July 16th

Saturday, chores day. Power cut day.

Haha! Beat it by getting some washing done early and cooking the loaf, already just beginning to bake in the bread machine, in the oven instead. The latter worked really well actually, I managed to get it crustier than it usually is from the machine. By using the oven I should also have saved the batteries in our backup system so I may have some lights this evening if the cut runs on too long.

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I enjoyed a couple of days flying this week. The weather has been very dry, which isn’t unusual in the Hagen area and to the north at this time of year, which makes flying easier and the airstrips less tricky to land on. One of the days I flew some building materials from Madang to Simbai, that’s roughly 90 miles west of Madang and about 50 miles north east of Hagen. I didn’t know what they were for so asked one of the local people helping to unload the aircraft.

They were for a village health centre, he called it a haus marasin, which really translates to a pharmacy, in a village the name of which I couldn’t quite catch. Everything, the entire 1.5 tonnes had to be carried from Simbai, over the mountain ridge to the village, which he told me was a day’s walk. Rather them than me; I have the easy part of the transport!

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Vote counting in the general election continues with results gradually being announced. I thought that everything was going to be declared on July 24^th, but that is apparently not the case. Maybe that’s when the new government will be declared.

One comment which was passed on to me was that the overall level of vote rigging and intimidation that’s been reported in the media is not very different from previous general elections. The biggest difference is the awareness that people have of it due to social media. I feel almost relieved that the voting discrepancies aren’t too different from previous elections we’ve been through. If social awareness gradually moves the polling process in future elections to be more honest and representative, then that will be a good outcome.

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This year is going to set a new personal best for long haul flights in quick succession:

June 26^th: Heathrow-Singapore-Port Moresby-Mount Hagen

July 22^nd: Mount Hagen-Port Moresby-Singapore-Mount Hagen

July 28^th: Heathrow-Hong Kong-Port Moresby-Mount Hagen

Sep 7^th: Mount Hagen-Port Moresby-Singapore-Mount Hagen

Sep 20^th: Heathrow-Singapore-Port Moresby-Mount Hagen

Next weekend I return for a fleeting UK visit to bring Nicki back to PNG. She is restricted in lifting for 4-6 weeks post-op, so if I come and do the lifting of bags for her, she gets back to PNG quicker. I make no pretence that my motives are altruistic and selfless.

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A dilemma that we’ve experienced before during our years in PNG has cropped up again.

We have a friendship with a family in a village just outside Mount Hagen. Their background is subsistence farming with a very low level of education; the father is, I think, virtually illiterate. They’ve had great hopes of their oldest son doing well, but he has been in Port Moresby for a long time now, hoping to get a job and also to go on a training course. While in Moresby he’s had some health problems and he’s staying with an extended family member who has not kept some promises about helping to fund his education. An expat couple, no longer in PNG, have contributed significantly towards the education of this son.

The second son is getting towards the end of his schooling. Because of flaws in the education system he didn’t get into the normal state system and has been attending a top-up school, that requires fees, some distance out of town. His education has also been assisted by same couple, as has the cost of bus fares.

Two evenings this week I worked a bit later than usual and arrived home around 6-ish. One evening the father, who’d been let into the compound by the guard since he is known, surprised me as I got out of the car. I wasn’t prepared to sit down and chat with him, having only just arrived back, nor drive him back to the village as was hinted at, probably about a 40-minute round trip with the roads the way they are. His reason for wanting to see me was really to ask me to intervene to get his family member to help with the son’s education in Port Moresby.

I’m an expat. I’m educated. I have a computer. I have a phone (actually they’ve had multiple phones in the time we’ve known them, but they either get lost, broken by the younger family members, or acquired by extended family members and friends and they always struggle to find money to pay for its use). Since I have all this, then there seems to be a perception that if I ring up the relative in Moresby, then he’ll fall into line.

I don’t share the same perception of my authority or powers of persuasion!

A couple of evenings later the second son came to see me. Again, I was late home, just in the house, hadn’t even taken my work boots off and there’s a knock on the door. I’d been invited out for a meal, was already running late, needed a shower and to change and ideally get a couple of messages to Nicki before going. He obviously expected to be invited inside for a chat, which didn’t happen. For a PNGian, where relationships are of much greater importance than time keeping, my lack of willingness to chat was probably rather rude.

The essence of his request was that his school fees needed paying, with the implication that I should assist, and also assist with his transport costs.

