May 2013

May has seen us move into our new house, and with the arrival of the container from Australia we have been busy putting together Ikea furniture and getting a lot more settled. Another highlight was a trip down to Goroka for Russell and a few others from the hospital to have a look at AT Projects who are doing some great work in remote communities and health centers around the country.  Sandy continues to grow and finally got a flea collar sent up from Australia so hopefully this helps with the problem common to all PNG dogs. The girls have had fun playing soccer and volley ball and we have started touch footy for sport on a Friday afternoon so enjoying playing again.

Sandy having his bath

Kids Playing in the Guava tree - local playground

Heather and Chelsea-Vienna

Outside the new house

Wiring the new clothesline

Water tanks for our health center on the new truck with Charles the driver

Bird of Paradise

Bridge that we had to use when the road was cut

Micro bat drops in for a visit

Bridge repairs on the road - the hospital does a lot of this work to keep the road open

Kompiam little terrors / cuties

Police Highway Robbery Unit on the way to Goroka

Took a walk into one of PNG's few National Parks with our trip to Goroka - Mick, Garry and our expensive, but informative guide Apex

Doing a fan dance in the National Park

Chooks at Christian Leader's Training College - where we get all our eggs

Russell's 'relatives' the Andira's (parents of a workmate from Talisman)

Family snap including out youngest Sandy

After the Kompiam Hospital Youth scavenger hunt - great fun!

A new swimming spot on the river

Nightly guests

Another nightly guest who decided to check out the new house (A "Manaken" in Engan, apparently this is a baby and it's venomous but not deadly)

April 2013

April has seen us continuing to settle into life in Kompiam, with the main highlight for this month being the road condition.  Early in April we had 102mm of rain in a 4 hour period which resulted in a significant landslide just up the road, as well as a washed out culvert at the start of the road. This left Kompiam cut off for about 2 weeks and even now we still can't get the truck back up the road as the culvert is still not fixed. It's just a good reminder of the remoteness of Kompiam and how much we depend on the road.  Hopefully dry season isn't too far away. As they say, a pictures worth a 1000 words so read on...

Sunrise over Kompiam

Landslide the day after

Landslide the day after

Dirty kids after checking out the landslide, ready for a swim

Sandy off to the markets

Heather with Once the pet parrot

Cutting down a tree for the landslide

First Attempt to fix the landslide

First attempt to cross the landslide

Sandy falls off the balcony and gets a cast (chewed it off after an hour)

Sandy and his brother hanging out

More rain, more landslide

Morning in the misty mountains

Some help on the road from a mining company - the man in the bucket is delivering breakfast to the other side

Repairs finished

Bride price (wedding)

Pigs (or part thereof) as part of the bride price

Climbing down to the waterhole

Heather takes a plunge

Swimming hole

Climbing in under the waterfall

Sau River

High School Girls

Hatched from a cocoon

View down the valley

Little terrors of Kompiam

Birthday girl

Heather's surprise birthday present

March 2013

Hard to believe we've been in Kompiam for about a month now. It's a magnificent place to say the least.  At an altitude of around 1600m, but only 5deg off the equator the climate is almost perfect t-shirt weather everyday.  It's the wet season at the moment and generally sunny in the morning and buckets down in the afternoon with anything from 25-75mm most days. Often we wake to find ourselves up in the clouds. At night the sky is pitch black and the only sound is the continual roar of the Sau River in the valley below.

Been a busy time settling in and trying to get on top of things. Getting the highschool going and keeping up with the food has been a full time job for Wendy. The girls are making friends and settling well and happy to have their own little puppy called Sandy. School work is keeping them very busy, but they enjoy trips to the river for a swim, learning new sports and games, and are also going to start up a youth group with some of the other hospital kids up here. Russell has been kept busy with lots of different projects from IT, to sourcing new project funding, helping out on the new houses, and traveling to Mt Hagen for supplies. He had the chance to fly out to one of our remote aid posts at a place called Mangao and amazing experience flying out through the mountains and visiting this remote village (not to mention landing on a 420m airstrip on the side of a mountain).

Everyday is little different, with new challenges and new opportunities.

Installing solar hot water on the new house

The river crossing before Kompiam

Looking down the valley

Ready for School

The swimming hole

Our new puppy Sandy

Wet Season

Yowali Manda

Swimming at the river crossing

View from the airstrip

Sunrise

Taking Off from Kompiam

New life at the hospital

Flying to Mangao aid post

Mangao air strip, 420m on the side of a mountain

Kids at Mangao

Mangao

Mangao airstrip

Flying back into Kompiam