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 24th,
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.
