Another Technical Day

Spent today in the Tech Center, a couple of rooms filled with the servers and spare parts from the station. The server room is usually slightly warm and stuffy (the A/C is out, but ambient temp in the room is likely about 80, maybe mid 80s). The room attached to it with a number of spare parts (as well as the Big Ultrasound Machine) manages to stay cooler than more or less anywhere else on station. I'm just not sure how.

Today, I gained access to the station firewall/gateway/packet shaper. Mostly, so that I can show Scott how to reset usernames/passwords as needed. However, I also get to look around and see if I can find a better way help filter traffic. I think I might have already done so, but I'm not 100% sure yet. We'll see if the changes I made help. (They seem to be, but I can't tell if that's just because I'm the only one on the web right now or because I moved http(s) traffic to have its own (sizable) chunk of bandwidth.)

Tomorrow, we go to a singsing, or at least a practice day for it. (I think. Lena says she -thinks- the man in charge of this whole thing is going to be there for a practice tomorrow. The actual singsing is Saturday.)

What is a singsing? It's a traditional feast/dance/party/thing where one village gives gift(s) to another. The culture here has a -lot- of gift giving built into it. Basically, whenever you have extra, you give it away. (And it's understood that the people you give it too will give you something if you need it and they can.)

Going up to the Mountaintop

Today, we went to the mountaintop village of Konduk (/KOHN dook/) for a baptism there. We were told it'd be about an hour's walk up the mountain, but we had enough people going that we took one of the Landrovers instead. I'm glad we did, as the road started as a very uneven stone road and then we turned off it onto a dirt road. You can see one of the wooden bridges to the right. Some of the group decided to walk over the bridges rather than ride. I'm not entirely sure I blame them for that, as it was an interesting ride.



When we got there, they were doing a worship service before the actual baptisms. They had several people being baptized today, I believe I heard the number 16, but I'll admit I didn't get a full count. (And some were rededications, and just gave testimony, but more on that later.) It seems one of the elders in the church had recently died of leukemia and that death moved a number of his family to come to the church. The service was in the middle, though its order seemed similar to the Sunday services I've been to here (and elsewhere, to some extent, though I found similarities in worship services in Shinto shrines). They were singing English worship songs, some of which I knew or were similar enough to ones I knew. The spoken parts were a mixture of Tok Pisin and tok ples, that is one of the local languages. In the image, those in white tops and black pants or skirts were the baptisees. The congregation sat in two sides, the left side had most (all but one or two) of the men and a few women, the right was nearly all female. I'm not sure if it's a conscious decision to sit as such, the missionaries do not follow this tradition if it is one.

There was a sermon that I could almost follow in Tok Pisin in places, and then it would switch, I assume to the tok ples and I would be lost for a moment. It was on Matthew 4 and fighting agianst the temptations of Satan, even after baptism. When the sermon finished, we walked further up the hill, past where they were preparing the traditional Papuan feast in a mumu, an oven dug into the dirt, filled with hot rocks and then the food (pork) being cooked and covered with earth, straw and leaves. (See right.)


Up the hill, and past some of the town gardens was where they had dammed up a part of a stream (or it might have been a drainage ditch, or a wadi that only filled when it rained) as the baptismal font. They had thrown flower petals into the water. (This seems to be a tradition here with major events. The missionaries throw flowers for those leaving for extended periods or when they're leaving at the end of their terms. I suspect the missionaries adopted it from the locals, not vice-versa.) The area around the font was hilly and uneven (and muddy, as even in the dry season that the country is in now, it rains nearly daily). Yet, despite the lack of good views, it seems most of the village and likely several from nearby (such as ourselves) had turned out for the baptism. Thus, it was a bit crowded and the footing unstable in places, but everyone seemed helpful in getting through the bad parts and helping us to get a good view.

There was a second sermon here, this time from a woman preacher, which I found striking as almost all the rest of the church leadership I have witnessed here has been male. She preached mostly in tok ples, so I could follow very little of it, save for a few Pisin words that had made their way into it. During her scripture reading, someone read the the Scripture in Tok Pisin first, then she gave it in tok ples, a verse at a time.

What followed were the baptisms. One at a time, they came forward and gave a testimony. Some were rededicating their lives to the church, and thus didn't get immersed, but the others did go in and were immersed in what I can only assume was a cold mountain stream.

A bit of a side note: They are very unaware of the American culture behind a good bit of their clothing. A large amount of the clothing in Papua New Guinea is second hand from Australia and other Western nations. As you can see on the right, one of the elders doing the baptism has a South Park tie, and I will admit while I am fairly liberal in my faith, I am not certain I would wear that tie to a baptism in the US. Simiarly, there was a young man wearing a t-shirt for MTV's Jackass, with the title for the series prominently displayed on the front of the shirt. I doubt that the people here know the culture that these things represent. There was the knowledge that this is the sort of even that one wears a tie to, and I suspect there are not a large number of ties available. (And I doubt that South Park is well known here.)

As Miriam was getting a bit tired, we left about halfway through the immersions. On the way back to the car we did see them taking the pork out of the oven and getting ready for the feast. The natives here feast often, as food is usually abundant.

One other note, we did see the grave of the village and church elder who had died. He wanted to be buried near the church (it's the brown building in the background). This is the traditional grave for those who can afford it here. (Or those who are important enough that their families feel they should spend the money on such grave sites.) Inside the small house is the coffin, above ground, surrounded by flowers. I have seen other such graves along the roads here, both the stone and dirt roads up the mountain and the main road back into Mt Hagen. This is the traditional way to bury Big Men, that is civic leaders. (I need to ask how long the graves stay like this, as I have not seen more than one or two in a village.)

