We’ve been in Papua New Guinea for 6 weeks now. We’re still alive and all our children are accounted for so I think we’re doing well.

In my previous post, we were exhausted from traveling. It was a journey to get here but I don’t want you to think we’re martyrs. We’re excited to be here!

Just a word of caution, listening to me expound about what’s it’s like to live in Papua New Guinea is like listening to me expound on what it’s like to ride a horse. I’ve done neither very much. I wouldn’t buy a horse or take travel advice from myself, unless the price is right. And, like usual, the advice found here is dirt cheap and worth every penny so please read on.

Where to start?

Earthquake

We missed our scheduled flights out of the U.S. because our passports and visas were lost in the mail. Because of this, we missed the 7.0 magnitude earthquake that hit the East Sepik Province (where our base is located) on what would’ve been our first night here. Apparently it shook things up pretty good. Everyone dashed out of their houses because being inside a house when it topples over is an unpleasant experience. I imagine it looked like when you throw a piece of firewood into a wheelbarrow and all the ants living in it crawl out as fast as they can. No one likes being rattled around but everyone at our base was fine. The houses were fine too – better than fine actually. I’ve heard reports of doors that didn’t open or close well suddenly fixing themselves after the house shifted a bit – an unexpected blessing.

Not everyone got off so easily. We flew in several patients who were injured because of the earthquake. So we missed all that excitement but that’s all right because we were already more stimulated than a toddler watching Paw Patrol.

Our New Normal

Really, though, the first thing we noticed when we got off the plane was the heat! The humidity assaulted us and the sun shone hot against our skin, which suddenly seemed to be deathly pale, almost translucent. I was worried my kidneys would get sunburned! The temperature is typically in the high 80s to mid 90s with plenty of humidity. That’s because it rains often. In fact, we get 350 inches of rain per year!

With that in mind, we’re downright spoiled with a nice apartment, or “flat.” The most notable thing about the flat is the air conditioning! Although we have it set at about 80 degrees (Fahrenheit), our house still feels nice and cool compared to the outdoors. A lot of previous families have lived in this house and each have made improvements, which is stressful because now I’m worried its condition has peaked and we’ll only destroy it instead of improve it.

The first challenge to settling into our flat was finding where to put our 13 suitcases full of stuff. So we turned them upside down on the living room floor, made a pile, and resolved to slowly find places for things. With any luck, we’d have another earthquake and the pile would be distributed around the house for us.

Our flat is situated on top of Wewak Hill, squeezed between an old hotel and another property owned by a local church. We have five families living on about a half acre plot of land and so we all get to know each other pretty well, whether we’d really like to or not. But we’re the new family so we haven’t had time to squabble yet – at least the adults haven’t. Our children immediately began working on it. Inevitably a child starts crying and every adult on the base sits up, cocks their head like a dog listening to a dog whistle, and determines who’s child is crying. It’s like a submarine captain listening to the audio signature of an approaching vessel to determine if it is a friend or foe. You get pretty good at identifying the nationality of ships based purely on their sound.

We eventually found places for our stuff (without having another earthquake) although we still have a lot of stuff on the container in Ohio.It’ll be like Christmas when it comes because we are starting to forget what we put on it. Unfortunately the container has hit some logistical hurdles. If you’re familiar with hurdles, you know that you should jump over them, not hit them. Jumping over physical hurdles is one thing but clearing logistical hurdles is another thing entirely, especially when you’re trying to hoist a 40′ long, extra high shipping container over them. Often hurdles are as high as government bureaucracy or as wide as our own ignorance. Sometimes they’re as big as both put together. Samaritan Aviation is planning on shipping more airplanes to Papua New Guinea over the next decade and so I’m determined to figure this process out and refine it into a nice, tidy series of predictable events. We’ll see. I have no idea what the future holds but I’d like it to hold fewer logistical hurdles. (I can hear all the veteran missionaries laughing hysterically at my naivety).

