Epomek

Since Scott does not blog, or even email I will try to tell you about his adventure interior. He flew out Monday morning about 6AM and about an hour later landed on this little airstrip in this little valley. Size being relative here, but you are in the middle of HUGE jungle way out there. The Missionary (Phil) he was accompanying wanted to do some repair work on his house to prepare for his family who wanted to spend Christmas there. They are moving back to the US at the end of the this year, so having been in this community for the last 10 years or so, it is a time of farewell. There is so much baggage with that feeling..it marks so much of who we are. How and when and where do you really say goodbye...or the easiest is just to leave without the painful event.
Needless to say, Scott spent a lot of his 3 days, repairing water lines, hydro lines and visiting with the locals who seem to not have any sense of personal space. He was telling me that they touch you, watch you, follow you, hold your hand, stand real close and well...just stare and giggle. I don't think Scott has had so much attention..ever! He thought it was fun to sneak up on the girls who were amazingly shy and see if he could scatter them in fits of giggles. It seems that a little bit of any attention is good enough.
He had a great time and from Phil's point of view, his help was invaluable.
He came back with some treasures. If we wanted to make large holes in our ears, we have some ear hole stretchers, pig tusks, net bags, fossils and round stones from the bottom of the river bed. Cool stuff I think, especially the net bags that not only carry an amazing amount of stuff but have a distinct smell. That smell carries so much memories, it is like a window into my youth. Great Stuff !!!

Not Subtle at all

Americans are not subtle. We are out there most the time about who we are, what we like, why we like it and why you should like it as well. We celebrate everything with more panache them maybe necessary but here in Papua..specifically Sentani, they have us beat with in your face Christmas music. There is nothing subtle about the Christian community and desire to celebrate this holiday. Not too long ago I told you about Idul Fitri and the singing, wailing prayer calls at all hours in the night. Well, about every evening when the prayer calls are supposed to be heard we have been listening to VERY LOUD Christmas music. In the last 30 minutes we have gone around the world from Englands Bony M to Felice Navidah to Yo Jingle bells from the hood. Mixed in there is a a few Indonesian Christmas songs, but mostly good ole American Christmas music. It is so loud, that we can sing along in normal voice and it would still be louder. It seems that it is pay back time for the month of Ramadan. It is as if the message broadcasting is that this is our time to celebrate with absolute abandon. Not subtle at all. I like Christmas music..usually, but I don't know if I like it piped into my home with no volume control every evening till New Years.
I have no idea what speakers they are using, but I am praying for some power outages. I am an equal opportunity curmudgeon when it comes to volume, I don't like noise no matter the content...I like things subtle, quiet and sacred especially when it comes to the Christmas season. Oh well...I could tell them what I like, why I like it and why they should also like it my way..but no one is asking.
As I leave they are singing " I am dreaming of a white Christmas", I guess I am dreaming of a quiet Christmas with as much success.

Thank you...

I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who take the time to comment. I check out my own blog to see if I get any comments because then it seems that I have an audience I am writing to. I know that many of you read and don't comment, and I like it that you read the goings on in our life here in Papua...thank you to you.
So Gay ( always precious), Phil (what are you up too), LEW (always like your encouragement), John P. (surprise to hear from you..how are you), LH (thank you for understanding about missing dogs), Lisa (how are you...haven't heard from you in awhile), Juli ( always good to hear from you), Dawn (survive the parent-teacher gauntlet?)..I am sure I am missing someone and if I do..I did not go back to all my comments and may have overlooked you. Oh yes, Polly..always nice to know family is reading. Again, thank you for taking the time to comment and if you want to start a conversation, just email me...I will get back to you as soon as I can.

Storm Brewing

About midnight last night we woke up not because there was a storm...we have quite a few of these, but because it was raining in our bedroom. The wind was so strong that it was blowing the rain into our bedroom and on to our bed. If you want to know what it was like...flash yourself with a camera flash over and over again for about 45 minutes while you are standing in the shower and someone is moving your heavy wooden furniture over your hardwood floors. I know, we have all been in thunderstorms and I am sure the ones here are not any more spectacular then any, it was just fun trying to figure out how you could duplicate the effects. Needless to say, we got up to mop the floors, close all the windows and thanked God for the needed rain.

Scott and Nick woke up a t 4:30 this morning to go surfing. This will be Nicks first time and I am hoping that one of these days I will also be invited. Having never participated in any organized sports I am finding that I am handicapped in this very sports minded community. We always have something going...basketball, floor hockey, volleyball, indoor soccer, racquet ball, and now surfing. I seem a bit on the older side to pick up a sport to learn it, and most here have been doing all of these things for a lot of their lives. Not a lot of learners, but a lot of doers.

