Welcome to Hiovabon!

Rebekah and I went to Hiovabon village on 9 October and stayed there until 25 October, when we went back to Buka town for three nights to unpack the items we shipped over and to purchase more supplies to take to the village too. We are returning to the village tomorrow morning and will stay for three weeks, then return to Buka for only two nights to catch up on email and purchase more supplies, and then we’ll return to the village again for another three weeks.

We are staying at Hiovabon village which is opposite Teop Island, while we wait for our house to be built on the island. The village is between the sea and the road; there’s probably only about 100m from the road to the water, so both are really close. The name of the village, ‘Hiovabon’, means ‘Sit until night’ and when you see the views, you can understand why it has that name. Here are some scenes from the village.

In this photo you can see the bench that people frequently sit on and enjoy the view with chatting with others. I usually call Mum and Dad while sitting at this bench. The beach is enjoyed by all, as you can see the old man resting on the bench here, and a village dog sleeping on the sand.

And yes, here’s me!

Stay tuned to my blog while I’m away, I’ve set up a few posts to come up automatically on certain dates.

Update and some photos

Rebekah and I are off to the village on Saturday! We went shopping and bought a lot of food to take with us so that we can prepare meals for ourselves. Our shopping trip was quite a success, with us getting almost everything that we needed.

We’ve also written some plans for language learning and a list of lots of different words that we could learn. I hope that we will be able to find people who are willing to really help us learn the language.

We have 9 weeks that we could be in the village, but we won’t stay for 9 weeks straight – we will stay for maybe 3 or 4 weeks, then return to Buka to restock on some food items, and probably do email, as we won’t have our computers in the village with us.

Rebekah and I have filled a crate and are shipping it to Buka. It has a lot of supplies that we would like to use in the village, so we want to return to Buka when it arrives, to unpack it and get some of those supplies. Then we will go back out to the village again. We don’t know when the crate will arrive in Buka, so that’s why we’re not sure when we will return to Buka, but if it hasn’t come in about 3 to 4 weeks, we will probably still go to Buka after 4 weeks in the village, just for a short break.

No more blog posts until I’m back in Buka for that short break!

Here are some photos of some kids that we saw as we were walking along the beach on the weekend.

Making sand-balls:

Having a good laugh:

Looking like a warrior:

Went to the beach today

Although the ocean is right in front of us, we can’t just walk out to the beach because there’s a big cliff there too! So we can look at the lovely view a lot but we can’t just go out and enjoy the water or the beach. It’s a short walk to where there are some trails that lead down to the beach.

Some friends and I went along a trail and walked along the beach today. Here are some photos:

The waves can be quite rough if you’re in there swimming.

I tried to take an artistic photo of my foot, but I don’t think it would win any acclaim other than me being called a ‘try-hard’!

Random photos

I don’t have a lot to write about, but they say that a picture is worth 1000 words, so here’s 3000 words for you, with 3 pictures. The thing they have in common is that they were all taken on the same day.

PNG Independence Day

Today was PNG Independence day. They have been independent for 35 years now. I went across the road to where there is a large grassy area and a small market. My main motivation for going was to visit the market, but I also wondered if there was any Independence Day celebrations happening – and there was!

I bought something to eat at the small market, and I stayed on to watch the dances and entertainment.

Here are some school girls doing a dance to music on a CD.

This is the bamboo band – bamboo and PVC pipes!

The crowd watching the dances.

If you scroll down and look at the side of my blog, you will see a link to New Dawn on Bougainville, it is a news website, and they have put up some photos of the Independence Day celebrations too.

Second hand shopping

I went second hand clothes shopping recently. There are a few second hand shops in town. This one (pictured) is really hot as the building has metal walls and roof. Here’s what it looks like inside:

The latest self-portrait photo:

I’m in Buka now!

I arrived in Buka on Thursday and have been settling in. The people who were taking me down to Lae for my flight to Buka cancelled due to sickness the day before, so I had a bit of stress to arrange new transport! I ended up chartering a bus.

On Thursday morning I was up early and we left Ukarumpa at 6.15am, arriving at Lae Airport at about 8.30am. I was a little bit concerned when they had told me that they would be getting petrol at Kainantu, near the start of the trip, but when we got there, the petrol station was closed, so I was wondering if we would have enough to make it, but they bought petrol at a roadside market that was selling it in large containers.

I arrived in Buka at around 1.40pm on Thursday. Yesterday I went into town and to the market. I was happy that they are selling cooked food again at the market, but they didn’t have my favourite – banana chips, so maybe they still aren’t allowed to sell them (the ban on cooked food was to prevent cholera).

It was rainy overnight last night and now it is very windy and not very hot. It’s 25 degrees in the house and the ceiling fans are making me cold, so I have my jacket on. I’d like to turn the fans off, but we have to have them on all the time, to prevent mould from the humidity.