5k Kate

What a crazy past ten days it’s been! Ten days of extreme contrast. February 17-21 were my final work days this trip and I finished gathering 61/64 sociolinguistic interviews and one special 4-hour recording by Tonny before I left. Conducting the interviews really improved my Ende. It was 16.5 hours of actively interacting in Ende with lots of different people in the village. Not only did I learn a lot about the language but I also learned a lot about the people in Limol, their histories, their families.  On Feb 22, we set off for Kapal in the 40HP community dinghy. No goodbye feast this trip, save a delicious fish and rice meal at Wagiba’s the night before. My send-off was happy and quick. Plenty of hand shaking, and picture snapping before we were off racing down Taolang road to get started in the dinghy before it got too hot. We made it to Kapal in record time - the huge engine sucked up 15L of fuel.  Once in Kapal, I mostly hid in my room away from the constant...

Greetings from Daru, where three outbreaks are raging (if you don’t count poverty): typhoid, dry cough, and the flu. I caught the flu immediately (not sure what that says about my immune system) and spent yesterday throwing up while out shopping in the 40 degree heat. Definitely not my most pleasant trip to Daru. But I spent the rest of the day sleeping and I’m feeling better now. I enjoyed my flights from Canberra to Daru. I was carrying Nick’s grey pelican briefcase with my recording equipment in it and I got a lot of curious looks. One woman took my picture then came up to me to say that she sent it to her son saying “this is what you could be doing if you finished your science degree!” I liked being perceived as a scientist! Even if it took a briefcase to prove it.  I met some nice people while in Daru: a university professor in food science who’s here doing inspections and a man from Balimo who was visiting to settle a land dispute were both staying at Tobest as well. Many Lim...