Week beginning Monday 27th July 2009

Happy Birthday sis Julie B on 3rd August.

Well surprisingly - very surprisingly Mike didn't suffer with any aches or pains following his epic journey up to the top of Mount Wilhelm. He was waiting for it to hit him up to 72 hours after the event, but it didn't happen. As coming down the mountain was so painful and gruelling he fully expected to be incapacitated for a day or two at least.

Alison spent two nights on her own in the house back in Kundiawa - and survived, though her cold developed into tummy problems by Tuesday.

But before all that, Mike had his first off-road driving experience in PNG on Monday going to Boromil School. Of course it wasn't off-roading but back in Brit they couldn't invent a road so rough for 4 wheel drive vehicles! Alison thinks Jeremy Clarkson ought to come here to test drive cars. He'd love it. Empty roads, dangerous corners, switchbacks, rickety, collapsing bridges, lakes in the road, pot holes enough for the car to half disappear, deep drops, roads falling away down cliffs etc. Not for the faint-hearted - though Alison didn't scream out 'Mikey' once. Amazing. Anyway suffice to say Mike enjoyed the experience of once again sitting behind the steering wheel after 6 months of being starved of driving for himself.

We had a good day at Boromil although we got stuck behind a lorry which got wedged in the mud. We abandoned our vehicle (along with our escort) and walked down to the school - thankfully only 10 mins walk but including a log foot bridge which we had to anxiously and uneasily negotiate. Mike helped Alison over, but Ben - our Filipino friend and team member - completely froze half-way across, unable to take a step further. A guide who offered to take us on this short cut went back to pull him across. Ben wasn't happy and if it wasn't for tears of laughing once he was back on terra firma, he would certainly have been shedding tears of fear.

On Tuesday Alison didn't feel well at all. Mike went to a 9.00 a.m. meeting on his own to give Ali a chance to recover. Later on we both went for a 1.00 p.m. meeting though Alison was feeling delicate. At 3.00 p.m. the meeting finished and Mike needed to get some shopping. Meanwhile Alison walked home but half-way there realised she was going to faint. She sat down on a stone, then passed out to come around seeing at least 40 pairs of legs surrounding her! Two helpful young women grabbed an arm each and frogmarched her home for which she was truly grateful. Three days passed before she was well enough to leave the house again. If she'd have been in England she'd have gone and seen the doctor as she felt truly terrible but no such luxury here. The VSO doctor is 11 hours by PMV away.

Big news this week was the vote of no confidence in the Government. Headline news etc. on Monday with the vote timetabled for Tuesday. Tuesday's news however was that only 11 (out of 159) MPs turned up and the vote was postponed till Wednesday. Nothing has been heard since.

Weekends we normally do exciting things like clean the house, do the washing, get provisions in, wash windows etc. This weekend Alison decided to sort out her wardrobe. She emptied it all, folded, hung things up, etc and it took all of 8 minutes. There are some benefits of living a minimalist life.

Alison also made cinnamon buns on the basis she found some cinnamon in the shops. The yeast on sale was nearly a year out of date but everyone thought the buns were amazing - particularly Mike. Something like a cinnamon bun becomes a major event of the day - a real treat - especially when they are just out of the oven. There are 7 volunteers in Kundiawa - 5 men and 2 women. The single men don't seem to cook much at all apart from occasional stir fries - so Mike considers himself very fortunate in the food department - the best-fed man in PNG.

Its been raining quite a lot, even persistently just lately - after-all it is the dry season, so its soggy and messy underfoot. We saw a man stuck up a gum tree today. Well he wasn't actually stuck, but he was right at the top with no safety equipment, cutting it down, branch by branch, with an axe. Gum trees grow very tall with smooth trunks, so when he lowered himself to the next section he just slid down like a koala bear.

Work has ground to a halt again recently with more sudden changes to schedules due to schools realising they needed to get things done yesterday (like assessments) and the provincial office postponing the previously postponed 10 year plan launch from Friday to this coming Wednesday - which puts all our school visits out of kilter as well as the postponement of a primary headteacher and cluster facilitator conference at which we are helping.

Has anyone heard about the programme that Charley Boorman has been recording for? Its due to come out in October and features PNG including a visit to Kundiawa and Mount Wilhelm (area - not the mountain climb).