Our first trip off the Uka Center!!

Ukarumpa has a photo contest weekly around a pre-named theme.  This week's theme was TIME.  Today was the last day to submit a photo to UkaWeb and I had an idea to find a baby, a mother, and a grandmother all from the same family, shoot it in black & white, and call it Timeless.  I  called one of my friends here, he advised it was NOT a good idea to take a bus off center with a DSLR camera, not even knowing how to talk Tok Pisin.  (Thanks James Ernandez for saving my bacon!!).  So instead we just walked a few blocks off center to find a subject.

Well, in case you don't know, many of the people here in PNG chew "Beetle Nut" which when mixed with a leaf and a strong base (so I'm told), it turns the teeth and spit blood red.  Well, as we were walking down the dirt road, the girls started seeing splotches of bright red on the ground that looked alarmingly like fresh blood.  They started getting scared.

When young men started walking past us carrying knives, Ellie and Jenny were ready to turn back.  Ami and I (the less cautious and probably more foolish duo) wanted to go on.  We rock/paper/scissored and Ami and I won so we went on about 20 feet before Elli started crying, so we turned around and headed back to the center which was a whopping 200-300 yards away.

We walked across the center to the other side where a bridge separates Ukarumpa from the road that is off center and goes about 2km to the Aviation hanger.  It was there that we met a subject that would have to do for my photo.  It was of a man called Papa Ken.  He works at the training center and one of his many jobs is to ring the bell after break.  I snapped a shot of him and his wife.

Public affection such as holding hands here in PNG is not done .  He was reluctant to even stand next to his wife for a photo, but she encouraged him, so he did and I got the shot.


This is a photo of our girls at the Orientation course being entertained by one of the local teens on center who "babysits" the kids while the adults are in class.  I snuck out to shoot the photo.

The last photo was taken during the walk home.  As usual, it was raining...  praise God for the rain, it fills our water tank next to the house and gives us fresh water to drink (we're not filtering it, but drinking it straight from the tank) and to cook with.

We also get RAM water from the local river which has the sediment filtered out, but is brown.  This is the source for our hot water (heated from solar panels on the roof), bath water, and laundry water.  When we fill our tub (which holds about 5" of water) with water, it looks as though 3-4 people had already bathed in it.  With all the mud around here, I won't say what it looks like when they're done!

Praise God for bringing us to paradise!  Thanks to our partners for your support.  Next week we start our mission in the clinic.  Watch for updates.  Remember to go to church tomorrow and feed your soul!!!