November 25th

Okay, I admit it. Greg not getting his visa issued because of the APEC conference was great! I can’t remember when I last flew six days in a row and I have enjoyed it immensely. However, the first three days, spent in the Goroka area were more than just tinged with sadness as it is likely that it was my last time there.

Each area of PNG has its own unique beauty and the Eastern Highlands and Chimbu Province are no exception. Each area has its own blend of languages and cultures. If I do go back again I’ll have to face going through the farewell process all over again.

On the last day I said goodbye to Pastor Kimin at Karimui. He’s a leader in the local Baptist church and was a great help when MAF ran a series of concerts around the country featuring Steve Grace, an Australian gospel singer. Kimin’s eyes misted when I told him I most likely wouldn’t be back, and my FO, Glenys, asked if she detected a tear in mine. “Klostu” was my Tok Pisin reply which you can work out for yourselves.

I was working out what I carried during the week:

• Passengers, including pastors for the first ever Baptist Union of PNG National Pastors Conference.

• Trade store supplies – rice, tinned fish, oil, flour, crackers, sweet biscuits, sugar, salt, batteries and more.

• Coffee and peanuts.

• Big rolls of water pipe for a water project in one community.

• Medical supplies – at last some are being sent out.


• Body charter – taking a deceased person back to his home community
• Disaster relief – food aid to a community still affected by February’s earthquakes.

And I took lots of photos:

 Coffee at Owena

 Trade store supplies at Simbari

 Earthquake disaster relief supplies at Walagu

 Medical supplies at Bomai

 A deceased person returned home to Muluma

 A water project for Negabo

 Simbari: children

 Simbari: young hunters

 Simbari: elderly lady

Would you trust your child with a bush knife 2/3rds his height?!

Next week Nicki and I will be in Kompiam with Dr Dave and Karina Mills, so the next News will most likely be in a fortnight's time.

November 18th

Two nights in Goroka last week will be repeated this week as well.

You may have read or heard in the news that PNG is hosting the Asia Pacific Economic Community summit. Lots of money has been spent prettying up Port Moresby, while the rest of the country has experienced shortage or absence of medicines, cuts to school budgets and more. I may have mentioned this in a previous news and I’m not repeating anything that hasn’t appeared in the media here or overseas.

Another knock-on effect is that the immigration department staff have all been allocated to APEC duties. I mentioned last week that Greg Falland, who should be here flying, hadn’t been able to get his visa issued, well, that is true for this week as well. The most optimistic date of issue will be on or after Wednesday 21st.

In the meantime, I keep on flying. Dare I say that I’m not altogether sorry that his visa has been delayed! I’ve been enjoying flying around the Goroka area. Three days were spent in Goroka, and then two days in the Hagen area, which included a flight to the earthquake affected area.

The earthquake communities are hungry as their crops haven’t really recovered yet, and we learnt that provision of seeds and gardening equipment has not been done effectively. I flew a load of food to Dodomona which is just in Western Province.

Huya, very nearby and the same language and people group, has the misfortune to be in Hela Province. Because Hela Province is chaotic, anarchic and violent in places, such as around Tari, it has been categorised as a no-go area by US and UK governments, and by agencies such as the World Food Programme. The same category as places like Syria. This does seem somewhat extreme, especially when flying to Huya presents no more risk (which is negligible) than going to Dodomona a few minutes away.

In the meantime, because of politics and far away decisions, people don’t get the help they need.

Left: Unloading; Middle: Sally Lloyd, who has done a huge amount of work to help the people in Western & Hela Provinces affected by the earthquake, with Glenys Watson (my FO) and some local people; Right: Sheltering from the rain under banana leaves.

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A chunk of yesterday morning was spent preparing my sermon for today. It was hard work and I felt singularly uninspired. This morning I spent some more time preparing and all seemed to go OK in the end.

The Highlands Highway is under major reconstruction at the moment, and likely to remain that way until the end of next year at the latest. We discuss whether it will be more dangerous as a four-lane highway as far as the airport, than it was when it was full of potholes. The potholes are uncomfortable but do keep vehicle speeds down.

