What a great weekend. Got some chores done, spent some good family time.
Saturday visited a new friend and had a bit of vehicular adventure. Check this blog to see what I mean. Wacky photo!
Then, later that evening some friends carrying 10 passengers got stranded after dark about an hour away from centre. We loaded up and mounted a rescue mission and went out and got them. Driving after dark isn't always the safest idea around here so we almost never do it. Still an interesting comment...
After we arrived and I got out of the vehicle, 6 Papua New Guinean men there to help stepped back a few steps and huddled together. Obviously surprised by my size and presence and you heard words like "bikpela" and "traipela".
Many of you have probably never experienced this before, but it happens to me a lot. When people are not expecting a man of large size, they tend to betray their surprise when they discover one.
Sometimes in a store someone will bump into me, turn, and then shudder in surprise. Flinching is often a reaction, large eyes, definitely the long upward glance. I've even found cowering... or a sort of.. putting arms up and stepping back motion sometimes occurs. Giggling, hiding, running away, crying all of these things happen to me depending on who is doing the reaction.
But Saturday 6 men backing off and huddling together and murmuring was definitely a new reaction. Definitely the type of reaction you're going for when you're playing the role of rescuer, protector. They sized me up and I sized them up and we both seemed to recognize that we were each there to help not harm. Still they didn't talk directly to me, or look at me eye to eye.
We got the whole crew back safely.
Sunday on a whim I made an outside oven to go over a makeshift fire pit. a 55 gallon drum converted into a pizza oven rather nicely with the help of some used rabbit wire and some metal roofing scraps. We cooked pizza over it... not exactly a successful first try, as I scorched most of the dough, but the oven idea has promise.
