going Dark

Sorry I've been less than communicative lately. The days fly by. I find that while I committed to myself to take more photos and videos to share to everyone, that I haven't done much of it at all.

My job is very busy, and I find I end up crashing on the weekends to prep for the coming week. We've found some new technology (a sim card wireless router the Global Surfer III) which is proving to be very handy here for the translators.

I'm still trying to get Buka online.
Send a couple out to the village last week with a radio setup, we spent a day on that, but when they arrived they found someone had stolen their solar panels. So they used plan B (a netbook with a cell phone modem dongle (huawei) ). They had almost no power because of the loss of solar panels, so the netbook was helpful to them.

I'm finding that the day to day work of running this place is becoming far too overwhelming. More people are returning with more gadgets and more needs and we simply can't keep up with the demand. We lost a good couple of workers not long ago, and are looking to lose a few more.

So Feb/March/April/May is going to be my 'dark' quarter. I will be overworked to the point of being unable to spend a lot of time blogging.

We have REALLY enjoyed the christmas cards/letters/facebook notes we've received. IT helps to know we haven't been forgotten.

Let's see. What's on this week:
-managing the network/helpdesk team
-planning youth events
-trying to restore 2 satellite connections that are down
-terminating a fibre run to a partnering bible translation organization (proving difficult)
-spending time with my kids (last sat played mud football in the rain, WAS FUN!)
-welcoming back friends
-bible study
-in spare time I'm working up a web site for an idea I have that might prove to be helpful to the community. I'm not a web master so I'm finding the project educational.
-twice a month our band gets together to practice. We have a fiddle, mandolin guitars, and my banjo now.. so we're getting a nice folksy sound going.

I know.. what kind of geek works all day at computers and then comes home to work at a computer? Well not me usually... usually I unwind by playing some music or playing a game or watching a show. But from time to time I get these ideas that I think would help the people living here, and I go for it until it turns out to be a good or a bad idea.

The good ideas often mean more work for me.... (-;

Anyway, the summary is... I'm tired. Work is transitioning to more of a managerial role which is taxing to me. I enjoy the interpersonal portion of it, but the amount of paperwork is overwhelming (at least at first).

I'm thankful to be here and doing work, and that I get to say even on the 'hard' days, that it's all a sacrifice of worship.

I sure do like that.

Back in the U.S. if I had a bad day, I had to drive home in congested traffic, in the city, and get home and grouse about the bad day I had.

Here, I have a bad day, go outside, see this beautiful country, get home and instead of grousing, I think 'when I have bad days, if I can handle it with a good attitude it's a sacrifice of worship to God'.

Knowing that God appreciates even the efforts that yield very little (at least for that day)... is enough to keep you going.

IF you want to pray,
pray that all our 'down' connections come online... specifically
BTA
BUKA
AITAPE

we need to get these places online quickly because we don't have the resources to be spending hundreds of man hours on it. We're coming to the end of the rope on these projects rather quickly.

thank you!

VBS

Every year Kendal and the kids help with a local version of Vacation Bible School. Kendal this year is in charge of the administrative tasks (registration, name tags, organizing groups, etc). Both kids are student leaders and helping out with small group activities.

It's a lot of work for a week, but it is very rewarding.

from the creator of the VBS here:

Thank you Kendal. About 60 kids were counselled for salvation today. Thanks again for your great organizational skills!

One fun thing Kendal told me this week was that she had three unique names:
Bathsheba and Rahab were two girls, obviously named from the Bible but we're not sure if the kids folks knew who those people were in the Bible and then, a boy named Debbie.

We often find the PNG naming practices confusing but interesting.

At first site it seems like something you can sort of chuckle about, something getting lost in translation. But deeper insite makes you realize that while these folks obviously read some part of the Bible, they didn't quite fully understand something about it.

That's what happens when you want to read the Bible but it's not in your heart language. You don't fully understand what is going on, you don't fully grasp the truth until it's in your language.

This week's VBS is about getting God's Word communicated to children. Often as translators we focus on the adults, because they are the ones with the full grasp of the language. But VBS is just for kids.

Another interesting fact. This VBS is for kids ages 5 to 8th grade. But on the first day they allow everyone in. WHY?

