The Main Event

So I guess I never posted about the New Hospital Dedication that everyone worked so hard on. Here are some pics from that day.

Left: Setting up day of... Big Al in the middle :)

Right: The gate that everyone lined up at before the ceremony

Left: The McCoy's

Right: Big Wigs :)

Left: Vern Ward cutting the ribbon

Right: Soul Train :)

Left: More Soul Train

Right: Mr. Right haha ya for all the missionaries who will read this... I was diggin' the Aussie.

Left: The second ribbon cutting... at the new hospital site

Right: I named her "Belly Baby" she's so cute!

Left: Remember Dolla? She came to see me and bring me fruit.

Right: Bill presenting a plaque to the Australian Government for their help in building the hospital. (I helped design the plaque)

Left: Meet Grace. She is an anesthesiologist and I see her every morning on my walk to school. She is so sweet and I love talking to her. She has been in the operating room I think every time I have been in there observing. In the background is White Kintak and he works at the college of nursing.

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Our Quest to Find the Little People

So Josh, son of Bill and Marsha McCoy made a surprise stop to Kudjip for the hospital dedication. He has been living in CA and a couple months ago set out on a journey across the world... a month in Thailand climbing...a month in Indonesia where he like caught a boat and then hitch hiked and then caught a few more boats and walked and like road a horse and then caught a ride on top of veggies in a van for 20 hrs and made it an hr before the dedication. I tell you all of this to say that when he brought up the plan to go on this awesome trip to find the "little people"... we all had no doubt it would rock! Let me just say...I blame it all on him :). So about the little people.... Anton Jim (the security guard that sits on the McCoy's porch and kills dogs) claims that there are little people that live out in the bush that are bald on top but with super long hair and arms so hairy you can't tell what color their skin is. He said if you play music for them they will come and bring you gifts... so we set out to find them. This is the before pic... from left to right: Josh, Kate, Me, Dan, and Becky and by the way the pics arent exactly in order.

Crossing in a river

Becky and I in the little hut that I think we broke into. We took a break and built a fire to warm up before we found a place to build a shelter and sleep. It had been raining pretty hard and we were cold and hungry so we posted up here for a bit.

Basically this is our trail lol. There was no trail day 2!

On top day 1 right before night fall... we hiked in a little further in the dark before we found a place to sleep. That is Kaman and Alex aka Die Hard and Rambo :)

It was so beautiful out there!

Someones home that had freaky little bones hanging from it.

Josh crossing the raging river :) right after he fell 60 ft. Ya it was quite the adventure! Our guide Alex was so sure that we could climb down the cliff in monsoon season... apparently so was Josh until he cartwheeled down it! Little did we know Alex got to the bottom also buy falling off. Thanks for the heads up Rambo!

This is our great little shelter that we pulled together and made. It actually was pretty awesome!

At the top

Lik lik man climbing a banana tree at the start of our hike.

Kate and I tearing into some sugar cane.

Haha all smiles! This is right before it all got a little crazy.... no trail for 16 hrs straight in wet cotton clothes and 6hrs of it in the dark. It was hilarious, it was nuts, but is was one of the best times!

Dan "the man" totally came through! He had all kinds of things he was pulling out of his hiking bag! He heated up some hot chocolate and we passed it around...it seriously was the most amazing hot chocolate I have ever had!

The circus was in town :) By the end of our trek we crossed several rivers this same way.

I love this pic bc it totally looks like this could be some victorious moment in our journey or like the after pic but really by the time we made it home people were claiming to have gone deaf, eating dry oats, and peeing themselves (Dan). Oh ya we never found the little people.

Oh wait!!!! I do have an after pic! Check out my legs! Kunai grass aka death grass!

The Mumu

This is the night before the mumu. All of the people that live here,
well most of them... went down to picnic point and split up into
3 different groups based on where they came from. I think that the groups were people from the Western Highlands, the coast and idk somewhere else in the highlands maybe :). But as it was explained to me by one of the college of nursing students... they split up and prepare the food differently based on tradition.

So we went down there to help out and join in on the fun. We peeled all kinds of fruits and veggies and basically just hung out
and talked to all the people. It's always a good time bc everything
us white skins do is hilarious I guess, so it's easy to entertain. Dan is pretty good at it... he was dancing and they were all laughing and cheering him on. We were covered by a big tarp and it was raining pretty hard. The tarp started to leak in so Dan pushed all the water to the side. Good idea right? Well, there was a man at the end of the tarp that got destroyed by the wave of water... that place was rollin' so hard after that poor man got drinched.

The pics that are of the daytime are of the Bible College down the road who brought us a donation for the mumu. They brought all kinds of fruits and veggies. They even brought a huge pig and a few chickens. When someone donates like that... each party says a little something and then they all shake hands or hug etc.

