The Bare Necessities

When I returned from furlough a few weeks ago, I noticed that there were a few things missing from my house (or that I had missed during furlough) that I considered necessary or life (or just to save my sanity!) here in Papua New Guinea (PNG). I wrote a similar blog post way back when I first arrived in PNG in 2014 (you can read it here), but that post was based more on village living than being in Ukarumpa, which is where I live now (and have lived for most of the last four years).

Ukarumpa from A to Z

Airplanes: the main mode of transportation for many people going to and from the village, and also from Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea (PNG)

Bible translation: the reason all of us ex-pats live in PNG—to support the work of Bible translation and end Bible poverty

The kids' backpacks and shoes outside a classroom

Children: need I say more?! J

You Know...

      I was thinking the other day about my "new normal," when I realized that, as of this Friday, I've been in Papua New Guinea for eight months. So, in honor of my eight month anniversary of arriving in PNG, here is a list of things that I never thought I would consider normal.

          You Know You've Lived in PNG for Eight Months When...

1. You get up early to hang your laundry on the line…even though it’s cloudy and will rain later in the day.
2. You wear gum boots outside to hang your laundry on the line so you don’t sink up to your ankles in mud.

An Ode to Mud

Exhibit A: Watch where you walk!
It's very squishy and slippery!

I thought I knew what mud was—back in Wisconsin: that slightly inconvenient, make-sure-you-wipe-your-feet-off-before-you-come-in-the-house type of mud. But really I knew nothing…maybe even less than nothing. When you live in a country where it rains pretty much every afternoon, you end up with a lot of mud. And generally it doesn’t just rain nice and gentle and stop after an hour or two—it pours. Hard. Sometimes for several hours, and, in the case of a couple weeks ago, for several days in a row.