Because when word of there being fun training, Godly teaching for kids gets out, people come from long distances, all the nearby villages and further, and when they arrive they find out "oh high schoolers can't come? Our babies can't come?..but we came this far from the village?" And so on the first day, everyone is allowed.

Of course no one gets turned away, but VBS isn't a daycare or a preschool, it's meant to lead children down the path of salvation. So the rules are put forth with the hopes that a majority of people will follow them. And for the most part they do. But the response is overwhelming... hundreds of kids come.

Workplay

Saturday we helped one of our friends do some tear down. Another side ministry is the care of our single friends. Well really the care of all friends. Sometimes there is (pardon the sexism) "man work" that needs to be done. This time that work turned into fun. Our friend Donna is a single lady that seems to always find a way to turn work into fun. What's better than tearing down a building? Doing it with the community.

Making work fun

Our neighbor and friend threw an 'epiphany party'. I've never heard of this. She's a history teacher and one of my daughters favorites so we are always learning interesting new things

As a community we also tore down a rotting tree house and then turned it into a bonfire.

I brought my sledge hammer and had some fun.

We drank wassail. We ate 'damper'. It's an Aussie tradition of bread on a stick that you roast over the fire.

Epiphany is also called 'three kings day'.

Lightning

I didn't take this image, I wish I had. I seem to have plenty of opportunity to snap photos of lightning and never actually get one.

We were out in the valley with some of our PNG friends, supporting them with a visit and we saw a huge lightning storm off in the distance (towards our home). It's really a remarkable thing to be outside in the rain, on a plain, watching lightning strike the hill tops.

Lightning and electronics don't mix.
One time in 1990 we had a thunderstorm that killed our PABX (telephone switch) and left us down for 4 days.

This last thunderstorm did a little bit of damage as well, it took out a few telephones.

But the biggest damage, was a friend of ours whom I work with, was at home, in their living room when their house was hit with a bolt of lightning.

She said 'the entire living room lit up and it was like a bomb went off in our house' She is a really great christian Papua New Guinean lady named Lucy, and she has been working for my department while trying to find work closer to where her husband lives.

She said 'there was no hole in the roof, but the floor had a huge hole in it'.

Thank God they were all okay. What a thing! To have lightning hit your house, while you were home, right in the middle of your family... and no one get hurt!

Praise to God for protecting her family.

the game

imagine my morning.
I spliced fibre at 9:30am, finished by lunch, then headed to a friend's rugby game. There was a moment when I was standing in pouring down rain, crowded shoulder to shoulder by hundreds of papua new guineans, trying to get protection under the brim of my hat... watching a rugby game in the mud and the rain... under the rim of a hut.. (haus win)... and I was sitting next to my son.

And I was thinking... 'this is like taking your son to a ball game, but it's so much different'.

In the distance lightning was striking the hill tops, and thunder was ominous... and it was such an amazing surreal moment.

I'm doing this. With my son. We've come this way, through the mud, got lost a bit on the way, were treated like visiting royalty, escorted to a nice chair, watched 2 rugby games and a women's soccer game.

Got treated to PNG's version of clowns. (I can't post the pics as the men wore nearly nothing).

And saw a friend win the game.

It was truly an odd, not-quite-like our home country sporting event, but totally awesome.

leaving the game

leaving the game was treacherous. It was fortnight so a lot of drunk people on the road. The road was slick because of the new rain, AND it was downhill and rutty, and people all over. The truck in front of us got sideways and slid off the road, but the young men all around, simply began pushing and slipping and pushing and made it up. We made it with no problem, a little slipping but that was just for fun. (-;