It is wholly within the realms of possibility that when there are four good lanes that a vehicle overtaking another, could be overtaken in the third lane, and that vehicle by another in the fourth, all the while with two vehicles coming in the other direction in sight.

For now, the road is rough and messy, but usable. It does make it necessary to wash the car regularly, which was one of yesterday’s chores, in order to avoid young people on the church compound drawing in the dirt during the Sunday service.

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We’ve made our first sales of things we don’t want to ship home: our BBQ, which we rarely used, has a new home in Goroka. Some power tools have gone to Brandon Coker who lives next door. Hopefully all our other surplus items will be disposed of as easily.

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Because of the delays with Greg’s visa, Nicki’s and my trip to Kompiam on Wednesday has been delayed by a week. Dr Dave Mills and Karina invited us out a while ago, and the people at Lapalama want Dave and me to trek in there again.

Back in 2010 we walked in and reopened the airstrip after 16 years of closure due to tribal fighting and serious dysfunction within the community. The encouraging thing is that the community seem to have learnt from the closure and are working together much better than they ever did before. Glenys Watson (in the photo above) and her family went to Lapalama on village orientation, which would have been unthinkable before 2010, and had a great time there. Dave has an effective health programme in the community, which again, couldn’t have happened until the people turned around.

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Other news:

My ankle is much better now and I’ve been for one short run, and a couple of walks with Nicki. Trekking from Kompiam to Lapalama is looking much more likely than it did a week ago.

Nicki’s computer died. As I write she is trying to reinstall the operating system, which will hopefully get it working again.

Have a great week …

November 11th

The Pilots’ Meetings are over, quite possibly the last I’ll go to; hopefully the last I’ll be responsible for organising. The latter task is not difficult, just time-consuming. For the former, there are very mixed feelings. The camaraderie and awareness that I’m among a group of first rate people will be very greatly missed.

I know, beyond doubt, that the mixed feelings are not going to go away; transition times are never easy, and big ones like this, particularly difficult.

And on the subject of transitions, the first cardboard boxes have been packed with books, DVDs and pottery.

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Catering at the hotel we were using for the meetings caused some concerns. Hagen town water supply was off, not an unusual occurrence. What surprised us was that the hotel didn’t have any back up supply, i.e. rain water tanks, for their kitchens or public area loos. We were due to have pizza there on Tuesday evening, but the thought of kitchen staff only being able to wash their hands with bottled water in a communal bowl, followed by hand sanitiser, didn’t really appeal.

The general opinion was that a decent restaurant would shut down if it didn’t have an adequate water supply. This one didn’t.

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My ankle continued to bother me during the week and after six weeks I was beginning to get concerned that it wasn’t healing as quickly as I expected. Although it potentially messed the programme up (I was due to fly to Goroka first thing to do another pilot’s routine flight checks), I decided it was time to see a doctor.

Nicki and I drove out to Kudjip Hospital fairly punctually, even though first thing in the morning is their busiest time. After not too long a wait, during which time some routine checks were done by a nurse, I saw one of the doctors.

He said that he was a runner himself, so could understand the self-inflicted nature of the injury. When he examined my ankle he knew exactly where to press: “Does this hurt?” “No”; “Does this hurt?” “No”; “Does this hurt?” “Yes!” – with the voice slightly higher in tone than that used for the “Nos”.

After a blood test to check for another possibly underlying condition and a second consultation to review the result, I was prescribed a couple of different anti-inflammatories and already it is much more comfortable, so much so that Nicki and I walked over 5km this morning. Running will sensibly wait a bit longer, though I was told that once the pain has reduced sufficiently, there’s no reason why not.

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There was still time after we got back to the airport afterwards for me to fly to Goroka (in our little Cessna 172 training aircraft, which is a very useful shuttle) and also to get Sebastian’s flight tests completed.

The following day, Friday, the weather was kind and I was able to do four routine flights out and back to different airstrips before coming home again in the C172.

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Saturday was a catch up day with some odd jobs, as well as a catch up day with myself after the busyness of the previous week.

