Picture Post: A walk to the river..

We went for dinner and a walk at Mike and Diane's yesterday afternoon, after the rain stopped. Diane suggested we head down towards the river and see where the kids go tubing. Sounded like fun, so we packed up the Cups and off we went.

Up on the hill, to the right of the cross, is a Catholic mission; supposedly it's not a bad trek. These are the Western Highlands of PNG - some of the most fertile soil in the world. That's contributed to the worldview here that drives we Westerners crazy: as Matt talks about in Lainem Long Hailans, the PNG folks wait until they're out of something before looking for more; they don't order anything in advance or get a spare part when replacing one.  This leads to extensive out-of-stock lists in pharmacy of all our commonly-used meds, at least once a month.

We walked down past the remains of the dam that ought to have diverted the river to provide the hydroelectric power for the station.  You'll notice in the picture on the right that something vital is missing: namely, the sluice gate is wide open and there's only bare rocks visible in the canal that runs all the way up to the station.  It's empty.  That's because they had a hundred-year flood that completely wiped out the other half of the dam, the bit that pushed the river over toward the sluice.  It changed the course of the river, too, so now the tribesmen are upset because their land is being undermined by the greedy river.  Mike has a lot of work in front of him to rebuild the retaining walls and the dam itself - and the hydro itself is in need of repair as well.  There's never any lack of construction work on this busy station, once he's done with the new hospital buildings.

We went past some of the folks' houses on the outskirts of the station and exchanged "Apinun" with everyone. This very strong little girl was happy to pose for a picture, and the men watching over her thanked me for taking it. There don't seem to be any superstitions surrounding photography, but I'm besieged by requests to see the pictures afterward. Miriam, of course, made friends quite quickly.

Down by the river is a little church (technically still on station property) and out by the church is their basketball court. You can see the stones laid out to form lines. During big meetings, they pitch tents on the court - but the rest of the time it's a place to play. Basketball seems very big here.

Just past the basketball court and over the improvised stile in the razorwire-topped fence was the river. We stripped Miriam down so she could play like the native kids, but I'm not showing any naked baby pictures on the Internet. The river is about mid-calf to almost knee-deep and has a pretty swift current, considering this is the dry season. She didn't want to go in very far, and pretty soon wanted her shoes back on because of the stones on the riverbed. There wasn't much sand, and I thought the water was pretty cold. So she sat on a rock and threw stones and watched the local kids play.

These are a few of the local boys having a tube ride. They all three got on the tube up by the dam and rode down quite a ways. One of them fell off, but there was no waiting! So he ran back up to the nearer put-in point. I'm told the missionary kids do the same thing, only with their clothes on. It's typical to wear baggy pants or a skirt over one's swimwear when one goes swimming as an adult woman - I think the water's far too cold to make swimming much fun, no matter what.

The view across the river is quite amazing, really; even though it was a cloudy day and had rained most of the time the mountains were stunning. This land is truly a blessed place, with greenery everywhere. They have a type of liklik grass that grows in front of the church that is tiny and green and - get this - never needs to be mowed. What a wonderful depth to creation! Nobody bred for the stuff, but it grew here.

On the way back - you'll notice we put the bare minimum on our wet little girl - she encountered a gate she simply had to close. What the gate did or why it was there nobody seemed certain, but Miriam dragged it shut.

Coming back up the hill toward the compound proper we met some folks carrying burdens in the traditional way - in a bilong with the strap tied across the forehead. You'll notice that everyone carries his or her share - in the woman's bag are a full load of vegetables, so imagine the weight. The little child next to her has a full bag as well, though I don't know what's in it. They came up from the houses in among the banana trees.

We had chicken and rice and oranges and cabbage-Ramen salad for dinner, and it was lovely. Walked home in the dark and tried to take some pictures of stars, but I'm not very good yet so this is all I have to show for it: