Our New Pet

Our excitement for this week started as it has before. "NICK GET IN HERE!!!!" Paula had pulled back the curtains in Malachi's room to see our new 'pet' staring at her through the window. Fortunately for both of them he was on the outside of the window, not the inside.Paula and Malachi, bravely watching from inside the screen. While I went out to get a closer look and a few pictures.I was impressed with the size of this one. He was bigger than my whole outstreached hand.

I don't think we are ready to adopt a pet yet. But if we do decide to, I think we will start with something a little more cuddly.

More from Mt Bosavi

As promised, here are more of our pictures from Mt. Bosavi. This is a view of Mt. Bosavi from the circuit. If you have trouble reading the text on the picture you can, as with all our pictures, click on the picture to see it bigger.It sounds like this is a fairly typical welcome for an MAF aircraft. There are always lots of people that come out to watch the aircraft, and see what they brought. Kayla drew an instant crowd that lasted most of the week we were there.Kayla with more kids.Most days we went for a walk in the village. It was interesting to see how quickly a group formed. We usually started out with just the four of us and had 20 or more in tow by the time we were done a couple hours later.

This is one of the Sago houses in the village. They are called Sago houses because the roof is made from the leaves of sago trees woven together.
Our hosts were kind enough to show us inside their sago house. Paula & Debi are sitting on one of the four sleeping/sitting/eating areas. There is a fire pit right beside Paula and the identical layout on the opposite side of the room were I am taking the picture from.
Kayla & Meiyo sitting across the room from Paula. Notice the piglet in the bottom left corner of the picture. This is one of their only sources of income, they catch pigs in the wild when they are young, then keep them in their houses and feed them until they know their masters voice. Once they know the voice they are turned back into the wild to grow up. From the time they are turned loose they know their master voice and their name and will come whenever their master calls them.
I wish we could say that we stayed in a Sago house for the week, but we can't. We were allowed to stay in a very nice Missionary house at the end of the airstrip. You can see the outside of it in the first picture of the kids and the aircraft. This was the view from our diningroom window.
We cooked all of our meals on this wood stove and in this oven. It kind of reminded me of being at Great Grandmas house. This stove also has pipes running through it for our hot water. It worked really good.

Our Bucket shower was very nice to have as temperatures averaged somewhere in the mid thirties most afternoons.
These bananas were given to us as a gift when we got off the aircraft. They were hung like this in our entryway to ripen. We ate as many as we could that week and still had 22Kg of bananas to take home with us to Mt. Hagen when we left.
Our little "Bosavi Girl". Kayla and Paula were both given bilums (string bags) as gifts when we left. These are made by hand from tree bark. You will see them used to cary babies, firewood, food, and anything else you can imagine.
One last picture, too cute not to include. This baby's mom became good friends with Paula. She is a nurse at the clinic who did her nurses training at Rumginae (the base we will be stationed at in february) The baby Morina was one month older than Malachi.

That's all for now. We really enjoyed our time at Mt. Bosavi and I look forward to being back in and out of there in the near future with the aircraft.

The Trip to Mt. Bosavi

Thank you for your prayers as we completed our bush orientation. We have spent the last week at a remote village called Mt. Bosavi. We had a great time learning the language, culture, making friends, and seeing the impact that missionaries and the aircraft have had on that community. Here are some pictures from the trip to Mt. Bosavi.

Waiting for the "final boarding call" at Mt. Hagen.
Due to weather problems we ended up going through Tari on our way to Mt. Bosavi. This is the home of the Huli Wigmen, (They are the brightly colored faces & big hair you have probably seen in national geographic)

Kayla with her new favorite aircraft. The "plane otter" she call's it, she can't quite get her tounge around "Twin Otter"

Here at Tari we hopped on to the GA8 Airvan (the one on the left) for our flight into Mt. Bosavi.
While Paula, Malachi & I enjoyed the smaller aircraft, Kayla wanted to be back on "her plane otter" as it was a lot quiter in the cabin that the airvan.
Short Final Approach at Mt. Bosavi, our home for the next week is to be the big house at the opposite end of the strip.

This brings us safely to Mt. Bosavi, but this post is getting to be way to big so we will have to leave you here....we will post more pictures later from our time at Mt. Bosavi.