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...

I’m sitting in the domestic terminal in Port Moresby’s airport and now that the last trace of internet and FaceTime are gone, I feel like I’ve finally embarked on my fourth field trip to Limol.  Many aspects of this trip are different than the three that came before. First, I’m traveling alone, which has its pros and cons. I’m looking forward to being more immersed in the community without my Western culture anchors that have kept me afloat the last two years. But I also know that these trips have a huge emotional and physical toll and I will miss the comfort, advice, and laughter that my friends brought me. Second, this will be my longest trip yet. I don’t have tickets to come out yet, but I expect to leave at the beginning of June, which will hopefully come after the annual yam harvest. That’s at least five months in the village! Enough time I hope to become conversationally fluent and to have a solid start on an Ende grammar. A is worried about me on both accounts, but I’m not t...

Wow, very hot 5k today! Even though I waited until the heat broke, it was a tough run. I found a trail around the back of the hotel that had a long steep hill (about 5 floors), that I ran up and over, then back over, 5 times. The sunset on the top made all the climbs worth it and I was much less center of attention, only saw a few other ex-pats walking the trail and a few kids.  Today was a really great day. Grace and I had a buffet breakfast and morning chat. The food here incredibly expensive so we were being sneaky, with me paying for the buffet and bringing out a nice big plate for us to share. We weren't sneaky enough though because one of the waiters came up to me and said "It's okay if your daughter eats your food too." I, of course, laughed and the guy got very embarrassed and said he was sorry. He brought us heaps of food to the table and Grace messed with him by calling me Mom in front of him. We suspect it's the height difference and the matching shoes....

First run in Papua New Guinea today! And wow, what a day. I feel like my run was a good metaphor for the past day: difficult, overwhelming, attention-grabbing, and led me to somewhere beautiful. Lauren, Grace, and I are at the Gateway Hotel right near the Port Moresby airport. We all flew in this morning from Brisbane (we flew out of Cairns at 6:30) and while it wasn't perfect (we had quite a few issues with bags, including one lost solar panel, and a scare at customs when they nearly didn't let me through), it was a good journey.  I'm just so grateful for Penny for driving us in so early, for Lauren who is fitting in to the team so easily, and for Grace who is amazing as always. She's brought up plans to help the village really excel at chicken farming - so exciting! Running around the hotel wasn't great and I stopped early. Lots of people commenting at me, but nicely. Just too much attention. Plus it is really hot here, about 90 degrees! Cooled off by swimming aro...