Hi from PNG!

**Note: I wrote this post last night, when the internet was down. So, here it is**

So much to tell! We arrived here in Ukarumpa safely on Tuesday, following my first trip on a missionary airplane. It seated 12 normally, but we had the 5 from our team, a family of 3, and the pilot, plus all our stuff and numerous blue bags of mail. We landed on the dirt airstrip at Aiyura (elevation 5,000 feet), and while our bags were unpacked, watched some men loading large bags of coffee onto a truck. The price of coffee is apparently high these days, and some of the MAF airplanes were carrying coffee from the villages here, I think for processing.
Since our initial arrival, we’ve been chipping away at the audit. I’m enjoying the foray into familiar territory, and it’s been fun to remember all of the auditing techniques I’ve learned over the past few years. We’ve also been hosted by several missionaries in their homes for dinner, which has been a great opportunity to get to know some of the people around here. I’ve reconnected with a college friend who’s recently begun her assignment here, and that’s been a lot of fun.
There’s some unrest in the area, so we weren’t able to have a full-fledged market trip today, but we did spend some time at the nearby Kainantu Cultural Center, where local people spin wool for rugs and make beautiful pottery. Although the potters don’t typically work today, one of them graciously walked us through the process, explaining where they find the clay, how it’s dried, cleaned, dried again, compressed to remove air bubbles, and then – finally – thrown! It was awesome to watch him at work, and he made a beautiful pot on the wheel. I had to hold myself back from spending far too much money on pottery! My one course in ceramics at Houghton has given me a lifelong love of pottery, I think. I did buy a blue gravy bowl, to add to my collection of blue things for my kitchen from various parts of the world.
In short, things are going well. I had the chance to sit and read this afternoon, and have a game night with a couple of girls my own age this evening. That was really fun, even though I did narrowly lose a game of Settlers. :)