Hurrah!!! I mentioned last week that for POC they encourage us to be able to swim a mile in the ocean. Well this week, only my second time swimming, I actually made it to complete my mile!!! They don't really care how you swim as long as you make it, so I did at least half of the swim on my back. I never really learned proper swim strokes, so I think that I am actually faster that way! Feels good to have that behind me, but I've certainly been feeling my muscles for the last couple days!!

Here at POC we live in a sort of simplified dormitory-type setting. Groups of us live in rooms (the families each have two rooms, one for the parents and one for the kiddos) and then we share men's/women's bathrooms. The showers are cold from the tap. A fire is lit twice a day (6am & 4:30pm) to heat water in small silo-type deal. Those who would like a hot shower can put this water in a bucket and take a "bucket" shower which really is a metal bucket with an attached shower head. You then just try to soap and rinse really quickly before all the water runs out! I've only taken two hot showers since I've been here as I am almost always hot and the cold shower just feels good, and also because I don't have to worry about running out of water before I get all the shampoo out of my hair!

We had our first haus kuk (pronounced “house cook”) weekend this past weekend. The two other gals in my group (L & J) had already built the haus kuk. Rather on the idea of a tent, the poles or buns (pronounced “boons;” think: bones) are made of bamboo/tree branches tied together, with a tarp roof over it all. They also made a table with benches out of bamboo/small branches tied together. So, for the haus kuk weekend we didn’t get fed from the kitchen. We were responsible to prepare our own meals in our haus cook. We have a fire “pit” sort of thing, and a small primus stove. There was a bread baking class on Friday afternoon, and one of the gals in our group, L, took that. So we had the bread that she made to eat for the weekend. (L and J had also already bought some food stuff in town earlier in the week.) So we did bread with peanut butter/ butter & cinnamon & sugar, and fruit for breakfast (with coffee!). On Saturday, we just kinda munched around for lunch. Other folks had leftovers so we helped them get rid of those (out of the goodness of our hearts :); the gals next to us made pizza! Also, one of the staff came and cooked some bananas on our fire and shared them with us. For dinner we cooked rice and stir fry which turned out quite well. Sunday lunch we all ate in town at the regional office here in Madang, but for supper we cooked macaroni & cheese with tuna over our fire. J also made peanut butter cookies for dessert. The cookies were a bit tricky over the fire. We weren’t quite sure about the heat for them, but now we know that we need to wait for it to cool down a bit as they were done on the outside before the inside :)

To give us an opportunity to practice our Tok Pisin and the opportunity to learn more about the culture, we are assigned a "wasfamili" during our orientation. These families have volunteered to spend 1 evening a week with us, sharing a meal and some life experiences. Last night we all were introduced to our wasfamilis. The staff cooked a yummy meal and we shared it with our wasfamili and talked with them a bit. I didn't talk much, as I'd only learned a tiny bit of Tok Pisin (I'd had 2 classes), but I am in a group with two other single gals who did a really good job of talking and asking questions. I was glad that I was able to follow along quite well with most of the conversations, I just couldn't produce much on my own. Our wasfamili is really nice. Our "waspapa" and "wasmama" have 6 "pikinini" (children). The two youngest are the same age as my nice and nephew, and they were interested to see their pictures. Next Thursday we will go to their house for dinner. They have said that they like to sing and that we will also maybe do some singing next week.

3rd day and it already feels like I've been here at least a week! In a good way. I feel like I'm settling in and feeling more at home now. I'm starting to feel more like I know the people too. Everyone here is wonderful--expatriate and national staff and fellow students. We have quite a multicultural group. Our directors and kitchen manager are Austrailian. Our academic coordinator is Malaysian. In the students there are two families from Finland, one Korean/Austrailian couple, a couple from Costa Rica, and a few families from the US. There are also singles from Austrailia, Argentina, and the US. It's really fun to be able to interact with fellow believers from all these different backgrounds, but know that we are all here to support the spread of God's word to the people of PNG.

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 So, I made it to Madang, where my 3 month orientation will take place! I arrived in the capital city of Port Moresby yesterday afternoon and was picked up at the airport and taken to a missionary guest house for the night. It was SO nice to be able to shower. I then tried to keep myself awake until after dinner and made it to stay up until 8pm! Picked up at 4:45am, I was dropped off at the airport and made it on my flight to Madang. I got here in time for a breakfast, of granola and yogurt :) I was glad to see again a family that I had done some of my initial training with, and another family that is from my same town. Every day we will have a class to learn Tok Pisin, the trade language. Since everyone else started learning Tok Pisin about a week and a half ago, I will have my own tutor until I can catch up. This afternoon was a swimming day. I was given the option of staying behind, but I like swimming so I decided to give it a try. We need to eventually be able to swim a mile, but right now it’s pretty laid back. There is a 100 meter long rope that we can do laps around (1600meter ~ 1 mile). I think I made about 1/8th today :) I apparently need much more practice. So, tonight I practice for Tok Pisin class tomorrow. We are supposed to learn a short dialog for each class, though they are giving me a bit of slack on the memorization since I'm on the fast track right now. The dialog for tonight isn’t too bad -- 6-8 lines.