Though our base is a bit tight, we do have a great view of the ocean from up here on Wewak Hill. It’s such a nice view that the Allies, during World War II, tried to move in but the Japanese were living here at the time and didn’t want to move out. So the Allies bombed the living-daylights out of Wewak Hill. Because it would rain bombs frequently, the Japanese dug tunnels all through this area and some of them are still here. I saw one last time we walked around our little peninsula. I should’ve went inside but I was hot and sweaty and didn’t feel like squeezing myself into a dark hole that was potentially full of exotic bugs. If bombs were falling from the sky, I’m sure I would’ve found the tunnel delightful, but they weren’t, so I took a picture and kept walking.

The Going Rate for a Stray Dog

Speaking of hurdles, that reminds me of what it’s like to drive here. When we were in Zambia two years ago, they told us that in Zambia only drunk people drive in straight lines because if you’re sober, you swerve like a lunatic to avoid potholes. I feel it’s the same here. It’s not just potholes though, you’re also avoiding stray dogs.

In Zambia only drunk people drive in a straight line because if you’re sober, you swerve like a lunatic to avoid potholes

But, before you get the privilege of driving, you have to get your driver’s license. Janice and I did that by simply going to the government offices and paying a large sum of money. I guess they assume that if you have a lot of money, you’re smart enough to drive. The lady behind the window asked me what I wanted to drive, “Cars? Motorcycles? Trucks? Buses?”

“Everything,” I said. And so I got a class six license which, I don’t really know for sure, but I think it means I can drive anything I want, minus an airplane of course. They do seem a little picky about that.

I was happy to have a driver’s license. Tim, a fellow missionary, helped us navigate the process at the government offices. He was happy to get it all done in just one trip. “I can’t believe we got it all done in one trip,” he kept saying. I got the impression that it usually takes several trips.

But I wasn’t off the leash yet. Before they let me drive around on my own, I had to play chauffeur for anyone wanting to go to the store or to the hangar. It felt like I was sixteen again. Here they drive on the left side of the road and all the cars are manual, which means you shift with your left hand. It really messes with your head. I find myself constantly hopping in the wrong side of the car only to realize there’s no steering wheel in front of me. I’m also turning on the windshield wipers whenever I want to turn, because the levers are switched. The locals find this very amusing. Occasionally I do too.

I’ve also been learning to use the horn. In America, using the horn is like yelling at a cashier. You only do it if it’s necessary or if you’re a huge jerk. Here, bumping your horn like the drummer boy is a polite message in morse code that says, “Hey, I’m behind you and could kill you accidentally if you step backwards.”

Stray dogs also respond to this message and since they’re always sitting on the road yawning and scratching their backside, you find yourself doing it a lot. They slowly turn their head, look you in the eye, and try to determine if you have the guts to run them down. As tempted as you are to do so, you know that as soon as you hit a dog, what once was a useless stray now becomes the prized pet of everyone in the vicinity and the going rate for a prized pet is about fifty Kina, or about $14 USD. If I hit every stray dog that crossed my path on the way home from the hangar, I’d have to go home to raise more financial support. So I usually screech to a halt while the creature slowly peels each body part off of the road, assembles himself into a crude caricature of a dog, and slowly sulks away.

While I’m now driving around on my own, Janice is currently advised not to drive unsupervised until she learns the language and culture well. She needs to be able to communicate in case something goes wrong. But there are many other reasons we should be be able to speak the local language, Tok Pisin.

Learning Tok Pisin

Since Papua New Guinea has over 800 active languages, Tok Pisin was developed as a trade language to bridge the gap between them. It’s pretty basic so you develop story to describe something, instead of using specific vocabulary. It’s a fun language. I imagine if Dr. Suess developed a language, he would’ve come up with something similar.

For example, the word for armed robbery is “Hansapim” which sounds suspiciously like “Hands up ’em.” About 80% of the language stems from English while 20% comes from tribal, Melanesian, and German languages (Papua New Guinea was under German rule until 1919). I’m told it’s not a hard language to learn. I’ll take everyone’s word for it since I don’t have much linguistic experience. But I’m finding that learning Tok Pisin still harder than remembering someone’s name – so I’m basically doomed.

I’m guessing that learning Tok Pisin still harder than remembering someone’s name – so I’m basically doomed.

