January 27th

Greetings from lovely Telefomin where it is so nice to live in a place where there is no mechanical noise to be heard first thing in the morning. Nor drunken hollering or loud music from a club.
It’s been a really good week dominated by flying and with little office work, just enough of the latter to keep abreast of emails.

The week started off rather frustratingly with a programme on Monday disrupted by bad weather and lack of organisation by one particular charterer. Things were eventually sorted out and the weather improved enough to get a reasonable amount done, but the day had its patience-stretching moments!

The rest of the week improved sequentially, ending up with us in Telefomin on Thursday, and me flying on Friday and Saturday. Nicki has worked hard during the days finishing off the material for the Tok Pisin and orientation programme that will continue after we leave.

For me, this week has epitomised why I’ve been so fulfilled by the flying here. Medical supplies taken to remote communities; students taken to school at the beginning of the new year, and whose education would not be possible apart from MAF; high quality foods taken to a disaster-affected community; sand ferried from one community to another to make concrete at a new rural high school.

More of the same this coming week, along with more goodbyes as we leave Telefomin on Thursday.

Have a good week.

January 20th

I’ve been running regularly again recently, topped 13km a couple of weeks ago, and did 12.5 near enough this morning. The longer runs interspersed with shorter, faster ones before an office day are gradually getting my fitness level back to what it was before I injured my ankle. Milton Keynes Half-Marathon here I come!

Running around Hagen in the morning while it’s still dark, leaving the house at about 5:30, isn’t actually a great deal of fun. I have to watch for potholes, slippery patches where mud has washed over whatever seal still remains, and broken glass from where drunks have had a smashing time. There’s enough street light to dodge the hazards, especially as dawn is just over the horizon, but care is needed; if there’s no moon I sometimes take a torch for a bit more situational awareness.

In these circumstances it’s not the running that’s enjoyable, but the effects of the running. I find that I’m much less fidgety in the office, and therefore considerably more productive with better concentration.

In the same way, packing up the house and selling things we’ve had for years is not enjoyable. It’s a case of gritting the teeth and getting on with it; that final kick that an athlete makes as they sprint for the line.

The piano went yesterday (to a church near the airport where I hope it’ll be made good use of). Our nice PNG hardwood lounge unit will go in a few minutes, probably along with our basketwork coffee table which is something of a one-of-a-kind curiosity. We just don’t have space to bring everything back.

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On Thursday we go to Telefomin for a week, our final visit and my last opportunity to go to some communities that I’ve had a lot of interaction with over the years. There’s an element of will power needed as I know it is going to be hard saying goodbyes multiple times. Sneaking quietly away might be an easier option in the short term, rather like staying in bed rather than going for a run, but in the long run it would be counter-productive.

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At church this morning an old friend (as in longstanding, he’s not that old) greeted us. The boys may remember Tombo, a friend from the Southern Highlands. Very early in our PNG time he married a young woman, Topa, from Western Province and they had a young daughter, when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma and died soon after. Their marriage was unusual for PNG in that it was in church and not a village bride price exchange.

Tombo subsequently remarried and children from that marriage are now becoming grown up, though we don’t know them or his second wife.

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Now about 30 minutes since the last paragraph. Lounge shelves, lounge carpet, basketwork coffee table and another shelving unit have gone. In 5 minutes so will the exercise bike. Actually, it’s helpful to get things out of the way so we can see more clearly what’s left.

A bible verse quoted in the sermon this morning was about pressing onwards. How appropriate!

Have a great week.

January 13th

While unloading a box of eggs (12x 1 dozen cartons), I discovered that while not heavy, its mass is quite sufficient to remove the skin from the top finger knuckle to the nail base when a digit is caught between the box and an aircraft frame. Although not deep, it has been quite sore, sufficiently so for me to sympathise with people who’ve had skin grafts, which I’ve heard are remarkably painful.

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As is often the case, the week had some short notice changes. One of the First Officers in Goroka, Sebastian, couldn’t fly on Tuesday because of an ear infection, and the other, Glenys, is on leave with some friends visiting. I filled the gap by flying down to Goroka in the Cessna 172 again, though the Twin Otter programme ended up being quite disrupted by bad weather.

Fortunately, Sebastian was better the next day after starting a course of antibiotics, and was able to come back to Hagen with me for a couple of days.

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There were two flights, one on Thursday and one on Friday, taking food and other relief items to the earthquake affected communities of Mougolu and Huya. I mentioned the other week that the mountainsides are less vividly coloured now, but still have every appearance of being unstable.

All around Huya there are clearings in the forest where displaced people are settling, building homes and starting gardens.

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Rather than getting on with some packing up yesterday, I was distracted by organising two medevacs, which were done by one of our Caravan pilots.

We’d heard about the first one on Friday, a man with urinary problems, but had gained the impression that it wasn’t urgent and could wait until Monday. A person from the community of Junkaral told us on Saturday that the man was getting worse, and could we send an aircraft then. So we did.

While this was in progress news came in that another person in a community a long way away from the first was also in need of evacuation, due to suspected tuberculosis. Once the first one was done, the pilot took off again for the second, and fortunately the weather was sufficiently good for it too to be completed successfully.

When an aircraft is out on a mission like that I like to monitor their progress on our satellite tracking programme. It means that I can not only see where they are, but also send messages about the weather, or other operational information. We are a long way from the days of when an aircraft was out flying we had little or no idea of its actual position, and it gives much greater peace of mind.

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I’ve been making a sort of mental list of things that I’ll miss and things that I’ll not miss when we leave. Doing the two together is rather important.

