Well, we are in Lae…on our first official vacation in PNG (Papua New Guinea)!

In spite of our best efforts to pack well ahead of time, we were up late finishing packing and doing dishes/laundry/cleaning last night. It is hard to figure out how to leave all the laundry clean and dry when the day before you leave it is raining and you don’t have a dryer. That means that even though I hung the laundry out on the veranda it still didn’t dry completely. Plus, we had the dirty diapers from later in the day yesterday…so all in all, we ended up running the washer late last night and early this morning I hung everything up on clotheslines in the laundry room…and we brought a bunch of clean but still slightly wet diapers with us. And of course, arrived in Lae to a nice rainy afternoon so looks like diapers won’t be drying until at least tomorrow.

The PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) arrived to pick us up ~7 a.m. and we ended up “buying” the entire back seat (meaning we paid for the 4 seats in the back so we had room for all of our luggage plus all 4 of us). We left Ukarumpa and stopped in Kainantu (the closest town ~20 minutes from Ukarumpa) to pick up more passengers. The PMV must be full (14 passengers) before they will start out on such a long trip. As we were sitting in Kainantu with the door open and the “boscrew” (driver’s helper) standing outside calling “Lae -lelele-lelele-Lae-lelele-Lae” I thought we would NEVER get enough passengers to actually be on our way. We sat there for almost an hour with what seemed like “no” response. People milling about, walking by, boarding other PMVs, waving to Mikayla and Laurel, just standing around watching all the happenings. All of the sudden people started getting on the PMV and within 5-10 minutes we were full up and on our way (I’m not sure if they had been there all along and were waiting until there were “enough” before getting on to sit and wait or if a group suddenly arrived who wanted to go to Lae…I didn’t really care, was just very happy that we were finally on the way).

Mikayla and Laurel did very well for the 3+ hour drive, especially considering the long wait in Kainantu before we had enough passengers to start the trip. I had packed a few “new” toys for each girl in their bilums (PNG string bag “purses”). These toys had been put away for several months so they forgot about them. Between the toys and frequent snacks (dried pineapple/banana/papaya, crackers, and tiny teddies – think teddy grahams – we made the trip without any significant crying from either girl. Laurel did take a 30 minute nap on my lap but Mikayla was too busy watching the passing scenery (cows, and more cows, water, and more water, and more cows, and more water, and more water). :-D

About an hour out from Lae we stopped at a market for a quick stretch break and for people to buy a snack. One guy traveling with his wife and ~2 y/o daughter bought us some freshly roasted peanuts (I think he knew it would be an entertaining snack for the girls). Think, still in the shell, half-raw, half roasted over the fire so the shell looks burnt…but they were yummy and a fun new treat as none of us had eaten them before. Mikayla liked to shell her own, but it took her about 5 minutes to get the shell off and then the first time she dropped her peanuts as soon as she got them out of the shell. :-( She learned quickly though…but half the fun was taking the shell off herself. Because they were fresh and half-raw they were plenty soft enough for Laurel to handle without a problem even though she still doesn’t have very many teeth.

While we were stopped at the market Mikayla took a potty break. Turns out the potty break was supposed to be a little later…back in the PMV we drove about 5 minutes and pulled over to the side of the road in the middle of nowhere and everyone piled out to go pee in the bush…oops, oh well…little kids can pee anywhere. It’s very interesting when a whole car full of people piles out in the middle of nowhere to relieve themselves… in the bush. I guess it’s their version of a “rest area”. I chose not to take advantage of the potty stop even though I’d been feeling a full bladder since before we left Kainantu. I almost regretted my choice when we got to Lae and found that the road to get to the side of town where we are staying is FULL of potholes…I mean literally thousands of potholes for what felt like 5 minutes. Jolting over potholes while holding Laurel on my lap with our little baby bouncing on my bladder was certainly uncomfortable…the potholes were enough to send any pregnant women into labor if she were anywhere close to her due date. Mikayla bonked her head on the window a few times because of the jarring ride…but she was okay and learned pretty quickly to keep well back from the window.

We finally arrived at the place we are staying about 1:00 p.m. Our friends Tim and Francine with their little girl Avigail met us and showed us around the place. We are staying in the home of their colleagues who are on furlough in Canada right now. It’s a nice place and the best part is that it is completely free to us…and they have kids so there are plenty of toys and books to keep the girls busy the whole time we’re here. Not to mention, Avigail lives just across the way and they’ll get to play with her quite a bit too. Plus, there is a pool just outside the front door…we’ll see how the girls like a “real pool”. They love toddler pools and baths…so hopefully they’ll enjoy this too.

Currently the girls are napping, but that will be over real soon. We are invited to Tim and Francine’s for dinner which is really nice because we only brought snack food with us and haven’t been grocery shopping yet. Francine said she plans to go to the market and the grocery store tomorrow morning so we’ll get a ride with her and hopefully get stocked up…going shopping isn’t the most convenient thing when you don’t have a vehicle (or driver’s license…we hope to get our licenses while we’re here in Lae). The mission Tim and Francine are with have a couple of vehicles and they both have licenses so we’ll be able to catch rides with them, but don’t want to inconvenience them with a bunch of extra trips…so we’ll have to plan ahead.

Can you tell we’re on vacation? I actually had “time” to write a “journal” entry. :-) Sorry if it’s too long. Oh yea, we have free internet access (so we can look at pictures!!!!) but unfortunately we can’t access Facebook…at least not yet.