Updates

have you ever wondered how we do our updates? You know I never did. Honestly before being in this situation I just kinda assumed that it was the same way that I would at home. that is how we often operate, that is in the mode of filling in the un-stated with what we know. For example I was hiking with our village to pay a bride price and eat a couple of pigs… That’s another story. So as we are walking I smell something rank! Well all of us are super sweaty from carrying a 500lbs pig that was strapped to 200lbs log. This combined with the fact that we had to sprint up and down hills made of clay… Hours after a monsoon, you know that expression “slicker than snot” well I think I would of said slicker then wd-40. Anyhow my point is we all stink. But they all knew that the smell was from a flower so they thought nothing of it. They must of saw my facial expressions because they started to laugh and explained to me that it was a flower. You see I did not know therefore I plugged in assumptions to bridge the gaps and I was wrong. But seriously it smelt like a rotting corpse and this flower is pretty awesome looking but man it stinks!

Okay so how am I updating? Well for updates like this we begin like any normal family would. We start by filling up water bottles and grabbing snacks. The kids prefer a local cracker called em nau. I prefer nothing since I feel the need to shed a few lbs along the waist line, really I am just tired of breaking the bamboo benches that I sit on. So after that Faye and myself get our hiking bags and phones. Karis feels her bag with books and Noah grabs his Legos. We then lock up the house and begin hiking through village to get to the main trail. This however can never be accomplished without stopping 15 times to explain where you came from and where you are going. From there it’s a mile hike through the jungle. I personally enjoy the hike as it is always a good reminder of how awesome it is that we get to live here.

So after about 30 minutes we have arrived to a clearing that allows us to get 4 bars of edge cell service. For those of you who don’t remember edge service then just think back to when we all had the razor phones and would unwittingly press some button that got us to something resembling the Internet. Well from there we park it for a while and do our updates from our phones and if were patient enough we will stay long enough to check emails and maybe even Facebook.

From there we turn around hike back a mile and hope it doesn’t rain. It really isn’t that different from doing it in America, if you were camping. Really the only thing that bothers me is the fact that while writing this post I have killed 15 mosquitos and brushed away 10 spiders from my arms and legs. Maybe I should leave the spiders and let them take care of the mosquitos.

Well this Wednesday we boat out to get our language consultants and we will be evaluated to see where we are at with the language. We’re feeling that we have progressed a bit but the more we speak the more we are finding out in regards to the complexity of the language. There is a similar language to the uneapa language called Vitu. They already have a translation so I was reading through the notes from the missionary in that location. He had noted that in that language the pronoun and verb structure is complex enough that what would normally take one chapter will require three to explain it. I was encouraged knowing that the reason this was a hurdle for us was the language complexity and not my limited mental capabilities.

Well hopefully the next update will be about how our language eval went.