rugby game

the Sat Saga

The Sat Saga
Nearly a two years ago, I was on the verge of deciding what my latest tech challenge might be. I decided that a skill around here that would be useful, would be to learn about satellite reception. The high school typically had received a free-to-air australian channel, but then one day all stopped working after a lightning storm.
The electronic engineer working on the dish came to me and said 'Chad, I think I've fixed this but without a dish to plug into, I can't make it work, and the high school configuration is too confusing, too many pieces of equipment, I can't be sure which is failing.'
So I decided to get involved. I asked the school to tell me everything they knew about the satellite configuration. What bird it was pointed at, what type of lnb they had, etc. They had no idea.
Okay... so how does a guy like me, knowing almost nothing about satellites figure it out?
By reading, joining internet forums, playing around with the equipment etc.
So I think I've got a decent understanding of Free-To-Air Cband and KU band satellites. About the easiest beginner level stuff. I get there and I find 2 dishes, 4 coax cables, and 2 sat receivers.
No one knows what satellite they're supposed to be pointing to, nor which dish is functional if not both.
So, I give it a try.
On the first visit I find 1 dish has been knocked over in a storm, which tore a huge hole in the roof. ( Oh yeah, it's mounted up on the roof. Our roofs are shiny tin, so tuning a dish is like sun bathing in a tanning salon) was that the functional dish? We decided to remove it, and make 1 good mast. So we do.
Now I have 1 dish, and I have to guess where to aim it. I notice a dual lnb, one looks to be C-band so I guess, given the direction it's pointing, that it's probably intelsat8 (pas8). But I can't tune it.
Visit 2 - a month later (because I'm doing this on my free Saturdays since it isn't work related). I'm convinced I have it tuned right, but still getting no signal. Trace the coax and find it just dies in the roof somewhere.... okay...
Visit 3 - several months later, by this time the school is tired of opening the door and letting me in only to sit around for hours while I tinker. We decide that we have no signal, and can't tell if it's the receiver, or the cable, or the lnb. WE simply don't know what equipment is good. We declare to give up. Do they REALLY need news channels?
Furlough.
Return from Furlough.
Get VSAT training. Install a few VSAT dishes. The self-training on the satellite tv stuff came in very valuable here. Suddenly I'm more confident and I have an idea. I had purchased a $9.00 analog sat finder tool, and had downloaded a few sat finder apps onto my iphone. I decide to give it one last try.
So today I get up on the roof, because it's the first sunny day in a while. I bring a monitor, the tuner, my two sat finder tools, and my wrenches. Very sunny day, I might get a sunburn.
When I plug in my tools to the dish, bingo I have signal... I KNEW I tuned it right... I did the math right. NICE!!! So I tweak it a bit to get max signal. And then I play with the receiver.
After 1 hour, I have a tv channel. I'm very excited, but I'm up on the roof and the sky is turning grey.
In december alone, we got 11 inches of rain. 2 days ago, we got 3 inches of rain. So yeah, I'm pretty sure it's about to start raining. How ironic would it be, to be doing this off an on for over a year, only to get a signal and then have water destroy the equipment?
So I hurry down, plug it all back in, NO SIGNAL!!!!
AHA!!!
I troubleshoot coax cables, video cables, finally I find the combination of things that were wired wrong, and I re-configure the receiver to the correct transponder signal and polarization.
BOOM.... AUSTRALIAN NEWS, and BBC come online.
I have an enormous sense of accomplishment now. I stuck with this puzzle, this detective work troubleshooting thing, where I knew very little, and finally it's working. I feel good about that.
And then I ask myself 'is getting the T.V. turned on all that important?"
Here's the answer from a friend:
"When 9/11 happened, everyone here felt so disconnected. As if it was a dream, a horrible nightmare that we were so far from. We would all huddle together at the high school and turn on the television because it was the one place we could get news. We saw pictures of the World Trade Center and were flabbergasted. We were very thankful that we had that 1 television on center to get information from."

I would not have thought 2 years ago, that my growing interest in satellite technology would have allowed me to get 3 regional centres online, and a news channel on at the high school. I am feeling pretty good about that right now.

Here's a note I got from one of the directors here:

Dear Chad,

I want to thank you for all the sacrifices you have made to help bring the "Good News" of Jesus Christ to the people of Papua New Guinea. Chad, your service as the IT Manager helps keep people connected and has allowed language workers to focus more on their work. Because of your support of Bible translation, you have helped six people groups receive the New Testament in their tok ples this year alone.

Thank you also for all the other ways you serve our community. We all depend on each other.

It's time like this when I think 'wow God, you fashioned me this way, taught me these skills, gave me this attitude of total obsessive desire to solve technical puzzles, and you let me serve you in ways I never could have predicted, you use skills I never thought could be used to serve you, and you use them to server you.... you are AWESOME'

Christmas in PNG

I've been asked, "What is Christmas like in PNG?"

