Limol #25

Thursday was our leaving day. I woke up happy and excited. I packed quickly as I was leaving most of my things in the village since I'm coming back in just one month. I left my pop up mosquito tent up in my room, and put my recording equipment, notebooks, prescription meds, and camping things inside. I hung my cassowary bag and crocodile necklace up with a picture of me and Grace above. I packed all the community equipment, like the laptop, batteries, back up drive, sat phone, pens and notebooks and things, in a separate pelican case to give to Warama and Tonny for their use this next month. Then I left with just my red backpack partway filled. Grace was also packed up quickly and we stood outside with friends while Lauren packed up and went around giving things away. 

When all was ready to go, the village gathered at the language house and Kidarga arrived again still dressed in young coconut leaves. The men (Jerry, Gidu, Francis, Jugu and Kenny) dressed in grass skirts, cassowary feathers, big headdresses and painted themselves with clay. They looked amazing. They danced four or five songs for us, while Kuks and Nowar played the drums. They did my favorite songs - I felt like I enjoyed them more this time because I knew the words and the dance moves. I could really just enjoy the dancing, singing, and music. 

After the dancing we took a few more pictures then headed out on our hike to Bisuaka. Jerry, Jeff, Matthew, Winson, Wagiba, Warama, Wesley, Sali, Donae, Edna, Yugwi, and Bodog accompanied us and helped carry our things. We all travelled relatively lightly according to our strength and so we moved quickly. On our way out of the village, all our friends lined up along the road to shake hands, say goodbye, and tuck flowers in our hair and backpacks. People were very sad to see Lauren go because they don't know if she will come back. 

We took a road out of the village towards Bisuaka that I had never taken before, but that I expect Elizabeth has. It took is about 4km before we reached Old Limol, which was the site of the village two sites ago. It is now a huge coconut grove, and the trees are bursting with coconuts. This part of the hike was very grassy and muddy, the path wasn't cleared and it was raining. We had to stop often and remove leeches from our ankles. We travelled down a ravine where we encountered a huge creek that had flooded. Jerry, Winston, and Jeff had run ahead (with our large bags!) to start building a bridge to cross it. In no time the bridge was finished, and we headed across. As I was climbing up the steep embankment on the other side of the bridge, I got stopped for someone to cut off a large leech from my calf! Luckily they didn't hurt very badly, but I did notice that my life is very much like a boring survivor/fear factor episode. For example that morning I had had to transfer nails from one deteriorated box filled with nails, roaches, and potentially hand sized spiders to a another potentially infested bag. In the dark. Very fear factor. Grace gave me a gold star. We continued our hike. I attempted to keep up with Winson who was leading the pack, carrying just a bow, spear, and a bright red empty fuel container. Kept my heart rate up and I arrived in Bisuaka tired, thirsty, and hungry. Jeff kept finding me and making sure I was drinking water from my "cassowary" straw (it's long and blue and kind of looks like a cassowary neck!). It also made my bag a bit lighter so I was happy to oblige. In Bisuaka we rested for a half hour or so, trying to wait out the rain. We had caused a spectacle however, and I was eager to get out of the spotlight and into the canoe to Kapal. Our entire party loaded into one long canoe with 15 horsepower outboard motor. Grace and I were near the back with Winson, Sali and the boatman and the water was very nearly level with the top of the canoe! We went quite quickly for a while, I had a large umbrella from our friend Keras that tried to keep us and the electronic equipment dry. But soon we hit some flood areas where the current was flowing so fast that we couldn't move forward. The river was beautiful though. At one point a fish jumped out of the water, right over Wagibas lap, and into the water on the other side of the canoe! After two hours or so, we reached a land block, and had to pass on foot to where some small canoes were waiting on the other side to shuttle across to the Kapal canoe spot. Once we had all shuttled over, we began a rainy 45 minute hike up from the creek to the village of Kapal. We arrived at 4:45 pm and none of us had eaten since 8 am that morning. I wasn't feeling very well, I was hungry, dirty, and I had been having stomach cramps and pains ever since the feast the day before (I think it was the flour dumplings since that was the only new item). I quickly urged Wagiba and some local women to make fire to start cooking the rice and sago that we had brought with us, got my sleeping dress and soap and asked some women to show me the washing place. A big crowd of women showed me down and the washing place was gorgeous. Bright clear water, nice and cold. I felt a bit better after a bath but I had a migraine coming on. We went back to the house, and I gathered mine and Graces sleeping things to start setting up our room. We had to share a mosquito net. The house we were staying in was probably 10 feet off the ground, I'd never stayed in such a tall house before. The ladder climbing up was pretty scary. I made the bed and rested until Wagiba called us over for dinner. I ate a huge bowl of rice and then went straight back to bed, head heavy and stomach upset. Grace gave me three ibuprofen and I listened to some meditation tracks and fell asleep. 

When I woke up in the morning, I felt better. We woke up too early again but without clocks it's hard to know what time it is and hard to fall back asleep. Grace and I took a walk around the airstrip at around 6 so we had about four hours to kill to wait for the plane. We had a nice breakfast of rice, pumpkin, and sago. I packed up my bag in the room, but as I was carrying it out, along the porch and towards the stairs, I stepped on an unsupported floor board which broke and my leg fell through! I caught myself with my arm and Jerry hurried over to take my bag. I literally could have fallen ten feet to the ground but thankfully I only got scratches and reprimands from my friends/family to walk more carefully and leave heavy bags for the boys. The plane came a stressful hour late and we flew quickly and safely to Daru.