During the prep they have to prepare fires for the pigs so that they can burn the hair off of them which smells awful by the way! The top pic is of a kid sitting by his fire waiting for another pig to clean. Let's see... a few pics are of the pigs on the fire and there is one of a pig gutted out (Kris sorry I know you hate this). When they kill a pig they take a big stick and they tie the pig to a post in the ground and they hit it in between the eyes. I did not want to
see this but it was inevitable if I was going to be down there.
Apparently, it is supposed to take one hit, but ya right those guys were like strikin' out bc in some cases the guy on deck had to step in and finish it off. I have some video of all of this too... not by choice...by request. So for all you savages that want to see it when I get back just ask.

There is another pic of a bunch of cow meat and the two boys towards the bottom are holding GInormous banana leaves.
In the morning they heat up the rocks in the pits and they place all the food together in the leaves and it catches the pigs blood I think... and then it cooks and we eat.

I also met a woman named Grace down at picnic point. That is the 3rd Grace that I know now. The first Grace is the anesthesiologist, the second is Grace from picnic point and the third is this young girl named Grace who came with her friend Lily to the bball court one day that I was playing down there.

Anyways, Grace from picnic point lives right by me and she invited me over to see her kus kus or kas kas (like I said before... I never know how to spell anything). Her kus kus is named Quincy and it looks like a little possum monkey. I'm not really sure what it is but she said I could come over to play with her. So hopefully soon I will post some pics of Quincy, Grace and I.

One of the things that I learned from Grace is that there are not
very many snakes in the Highlands. which I was so happy to hear.
She said that the big and bad ones are on the coast. Well, I really dont want to write anymore ha... so hopefully the pics say enough! Love you guys!



Ok I thought of something else... We have game night like every night! It took me a while to warm up to it bc no offense to anyone
but my idea of fun isn't to stay cooped up inside playing cards...
but everyone here loves it so what's a girl to do? I learned how to
play hearts the other night and I like that game bc I dominated everyone! Haha I really had no clue what I was doing. One game I do love to play is spoons... we've had some fun with that...and pictionary is a new fav! We've played rummy, mad gab the Bible version lol, Texas hold em' but not with real money... I hope I dont get in trouble for writing that! ...banana grams, scrabble, Phase 10... I figure if I dont learn anything from my experience here, I will at least be able to host an awesome game night when I get home.. jk... I have already learned so much :).

Mud Fight!

Check out our sweet rides! Ok so I have to fess up to Bill about something :). I told him I would head down and help Dan down at the construction site and on my way down I met Mercy, Candicelee, Roselay, and Waghilda (and no way I spelled any of those right except for Mercy lol. I had them spell their names for me and that's what I interpreted). These 4 kids were so cute I couldn't resist. It had been raining all day and there were amazing puddles everywhere! It started out by jumping in a few and before I knew it I took off my cool poncho and it turned into a crazy mud fight that lasted a good hour or so. Thanks Kris for my rain boots! They were perfect for this. Somehow I still managed to fill them with water! I wanted to take a pic with all the kids but I was by myself and a mess, so Kate snapped one outside of our house for me.

Sunday Church

This is the Nazarene Church at Kurumul. If you look close you can see alittle girl and boy playing hop scotch.

Before church we played some games with the pikinini's.

This is inside the church. Look at the flowers they picked! The speaker was preaching about HIV. This guy was just the worship leader. Actually, I really enjoyed this service.

This little guy was starring at me in church. I had to take a pic!

Dolla Pokeh

Ok Dolla Pokeh is amazing. She was my own personal guide on our hike and we were rockin it through some tough spots to get to the caves and she was draggin my butt up the muddy mtn! :) She was very sure on her feet and she was so strong! She was in flip flops part of the time and then barefoot! Did I already write about this? I feel like I did but maybe that was an email?! Anyways, the week after we went on this particular hike, Dolla showed up at the hospital dedication and she brought me 2 pineapples! I promised her I would go to her church so last Sunday we went and she was there and one of the guys from the village named Patti translated bc I dont know a lick of Pidgin and she doesnt know English :). But I found out that her mother left her father and he has remarried since. I think that one particular Aunt takes care of her though. I met the Aunt and she made Dolla run home for 2 more pineapples lol. I hope to see her again soon and I plan on learning some Pidgin so that I can learn more about her.

Kurumul

This is a meeting house built for some dignitaries that were coming to Kurumul, a village that is about a 20 minute drive from where I live. We were going on a hike and this village is where we started. This is where I met my dear friend Dolla Pokeh. We also have gone to this same village for church.

This is a pic of one of the guys who led us to the bone caves. His name is Sampson. He is from Kurumul. Haha look at his huge bush knife!

Bone Caves!

Sorry it has been a while since I have updated the blog... I have been busy :) so here are some new pics for now. This is our totally awesome hike to the bone caves! To the left are human skulls and to the right are some friends and some locals who came along.