Helicopter Days

"We already had our name on the schedule for Dec 5th. Let's just fly out the hardware then."

She laughs. "I need to know what you're taking."

"64 sheets of roofing iron. Gutters, PVC pipe, lots of nails."

"We'll need to know how much that weighs to know how many shuttles you need."

"I need two shuttles…"

(fade out)

"Do we have a helicopter booked yet?"

"No. You never told me your weights. I need to know your weights before I can talk to the helicopter people."

(fade out)

"Here are all my weights."

"Great. I'll contact them and you need to contact the shuttle point. Here's a phone number."

(fade out)

None of the phone numbers work. We send Jacob down to talk to the Archdiocese to get a number for the property. Neither of those numbers work either.

(fade out)

A meeting about helicopter day:

"None of the cars we have will be able to haul that much cargo to the shuttle point."

"Someone would have to drive it up the day before."

"Where would they spend the night?"

"We'd have to hire a car."

"Might be cheaper to just shuttle from the airport."

"That will never be the "cheaper" option."

"Cost isn't just about money."

(fade out)

"He can't get you in the schedule until after Christmas."

"There's already question about finishing the house by February and I can't even get them nails until after Christmas?!"

"He wants to know how desperate you are."

(fade out)

"He fit you in. December 9th."

(fade out)

"Elizabeth is point person. You have a question, you ask her. She's the point person. There can't be any confusion about that."

(fade out)

"I hope I wasn't too stern about you being the point person."

"It's just that… I don't know anything."

"You will. You'll learn. And then you'll know."

(fade out)

Dec 8, we load up the roofing iron and leave it at the hangar overnight.

(fade out)

"Hey, it's the pilot. Your helicopter time moved from 10:45 to 8:30."

"Ok, I'll get it sorted."

"Whoops. Did the math again. 7:30am."

(fade out)

"The land cruiser won't be back by then."

"We'll have to take the hilux."

"Will everything fit?"

"Too easy to steal out of overnight."

"We'll have to pack it in the morning."

"6:30 am."

"6:30 am."

(fade out)

We woke at 5:30am that morning and got home at 10:30am.

Everything went as smoothly as it could have.

And then I crashed. And took a very long nap.

My village papa called to say everything arrived well.

Another translator called to say everything arrived well and cell signal was back in the area.

The posts have been cut for our house, they just need to be brought in from the jungle.

Work will start full force on Monday, Dec 12.

And then I took another long nap.

Needs vs Wants

Well, we're hoping to officially move out to the Mum area in February, but with us is coming out the director to officially and declaratively state that we're there as a part of PBT.

But the dear Director, as most humans, has weight. And considering how tight we were last time, there's no way we can live off of just one helicopter, so we'll have to bring more. But how many more?

And that's where needs and wants gets a little funny….

We need to bring the dog and her food, 20kg, and something to put it in so rats won’t get in it. Ok sure, that's a pretty clear need.

We need something to cook over… But we don't really need a stove, right? Because we have a fire! But honestly, it's not sustainable for us to make a fire every time we need/want something hot. So if we want to stay out in the village for any length of time, we'd need a stove. Ok, ok, but do we take our propane camper stove, featuring two burners and an oven six inches deep that sat two feet, on top of a counter (making pots on the stove very hard to peer into)? Or do we get a petite stove/oven set, big enough to stand on its own? Do we need it? Or do we want it?

So what we're talking about is bumping up little luxuries to the level of need on the premise that if my comfort level is such that I don't need to retreat to town as often, I save money and increase ministry.

Ooo, what a dangerous slope!

What about a couch? We're planning on bringing some basic camping chairs on highest priority, and reclining camping chairs on lower priority, and camping chairs for the kids on lowest priority (because let's be honest, they'd be delighted but they wouldn't feel any stress by the lack of adequate seating in their life.) But what about cuddling up? Before James could get on the couch himself, in town, I bought a couple crib mattresses to make a "floor couch" in his room, because him being able to climb up and cuddle with Mama, without Mama sustaining any bruising during his ascent, was that important. What about now? Is actual seating a need or a want?