The answer is a long one. I'll try and divide it up.
It's definitely not like in the states. The entire country celebrates it, but there is not a lot of commercialism or hype. It's very simple. It's a time for people to come together and enjoy each other. Take a break from work.

It's not really about the food. Turkey is pricey and not at all flavorful. The food is homemade. The ex-pats typically celebrate similar to how they did as kids, although most christmas trees are fake, because we don't have tree farms here, so they are brought from home.

Gifts under the tree are usually not as plentiful as back in the states, but we've not found that to be a bad thing. Our family makes a point to send gifts each year, and that's nice. We also find ways to plan years ahead and buy gifts and have them shipped for the kids.

Most couples don't give gifts to each other, it saves money, plus, unless there is something really special, the gifts aren't extravagant. For example, last time, my wife gave me a six pack of Dr. Pepper. Which at $1.25 a can was pricey, but also a very special gift because I hadn't had REAL Dr. Pepper in a while. In fact drinking soda is a rarity here because of the expense.

The nationals and the ex-pats often come together (bung pronounced boong), in some sort of celebratory way. The picture above is a mumu. A traditional feast of potatoes and pork or chicken, and talking.

Relationships are key here. So getting together for no reason at all and talking is highly valued. Christmas break allows time for that. Dropping in on someone, sitting down and simply talking about anything and everything.

It resembles Christmas back in the U.S. We have our traditions. We drive around to look at lights, but with so few houses here, and power at a premium, there are few families who light up their homes. And when we do, it's often very simple. Although I have been tempted to look into the technology like "light-o-rama" that synchronizes lights with music.... that sort of fanfare is not really seen here.

We celebrate with many church services and worship services. Usually around this time of year you can go to at least 2 or 3 different services on the weekends up until the new year.

We celebrate boxing day as well (day after Christmas) which is more casual and relaxed.

All in all, it is more about Christ here than gifts, more about people than events. We share goodies, Kendal makes cookies and pies, and we simply come together and enjoy each other.

Jigsaw puzzles are put together, board games are played, songs are sun, the Christmas story from Luke is read several times, advent is observed, candles are lit.

It's a time for me and my family of closeness, appreciating the gift God gave us. Thankful for the gifts others have given us, enjoying the beauty of God's creation, and taking a short break from work to accomplish other things that are valuable as well.

I think you would enjoy it for it's simplicity and calm.

The flipside of that coin is that the kids end up saying 'I'm bored' a few too many times near the end of the break. But as a result, they really enjoy and look forward to the little things.

The differences are subtle, and perhaps not that different than how you celebrate. It is always a joy to be back in the U.S. for Christmas because of the delight in how everything is decorated and festive. But it is also nice to be here, because of that rainy, calm feeling that is almost the opposite of the stress and excitement feeling in the U.S.

In that way, Christmas isn't just for kids anymore.... big or little ones. Adults can enjoy the relaxation. I know in the states, me, the dad, was always loading stuff into the car, driving here and there, and then loading back up and driving here or there, with exhausted kids. That doesn't happen any more, all your neighbors are within 5 minutes walk.

This way of celebrating may appeal to some, if it does, come visit us!! But be warned, we'll put you to work! (-;

Merry Christmas from PNG!

Evolution of Technology Use

Someone asked me a good question about my last blog post. 'Why is this a problem this year and not previous years?"

more new people = more people who are used to "always on" internet
higher res equipment, newer cameras, smartphones, laptops, all are now assuming you live in a place with always on, high speed internet. Even though, several ISP's across the world still charge Per MB.

More and more technology is geared towards using more internet access, and it is harder to retrain the folks that come from fast 'always on' internet.

One of the places we use to train our 'new recruits' is called Pacific Orientation Course (aka jungle camp). It is an emmersive course which teaches language, culture, food, environment and survival skills in the village. Until recently it also had the added side effect of cutting people off from technology. No television (people overcame by watching dvd's on their laptop when hard pressed), no internet (people used modems if the phones were working), but all in all, you really do get disconnected or 'unplugged'. As a result, you begin to feel rather isolated if you're from the Facebook/Twitter generation. The isolation works in your favor, because when you finally get through the training, and arrive here on this network.... it won't seem 'slow' to you anymore it'll seem fast. BUT alas, recently with new improvements, that adaptation hasn't happened.

