Other work I've been doing

Since managing the kitchen does not take a lot of time, I have been doing some other jobs too while I have been here.

One was gathering information about the work that is happening here and writing it in a presentable format with photos, to make a website for internal use only. There isn't much info about Bougainville in Ukarumpa, but they need more people to come and work at Bougainville, however if there isn't anything way for people to learn about Bougainville, then it probably won't even get on their radar screen. Hopefully what I have prepared will get up and running and people in Ukarumpa will be a bit more in touch with the work in Bougainville.

Another thing that I have been doing is recording interviews with Bougainvilleans who are involved in translation here. I was asking them questions such as "Why did you get involved in Bible translation?", "How have people in the community responded when they heard God's word in their own language?" and "Why do you need a translation into the local language?" The most common response to the last question was that God's Word is so much clearer when it is in their own language.

I have started typing up some of the interviews and some of the things that the people said will probably be used to promote the work of Bible translation and get other people excited about it.

Tomorrow I am going to visit the Hakö language area and will be staying there for two nights, returning on Monday. Then I leave Buka on Wednesday, have two nights in Port Moresby and then go to Melbourne! In exactly a week I will be there. How exciting! I love it here in Bougainville too though. It's a great place and I will be sad to leave, but I am happy about visiting Melbourne too.

Buka town and market

For the past three weeks I have been the kitchen manager for the Centre here while we have people attending meetings and workshops. Now the last course is winding up at the end of the week. A large part of my job was to drive to town with the two cooks, who do our market shopping, and I buy whatever food we need from the shops. We went to town three days a week to buy supplies for the kitchen (Monday, Wednesday and Friday). Today was our last trip into town for shopping.
 
Buka is a nice, basic little town and it is clean and tidy too (see picture above). There aren't many fancy Australian products in the stores, but they do have cheese sometimes. I bought a 250g block of Mainland cheese for myself the other day for about $5 (AUD), which I think is probably double what you would pay in Australia!
 
The market has fresh fruit and vegies, cream buns, banana chips, smoked fish and traditional tourist items (eg. shell necklaces, woven baskets). I don't know who their tourist market is though, as there aren't many overseas tourists here, but there are several aid organisations around who have expats working here.
 
I am thrilled that they have banana chips. These are made from savoury bananas and they salt them, so they are just like a regular packet of crisps (potato chips), except with bananas instead. I love them. They cost about 50c for a small bagful.
 
Most of the market is under a shelter, which you can see in the background two of the photos above. In these photos, you can see some outside sellers, and people buying peanuts.

Dinner time!

Here are some dinner time photos!
- People queuing up for their food
- Our two cooks serving meals
- Some men enjoying their dinner

Last week the people we were feeding were here for the Bougainville Bible Translators Fellowship's AGM and this week and next week, we have people attending a training course for mentors. These people mentor Bougainvillean language teams when they come here for translation training courses.

Blog Updates

Julie can't access email to update her blog just now, she will update as soon as she can.

As usual she gets her Dad to do help when there are problems. Bill MacKay 

Travel to and from Teop

In order to get to Teop from Buka, first you have to cross the Buka Passage, the water between Buka Island and Bougainville Island. As you can see from the photo, it is a pretty narrow passage, so it is just a couple of minutes on a little motor boat to get there.
 
After that, there is a two hour or longer trip on the back of a truck to get to the Teop area, and there was no shelters over the top on the trucks we travelled on, so we were exposed to the sun the whole time.
 
It's a bumpy two hour trip on dirt roads, sitting on hard wooden planks, squashed between two other people and with cargo at your feet. But it's not too bad and there are some nice mountain views. There were also some river crossings, some had good bridges, while at others, the truck just drove through them (the water wasn't high).
 
In the photos above, you will see me on the truck on the way to Teop, and a photo that I took of how packed in we were on our return trip. I think I counted about 42-44 people on the back of the truck.

Drove today

Today was the first time I've driven a car in a long time. I drove to town (Buka) and drove around to various shops there. It's a manual car and I took to it straight away, no stalling, but at first I wondered why the car wasn't moving, and then I realised that I hadn't turned the engine on!! I will be driving in to town on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays to do shopping for the kitchen during some meetings/courses over the next 3 weeks. There are a lot of unpredictable pedestrians around, so please pray that I will drive safely and be very alert. Watching for pedestrians today reminded me of the days when I had to watch for kangaroos that might run in front of the car! It's a similar sort of alertness.

Cute kids

Here are some photos of the kids around here. The one at the beach was taken when we were at the Teop area, and I took the other two photos at church this morning.