Ok ok, what about high chairs? After last time where the kids would just eat on the perpetually filthy floor and any bite of banana warranted a bath to get off the banana dirt paste they were now saturated, we thought it would be better for their health if they weren't quite so … on the floor. Is it a need, to protect my children from worms and other nasty stuff that lives in dirt? Or a want?

But what about the really iffy stuff? Décor? One lament I had in Mum last time was that that place didn't feel like home. So, what do I need décor-wise that can make things feel nice and homey on the smallest weight and spatial occupancy? What about mirrors? I found these gorgeous mirrors here. 3ft high (where most mirrors are made with shaving in mind) with a ovular frame and champagne finished. I nearly cried when I saw them. We had a "rear-facing infant car mirror" we hung up in the bush. It was amazing because I would be walking out the door and see it and it was like, dang girl, the village looks good on you. A little pep talk reminding me that 1. I'm pretty and 2. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

But need or want?

At the crux of the matter is that needs are minimal. We just survived 5 weeks on 390kilos of cargo, including us! But... I wouldn't say we thrived... 

There's a precarious balance between getting what you need to stay, getting what you need to be comfortable enough to stay in long enough stints to do your job effectively, and being ridiculous and spending money inappropriately.

So that's what we're up to now. Packing everything we currently have that's destined to go to the bush and seeing what can wait and looking at the "needs" and "high priority wants" and evaluating what we need to do to succeed. 

Coffee with Elizabeth - Mincemeat

I collapse into one of the comfy chairs, clutching my Triple Grande Peppermint White Mocha like a life line.

I take a long sip, through my head back with my eyes closed and stop. For just a moment. I loll my head over to look at you and I give you a sleepy grin.

"I've had a long day. A long week! A long life…"

You snort at my 26 years.

I shrug.

"Feels that way." I take another sip.

"How long do you think you can run on caffeine and pain killers?" I ask my cup.

"I take a lot more caffeine than pain killers… But the headaches, man…"

"10 to 8 hours a night I'm in bed."

You raise an eyebrow.

"Listen, it's not as easy for me to sleep! Jacob hits a pillow and he's like a dead man! Me? I start thinking about what I have to do." I take a sip of coffee.

Then swallow abruptly and burst out laughing.

"Hahaha! Oh man, today! So, we got our dehydrator from the airport, right? (The roads were so rough back there, I ended up off-roading, a hit a huge rock so hard, I thought both of my driver's side tires blew out! Then hit ANOTHER rock. Then bottomed out. My adrenaline was soaring! Caffeine, pain killers, and adrenaline! That'll get the job done!) Anyway, the dehydrator. I knew it was coming so bought like 5 kilos of mince. Uh… … hamburger? … 97% … ground beef! That's what you call it! Geez! I'm forgetting how to speak American! Anyway, I had cooked 3 last night. Oh, 3 kilos is just over 6 lbs… You're supposed to multiply your kilos by 2.2 to get pounds, but I just double it and call it close enough. Ok, so kilos are BIG. So you double it to get pounds, ok? Keep with me now. So I had Jacob cook the other 2k while I started loading the dehydrator. And we didn't have enough! THIS THING IS HUGE! Industrial. If this thing is going to be how I prepare food for more than half my year for at least two years? Totally worth the expense! And it's so efficient! So I did some number crunching, like I do, and was like, man we can get this done in 2.5 days! So I go back to the butcher (oh, somewhere in that story, I went back and picked up 5 more kilos for tomorrows dehydrating before I realized the awesomeness of my dehydrator.) So I went back to the butcher and was like, yeah, Imma need 20 kilos of meat. That's like 40lbs, right. Don't worry, I get the "crazy white lady" look a lot.