Before we really start our ministry here, we need to get to a mid-level proficiency with our language skills. As such, my primary job right now is not to work on airplanes but is to learn Tok Pisin. While we were attending the Compass program at MTI last year, we learned that one of the biggest hindrances to missionaries making an impact is language skills, or lack of them. And that makes sense. Friendships can only grow so far when the only method of communication you have is grunting and waving your hands. Come to think of it, that’s like being friends with a dog. Patting someone on the head and giving them a treat is hardly an effective medium for discussing theology. So we’ll keep hitting the books.

During a typical day Janice and I gather around the kitchen table several times a week with Jeremy, our language helper. He’s a local pastor and is a very patient man. We have him for two hours every day during which time we scrape as much Tok Pisin out of his brain as we can handle while feeding him as much food as he can handle. We make sure to have baked goods on hand for every lesson and whatever doesn’t disappear goes home with him. I suspect he’ll gain forty pounds by the time we become fluent. So far we’ve been more effective at spreading diabetes than the Gospel. Thank you for being patient with us.

I suspect he’ll gain forty pounds by the time we become fluent.

The frustrating thing is that my brain has been digging up more Spanish than I thought I knew. My mouth will request information on how to say a particular phrase in Tok Pisin and my brain just hands me a file marked High School Spanish.

“It’s in there somewhere,” my brain will say.

My mouth will sort through the phrases, sputter incoherently as it realizes the wrong words are coming out, then angrily wring my brain like a washcloth until some sort of incoherent Tok Pisin drips out. This process exerts a lot of stress on my body and after a two hour Tok Pisin language session I found myself really tired and almost fluent in Spanish.

After a two hour Tok Pisin language session I found myself really tired and almost fluent in Spanish.

English is taught in school here and so typically the more education people have, the better they know English. Many people in town know basic English. But most of our patients are from flown in from the bush where there’s no English spoken whatsoever and so if we want to communicate with them, we need to learn Tok Pisin well. Pray that we do so as it’s the gatekeeper into the culture and effective ministry.

Making New Routines

I should clarify. Pray for ME that I learn the language well. Janice doesn’t need prayer in that department. Janice is studying the language half as hard as me and is twice as good at speaking it. Still, she’s adjusting to a new routine. She’s learning to navigate the market every week and is figuring out what stores in town sell what. Then, just as she figures what’s what, the inventory changes because they sold out of something but a new shipment of something else came in.

In the US, you go to a store, check their price on mayonnaise, and if it’s outrageous you go somewhere else where it’s fifty cents cheaper. Here, if you find mayonnaise you squeal like a school girl and use your arms to clear the shelf into your shopping basket. You go home only to have your judgmental spouse armed with a calculator and the current exchange rate examine your receipt and gasp at how much the mayonnaise cost. Despite her cheapskate husband, Janice is doing really well at making the most of this new adventure in front of her.

The kids are doing pretty good. There’s plenty of other children on base and so there’s fighting, like I mentioned before, but they also play so hard through the day that we almost forget we have them. In Ohio we struggled keeping the kids engaged with the outdoors, or anything other than a television, really. Here they play so much outside that we struggle to have any family time together. So occasionally we go on forced marches around the block just to watch them suffer, according to Adi and Elliot. But at least we’re suffering as a family. We also instituted a quiet time after lunch, which is also torture, at least that what it sounds like if you listen to the whining coming from their bedroom. So far “Quiet time” is more of an ideal than a literal description.

Keeping Old Routines

But it’s not just new routines we’re trying to implement. We’re trying to keep our old ones too. For example: our bedtime routines. This island is basically a volcanic rock with a thin veneer of dirt over it. The kids enjoy wallowing in the dirt and find themselves getting cut on the rock. So they’re dirty and bleeding every night. This brings up a conundrum: do we want to wash bedsheets every day or wash children every night? We’ve decided to wash the children because if we let it go too long, they become unrecognizable. Then, as we wash the dirt off four days later, we’re shocked to discover we’ve been taking care of someone else’s children! This is an awkward situation that can be avoided by cleaning our children on a semi-daily basis. This, of course, adds more time to the bedtime routine.

