Day 2 and 3 - Unpacking and settling in

The next morning we woke up at exactly 6 am to what sounded like the shrill buzz of chainsaws nearby. This turned out to be just cicadas, but I guess they live under our bedroom and are very punctual early risers because they start up every day at exactly the same time. 6 am. It only lasted about five minutes, but it was enough to get us up and heading for the coffeepot.

But, we didn’t mind because first of all, Papua New Guinea coffee is perfection. Plus, we finally got a look at our backyard. 

A little clearing in the bamboo makes for an incredible view.

What Tom sees from the above spot.

our house from the back

We were also delighted to find all so many flowers and fruit growing in our yard.

And we met our house cat, Roz. She came with the house we are staying in, and so they asked us if we could take care of her. It was a dream come true for the kids who can’t have a cat at home since Tom is allergic. But Roz is an outdoor cat, so it’s perfect. The kids were instantly in love and really Roz is actually one of the coolest cats I’ve known. Even Tom even goes out to hang out on the porch with her. 

We spent the morning unpacking. Our assigned house was a well furnished three-bedroom ranch with front and back porches and a nice flat backyard with a view. The house even came with a piano! Considering there is no road from the only international airport, I don’t know how it got here. 

We taught the kids the importance of getting water from the Katadyn drip water filter and showed them how to keep it refilled. The main water to the house comes from two large tanks on the side yard that is filled with rainwater runoff from the gutters. Hot water comes from the solar heater system on the roof. And the electricity is supplied by a hydropower plant that was built on the mission station. 

It was a very comfortable set up. 

Ours is the house on the left with the blue door.

Afterwards, we met our immediate neighbors on the “North End” of the mission station and got tips on how to shop for a month of groceries. Joshua had brought us some food essentials for our first few days, but we would need to get to Mount Hagen to buy the rest of our groceries. This was a 45 minute drive from Kudjip each way. Because of the distance and the fuel shortages, the missionaries only go once a month. I’ve never had to buy groceries for an entire month… I had a lot of questions. 

Later, Tom and the kids went to play volleyball with a crew of folks and I kept working on the grocery list and made dinner. He returned with a dinner invite for our family. We would bring our spaghetti and add it to whatever the Morris family was having. So we picked up our pot of food and off we went. 

Jake and Genae Morris met while they were doing the World Race expedition mission trip in 2011 (11 month mission trip where you serve in 6 different countries). They fell in love, got married and now have six incredibly sweet and interesting kids aged 11 to 2 1/2. Jake and Genae are pretty interesting themselves; cheerful and warm, always ready to laugh and love and explore the world around them. We like them a lot. When they are not busy keeping their kids from bringing every bug, reptile, fish, or bird they find into the house, Jake also works as an ER doctor in the hospital and Genae teachers art at the MK (missionary kid) elementary school. 

Like Kendall, Jake tells similar heartbreaking stories of what he sees daily at the hospital. I’m struck again by the way a person can hold both joy and pain in their daily work. Knowing what you are doing is helping and healing, but yet there is so much need and so many very sick people.  

Grocery Day:

The next morning is our grocery shopping day. Don, the Kudjip driver extraordinaire, is at our house at 9 am with the big vehicle to take us to town. 

I am armed with the biggest shopping list of my life and a plan that I hope will take us through a month of meals. 

Three stores and five full shopping carts later. We are done. 

Our receipt is longer than Lucy, and if I hadn’t been warned I would have felt ashamed. 

Don, who is a man of few words, said we did better than most first timers, who only come out with a cart or two. I took this as high praise. 

We spent the rest of the day filling the pantry, separating meat by portions into freezer bags, soaking all the produce in a bleach solution to kill any bad stuff and then rinsing it again in filtered water to get the bleach off, then storing those in special bags to keep them fresh in the refrigerator. 

Finally, we started cooking meal 1 of 90 for the next month.