Fewer people know how to operate in a low bandwidth environment. And there really isn't that much training for it, other than what we have posted online for people to read, and the occasional training sessions we might conduct. It's counter intuitive and people without computer skills really don't want to be bothered with learning how to make their computer go against it's nature.

6 years ago:
-during jungle training camp there was no internet access, no way to communicate from the village (not even hf radio because new-arrivals hadn't been set up yet)

5 years ago:
-during jungle training camp there was modem access, which was at 56k, and we had 2 hours to share daily among 20 people, so you downloaded email, read it at night, replied, then uploaded the next day. If someone in the village got sick during training, the trainers scheduled a mid-stay visit to be sure you weren't dying of denghe fever.

3 years ago:
-there was modem access and people had cell phones in the village, so they could call when they got sick, and then get pulled out.

2 year ago:
-there was modem access and people had cell phones with digital EDGE subscriptions and could get internet access that way

1 year ago:
-there was usb EDGE modems and everyone plugged one into their laptop, no sharing, no more 56k modem.

Today:
-there is a 5.8ghz Wireless N bridge link with high gain polarized antenna, at 11mb per/sec supplying all of the camp with internet.


Why this evolution?
Because the technological demands of how we do work is increasing. As you can see, we're at a point now where people don't have a huge technology culture shock when they get here, and as such never get the training on how to survive in a low bandwidth world, even though, relatively we're still low bandwidth.

EMAIL fury

This is gonna be geeky. But let me weave you a tale of how Christmas newsletters can down your internet connection much like a Denial of Service attack.

First you have to have hundreds of people sending newsletters larger than 4mb each, to hundreds of people.

Missionaries have to stay in communication with their support base, so they send out newsletters. None so popular as the Christmas newsletter, often filled with pictures and longer than usual. Everyone is familiar with a family Christmas letter. Well missionaries are no different.

THEN add to that, the fact that missionaries move all over the world. That means email gets forwarded.

THEN add to that, that people SEND newsletters to missionaries who love to read them.

And you get a lot of email activity.
Couple that with a slow internet connection, dash on a little 'we all decided to send it on the same day' and bingo... NETWORK NIGHTMARE.

So, last night I realized the network was slowing down, our up(tx) bandwidth was 100% utilized because we were sending out newsletters.... hundreds and hundreds of large emails.

BUT THEN also our down(rx) bandwidth was slow because of the way satellite works when up(tx) is 100% pegged.

Our email servers weren't pegged, I have divided them up enough with their respective responsibilities and networks, and have even put a packeteer in place to prioritize the right traffic weight so that work can get through.

The trick is, that when vsat is pegged in either direction, the other suffers. But, also people sending out these emails sent to people NOT here which invokes forwarding.

So...
You're in the U.S., you send me a newsletter at my email here, but I'm in Africa at the time, so it comes INTO my server over my satellite link which says 'hey, he's in Africa,' then it goes BACK out the same link.

If that email is 10mb huge, then suddenly my email servers and internet link just had to process a whole lot of data for someone who wasn't even here.

And that is what has happened over the last 12 hours.
A perfect email storm of email going, coming, coming then going, and all of it killing our network link so that no work can get done.

Now... call me the Grinch, because I had to deliver the sad news that I had to delete the sending of newsletters from the offending parties that sent hundreds of very largehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif emails out at the same time.

I didn't want to have to do it, but I had to find a way to clear things up so we could get priority information through.

So if you're expecting a newsletter from someone you support, and you don't get it... you CAN blame the responsible network administrator...

or you can kindly wait for it to come late, and be understanding of resends. And if you really want you can send them this link (but don't send the email until after Christmas (-;


HOW TO KEEP YOUR EMAIL SMALL

That data is GONE bro....

Today I did some housecleaning. I took an old server that we had since virtualized this year and powered off. As I was going through installed programs, and I found this.

It gave me a good laugh. I guess no one uninstalled the application, and then it just sat there.

2521 Days ago... yeah that data is GONE.

Hmmn, but it made me think, where was I on Jan 24,2005 (2521 days ago)

I had been to PNG for the first time, only a couple months before, October 2004. I was working at Cisco. I wasn't considering coming to PNG full time, in fact I enjoyed the trip but was convinced I would never return.