Anyway, that was all back story, so I come home"

I start chuckling.

"buckling under the weight of this 20 kilo box of raw meat as I carried it up the stairs. And I walk inside"

Giggling now.

"And Jacob comes over to take the box. And he's all, 'what is this?' And I give him that guilty smile, you know?"

I flash you an example.

"And he goes, 'Elizabeth. Is this meat?' I nod, my smile growing. 'How much meat did you buy?'"

It's hard to talk through my laughter.

"'20 kilos!'

"'20… Where are we going to put all of it!' And he is just done, like he has this grin and this chuckle and this grimace, and it's like he loves me but I'm insane and this is his life now. With 20 kilos of raw meat sitting on his counter!"

We take a minute to roar in laughter.

"And then!" I gasp for air.

"Then he says, 'You know. It's December first. December first. And I just thought, that since we weren't going to the village again until February, at the earliest, that maybe just maybe we wouldn't have to cook all 20 kilos right now.' And I'm just dying laughing, right there through his whole speech, doubled over, clutching a stich in my side, laughing. And then, after I compose myself, I say, 'I hear you, babe. I do. But when you fall asleep at night with your creepy instantaneous sleeping powers, I lie awake at night thinking about everything on my to-do list.'
"'YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE THINGS ON YOUR TO DO LIST!' he exclaims, laughing at my compulsive busyness.

"'NOT LIKE THIS!' I retort. 'I'm BACKLOGGED!'

"So my husband. My valiant husband, sighs, puts on some gaming headphones, turns a movie on the kindle and has been browning beef ALL DAY."

We laugh some more.

"Agh! I haven't even told you about the helicopter! No. no. That's another conversation. I promised my husband I would take over the meat and cook the last 5 kilos. (5 kilos will be left for tomorrow's to-do list)."

I down the last of my coffee, but the dregs.

I leave the dregs.

I hate the dregs.

"But thank you for this. I've been running around like crazy today and it was really nice to sit down and (get my fix and) story- oh… chat! with you. Same time tomorrow?

"I'll tell you about the helicopter! Oh what a story!"

Going Home at the Right Time

Well we were planning on a 7 week trip for our first venture into the Mum area. But instead we ended up calling in a helicopter to pull us out at week 5.

To me this reeks of failure.

But that is untrue.

And furthermore, it's a lie.

It's a lie Satan uses to try to attack my marriage, my ministry, and my self-image.

And the only thing you can do with such a lie is name it thusly and speak truth.

1. Seven weeks was an arbitrary length of time.
   "How long do you want our first trip to be?"
   "Idk? Like 2 months?"
   Seven was a number chosen based on when our supervisor would be in country to meet with us before and after our trip.
   So shortening the trip just means we guessed wrong.
2. We're not headed out early because we can't handle village life.
   We LOVE village life. But the house we were living in wasn't IN the village. It's a 15 minute hike from one village and a 5 minute hike from another.
   So
   - We can't kick James out to go play and enjoy some free babysitting
   - In times of great sun or rain, we're pretty much stuck in the house.
   This aspect of living deserves its own blog post.

There is a certain amount of stress that one bears in settings like being a guest. Depending on who the host is, that stress level will vary but eventually, even with a very low stress level, you'll need to get home.

The stress of living in the village (or at least near the village) was very low. The stress of living in that particular house, higher.

But we reached a place where our stress cups were brimming and even on an otherwise amazing day, the littlest thing had us overflowing.

And we have a toddler.

So THAT’S not good.

(The overflowing stress, I mean, I'm pretty fond of the toddler most of the time.)

So when my husband said we needed to leave before seven weeks, I had to submit.

(which is weird, because usually we're totally on the same page or my husband is serving me sacrificially, so I don't oftentimes find myself needing to submit to his authority as the head of our household.)

