Week Beginning 10 August 2009 Hope everyone is enjoying their summer. There are meant to be 2 seasons here - wet and dry. The dry season was meant to start in April or May but so far we have noticed very little difference. There seem to be less landslides and fewer earth tremors lately but most days it rains and there are some storms in the late afternoon or early evening. We are well into a routine now and the house feels quite homely. Sweeping gecko poo o...

Week Beginning 03.08.09 We started off the week by going to one of our smallest schools. When we first visited the school had 45 Grade 9 students in two classes and 7 teachers. Now it has 19 students in one class and … 7 teachers. The provincial office has instructed all schools to suspend any students whose parents have not paid their school fees. If this school follows those instructions, they'd be precisely 1 student left in school …. with 7 teachers. P...

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...

Week beginning 20th July 2009 It has been a hard week! We set of for Mount Wilhelm on Sunday in an open back truck, ready to work at the school for the first three days of the week and for us to climb the mountain - or part of it on Thursday and Friday (Thurs was a national holiday for Remembrance Day). The journey again was spectacular, following the river most of the way and crossing it numerous times on rickety bridges. Then it started to pour down. Ali...

From Thursday 2nd July - Thursday 9th July Port Moresby - Cairns We took off for hols two days earlier than planned due to the incompetence of Expedia - do not use this tour company, they were most unhelpful following the cancellation of our Qantas flight. Because we could no longer catch a connection on the Saturday and because Expedia were not willing to give us any other reasonable alternative, we had to change our Air Nuigini flight to Thursday, which then...