from Email of December 16
After
weeks of being on orientation in Lae, I am back at Senior Flierl
Seminary and my laptop. I hope I will be more consistently successful
in sending email - I had two failure after the one letter sent.
My
last week was spent meeting important people in the ELC-PNG -
Evangelical Lutheran Church in Papua New Guinea. They are now my
bosses. It
was fun to meet most people, though a few visits were rather
perfunctory. It is an odd feeling to be an "honored guest" much of the
time. I met many people such as the President (what we would call
Presiding Bishop) when I can't get Bishops to return my phone call in
the U.S. I most enjoyed talking with the head of the Woman's program
and the coordinator for the HIV/AIDS program. Interestingly the HIV
program is focused on prevention and is in the Evangelism Department
instead of with Lutheran Health. The Lutheran Health service runs many
hospitals and is a major player in health care in PNG. This reminds me
of Tanzania.
Last
Thursday I returned aboard the 3 times a week ferry. It is definitely
larger than one of the "banana boats" that I took to get to Lae.
Unfortunately for me, this means the ferry goes out into the open sea
instead of hugging the coast line. I was seasick for the first time in
my life. I definitely won't eat so much breakfast next time. :-)
I
continue to realize how much I stand out as a "whiteskin". It feels
odd for it to be assumed that I am an rich, and even odder to realize
that in PNG I am among the rich. For example, I did a major grocery
shopping for meat at one of the upper end
grocery stores. (Since little meat is available in the Finschhaven
area we can freeze meat at the Lutheran Guest House and take it back in a
cooler). After I checked out I stood in the parking lot waiting for
the driver to come. A security guard stood near me to make sure no
thieves grabbed a box from me. I almost started telling him that he
didn't have to, but realized that I had spent what some people earn several months. Crime is a particular problem in Lae, as people have drifted
into the city from the country side and without their usual social
support. Here in the Finschhaven area most people still live in
villages. While life doesn't have western style luxuries, everyone has
enough to eat.
It
continues to stay light later as we head into summer. Fortunately it
hasn't gotten much hotter. I think I am making some adjustment to the
heat. It is still strange to me for the seminary to be winding down for
the summer, with graduation on Dec. 5. I am still getting my head
around the idea that it is getting close to Christmas. Most of the
students and staff leave to be with family, so it will be a quiet
Christmas around here.