Tonight is Jazz night here in out little expat community. The theme for the evening is show tunes and Mijo and I are both participating. She is singing a solo while I am singing in a trio. This seems to be a huge event for all involved and everyone goes all out to get in costume. So far 250 tickets have been sold, mind you that does not include all of us who are participating. This also gives you a sense of how large the expat community is here in Sentani.

Pass the TP, please

Scott took us out to a new restaurant, a fast food joint in our new mall that is slowly opening its various stores. Think food court but with only only one kiosk. This was a nice for me because we are getting very low on food stuff in the house and I was scrambling trying to figure out what we were going to eat for supper.
We sit down and look at the condiments present. Sambal (hotsauce),ketchup, vinegar, salt, pepper, kecup manis (sweet soy sauce), silverware and a TP dispenser. This is different! Silverware at the table? Just kidding, instead of keeping napkins at the table, why not the cute toilet paper dispensers and then you can take as much paper as you need to clean off your hands or face. It is a bit disconcerting to ask for TP a the table though and then when Scott kept telling us just to take a square...well, that's just wrong.
Food was good and though it came out fast and HOT, I think it was healthy...maybe healthier then a hamburger and french fries. Scott ordered Ifu mie, Nick, nasi ayam, Mijo, mie ayam and I ordered cap cay all under $10. I think we forgot about making sure about the water...
You would think the TP dispenser on the table should have reminded us, I guess it just distracted us. Happy Thanksgiving !

Christmas?

How can this be, Christmas already? In the library yesterday they were playing Christmas music. In the stores here in Papua, you can find a Christmas aisle... How can it be Christmas already? Mijo has been sneaking Christmas music into our house through the back door. She plays it on her Ipod and sings it...we are beginning to realize that the season is upon us...but really? Is it really Christmas already?

Maybe here in Papua we will escape the hoopla, or maybe we will enter a whole new hoopla just in a different language. One of these years that illusive peace at Christmas will come and what an amazing present that will be.

We are healing, all of us, pysically and emotionally. It will take time and some of our wounds will leave some scars.

Perspective

Winzig ,our German short hair pointer, was killed by the side of the road after she had run away from home. Tom and Dawn negotiated terrible few days trying to figure out what had happened to her and why she ran away. As we waited on this side of the ocean they frantically went through the paces to find her. This story unfortunately did not have a happy ending. This dog bred to hunt hated guns. She just wanted peace, food and Scott. She helped tie our little family together, and we can't imagine our home in Lynden without her. We were and are so grateful to Tom and Dawn and family for not just taking care of her for us but loving her and now missing her. They carry more then they should, we wish them peace. It is a matter of perspective, I know, but at this moment...we are just incredible sad.

Heart sick...

Those of you who are not animal lovers won't understand, you don't have to. Tom and Dawn, who have not only taken care of our dog winzig, but have loved her since we have been gone, wrote us yesterday to say that Winzig ran away. They have gone above and beyond trying to find her but to no avail at the moment. As the days go by we are less hopeful. On both sides of the Pacific, our families are just heartsick. If you pray...would you?

Just Nasty

My ulcer is just nasty. In the process of it becoming so infected that I was ordered home by the nurse to not get out of bed unless I had to use the facilities, I got lots of advice. Pack it with sugar, black ointment, honey and papaya leaf and soak it in the purple stuff we use to clean our vegetables to what I have been doing, soaking with salt water, antibiotics and STAY OFF the leg. Scott was my sub in class yesterday and for him to be in the classroom as a teacher is just way beyond his comfort level.
It is just nasty this huge volcano of infection on my leg. I got sick to my stomach yesterday just looking at it while Scott was trying to clean it out. It is no longer taking over my leg and I no longer have a fever, so I am back at school but still gingerly walking about. There was a few days when nothing was working on this thing and it was getting bigger and redder and hotter. How vulnerable I felt to this unknown enemy who had come on a small and inconspicuous scratch.
We have collected our injuries and sicknesses and learned some valuable lessons...
Scott cannot eat fruit from the men who sell it by the side of the road or he will get sick.
Nick needs to wash his hands all the time before he puts anything in his mouth.
Mijo needs to wear something on her feet and not go into unknown water holes.
I need to look for scratches and make sure they are cleaned.

It would be nice to hear from some of you...

How do you eat an Elephant?

One little bite at a time...How does the Price family get discouraged? One more injury and/or illness. From the viral stomach thing of Scott's, to Nick's malaria, Mijo's wound and Nick's bacterial bout, I have been suffering from a tropical ulcer on my leg. While Nick was getting ready to go back to school from his bout with the bacterial stomach infection, I noticed a bump on my leg that was infected. I had received a scratch on our hike to those waterfalls last week but thought nothing of it. I had not even bled and it was just a scratch from a stick or something. I put on some medicine and went off to school. That evening, I looked at the sore and it was perfectly round, inflamed and red. I put on more medicine and thought maybe I should talk to the nurse the next day if it did not feel better. The next morning it was more red, warm to the touch and now it hurt to walk. Needless to say it is discouraging, we have not all been healthy at the same time for awhile now. I am on some serious antibiotics before this thing spreads and begins to eat my leg one little bite at a time.