But pride had me holding to this goal. And even after we called for the helicopter, pride still had me believing we could have made it seven weeks. Which is fine. Pride can exist in my person, but I don't need to make decisions by it. (And a good thing I didn't, because by the time the helicopter came, we needed it.)

The lie that going home "early" is failure, the pride that makes that an unentertainable concept… Not calling that spade a spade could have had me put stress on our marriage, threaten the longevity of our ministry by risking burnout, and risk hurting our kids emotionally because I overreacted to something stupid.

Lies are dangerous.

We (my husband) gauged our stress levels, observed how quickly we were to anger even on an awesome day, and decided that the best thing to do for our emotional and relationship health was to head home to rest and regroup.

That isn't failure!

That's a recipe for success!

The link above, and here again for your convenience, elaborates on that what was stressful.  

The Good, The Bad, The Future

There were two parts of village living. The really really good part. And the really really not good part. 

The really really good part. 

Here we are in the village. Living the dream that's been motivating our choices independently and as a couple for the past ten years. After having coffee in the morning, we go out to do language learning. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are market days. We have bush food sold there for breakfast. Sometimes a tapioc cake, sometimes a plantain topped with ramen noodles and greens, occasionally a fried ball of bread. We go around asking what each thing is:
"ñɨ mum?"
And asking how much it costs
"ñɨ pamata?"
And asking to buy a couple
"arkɨta mut muŋgriman"

After market or on not-market days, we often take a 15 minute walk to Katiati. Someone usually comes to grab Marissa from me and carry her. Everyone loves to hold the white baby. And we sit on someone's porch and learn language. Sometimes asking what things are, sometimes asking what people are doing, and sometimes just learning whatever they're in a mood to teach us. We get to know people. We make friends. James runs around in the village, usually screaming when some child tries to hold him, which is any time he falls down, which is often, because he plays hard. 
Around 10, we go home for a snack and work on lunch and do chores. 
In the afternoon, we'll go out again. Sometimes to Katiati again, sometimes to Aringana, sometimes to Kakrasapai, (which is very close but more of a boys town, so much less comfortable for me.) 
Visiting people under the cool of their morota roofs is a lovely way to spend time. 

The really really not good part

Some days it's too hot and clear to make the 15 minute walk in full sun. Some days it's too rainy. So we sit in our house. We try to study our language data, but we have a toddler with fierce cabin fever. Even when he's not fussy, he's ramming into us with the full velocity of his love. He has so much energy and it's all exerted in a physical way and he knows not his own strength. 

We're literally sitting on our cargo. So when we're not reprimanding him to stop grinding his head into our leg (we've finally nearly broken him of the head butting habit), we're telling him to stop touching the stuff that's everywhere. 
Also we have an infant, who gets into less trouble but is teething and is no less demanding. 
We could go under the house which is the only shaded area nearby, but Regina is under there and the velocity of her affection far exceeds James. So we'd have to shorten her tether to give the kids a safe place, but she would whine the whole time and James would walk up to her and she would reach out to him beckoningly with her sharp claws and then James would be crying and Jacob would want to, in an appropriate albeit misguided protective fashion, beat a dog for "attacking" his son. And it's more trouble than it's worth. 

We LONG for the day when our house is in the village. We don't have to walk. If James wants to play, we can open the front door and let him out. We're not sitting on our cargo but our stuff has a place and a home. And so do we. 


Ironically, on our last couple of days there, this "village life" happened. We were in Aringana for a while and the kids finally got over trying to hold James and they were playing happily. And when we were ready to head back to the house, we were told to leave the kids there, they'd bring them by later. For HOURS, James was playing happily instead of getting snapped at in the house. We were able to get work done. It was so nice to have time to ourselves and not be constantly fighting with James. 
Now that we're back in town, we again have a shortage of opportunities for James to go play for hours, but we have electricity and with it a wealth of distractions. (Yes, sometimes Daniel Tiger babysits my son. It happens. I have a full time job and I work from home). We also have places to go that helps break up the monotony of his day, (where the real trouble in the village came from not having a place to go). So compared to (true) village life, I wish we were in the village where James was running around socializing (though Daniel Tiger does teach valuable social skills!) 
But that house just wasn't working for us!

