Tawali

A couple of days before I left Alotau, a group of us took a trip to a nearby resort called Tawali. Apparently quite an expensive place to stay, we got a great “day trip” deal for transport there/back and a buffet lunch. It is about a 1½ hour drive from Alotau, then a 10 minute boat ride. Once there you can snorkel, go caving, or just hang out in the lodge-type place and drink coffee/tea, read, play games, etc.

When we arrived, we were all given these glasses of fresh fruit juice. I’ve never gotten a drink with a cute umbrella before!

We were all looking forward to some snorkeling, but as June/July is “winter” season in the southern hemisphere, the water was just a bit chilly to be comfortable for more than ½ hour or so. So, after braving the water as long as we could, the four of us single gals ended up drinking warm drinks (coffee/tea) and playing a game.

This is the view from the deck. The lodge is on a hill, giving it a nice view. As you can see, the skies are a bit grey, but the view is still really beautiful.

Oh, and meet my friend Turk. Well, he is actually carved out of wood and painted. But doesn’t he look amazingly real!!

What a relaxing way to spend a day, after a busy month’s work on the June course.

\-/_!EARTHQUAKE!\]>/

So, one of the things that I never really experienced in living in Washington was an earthquake.  The earthquakes in PNG seem to come fairly frequently to me—maybe once a month or so—with varying degrees of shaking going on.  Thanksgiving 2007 was my first real “big” one.  It actually moved our stove across the floor a couple inches!!  This morning I was awakened at about 6am by another earthquake. It was just big enough to make me wonder if my bed was the best place for me to be at this time—but then, at that time of the morning in a Saturday, I just couldn’t be bothered to move J Turns out it had a magnitude of 5.3 with the epicenter located maybe 200 miles away from us. Exciting!!

THAT's what's so great about the US!

So my housemate and I were laughing today.  I had gotten a new bag of cotton balls.  You’ve probably seen a similar thing in your store—150 cotton balls in a bag.  When I went to open it, I realized that I’d better cut a small hole, otherwise they’d all fall out. And that’s when we realized, that’s what’s so great about the US—they have ziploc closures even on the cheap cotton ball bags! Hee!

it's a chilly day in the neighborhood...

So, I really felt like Mr. Rogers today when I walked into the office, took my chair, and whistled to myself, “would you be mine, could you be mine won’t you be my neighbor” as I changed my shoes.

 

Since I’m now in the southern hemisphere, my seasons are different from home. Now it’s “winter” or at least cooler from other times of the year. So I’ve been bringing my slippers with me to the office to help keep my feet warm, since the flip-flops I normally wear for wandering around don’t do much for my chilly tootsies!

back in the Highlands

So, I’m back at my home in the Highlands after nearly 2 months in Alotau. It’s good to be back -- see friends, get to hang out and play games in the evenings (Rook and Risk are the current favorites!). I don’t think that I’ve posted many, if any photos from here…I’ll have to take some pictures and do that soon. Just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten about you!

 

I’m working during the day in a new job in the office.  It involves keeping track of the different linguistic requirements for the language teams, collecting papers as they complete them, making sure all the proper forms are filled out and signed by the proper people, and helping the teams to find consulting help as needed.  It’s a lot of working getting up to speed on what needs to be signed by whom and forwarded on to someone else, but I’m loving it! I’m so glad put me here just now to do this work ~ what a gracious God He is to give me work that I love, surrounded by friends, and able to contact loved ones far away by blog, email and even mobile phone (when I can get a signal)!!