Mijo came home from playing hunter with her friends, crying. I had made a bet with Scott prior to her going that she would come home from this outing with either an emotional injury or bodily injury. This is the nature of our beautiful 13 year old daughter. I won on both accounts. She was crying because she was going to miss everyone when/if we leave at the end of this year. She had also fallen down an embankment while playing...I think she bruised her leg. I encouraged her not to waste such intense emotions. She was borrowing from tomorrow, grief for today. We have enough today not to dive so far into the future. When that time comes it will be hard, but right now...it is good. Not too many weeks ago the tears were there because she missed being in Lynden. We are making some progress :).

Scott has been an exceptional nurse. He worries for me and about me...I am grateful for the care. By the way, I am now a bread maker !

Spirit Week!

We don't have a major game at the end of this week nor do we have a tournament that we are attending next week, we just have spirit week because we can. Amazing the commitment to the cause thought...yesterday was crazy hair day. One student decided that it would be wild to shave half his head. He had hair like Frodo...his parents are also out of town for a week. Today the theme is , what you would not wear to school. I am wearing a sarong with a T-shirt and flip-flops. A sarong is a wide strip of material that you wrap around your waist, I often wear this after I come home from the beach, comfortable but not in the least professional.

Nick is back in the land of the able...There are usually 3 different 'bugs' you can pick up that can cause gastro stress. Giardia, worms, or a bacterial thing. We are taking care of the would be worms, that didn't work so we went to bacterial...Yahoo for antibiotics.

It is now the windy season... this simply means every evening we have wind. I know this sounds pretty simple, but the wind isn't mild, gentle nor teasing. It is strong, gusty and down right pestering. Nothing comes of the wind either, no big storm or rain..just wind. The prayer calls have been a little off lately, I don't think we have daylight saving times since we are right on the equator, but they seem to think that 3:30 AM is now the right time to call everyone to prayer, it has been 4:30. I am a bit glad at their inconsistencies though, they aren't at it every morning and once in awhile they seem to remember that there is volume control on the speaker system.

Scott is teaching more and more in the PE department. Good for him...maybe not so much for them. I tell him he needs to remember they are not new recruits for the marines. :) We are getting busy..like a huge machine that is just begnning to rev up. We are so looking forward to Dad and Elf coming here in Decemeber. We will be going interior...Mapnduma and the Mbuwa. What an expereince it will be for all of us.

Into the WILD!

Finally, you have a picture. Yesterday, after sitting all morning with students doing their SAT's. I was invited to go on a hike with the dorm next door. There were about 8 of us. Nick and Scott were with a friend putting together an ultra-light. Mijo was lounging at home. Her foot is getting much better but she still needs some down time to heal. The American Ambassador had been here in the AM to much pomp and circumstance but alas I missed him, I was sitting with 12 students as they slogged through the way too long and drawn out test. I came home, thinking I was going to relax when I got this phone call from Joan. Why not...I thought to myself, the boys are gone, Mijo is playing a computer game. I threw some essentials in my back pack...put on some sensible shoes and off we went. I told Mijo where were were going and who I was going with...BUT (always a but when it comes to adventures in this family) she was concentrating on her game and heard only that I was going hiking to a waterfall but with whom and how long, she did not hear.
We starting hiking around 3 and got up to this spectacular waterfall at about 4:30. Needless to say, the local guides were not as sure as to how to get up there and there were several times in the walking over, through and around fallen logs that I was wondering if we were going to arrive anywhere interesting. We kept going...on and on, in and farther into this wild. BUT then...WOW, was it spectacular. Huge waterfall cascading down into a blue lagoon. YES..I should have that picture, but then I did not have my camera, Scott did. The picture at the start gives you an idea of terrain. We could not stay long...it gets dark here at 6, we walked out in twilight.
MEANWHILE back at the farm...
Mijo was frantic because she did not know where I had gone, who I had gone with and when I was supposed to have returned. Here we go again.... As I walked muddy, wet and tired back to the house, I was welcomed as if I had risen from the dead. Scott , looking relieved that again he did not have to go in search of his wife, was a bit disappointed in Mijo's listening skills. ME...I knew I had told her and assumed...yes, now you know the rest of the story. One of these days we will be able to go on a hike up some jungle pathway and return home without anyone planning search parties. There is another waterfall that needs exploring..maybe on that hike...
Nick is sick again and again we don't know exactly what it is. If it is another bout with malaria, I am at a loss as to what we do from here to keep him healthy.