OUR house is being built now! They broke ground while we were there. We're sending out treatment for the posts and nails with one of the translators on Monday. Then at some point we'll be sending in the tin roofing (the trees they use to make roofing isn't plentiful there so it would take a long time to get enough roofing to cover our house) and other odds and ends like hinges and gutters. They hope to be done in February, which is after our Annual Meeting and before the Director, who accompanies a newly allocating couple out to tell the village that we're there on PBT business, will be headed out of country!
So we'll have a nice break for the Holidays, and time to scramble in packing and prepping for the next trip!


Stay tuned for a post on our house, our floor plan, and our colorful head of construction!  

Language learning with no classroom

Ok so how do you do it? How do you go out and just learn a language?
Well, I don’t know how YOU do it, but this is how WE’RE doing it.
(which is not “best practice” but whatever.)

So first we learned some power phrases:
I came to speak Mum.
What is this?
Hello. Where are you coming from?
(Asking from whence they come and where they're going is polite like asking “how are you?”)

Then we use those phrases!
So we got words like dog, pig, stick, stone and like house, garden, and village.

Then we mimic words we don’t know.
“Baby saywhatnow?”
And they translate.
“Oh. Baby cries.”

But you can only go so far asking for words.
Imagine the following:
You're sitting at a birthday party. You’ve asked and received the words: Balloon, hat, streamers, cake, decorating, sing, light, candles, etc.
And then someone walks in and immediately begins talking to your language helper.
“I cannot believe this. Tracy said she was going to help out and she totally blew me off and I have a hundred things to do and this thing is supposed to start in an hour.”
Ok, well, despite your impressively long list of elicited words, you understand not one of hers.

So now we enter into the phase of asking people just to talk amongst themselves and when we can delineate a word from the plethora of syllables spewing from their lips, we mimic it. And then they translate!
Bonus points for recognizing a word and mimicking the following unknown word!
We also really like when they use names or Tok Pisin as it breaks up the Mum and gives us something we definitely know. It sounds like a recorded voice message with a macro.
“hello we have a very important message for ELIZABETH SMITH. Please call us back at your earliest convenience.”


Right now our language learning level is a Level Zero Plus. That means we can use 50 words correctly! We’re nearly at Level 1, I think another week will have us there!
Then THE BOOK says the time to get to the next level is the sum of the time it took for the two steps prior. So 0-0+ is 1 week, and if 0+-1 is 2 weeks, then 1-1+ will take 3 weeks and 1+-2 will take 5 weeks!
Fibonacci sequence style!
So it SHOULD take 32 weeks of in the village language learning time to feel competent enough to do our jobs in Mum (Level 3).
At least, that’s what THE BOOK says….
 

Coffee with Elizabeth - Solutions and Worries

"I had a dream." I swirl my coffee around with one of those stupid wooden sticks that’s marginally better at stirring than dipping a plastic straw in hot liquid but not by much. But I'm not stirring, I'm swirling. "I had a dream that we were dropped off in Katiati and the helicopter left. I looked off the mountain at the gorgeous view offered by my new home. The sun was setting and the sky was streaked with pink and gold, it was beautiful. And then I started to cry."

I cringe looking up at you but you don't seem to be judging me. So I go on.

"This was my new home. And what is it? 400kg of essential junk under a tin roof.

"No." I cut my hand through the air to break off any romantic ideas you may have of rain on a tin roof. "A tin roof turns a house into an oven. We had a tin roof in village living during POC. I was concerned I would literally bake.

"Literally.

"At what temperature can you bake?

"If I fell asleep in a room that was hot enough to literally bake me, would I wake up?

