Kia Ora NZ!

The Vanua-Fire boys who are my new favourite!

Well folks, I'm back on kiwi soil - and I love it!

I'm spending my days catching up with friends, thinking back on a year of memories and thinking about how these experiences will change what i do. Life is a beautiful thing - I feel like I have been really blessed this year with the people I have met, the safety while biking and travelling alone, not ever getting really sick, not losing any baggage or having any plane mishaps, not getting anything stolen....people i didn't even know have looked after me time and time again and I am super grateful!

Thanks for supporting me y'all - can't wait to see you and say hi in person!
Arohanui,
Miri xxoo

Sista blong mi hemi nambawan!

 This is Paula. And Me. In Vanuatu. Oh, yea!

It was very exciting heading off to the airport to pick Paula up.....I may have got there ridiculously early.....and since then we have been checking out the Vila sights. Smolbag boys fire dancing on the beach, snorkelling, sailing, diving, eating....and enjoying the hot weather. (well, I am. Secertly Paula does also....she just hasn't admitted it yet...) I have enjoyed getting back into speaking Bislama and Paula is fast picking it up.

 A visit to the underwater post office is on the list of must do things....

 Friendly fish - enjoying eating coral and flippers.

 Mele waterfalls - you can't see it in the picture but there are beautiful clear pools, smaller waterfalls and general good stuff. Nice jungle walk to get there...sweet deal that we passed a whole bunch of people leaving as we arrived so had the place to ourselves for a while....before a few more tourists came along.

And the challenge activity for the week - off for a scuba dive. Paula touched Nemo - several times! Woop Woop. Shes also glad she didn't die. I turned around to see her holding the instructors hand at one stage....he looked stoked!!

Hanging with some turtles tomorrow. Have been able to also get out to Smolbag where I used to work and say hi to people there - Paula tested her Pottery skills which proved to be quite good....and we have been promised more island dresses to take home with us on our departure....lol

Great to be here hanging out together!

Aussie Adventures!

 Leaving Kapuna was sad! In the last 2 weeks I have often found myself singing Kapuna songs, flicking back through my photos and remembering parts of life there. Very fond memories! I spent a week in port Moresby which was interesting. Good to have a wee look round and slowly get back into the idea of 'developed' world living! It was still a shock landing in Sydney, navigating my way into town on the train and then across to manly - everyone walks fast, talks fast and looks busy! No more of the slow way of life!

 Despite this, nice to be back in a place where I can see the sea and go swimming!! Love it.

These are my 'Aussie' cultural moments over the last few weeks....
1. Seeing kangaroos jumping round the garden and dead on the road
2. Sleeping in a real Aussie swag
3. Watching a NRL final, with Aussies
4. Seeing the golden guitar in Tamworth, the country music capital of Australia. Woop woop
5. Spending a week in Byron Bay pretending to be a hippie (see photos below)
6. Driving down "Steve Urwin Way"
7. Getting hassed for my accent.

 Me enjoyinng the swimming and sunshine at Byron Bay.

 Drum lesson! My backpackers also had juggling lessons, bush walks, talent show, open mic, Quiz night and crochet lessons. Sometimes it was hard to leave.

And I've finished my time being in brisbane - which I have loved (really nice city) and today shot up the Sunshine coast for another swim at another beach. Note the LACK of sunshine......hmmmmm

Vanuatu tomorrow!

Independence Celebrations!

 Independence Celebration!! Just fantastic to be involved with this. My group were great at kitting me out with custom dress and were uber keen to learn a haka (I don't really know any hakas....). But was great fun teaching them to sing Pokarekare ana and then changed e te ariki into a haka and whammo! Maori item in the middle of a PNG culture night. (As one group member said "We longer eating flesh and are glad that other countries are safe to come here now so we celebrate their culture too"...!)

 Akia painting us up...

 And spot the white girl....

 I swear I'm not actually this white but it is an extreme flash photo!!

 Following the cultural night we had a day of sport which started well. Classics such as Coconut shotput, and then this relay of running to collect a coconut, husking it and then scraping. Despite my practicing at husking and scraping I was still added to the kids race (kids and foreigners) and then delegrated the running leg. I completed this complete with an epic slide finish as I delievered my coconut to the scraper person. Running in mud isn't a problem but stopping is!