Then there’s Adi who has, up to this point, had very little interest in her stuffed animals. Then the other day they suddenly all had names. They all needed to have their teeth brushed. And they all needed to be arranged in such a way that they can see the book we’re reading. Usually I let Adi and Elliot pick a book to read. This particular day Adi assumed each of her stuffed animals get to pick a book too. She had five animals sitting there.

“No!” I shouted, probably too loudly, “I’m not reading a book to each one of your stuffed animals!”

That makes me sound like a monster but you must understand that book reading is almost at the end of our bedtime routine. Please follow this hypothetical timeline:

By this point I’ve threatened, yelled, begged, and cajoled the children into putting their toys away. I shoved a toothbrush into Adi’s hands and told her to brush her teeth. I drug Elliot to the bathtub and threw him in just enough to get his feet wet. I turned around for three seconds to grab a roll of toilet paper which Oliver was throwing into the toilet. That gave Elliot enough time to realize he didn’t want to take a bath without his toy truck, so he jumped out and went running into the living room. His feet, which were quite dirty, were now also wet and so he left muddy footprints on the floor, on the walls, and on the couch. I yelled at him to “Get back here!” and at just that time he slipped and crashed to the floor, resulting in explosive crying. I should have probably consoled him but my emotions, which are about fifteen seconds behind, noticed the muddy footprints everywhere. My brain had already loaded the angry scolding soundtrack into my mouth and that’s what came out, “If you wouldn’t run around like a crazy person, that wouldn’t happen! That’s WHY I TELL YOU NOT TO DO THAT!” I don’t know why I lecture children when they’re crying. It’s really not useful.

Meanwhile Oliver had thrown himself into the bathtub, fully clothed, and was gasping for air, because, of course, he went in head first. So I ignore Elliot because, as far as I knew, his injuries weren’t life threatening. Oliver’s could have been. But soon Oliver coughed the water out of his lungs and was happily splashing in the bubbles. I stripped the wet clothes from Oliver and wrung them out in the sink. By that time Elliot had jumped back into the tub and slipped on the soap scum that Oliver had applied to every surface in his reach. More explosive crying. Soap in Elliot’s eyes. More explosive crying. Soap in Oliver’s eyes. Elliot laughed uproariously. I tried to tell him that is not nice.

“Why Daddy? Why isn’t that nice?” I conjured up a sermon with my remaining three brain cells about treating others like you would like to be treated.

Meanwhile Oliver pulled the plug and drained half the water without me noticing. I put more water in. Elliot cried because it was too hot. I finally dried the two boys off and check on Adi’s toothbrushing. She’s managed to get toothpaste all over the counter. “Are you done, sweetie?” I ask.

“Daddy I brushed all my stuffies teeth.” Sure enough, there’s toothpaste on the stuffy.

“What about yours?”

“No, Daddy. I didn’t have time.”

“YOU DIDN’T BRUSH YOUR TEETH YET?”

All I want to do is go to bed and we’re so close to the end of our routine. So close, and yet so far away. And now Adi is trying to add five more stories to the itinerary.

I compromise. “OK, we’ll read an extra story tonight.” Elliot is excited. He does a cannonball into my lap from his bed, knees first. This leaves me with just enough lung capacity to squeak through the books. Then they argue over who should turn the nightlight on. I finally pray our bedtime prayer and with a sigh, get up and head towards the relief of my bedroom. Adi interrupts me. “But Daddy, we forgot our bedtime snack.”

They tell me someday I’ll miss this.

Missionary Family Buys Lots of Drugs

Despite all that, I love my children and, as such, we want to keep them alive. During orientation we were given a list of medications to buy and have on hand. It’s not like you can run to Walmart here to pick up some stuff in the middle of the night. Even if you could, there’s no guarantee they’ll have what you need. So we’ve been stocking up on antibiotic ointments, creams, elixirs, painkillers, anti-malarials, antihistamines, and a lot of other stuff I can’t pronounce which we’d never be able to buy without a prescription in the States. The headline could be “Missionary Family Buys Lots of Drugs.”

There’s many more things I want to say, but I’ve probably already said too much.

Until next time,

Josh.