Every Language . . .

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.