One of the jobs was to make my favourite lemongrass and ginger cordial. Our lemongrass patch is thriving and has some really substantial stems now, worthy of any Waitrose store but costing nothing. Lemongrass stems (crushed), lemons, root ginger and some sugar make for a delicious and very refreshing cordial.

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PNG is the Land of the Unexpected, so it wasn’t entirely surprising when a relief pilot, who’s flying three week tours at the moment, didn’t have his new visa issued. As he’s not likely to be in country until mid-week at the earliest, I’m off to Goroka again tomorrow to fly the programme until he gets here.

Expect the unexpected and rearrange your schedule, and again, and again. As I’ll be in Goroka some meetings and tasks I thought I’d do on Monday will now not get done until Thursday, or more likely Friday.

There are times where not having anything to do, or not having plans keep on changing, seems very attractive, but I’m equally certain that I would get very bored very quickly.

November 4th

It has begun! This morning (Saturday) we started the process of sorting out our belongings. Quite a heap of paperwork has already been burnt. How much we’ll end up wanting to ship home, I’m not sure. That process, too, has made headway this week as we’ve accepted a shipping quote.

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After my ankle injury at the end of September I decided it had recovered enough to try a short run of only 2 km this week. It wasn’t a good idea as the swelling increased afterwards. Nonetheless progress is being made and almost all the discomfort has gone now. 

With no runs since the end of September, my level of fitness has fallen dramatically, despite a couple of hard sessions on our exercise bike.

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Our local eatery, the Sweet Spot, has a small book exchange library; bring some books you’ve finished with in, and take an equal number of new books away. Nicki and I have both been reading more than for a long time in recent weeks. John Grisham and Kathy Reichs thrillers have been particular favourites, the former with dramas focussing on the American legal system, the latter on forensic anthropology, the author’s speciality. Her books are the basis of the TV drama ‘Bones’.

I’ve just finished reading John Grisham’s book, ‘The Chamber’. It’s a fascinating and gripping story about an old man, an ex-KKK member, in Mississippi. It sounds like a morbid tale, and maybe in some ways it is, but it is very thought-provoking and extremely well-crafted. Highly recommended.

A few weeks ago I read a Clive Cussler thriller, having seen them on book stalls at airports. It’s an inferior version of James Bond, poorly written with an unbelievable story line. I will not bother with another of his books. Highly unrecommended.

 

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On Monday the three days of pilots’ meetings begin. I think that I’m mostly ready for the sessions that I’m leading, apart from finishing off the morning devotions which I’m taking. Usually I’ve asked various pilots to take these, especially ones who aren’t responsible for any other sessions. This time, as it’s my swan song, I thought I’d like to do them myself. I hope that they are helpful.

The whole of this week was spent in the office and it has been a useful time. Thursday and Friday became difficult days for all of us when we received news that the son of our Maintenance Controller (who is the person responsible for scheduling all our maintenance and ensuring that all service bulletins, airworthiness directives and so on are complied with, so a critical role) had been diagnosed with acute leukaemia. 

Brian, the young lad affected, and Becky, his mother, were in Brisbane where the diagnosis was made. They headed back to the States as quickly as bookings could be made so that treatment could be started as soon as possible. Clay, with the other two children, Seth and Taylor, follow on Sunday.

They are obviously reeling with the suddenness of everything: the diagnosis, having to leave at very short notice, the unknown future. At least the doctors say that it is a form of the disease that has a good response to treatment, but it is still a long road ahead lasting for months.

In the meantime, everybody here is reeling too. Clay and Becky and their family are very popular. I worked a lot with Clay and really appreciate him as a person, as well as a technically excellent professional, extremely good in his role. Of course, nobody knows at this stage what the likelihood of them being able to come back is. It probably errs towards the less likely than the likely.

It’s the sort of event that makes the other demands of daily life, the frustrations, difficulties and so on, seem incredibly trivial. We all know there is no answer to the question, “Why?”. That is never anything that we’re able to know. The one certainty is that rough roads are not walked alone and that Jesus will be alongside the Walter family. Clay’s faith and conviction of this is very evident.

On that rather subdued note I’ll end for this week.