Being almost jumped on when I get home from work is not something I handle well. Neither do I build relationships in the way PNGians do based on what’s called a dinau, or debt. It’s usual within PNG cultures to give money to others, rather than keep it for yourself in the way western cultures do. As a consequence, the person who is indebted to you, has obligations to support you, but repayment of the debt is very nebulous or non-existent.

At the same time, the family do have real and genuine needs, and relative to them, I am very wealthy. However, neither Nicki nor I think that throwing money at developing nations, or the individuals within them, is a good long-term strategy. It only builds dependence and an expectation that somebody else will solve their problems.

Do you see the dilemma? We need the wisdom of Solomon to know how to respond graciously (which I probably didn’t do very well on those two evenings) and generously, but also seeing ways to assist that build independence and encourage initiative and personal responsibility.

I’ll see them again at church tomorrow and find out more details of what’s going on, and then see where we go from there.

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I have a busy week ahead conducting a total of seven flight assessments for three pilots. But this time next week (mid Saturday afternoon) I’ll be on my way back to the UK.

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Sunday p.m.

The power cut eventually ended at 9:45 p.m., 45 minutes short of 12 hours. Apart from a 30 minute cut this afternoon it has stayed on since. J

The family I was talking about didn’t come to church this morning, so I drove out to their village. The youngest child is sick and the father isn’t too well either. We had a good discussion about how I can help them, so relationships are restored. That’s also worth a J

My next task is to see if I can find out why our water pressure is so low. Is it the pump, somebody turned the valve off, or …?

I hope you have a good week.

July 9th

Some years ago, it may have been the year that Princess Diana died, the Queen described the year in her Christmas message as an “Anno horribilis”, a horrible year. 2017 seems to be determined to be MAF PNG’s Anno horribilis.

From the end of October 2016 to the present there has been an ongoing sequence of events, some within MAF’s control, but for the most part not, that have prevented us functioning effectively in our flight operations.

There have been medical issues, usually for wives, that have meant pilots have had to return home, or delayed their return. Nicki’s and my situation is a case in point. My Senior Pilot for the Twin Otter, whom I rely on heavily for providing technical and operational support, and who is an essential part of our training and checking team, has been away since early in the year. Fortunately, he is returning early August.

Another pilot’s wife had a difficult pregnancy. Fortunately, as well, all is turning out well and some very serious concerns for the baby seem to be resolving.

Stephen Axon’s scald is still taking the Axon family away periodically, though he is making good progress.

There have been several other unpredictable events too.

This week I flew on Monday and was operationally current again, though needing to do some instrument flying, which fitted very well into a programme scheduled for Wednesday. On Wednesday, while doing the daily inspection, I found there was an outstanding maintenance item that Engineering had overlooked. The outcome was that the aircraft was grounded while it was sorted out and the programme was put to tomorrow, Monday. The pilot who was due to fly with me was on holiday, but he replied to an email to say that the arrangements were fine. All well and good.

This afternoon he sent a message through to say that his Air Niugini flight out of Cairns was, “delayed indefinitely”. The outcome, tomorrow’s programme won’t happen and there’s no opportunity to reschedule it later in the week. In the meantime, customers are understandably frustrated and our reputation is dismal.

I can’t even use our simulator to do some instrument flying practice. Somebody told me that it wasn’t working properly, and when I investigated I found that it couldn’t reasonably be used for logging instrument flight. With unexpected time on the ground at least I’ve initiated a process of getting the machine repaired and upgraded at the same time, but that will be weeks before it’s completed.

Welcome back to PNG! The Land of the Unexpected!

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PNG has been in the throes of its general election, as I made comment about last week. The Mount Hagen area was due to vote on Tuesday, but due to reports of too many ballot papers, or too few, or arguments about the electoral role, and ballot papers that were already pre-marked, the voting was put off until Thursday, or maybe Friday, or even next week after national polling was officially over. There were also reports of intimidation by supporters of some of the candidates, making sure people voted the way they were directed.

In the end, some districts in the Hagen area voted on Thursday, and Hagen town, somewhat unexpectedly, on Saturday. I didn’t hear of any problems in the voting process, so we’ll have to see what happens during the counting and declaration processes.

Welcome back to PNG! The Land of the Unexpected!