 Firelighting and bow and arrow competition were followed by the not-so-traditional tug of war and limbo. Tug Of War would have made a southland easter camp proud as it was torrential rain and nothing but mud to stick your feet into, and much yelling and yahooing!!!

Finally it was flying fox time, which everyone LOVED! Certainly wasn't OSH approved and I lamented that I have been corrupted by OSH safety standards but then thought it was ok as Im still alive....anyway, no-one died and i only had to look away a few times as kids fell off the ladder and dropped into the creek below.

Heading out to Port Moresby in 2 days time to wait there for a few days until i fly to Australia. Have had a mission trying to organise this but are thankful that we have just found out we can go. The other option was a 4 day boat trip! 

Th story of Wowobo Village

I recently had the priviledge of heading to a small village called Wowobo about 4hrs away from Kapuna. It was a great boat ride, going from one major river system to another through a network of narrow waterways and different size rivers. Our mission was to support a group of mothers who have started teaching the village children. 15 years ago the government run school was closed down and the village told they were not allowed to build any new buildings or get any new services. The village is the proposed site for the end of the new Highlands-Gulf highway and deep water port on their front doorstep. Hasn't happened yet. So, in true spirit of when you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, these mothers have marched down and lit the light themselves, offering a new enthusiasm for school along with new opportunities.

 Our first activity was a very entertaining game of mud soccer. One of the favourites in this province!!! Fantastic to watch and I wished I had joined in, although i don't think the kids would have been so into it if there was a white female adult playing with them! I stuck with paparazzi photography.

 Evening the whole village turned out for a game of Volleyball which was a fun way to spend the rest of daylight after meetings and the days work.

 The next day we had about 30 kids in the village long house for school. They were excited to show off their alphabet, numbers, shapes, colours and singing to us. Those who didn't have paper got a stick and drew their letters in the clay ground. We only had to turn a few 5's around and get them doing some letters in the correct way. On the whole though very good and a few bright kids!

After about 4 hours of songs, games, alphabet, maths and reading we were ready to call it a day (us more than the kids probably) and we wandered back home for some lunch and to wait for our dinghy to come and collect us. 

I loved being in the village and will remember it as a highlight of my time here i think.

Swamp day and Children's Day!

 Thursday was a school field trip up th river to the swamp! Great fun!! This is a fishing camp on the bank of the river. So not a permanent village but people will spend time here fishing before returning to their village.

 How many men can you fit in a canoe? Apparently this was a rugby team going downriver for a game! They didn't have much freeboard!

 Some of my students (from left Ken, Issachar, Abel and Shem). I think the favourite part of the trip for them was seeing of they could shot birds with the slingshot.

 Exploring up a river into the swamp. Great fun, with crocodiles, creeper vines, funny looking Dr Suess trees and torrential rain.

 When it wasn't raining it was lovely. Saw a few crocs poking their heads up in this spot.

 Saturday was a kids day for the surrounding villages which was good fun. Here te older kids are doing some bible quiz games and getting ready for some relays.

All the kids learning "Jesus got heaps of lambs". I didn't teach them the verse about ninja turtles as they had no idea what ninja turtles are but we made up a few verses that were more relevant to PNG. Went down a treat.!

Off the a village for a few days this week to check out a school. Should be great.

Epic Storms, playing in the mud and a mystery animal in my house...!

 Well, last week was learning how to cook Sago, this week I tried making Granadilla and Guava Jam. Boo-jah!! It is delicious, so much so that Uncle Colin, who grew up here and still lives here wants me to tell him how I did it! We have just introduced a new food to the diet! Very happy.

Exciting thing of the week: Watching my kids go outside during break to frighten away a flying fox. It involved one kid shooting a slingshot and then all the others charging the tree, screaming and yelling holding sticks and then chasing the bat away. Very amusing and made me think of tribal wars. Kids vs Bat.

 Thought it was about time for some pics of where I'm living - note the mossie net above the blue chair - an excellent spot for reading in the evenings by torchlight safe from biting insects!