"Literally, these were the thoughts I tried to fall asleep while entertaining. I'm not sure if it was the thoughts or the heat that made sleep impossible…"

"And then the nationals would tell us we need to stay up and story with them until 10pm! 'No! You got your nap time under your nice little morota roof. When the baby goes down, Mommy goes down!'"

I fume for a moment at the memory, but then the spark of indignation fades from my eyes before I take a sip of coffee and resume my absent-minded swirling.

"So I get up from this dream with my mind to some comfort items, right? Because if you have a problem, you should fix it! I read my (still) favorite book in middle school. "Don't focus on the problem, Richard, focus on the solution!" His grandfather was a wizard of the First Order. Very prestigious. And well deserved! His words were - are! life shaping to me.

"So I make a list: coffee mugs- You remember my collection of coffee mugs goal? A collection of coffee mugs that are so awesome that just drinking out of them makes the day better? I made a Pinterest list of the ones I want and people buy them for me as presents some times. -the bath mat (I saw it one day at Walmart and fell in love. But I didn't buy it. I walked into Walmart every day for the next month and every day I thought about that bath mat. The next time I saw it, I bought two! I figured it's worth the $15 if every time I step out of my bucket shower I can be so delighted!), a coloring book and pens, a deck of cards, a book of crosswords, my reclining camping chairs…"

My smile from listing the things to make me happy fades.

"We had to cut the chairs. They were heavy and not a necessity… The bath mat got cut too. And everything else on that list is on the chopping block in the event the helicopter can't carry maximum capacity…

"See the thing about essential junk is, it's not pretty nor happy making, but it is… essential. When malaria treatment weighs as much as a deck of cards, guess which one's going to get cut? And the LAME thing is, the treatment will get tossed in the corner and never get used! But we don't know  that so we have to be prepared.
"Bleach, bug spray, sunscreen, clothespins, clothesline, mosquito coils, sheets, pillows, sponges, oven mitt. None of these things are… happy making. But we need them. And all their stupid weight adds up!"

I take a deep breath and a sip of coffee and let the tension out of my shoulders. 

"But focus on the solution, right? So I sat down to make a list of 100 things I could do for self-care in the village."

I grin sheepishly.

"I only have 26… It's harder than it sounds!" I retort to your laugh.

"100 is a lot! And 'nothing' is not a lot to go on!" I scowl and resolve to sip my coffee until you've regained control of yourself.

"But it's like… Ok, when I was in the village in 2010 as a young single intern, it was all, wooo honeymoon stage, right? And even then there were times where it was sitting around and doing nothing but not even being comfortable in that because you're white and you have an audience, right? But there! There was a hauswin, like a pagoda or a pavilion or something. Cool, windy, mine. Well, not really mine, but I wasn't a guest. In 2012, there was no hauswin, so it was go be someone's guest if you want to get out of the stifling house.

"In village living we had a shaded area outside our house, but it was right next to the wasfemili's house, so it wasn't really private or anything…

"I don't know… The bulk of my village experiences are me sitting in the dirt doing nothing awkwardly. To be fair, the bulk of my village experiences were in village living where the bulk of my "work" was to prove I could survive!

"My first trip to the Mum was great! But they worked me 26 hours of the three days I was there. Not a lot of nothing!

"My first semester in college, I took 18 credit hours, added 6 hours of crash courses in Biblical languages, had a part time job and a role in the Student Ministry and served at church every Sunday morning. It was, by far, my most academically excellent semester. The next semester, I took 14 credit hours and nearly bombed.

"I thrive under pressure. And I don't know… It'll be interesting to see… 

"I don't want to sit in the dirt bored!"

I fling my wooden stirrer emphatically and throw foam on our neighbor's table. She's chatting away on the phone, sounds like a business meeting.

"She didn't notice!" I hiss cringing in regret.

"Yet. She will. And she'll hate us more. She thinks we're a little bombastic."

You give me a look.

"Ok ok fine! I'm a little bombastic."