Rain falls mainly...in the Mbua

I have been trying all morning to upload some pictures but today I am being thwarted. There are several words that come to mind if I was going to paint a picture for you of our stay. There are some emotional aspects, physical aspects as well as spiritual aspects. For the emotional....my folks are adored and every time they get out of the airplane, car or house there are many who just want to say hello and hang on for dear life. There were so many tears of joy and sorrow that my heart still ache with the memory. The Nduga's have been so loyal to Dad and Elfrieda over all these years, that even the spans of time since they were here last makes no impression on the depth of longing each has to be with each other.

Living in the Mbua requires you to be adaptable and patient. It rains in the Mbua every single day. Not a simple downpour and call it good...it starts to rain around 11AM and does not stop till about 2 Am. At times you can hear 2 different rain clouds vying for the right to be the first to fall. There can be gently falling of the rain when suddenly on top of that gentle falling you hear angry large raindrops trying to take over. When this happens...conversation stops, you can't hear over the rain on the tin roof. This also requires you to do everything in the morning...washing the clothes, fixing the generator ( was not fixed), go on hikes, wander the village, have a pig feast. This was also not hard to do because Ute would come in around 5:30-6AM to yell into the radio to see what was going on at the other Nduga outposts. Dinus would also come in around 5:30 to start the fires in the fireplace as well as the stove...Scott was quite able to do either but before he came, we all attempted the fire to no avail, lots of matches and smoke but no fire. So the whole afternoon and evening we were inside, looking at each other saying...ok, what do we do now. We read a lot, played cards, Nick played with his bow and arrow, Mijo wrote her book, we tried to figure out what to make for supper that did not look too much like what we ate the previous night, Scott gave some excellent massages and we looked and listened to the rain.

Spiritually....I'll have to tell you later.