Trapped in our compost bin

This bird which looks like a hawk to me, but referred to here as a 'kite',
was found in our compost bin.

Yeah!! The treehouse is done!

Today the kunai grass roof of our treehouse was finished. The kids are
pretty excited and hope for a sleep out this weekend. Morvin, our yardman,
and his 2 brother-in-laws and wives cut the grass, and today they put it all
up. It is pretty labor intensive, especially cutting the grass.

Happy Birthday J.C

Today J.C is one year old. He has been so much fun for the kids. They
wanted me to make a birthday cake for him, but I think he'll get a bone
instead.

Treehouse project

We have 5 weeks of school break and are working on a treehouse project.
This is stage one. The next part is builing a bridge to the next tree(which
you can't see) with another room. I don't know if that will happen or not.
We only have 2 weeks of break left.

"This is Alpha 338"

The radio is a great tool, used here to communicate with translation teams
out in their villages. Often cell phone reception is not good or not
accessible at all for those teams back in the bush.

Here Doug is talking with Nafian (the man pictured a few blogs ago). "This
is Alpha 338. Nafian yu stap?" Unfortunately on this occasion, Nafian was
having troubles with his batteries on his radio, so he could hear Doug, but
Doug had a hard time hearing him. We hope to see Nafian again in a few
weeks, when he and a few other men from his team come to Ukarumpa for a
Hebrew class.

"Bikpela Kus"

On a recent village clinic to do well-child check-ups, one of the most
common complainst we heard was that their child had a "bikpela kus".
(Strong cold). Respiratory illnesses like pneumonia/bronchiolitis are very
common,(PNG'eans are around fire and smoke a lot - they sit around fires,
cook over fires, and burn in their gardens).However on this occasional only
one child required antibiotics for a possible mild pneumonia. We weigh the
babies and chart growth and development. Other things we can treat for
while on a village clinic is malaria,skin infections, and eye infections and
worms.

Translation in Ukarumpa

When national translators come to Ukarumpa to help work on the translation
they spend a lot of time in these little rooms. William, shown in the
picture is from Enga province, and is working on the New Testament
translation with a couple from Switzerland. His language group has about
700-1000 speakers. Willaim, age 26, finished grade 12 and would like to
apply to teaching colleges.