Wow, that was a long time ago... yup that data is lost, NEVER EVER apparently has an expiration date. (-;

rant on Exchange

I have never liked the Exchange mail server. I learned email servers from one of the originators of Sendmail. Sendmail has it's problems. I enjoyed Qmail. I even enjoyed Postfix, I have generally enjoyed most unix based mail servers because although confusing to some, the puzzle pieces make sense in my mind.

But Exchange is a different beast.

I've been doing this job for nearly 5 years now and in that time I have upgraded Exchange 3 times.

EACH time I have become convinced that the newer version is WORSE than the previous.

Exchange 2010 is losing it's GUI-ness and going more command line. So, it was with the experience of knowing that moving to Exchange 2007 with 2003 was wrought with bugs and problems, that we very carefully went to 2010.

While the gui on 2010 looks very similiar, the under workings are very different and so when someone from the helpdesk came to me and said,

"our imap clients can't send email" I thought 'it's probably some super secret hidden command line somewhere that says 'make sending mail work for Imap clients'.

After hours of experimentation and searching, I found it. YUP... there's a super secret command line for imap clients only, to be able to send mail.

THANKS Microsoft. I really needed to waste 5 hours of my life. Why wasn't that in the training I took? Why wasn't it in the documentation? Why wasn't it in the gui? What were you thinking?

I know what they were thinking. See this super secret command line isn't needed if you're running microsoft products only. But we support Mac's and Linux boxes which run non-microsoft email clients. And so they use imap, and so, it didn't work. Outlook in imap mode works great.

Our department may quickly be switching away from microsoft products simply because of the cost involved. I'm looking forward to that day. If you want, you can pray that God sends us the right staff who understand unix enough to be able to maintain unix servers.

Mumu 2

Mumu

Christmas 2011

The Christmas Party

In our department we have several ex-pat (whiteskin) workers and more PNG workers than that. Each year we have budgetted to have a little get together for

christmas. The aim of that budget is to have enough money to have some cake, sit together and grow together as a team and celebrate Christ's birth. But

the proper way to celebrate has been elusive to us over the past 5 years or so. Previous management has tried various things. Some years we have had a

small party over banana bread (sweet kai), some years we have purchased rice and sugar and gifted the PNG employees (as a Christmas bonus instead of a

party), but neither of these things really help the team to come together. It is important in PNG culture to share celebrations. Working side by side

isn't enough to form lasting relationships. Last year our well meaning department manager thought he'd surprise everyone with a nice breakfast at his

house. It was a great idea, but the PNG employees disliked it greatly. We're not 100% why.

This year we have an acting department manager. He decided to give the employees the options before them.

It's important to know that between last year and this year, there was a 1 week training for all PNG staff on centre to learn a little more about ex-pat

culture. Many of us coming here have received cultural training and have tried to adapt and not make huge mistakes, but still, we do things that seem odd

to Papua New Guineans. Odd in such a way that we may have caused insult which harmed relationship building without even knowing it. So keep in mind, that

they have had their eyes open to how we operate and live.

The idea of financial support has eluded some. The idea that we volunteer to uproot our lives to come here because we want to help is not entirely grasped.

A lot of ex-pats come to this country to harvest it's resources, we come to provide a resource that will last.

So given that this year has been a remarkable shift towards really developing relationships.... we should not have been as surprised as we were to have our

PNG employees come to us and say

"we want to throw you a mumu."

A mumu is celebratory feast. It is a lot of work to prepare, as a cooking pit must be dug, food donated and gathered from gardens, a pig killed. In PNG

culture, when a pig is killed, it is a significant event. It shows that the occasion has a special meaning.

But, we didn't have enough money in the budget for anything more than buying a pig.

This is where THIS Christmas story begins.

The employees said 'the pig is important, we will donate food from our gardens, we will also donate 20 kina each, and we want everyone to bring their

families'

?!?!?!