In all, a very interesting day.

x-posted to Lainim long Hailans

A Good Day

I'm constantly amazed at what my child will do sometimes that makes me happy. One wouldn't think going the whole day with 'only' 2 accidents (and those being BMs rather than just urinating). Still, it means that it was a 2 pair of underwear day for her (the accidents were while she was refusing to put pants on) rather than a 5-6 pair day. And she's starting to recognize that she needs to go, which is even better. Now if only she would stay in bed at bedtime.

The weather seems to have fallen into a routine and only rarely varies it, other than the amount of rain. The mornings are cool, but not cold, and damp. The day starts cloudy, but by 8 or so the sun has found its way out of the clouds. Then, around 4 or so, the clouds start to return, usually with some rain. The rain stops for the evening, but there seems to always be a bit more rain over night. Temperatures never change much, starting in the mid-low 60s in the mornings and maybe touching mid to upper 70s by mid afternoon. Particularly sunny days might glance at 80.

Life here is starting to fall into almost a routine. I work one day and watch Miriam and study some the next. Lunch around noon, dinner somewhere between 6 and 7, depending on when I can get started on it and how long things take at higher altitudes to cook. (Noodles and rice seem to take just a minute or two longer than I'm used to.) Baking is always an adventure. Today, I was guessing as to the size of a "square of chocolate", as the chocolate we do have came in 1 cm squares. The brownies were a bit lacking in chocolate, but still gooey and good. (Almost caramel-y.)

Nykki's on call tonight, off at the hospital and I hope it's taking a long time just because she's getting a feeling for something, and not because it's complicated or life threatening. Though there isn't much I can do but pray.

Comparing Oranges to Oranges

The oranges here are green. Don't believe me? Here:


The one on the left is an "orange". The one on the right a tangerine. Now, to be fair, they are indeed orange on the inside. (And taste like oranges/tangerines.)

In other news, I went to the local market today. I'll just copy/paste from my "study" blog below:

Went to the local market in town today. We say "market" but it's a bit different than Hagen's. There is a trade store there, with a smattering of goods, all behind fences in the building, topped with razorwire. One section had individual items (cans of coke, cooking oil, flour, etc.) the other side had more wholesale type items (cases of coke). Bought a can of coke to break a K50 note (think stopping at the quick-e-mart to break a $20 bill).

The market was across the "street" (loose term for a gravel path slightly wider than the upiquitous trucks). Market consisted of people (mostly women and older men) sitting under umbrellas with their fruits and vegetables for sale. Some had cardboard signs with prices, other you have to ask. Some produce (like the kaukau, the local sweet potato) are sold by the small pile, others sold individually. Almost all of it looks of decent quality, though the bananas they had you'd want to eat quickly as they were already yellow-brown.

Scott, who went with me the first time, said that it's mostly safe for station people. A lot of the people on station who sell their produce (and buy it) come down there and will look out for the white-skins (which are assumed to belong to the station). Sort of "our tribe", if you will, versus the local townsfolk. (I'm not sure how much bigger the town actually is. The station has a number of houses, but there is a school outside the walls and a church. Several small shops along the market way, but I can't see much else through the dense vegetation around the market and roads.) He also said that today's selection was down, as there are usually more bananas, pineapples (we bought the only 4 available) and the like. Though if we ever run out of kaukau, I know where to get more.

There are also street vendors selling food which We Are Not Supposed To Eat. Scott and I split some sort of deep fried dough thing, though it was cold. There were also on the way back "lamb flaps" or something like that. Basically they're lamb ribs that are grilled fresh for you. I was full (and not quite that adventurous) or we would have stopped for some.

English Lotu (worship) was today. It was not so different from what I'm used to, but at the same time... I miss Rob's sermons. We didn't have a speaker, but we did have a video of someone through Focus on the Family. My dislike of that particular group aside (or at least of some of their positions), the video wasn't bad. There was some injecting of Christian thought into the practices of the ancient Israelites and their religion, but not so much that it skewed the message he was trying to convey. (I don't remember the name of the speaker, or I'd look him up.)

Tonight and last night we hear the noises from a local church, I can only assume. Loud music is coming and it's Christian worship songs. American ones. Very strange. Especially when the power dies and it suddenly stops, save for what I think is the congregation singing. (It's hard to make out and it's off-station, so we don't go.)

Speaking of... There's a fence around the station. Guarding the missionary homes, the hospital, and other buildings here. Uniformed security can be found along the road nearly constantly. In Mt Hagen, all the businesses have 6-8' fences with barbed (if not razor) wire on top. Even the churches lock themselves away behind these barriers.

On one side, the culture here is so tribal oriented that crimes are only really crimes if they are done against a member of your own tribe or clan. Thus, stealing from a "rival" clan, or just someone passing by isn't bad, or at least isn't as bad. There has been some instilling of Western values, but not everyone takes them. It's the same reason every business has gates and guards at the doors.

And yet, were not the words of Christ:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you.

Matthew 5:38-42

I just think fencing your church in sends the wrong signal. And yet, if the fence is what keeps it there, so that you can come back tomorrow and the whole church hasn't walked off...

Though, I suppose I'm still here, inside the fence.