I am feeling stoked to be getting to know some of the girls my age here more. I have had dinner with them and have plans for more. They are great, although I am gutted to only have 3 and a half weeks left here! Time flies in this place.

I had a breakthrough with one of the patient kids who watches me walk to school everyday but who has so far said nothing back to me when I say hello. My class and I sung E Te Ariki in church on sunday with me on ukulele and afterwards this wee kid jumped onto the path in front of me, mimicked playing a ukulele and sung 'ga-link-a-link-a-link' and then ran away laughing. I'll take that as progress!!

 The view out my kitchen window. Haven't had to close the storm shutters yet although we did have an EPIC thunder/lightening and rain storm over the weekend. It was incredible. Thunder just rolling and rolling around the sky and brilliant flashes of lightening that lit the whole sky up.

 My resting place! (note mossie net again).

Me off to find the mysterious animal that was doing poos in my shower for two mornings in a row. I was imagining a giant gecko/lizard like creature (apparently one lives somewhere in my house), or a family of frogs, or giant  (giant!) insects. Turned out to be a hen roosting. NOT LIKELY!! She was very stubborn when i ushered her out and I had to resort to actually hitting it and sweeping it away. This is MY shower!!!

I've had my first game of mud volleyball - badly reminiscent of an embarrassing Year 10 PE lesson. Didn't do much for my quest in getting to know the locals as I'm so bad at Volleyball i wasn't much help. It was fun finishing with mud all over my arms (proof that i did at least touch the ball on several occasions!) and mud splattered up my legs.

An important chief died here at the hospital over the weekend. I was woken about midnight by the wailing starting which continued for several hours. Then Sat morning it started again and most of us went to sit in the church singing songs until the coffin was made and we had a service for him. He was then taken down to the village where the traditional thing to do is wail and throw yourself in the mud. Pretty full on apparently. Very sad for the staff here as he was a guy who has done lots for the hospital. Another baby died during labour so was a pretty hard weekend for the hospital.

Otherwise things going well, am constantly learning about PNG culture and things. Am hoping to head up or down river at some stage to check out another village or two before i leave. I have just this week left with my class and then I'll be spending the last three weeks observing the primary class and trying to help get that running better.

 

 Kids playing in the wee stream outside my place. Much laughter and screaming.

It has been a pretty good week - more rain, lots of reading and playing ukulele when I'm not at school. Students are doing well and are enjoying learning some Maori songs. Me being here has allowed their normal teacher to go into Port Moresby and try to get the school registered so they receive government help and PNG textbooks. That has been going well which is great. It will be fantastic for them if that all comes off.

Culinary delights of the week:
Learning to make Burupae - a sago and banana soup which is pretty yummy.
Sifora Juice ( Lime juice) - have a tree outside so I get my hunter/gatherer on and squeeze me some sweet juice!
Thai curried beans - thanks to my new skill at husking and grating coconuts I can make my own milk and with the help of the curry powder someone else bought it has made a nice change from eating kumera, banana, sago and rice.

The westerners are few and far between this week - Barb is in Port Moresby, Dr Val and Dr Nell went to the next closest hospital for a week (there are no doctors there so they do 2 weeks here and 1 week there). Just Colin, Grandma, Jennie, Eva and me.

Hope all well for you guys - time is going fast here - only 5 more weeks.

Short skirts on men, coconuts and the sun!!

 On Saturday night we had a community night for the unmarried staff and students. It was good to see guys dressed as girls is just as funny in most other countries. This is Uncle Bob in the middle - the quietest, most unassuming guy. Except for when he is in a drama and he transforms to the funniest guy out! The guy beside me fell off his chair he was laughing so much!

 Sunday night we said goodbye to the 3 other young westerners who have been here, so we set out to host a curry party. Here I am, scraping my coconut to make milk for the curry. Took a good hour to husk, scrape and squeeze 3 coconuts. Apparently I will make a good PNG house wife.

 Somem dark clouds about the place - been raining for about a week but the sun has come out today which is great. Still a pretty fun place in the rain and mud!

 My walk home form my classroom. On the left are the patient kitchens where family members live and cook for the patients in the hospital. Far right are some of the hospital wards. My house is way down the other end.

 Add to these pics the sounds of babies crying, coughing, laughing, running and shouting kids, roosters, frogs, cicadas....thats the general vibe!

The boys who play round my place - Zacariah, Malachi, Tom and Jeremy. They are little rascals! But fun. When I do my skipping I have to do it in secret otherwise these kids and all the others come over and want a turn, which is fun but not so good for getting exercise done.

Has been a good few days - getting well into the routine of things. Not sure I really love being the only teacher as you miss out on all the other interactions with other staff etc but it is definitely good practice at teaching everything and doing it in a different context. Training the primary teachers (2 and 2 students) is going well. I am having to figure out which bits aer most important to try get them to do. DOnt think i will have much luck insisting on AO's, SLO's and the like. But I am blowing their mind with the concept of week and unit plans.

Thanks for prayers - am still healthy, and mostly infection free from mossie bites. I love the church services here - very fun singing and dancing and some good solid messages. I am taking a devotion with all the nursing staff on friday. Hopefully will go ok.

Peace,
Miri

 Out the back of my classroom - where I send the kids to cut grass with their machetes if they misbehave!

My classroom - from left Issachar, Koivi, Ken, Abel, Sharlene, Shem and Alice.
The boys outside the classroom at break time.

I have been given the task of organising these kids to perform a drama at a special dinner we have coming up this saturday night. Should be a bundle of laughs.

We have mastered the breadmaker, and this afternoon I am learning how to husk and grate my own coconus so I can make my own food a bit more. Yum...coconut milk!! Bring on some curry!

One week in...

Kapuna Evenings: Warm, light breeze, dark but outside lights of houses dimly light up the path leading from one end of the hospital to the other. I can hear singing coming from one of the houses, and the kids playing. I get into bed and through the wire I can see trees moving slightly. I can hear cicadas, frogs, geckos and roosters! It is taking a while to get used to the night time noises....

Kapuna Mornings: Roosters start about 3am but things start happening about 6am. I keep rolling over willing the roosters to be quiet for a bit longer. Get up, check the bread maker for its offering, breaky and then to school at 8am. Start with a devotion and then straight into maths!

Kapuna Afternoons: After school it is home for some skipping (man, GOOD exercise!) under my house, playing with the kids, ckecking out what the tide is doing, practicing ukulele and getting ready to settle in for the evening...

On Saturday my class took me across the river for an adventure - a jungle walk complete with tasting local bush fruit and learning about some more animals. We have been learning about being archaeologists and finding artefacts from the past so it was appropriate that we were off to investigate an old sawmill from the 1920's. The kids were up there swinging their machetes wildly to clear the creeper vine that had smothered everything. Luckily, they knew their way through the bush pretty well! Then back across the river, home for a sago grub feast (like huhu grubs) and a coconut.

Sunday church was awesome - some fun singing and a good sermon.

Life is pretty simple here!

Discovery of the week: Brown rice with milk powder sprinkled on top with chopped banana is a great lunch.

Triumph of the week: Being infection free despite having got blisters from the first time I walked in gumboots without socks. I have devised a sneaky system now... (it has rained all ngiht for the last 3 nights = very muddy grass. That, and Kapuna is on the edge of a swamp.)

Glorious moment of the week: Walking through the mud in bare feet with the kids on our way to the other classrooms and to the market for some food!

Challenge for this week: Taking over the school stuff to release Barb to do all the other a million things that she gets pulled into do. Getting to know more people and learning some more motu language.

I took some pics but my SD card is refusing to release them onto the computer so I will NOT use that card from now on and will promise some great pics for the next blog!!

Arriving at Kapuna...

I met a man on the plane into Port Moresby who was very excited to welcome me to PNG and who seemed impressed I was headed for Kapuna. He repeatedly told me how remote it is, how isolated, how remote, how he's never been there 'cos its so remote....etc. I got the picture - I was headed for the wops! After a good night in Port Moresby (didn't see much of it really), I was back at the airport for my flight to Wabo - the closest open airstrip to Kapuna at the moment. Once we eventually left it was awesome to get a bit of an idea from the sky of the size of PNG - big! 7 million people the man from the plane informed me, highest mountain is over 4000m and of course, more languages than you can poke a stick at. I did try out a bit of pidgin which worked well, but everyone seemed to speak such good english it didn't come naturally for them to slip into Pidgin with me.