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Writing manuals is not the most fascinating of jobs, but nonetheless it is an essential part of good organisation. Two of our Twin Otters have had a major avionics upgrade over the last couple of years and work is now just about complete on the second one. All being well it will be flown back to PNG from Mareeba at the end of this coming week.

With new equipment, new procedures have to be written so that there’s a standard way of using it, and what to do if it doesn’t work properly is also documented. On Thursday and Friday I worked from home and made some good progress. Quite a lot of reading up has been necessary, some of which I’d started while in the UK, and also consulting with avionics specialists in Mareeba to resolve questions on how the systems worked.

Drafts have been sent off to colleagues for their input and one section to those responsible for the oversight of our whole manual system, known as our exposition. As tomorrow’s programme is not going to happen I’ll probably take another day working from home and finish the job completely.

Returning to the rather gloomy start to this letter, and taking a quote from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians completely out of context (I’m not aware of him saying anything directly about flight operations and writing manuals), I am trying to make the most of every opportunity because the days are evil.

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Both Nicki and I now have smartphones. Yay! Better late into the 21^st Century than not at all. I have Philip’s old one that he donated to the cause of upgrading his parents. Nicki has recently bought her own.

I still have no interest in using it for email, but WhatsApp is a brilliant application that really helps communication when we’re on opposite sides of the planet. Philip has posted some lovely pictures and video of Rosalie; Nicki has sent some photos through (I won’t say what of, but they were selfies and to do with her operation 😀), and I’ve been able to show her the nicely trimmed hedge – yesterday’s task in the garden.

It’s also been nice to have a chat every evening; with the phone on speaker it means we can get on with other things but keep chatting at the same time. Nonetheless, tomorrow is already two weeks since I left the UK and being apart for ten weeks, as is the case at the moment, is not acceptable. I hope that this week we’ll be able to put some plans together to either have Nicki return here, or me to go back to the UK.

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It’s time to go. Brandon and Sharlene, our next door neighbours, have invited people around for a game of bowling on their Wii. This is round two, following up on another recent afternoon’s competition, and much hilarity is anticipated.

Have a great week.

July 2nd

I’m back. In PNG that is. The flights were straightforward. I did get some sleep. Jetlag has been minimal, for which I’m very thankful. I’ve had a couple of useful days in the office, during one of which, when my brain was working a bit slowly, I useful cleaned and tidied some bookshelves.

Despite all the routine travel and low-level jetlag, being 16,299 km/10,128 miles away (that’s flight distance Hagen-Moresby-Singapore-London. Hagen-London is only a mere 13,965 km/8,677 miles, but you can’t fly Hagen-London direct) when Nicki has surgery, albeit reasonably routine surgery, is not really where I want to be. I’m very thankful for good friends who have offered to look after her.

Once Nicki has had the op and we can see how she is doing afterwards, we’ll see what plans need to be made for getting us both into the same place and time zone again.

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Settling in expectedly involved a bit more time without Nicki here. Several text messages were required to find out where certain items had been packed away, but everything was found eventually. Our car was also due for its safety check, which I got done on Friday morning, getting to work a bit late as a result.

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Tomorrow I have my aircrew medical, which after my own medical checks recently I do not anticipate having any problems with passing. I need to do three circuits before any operational flying in order to restore my flight currency, and then there are three charters to do. By the end of the day I should be back in the groove and the next time I fly will be a longer day working out of Madang on Wednesday.

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Tuesday is polling day for Mount Hagen in the general election. MAF is not working out of Hagen in order to allow staff to vote and also to ensure that, if there is any unrest, staff are not stranded anywhere. The newspapers have reported several major issues with people not being on electoral roles, excess voting papers and so on. At the same time politicians are reported as decrying electoral fraud and proclaiming personal integrity. We hope and pray that voting all around the country goes ahead smoothly and that a good government is elected.

While the polling is going on staff have been told to stay at home, just in case of trouble. It’s probably less likely on polling day than when the results are announced on July 24^th, which is when those who’ve lost start contesting the results and their supporters get angry. Again, we hope that all will go smoothly and that events like this that have occurred in previous elections aren’t repeated.

In comparison, the UK general election was very boring – we went to the polling station, our names were on the role, we weren’t intimidated, the ballot boxes were secure and the national results were in by the following morning. Long may UK elections remain that way!

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I wonder if by this time next week Nicki and I will have any better idea of what plans we should be making. Predicting the future is not my strong point, but it would provide some very useful data for decision making if it was possible.

Have a good week.