• I’ll miss the friendly greetings when I’m out for a run in the morning.
• I won’t miss the shouts of “Whitey”, either when I’m running or driving. These are usually from ill-mannered children and youths who’ve never been disciplined or taught how to behave.
• I’ll miss the beautiful scenery, the mountains especially. Driving to work has some stunning views in the morning.
• I won’t miss the potholes, especially round town, and the lack of hope of any decent maintenance in the near future.
• I’ll miss the sense of fulfilment that working here continues to give. The medevacs are an excellent example.
• I won’t miss the noise at night from the club (which has been loud again for the last few nights) and the hollering of drunks.

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Our departure was announced again in church this morning by the pastor. I told everyone the last time I preached a couple of months ago, but now it is more imminent the message has been received and understood. I’ve been asked to preach on our last Sunday, February 17th, and I will look forward to that. Even if we do visit again at some point, this seems like a nice way to close from a church we’ve gone to for the best part of the 25 years we’ve been here.

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I didn’t mention that the trip to Goroka gave me the chance to go to Aiyura and to say goodbye to one of the SIL workers there, Robert Kokombo, whom I’ve worked with for many years. Robert is the person who always prepares the manifests and loads for MAF aircraft, though doing a lot more for SIL. It was really special to be able to see him again before we go.

One of my most memorable occasions with Robert was when an SIL translator in the Telefomin area was sending in sacks of sel kamban for sale as tourist souvenirs. Informally known as Telefomin trousers, they are more accurately defined as penis gourds, the traditional ancient dress of men in the area.

I have two of my own but have thus far refrained from wearing them as examples of traditional PNG dress.

Anyway, I once landed at Aiyura with several sacks of the gourds in the back and Robert was curious and asked what they were. He didn’t know what sel kamban were, so we told him more specifically, upon which he, and the rest of us, nearly fell over laughing.

I’ll miss that sort of interaction. PNGians have a tremendous sense of humour and love plays on words, so there’s a good crossover which British humour as well.

Have a great week in which you don’t miss too much. For us it’s just par for the course at the moment.

January 6th 2019

A theme that always strikes me in one of my favourite books, “The Lord of the Rings” is the sense of the passing of time. The ages of Middle Earth come and go; different people play their part and then move on leaving the future to others. It’s accompanied by a sense of wistfulness, even melancholy, which is most poignant when Frodo says farewell to Sam Gamgee, Pippin and Merry before sailing into the west with Gandalf and other companions from his adventures.

Before Tolkien, Shakespeare had used the same theme in As You Like It, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”

More cynically and tragically in Macbeth he wrote: “Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more.”

In part at least, this melancholy reflects something of the way I feel as we work through the selling of possessions and letting go of all that we’ve been involved in.

This week:

• The car is sold, though we will have use of it until the beginning of February.
• Our lovely PNG hardwood bookshelves/lounge unit is sold.
• So is the office unit Nicki used in the dining room.
• Our chairs, most of the tools I’m not bringing home, and just about all our kitchen equipment has either gone, or is earmarked for somebody when we no longer have need of it. Similarly the TV.
• The rocking chair, piano and exercise bike are really the only remaining large items left to go. All this while I still haven’t circulated the for sale list widely
• Another crate is also packed and locked. That makes two completed.
• I’ve flown my last flight in P2-MFT, probably my favourite of the Twin Otters. It was a load of building supplies for the school in Kol, a community only about 50km east of Hagen, but located in a small valley to which the road is frequently impassable. On return the aircraft had to go in for a major C-check which will last between 4 and 6 weeks, by which time I will have flown my last flight.

It is all very surreal.

Whether we’ve strutted and fretted our hour upon the stage, or merely had our entrance and are now approaching our exit, others can judge. But a fact is that after we’ve gone, within five years or less, it is unlikely that any more than a handful of international staff will remember us, though the national staff and other local friends will.

Such is life, our entrances and exits: We come, we stay, we hand over to others, then we go.

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One of our GA8s had the unenviable effect of closing Goroka airport for about 3½ hours on Friday. For no obvious reason a main landing gear tyre deflated on landing, leaving the aircraft stuck on the runway. It was moved off to the side, but only into the grass and still inside the cone markers, so the runway remained closed. Fortunately, Goroka has a second, smaller, parallel runway that light aircraft can use.

The only quick way to get an engineer and a replacement wheel there was for me to fly the Cessna 172 down. It didn’t take too long to get everything organised, and rather than flying myself, it provided an opportunity for a young PNGian pilot, Ricky Poki, who works in the Flight Ops Office, to get a bit of free flying experience. Whenever the C172 has a trip that he can do with an experienced pilot, we like to give him the chance, if only to see the big smile it puts on his face.

Once the engineer, the hydraulic jack and the replacement wheel were in Goroka it only took about 30 minutes to have the aircraft moving again and the runway reopened. Air Niugini had had to wait in Port Moresby until notice that the runway was clear had been given.

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The first reasonable sized batch of Christmas cards arrived this week. A lot of Christmas greetings and annual newsletters arrive by email these days. In fact, Nicki saw some statistics yesterday of how the billions of letters that used to be delivered annually has dropped to less than half of what it was.

Most of these cards had a postmark from early December, so we wondered where they were delayed. With the decrease in volume, certainly in PNG we’ve seen an increase in transit time. 7-10 days used to be the norm, so it was possible to have a return letter within 3 weeks. No longer!

Although we appreciate electronic communication, and make a lot of use of it ourselves (this letter is evidence!), the occasional hard copy to peruse with a cup of tea or coffee is still nice.

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I don’t think there’s any more news this week. Seven weeks today, and at this time of the afternoon (14:10) we should just about be in Port Moresby (ETA 14:15). That is always assuming that another operator hasn’t had a flat tyre on landing …

Wishing you a happy, non-melancholic week.