So, arrived at Wabo - an airstrip in the middle of the jungle and was met by Ps Michael and his wife Ester, a local couple who were to be my escorts down the river. There's not much i like more than hooning down a river in a boat so I was feeling very at home as we loaded into a banana boat and set off. I had heard it was an 8 hr trip but they reassured me it was only 3-4 hours......when it started getting dark and we still weren't there I figured black mans time works here just as much as it did in Vanuatu! But, my boys had me covered and as it got dark out came the spotlight, and we kept speeding into the night! At one point, heaps (maybe hundreds) of flying foxes were circling above us coming out of the jungle, just as the sun was going down, and a few crocs started poking their heads above the water!! My local guides were very good at spotting the crocs, and filling me in on all the activity along the river (different company bases who are mining, or who want to build a hydro dam....etc). Pretty much an awesome way to start this adventure!!!

 Other river traffic on the way down the Purari River. I was in a banana boat...

 Ps Michael with the juice, Skipper behind and Warwick beside Michael. Ace croc spotter!

Far right is the kindergarten classroom, patient kitchens in the background and one of the wards on the left.

Eventually some lights started appearing on the banks of the river and we turned up a side creek which led us into the Kapuna grounds. It was awesome arriving at night with lots of lights guiding the way in. Kapuna is way bigger than I imagined - it is just a hospital but quite extensive. There are wards, a TB ward, girls and boys dorms for the nurses and nursing students, family kitchens organised in language groups for family members of patients, a church, classrooms for children (3 levels) ,a discipleship training area, office, library and a bunch of houses for everyone. So much bigger than I thought. Electricity for only a few hours each night. It was great meeting people who i have been in email contact with and making connections of people we all knew from NZ. Great crew here.

I have been given a day's grace to get settled before getting into work tomorrow. Still not sure what that is exactly so that will have to be in the next update. I am feeling daunted though - the village Ps Michael comes from has a school with 100 students from grade 1-8 with only one teacher. Many other schools in the area have buildings but no teachers so have closed down. Eek! There is LOTS to do!

So, I need some prayers that I will have something useful to offer these guys and that I settle in well to the lifestyle here at Kapuna. I think I am going to be fine!!

The coast, highways, monsoon rains and friendly locals.

 After catching the train for 600km across Thailand we spent a relaxing 2 days in Bangkok, getting some TLC for both us (good food and massages!) and our bikes (professional cleaning and parts replacement!) The guy took my wheel apart and my axle was literally in 2 pieces. Might explain some of the rattling! I was a little concerned that my bike would fall apart without the mud....

We got the train a further 250km to ge tout of Bangkok and then did an epic 160km day along the highway. Awful riding! We resorted to putting our ipods on to drown out some of the noise of the traffic. Had lots of space on the side of the road but not pleasant with cars and trucks thundering past!

Was worth it when we arrived at this sweet spot by the beach feeling happy with ourselves and jumped in for a swim.

 Next day saw us do 80km to another spot by the beach - it rained all day! And still biking on the highway! Yuk. Arrived though and spent the afternoon reading, eating and sleeping! Back on the bikes this morning and instantly felt our bodies crying out saying NO MORE BIKING!!! Nah, not that bad but def feeling like we would have had a hard day. First 1km saw us at a dead end road (pretty spot though with these boats!), I got a puncture (only 2nd of the trip), and there was no coffee!! 25km later we rolled into a small town, still hungry and caffeine deprived and saw train tracks.......train tracks!! Boom! Discovered the train we wanted to be on left from the place we had just biked from today, so after some coffee, bananas, and a good think about things we were heading back the way we had come!

Have now adopted a cafe as home, have made friends with the owners (who speak english!) and have set ourselves up for the afternoon wait.

Feeling like instead of using our last week biking along the highway we should just bus there and then go some bike exploring, snorkelling, deep water solo-ing and general hanging out! Yay! So headed for Phuket or Krabi - we seem to never end up where we plan so we have stopped planning and are being super flexible which seems to be working well!

I am enjoying looking at boats and not rice fields. Rice fields are nice. But i like boats too.