WOW. Such hospitality is not unusual here. They even got together and wrote a letter from which I'll quote:

"We feel that this time together will signify Christ's birth and strengthen relationships within the departmen. As you will learn over time, Papua New

Guineans are relationship orientated people and this will definitely mean a lot to us. We extend our invitation to our Expat Brothers who are working in

CTS to attend this mumu to show as a team we have stood together this year 2011"

What started out as a "how are we going to accomplish the department party and grow relationships without angering the staff" turned into the staff honoring

our desires, and not only GIVING to the cause, but doing so with hospitality and cheer. How does this type of thing turn around like that?

Very simply put, God is at work in our lives.
Our department manager put it out there, was willing to take their guidance, and they responded.

I am excited as we will partake of this mumu today. My son and I went to help kill the pig, and learned that in the highlands they kill the pig differently

than in the coastal area. They take a blunt axe to the crown of it's skull. Then they bath it in boiling water to shave the hair off, because they don't

skin the pig, they leave the skin on when it cooks.

I asked a friend what the best part was, he said 'the spine'. In PNG, the best piece of the pig, often has no meat. Often it's a piece of skin covered,

hairy fat. And often as an ex-pat they will offer this 'best piece' to you to eat.

So what do you do in that situation? I personally have given it to my son, who seems to enjoy that part of their culture.

The other day the high school vice-principal said "I was in my office and I heard a young voice speaking perfect tok pisin and I thought, 'who is that

student'. And he stepped out of his office and my daughter was talking to the office staff. He was impressed with her Tok Pisin.

Two days ago I heard my son teaching a line of PNG boys and girls how to play a ball game in tok pisin. For him it's important to do proper training and

rules before the game begins, so he was explaining the rules to them. They all looked on at him and listened, and fully understood him as he fluently spoke

to them about boundaries and outs, and fouls, etc.

This Christmas I'm thankful for the changes God makes in our lives and in the lives of people around us. I see a significant difference this Christmas in

the way we interact with our PNG friends and the relationships seem deeper.


I learned a lot today. It wasn't my first mumu, but it was perhaps the one I was closest to. Apparently, the thrower of the mumu mounts the pig head in front of their house as a way to declare 'I have killed this many pigs'. Also traditionally whoever keeps the head, throws the next mumu.

This mumu we sang praise songs, read Luke 2 in Tok Pisin and honored each other by giving certificates for time with CTS as well as doling out portions of the pig. This is a sign of honor and respejavascript:void(0)ct and appreciation. Even I was given a section of the cooked pig, having been here nearly 5 years.

It was a good day.
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Mumu prep

Dig a pit. Check
Gather banana leaves. Check
Stones for heating. Check
Killed the pig. Check
Got all the ladies together to peel taro and Kaukau and banana kuk? Check

Mumu time

Our png coworkers are treating us to a Christmas Mumu. Today we observed the killing of the pig

7.3 in PNG

I was in the middle of troubleshooting my email servers when a long violent quake hit. Don't know the stats yet, but guessing it was in the 6's.

Possibly the most violent quake we've had here, and I recalled from years ago that a big quake made the server room racks jostle... so instinctively I dashed to the server room, and pressed my feet against the door jamb and my arms against the server racks.

My co-worker caught a clip of it, but by then it was rather calm, those racks were all over the place, until I stopped them.

At one point there was a big 'boom', and I ducked, but it turned out to be a loose floorboard that went.

Someone asked me "at what point do you say 'leave the servers and protect yourself?' and I replied "I suppose when something hits me in the head." Nothing did.

I can survive a scrape or two, but damaged servers will mean days of work for me....

Of course at home all was well, some paper spilled on the floor.

The biggest damage risk is a fallen power line, or a burst water tank uphill from you. Thus far, no reports of bad damage have come in.

I'm from California. I've been near the Loma Prieta 6.9 in October of 1991, the Eastridge 7.0, and now the PNG 7.3 in the Eastern Highlands, and let me tell you, I prefer the PNG 7.3 to the California 6.9 WOW what a huge difference. The land didn't split here, buildings didn't topple. My servers started rocking, some paper fell on the floor, and that was it.

I went outside to hear two men, their hair now white, who have been here well over 2 decades and said 'that was the strongest one I've ever felt here.'.

So, for those wishing to come here, not from quake country. Yes we have quakes. We don't have big animals of prey. (nothing larger than a small dog) We don't have tornadoes. We have rain, quakes. If you're from California, come on over, the quakes are docile here!


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Quakes/usc00076e5.php