesting because back in my university days, this is exactly the sort of thing I was fascinated by - I was excited by what happens to meaning when it is interpreted by someone else who has a different perspective. Now that we live and are heard in a cross-cultural community in the middle of a country with a very different culture to the one we knew, I often find it a struggle to feel understood, even by those with whom I share a language. 'Do you know what I mean?' is a question often on my mind and in my mouth. Most of the time I think I am blissfully ignorant to the oddities of how I sound to the people I meet. I assume understanding and when I realise I have been mistaken, it is hard. I have started to think that I don't know how to say what I mean out loud or through written words. I have been wondering if I have lost my voice. 

We love getting responses to our blogs, but some of the feedback I have received about the ones I have written has made me question myself because I have inadvertently implied things I didn't mean to. I have gone back and read over what I wrote to see how I could have given the impressions I have and am left confused. I can't hear my voice through all the different ears and make it say what I want it to, to them all. And so I have been silent. It's not as if what I am writing is particularly earth shatteringly exciting anyway - I seem to have been mostly concerned with laundry, washing-up liquid and cooking after all. So I have been wondering if it is better to stick to putting up photos of Reuben and the helicopter..

In the end it seems I can't resist having a go anyway and hoping it will be all right. I can't completely control how you will read me - how your experiences,  impressions, cultural context or emotions will influence, but I think I still want to risk the attempt to communicate and let the chips fall where they may. I can't deny that it is frustrating to feel misunderstood, but it is also enriching and refining. 

I suppose the truth is that this blog really isn't about whether you hear my voice as I want it to be heard, or Duncan 's. It's meant to be a glimpse into why we are here. It's God's voice that transforms everything and everyone deserves the chance to hear it in their own language. Perhaps you really don't know what I mean when I say that, but I hope you will keep reading, as I hope to keep writing. 

Crawling

We can't believe we haven't blogged since the end of May! Sorry! We blame Reuben and the fact that he is ON THE MOVE! He is LOVING exploring everywhere and gets braver everyday. It is wonderful to watch him, but slightly scary too. Pray for us all as we enter this next, exciting but terrifying stage.

Village Views

These are just a few shots I tooks whilst in the village for the airstrip survey and solar panels.

A shelter on the site of the new runway (which we had occasion to use to escape the rain)

We all acquired new 'friends' on the walk through the bush - leeches!

The house we stayed in

Our sleeping arrangement inside

The house next to ours - quite unique!

I heard shouts and whistle blasts whilst on the roof for the solar panels - a basketball match

Pigs in the garden

The Aid Post and Aid Post worker's house

The panorama

The helicopter parked in the village, next to the church

I shuttled the lawnmower out of the village so it could be fixed and subsequently returned to help maintain the runway. On the return trip I took in the new Aid Post worker and his family, who'd been struggling to get in with the airstrip being closed.

A River Runs Round It

What's the value of an airstrip and flight service in PNG? Are they just there to make life easier for the expats?

Last week I got to stay a few nights in the village of one of the translators who currently relies on the helicopter for transportation. There is an airstrip near the village, but it is low-lying and has a river going around 3 sides, so floods regularly, making maintenance a big problem. Due to the softness of the ground, the airstrip has been closed for some time.

The current airstrip

So the community would like to build a new airstrip on a ridge closer to the village.

The site of the new airstrip with some of the trees cleared

The airstrip not only allows the translator to get in and out easier, but provides the area with a valuable service. Without the airstrip teachers and teaching materials for the local elementary school cannot go in and out. Without the airstrip the village is without supplies, other than those either grown in the area or walked in. Without the airstrip there is no way to evacuate medical patients with illnesses beyond the capabilities of the rural aid post. They cannot afford the cost of the helicopter, so there is 'hunger' (to use their word) for a new airstrip.

We set out to walk the new site and see what work would need to be done to turn the bush into a place suitable for an aircraft to land.

The ridge which it is hoped will be the site of the new runway

Unfortunately there are a few challenges ahead for the community as they prepare their new landing area. The first is that the ridge is not straight.

This gully will have to be filled in

At the start of the runway there are two such gullies to fill in - a lot of work for manual labour with just shovels and wheelbarrows to help! But even shovels and wheelbarrows need to come from somewhere and that's where one of our sister organisations can help - we had the Wycliffe Associates' program manager with us, who agreed to fund the supply and transport of the tools.

The second problem facing them is that, whilst the ridge won't suffer from flooding, the ground there is still soft.

Digging down to test to firmness of the sub-soil with the 'pogo stick' in the foreground

Also, not only will they have to finish clearing all the tress from the ridge, they will also need to dig out all the roots. If the roots are left in the ground, over time they'll rot and then that creates a soft area or hole on the airstrip. At best this means work filling in the hole, at worst an accident if an aircraft tyre drops into it on landing or take-off. Removing the roots can mean digging down as deep as a person is tall.

Tree roots around here are no small thing!

 Lastly, the ridge chosen is not quite as long as was hoped. 

This means the airstrip will have to be extended into more bush

And that there is another big gully which needs to be filled in

But there was still plenty of enthusiasm for construction, so the centreline was marked to show the workers where the airstrip will go.

The stick in the foreground had its bark cut to indicate the runway's path

A task of this size could take 10 - 15 years to complete. In the meantime there are plans to repair the existing strip so that flight services can resume, which will be even more work! What a 'hunger' the community must have for flights into their village. 

A meeting (inside the new literacy building) where the local community affirmed their commitment to the new airstrip

Solar System

How do you get clean water into a village house? How do you power a radio to keep everyone in touch with the world and call for help, if needed? How do you provide light to work in the evenings when co-workers have finished their day-time jobs or done their tending of their gardens? I'm sure you're ahead of me - a solar electricity system.

After I had joined in the initial survey for a new airstrip (see our next blog post for details of that) I had some time to help a colleague install a new solar power system for our host's house. They had one already, but of an old design and it wasn't really meeting their needs.

The old solar panels, with a few bits of the new system

As the village had had rain every day for the past 3 weeks, and we wouldn't have been able to work on a wet roof, we tried to do as much installing of the new system as possible before we removed the old one.

The first thing we had to do was screw in mounting brackets, but the roof is just made of corrugated iron. So, wood was cut to place inside the roof to take the screw-threads.

Thankfully some of the tools we were to take back with us were still available

The tools had been brought in to help construct a literacy building, in partnership with the local church; the one I had to sling the sawmill for previously.

The literacy building

It was great to be able to see at least the shell of the literacy building complete, having taken people and materials in and out over the past couple of months.

But back to the solar panels. Once the feet were securely screwed in place, we had to build the frame. This involved cutting the aluminium lengths I had previously brought in with the helicopter. 

With the legs cut, we then had to drill holes for the bolts to go through

Back on the roof, the frame was assembled. The rain ominously fell on the adjacent ridgeline, but didn't make it as far as us.

In the midday sun, the roof got too hot for bare feet

And on the ground there were generally at least a few people watching proceedings.

The ladders were ones made for the literacy building construction

With the frame built, it was time to put the panels on.

We were finally brave enough to remove the previous panels

The wires were then connected up and run down into the house.

Finally, after dark, the panels were connected into the system

What a day it had been - after 3 weeks of continual rain, we'd had a day without any and stayed safe on the roof. I didn't even get sunburnt. Answers to all the prayers for no rain and our safety.

And the old panels? They'll go on the literacy building's roof to provide power over there.