Flying has been slow since the captains have been on vacation. Soon the time will come when I won’t be able to say that sort of thing anymore, I’ve been told that I will be ‘graduating’ to the smaller, single pilot airplanes probably sometime in February. Today was my first time in the cockpit in a week and I realized that I sleep better when I’m not flying regularly. I’m not sure if other pilots feel the same way but stress-ridden, unpredictable, noisy, smelly days lead to nights of dead man style stone-like sleep, not the natural, restful sleep you feel like you get on Friday night when you know you can sleep in Saturday. Not that I’m complaining about flying, seeing the practical fingers of God’s work sifting through some of the most isolated communities on earth, setting eyes upon views of 300 foot waterfalls buried deep within gorges that only a handful of people have seen before me, flying up against three thousand foot tall walls of limestone with a dense jungle adhering to the face of cliffs that cannot be reached by man or wingless beast... I mean it’s got to be the best office around. Went for another hike on Saturday. I took some friends and showed them the 9 waterfalls route that I told you guys about before. Again I hiked camera-less and figured I could do the hike in about two thirds of the time that it took before but it turns out the friends who were so happy to join me were either novice hikers or keen on taking lots of pictures so the hike actually took about twice as long as last time which ended up being about 4 hours longer than promised to said friends, oops! We had a great time anyway and I will definitely have to get my hands on some of those pictures to show you guys, I saw a few from the last hike, there’s one of this big round green boulder wedged in the river gorge that’s something else, you’ve got to see it to believe it. There is something pretty special about getting out of town for a hike Sarah has noted that this special something can be found in cycling and surfing too, something more than just the scenery, more than the endorphin rush, something about putting yourself in a place where all that matters is the next step, the next breath, or all that matters is now. That’s a place you can never let yourself be in the cockpit. On a related note, Sarai gave me a book before I left Ottawa, it’s in part about climbing mountains which is something I’ve never successfully done but with hiking experience I can relate I think. It’s like this: “removing my woolen cap to let the wind clear my head; I sink to my knees, exhilarated, spent, on a narrow spine between two worlds.” “I listen to the wind in my own breath.... I have the universe all to myself. The universe has me all to itself.” - Pete Mathiessen, The Snow Leopard

On an unrelated note, I took a picture of my first cucumber blossom.  I'm so proud.  This must be a small fraction of what a new parent feels, perhaps I exagerate.

Walking like a three year old girl

Well, to be fair she's 3 and a half.  A friend from work, Eric, invited a few of us out to his village about 15 minutes outside of town for a hike last Saturday.  We hiked across the ridge line on which he lives and he had his older son's and some of the village boys help as porters and guides.  He instructed his three youngest children to stay behind (a 5 year old son, the 3 and a half year old girl and a 2 year old son) but the girl decided otherwise.  Despite repeated instructions from her father she insisted on joining us boys and men for a nearly 8 hour hike.  So we set of with her in tow.  Every so often Eric would stop to tell us stories about how this was the same kind of grass he'd use to make toy spears with as a boy, and this is a nice type of edible fern and so on and so forth.  The 3 and a half year old girl, Sherwina, wasn't terribly interested in Dad's boring stories so she just kept on moving while we stopped to story.  She kept on quietly putting one bare foot in front of the other, through razor sharp "pitpit" grass, on rain-slicked clay paths, through ankle deep mud, she just kept on putting one foot in front of the other.  It wasn't one hour before she was in front of the whole group, so I picked up my pace a little and caught up to her.  I followed at a good climbing pace, up the side of the ridge while she peacefully lead us on a path she seemed to know well, almost intrinsically.  Soon everyone else caught up again and soon we stopped again to listen to some of Eric's stories and then we all had to work to catch up young Sherwina who pulled an energizer bunny on us and just kept going.  

Following behind Sherwina I took note of her perfect posture, shoulders back, shoulder blades squeezing close, chin down, back straight with a gentle curve in the lower back, knees slightly bent, toes spread, kind of like a sort of surfer pose you know what I mean?  

We had lunch on the top of a house sized boulder that for some reason was perched on top of this mountain.  Doesn't make any sense when you see it up there but there it was.  We sat on the top of it and looked around a 270 degree panorama of the southern highlands.  The boys pointed east and told me "That mountain there is a liar, it gets big then small again."  I kept an eye on the mountain and as the clouds swirled around it, obscuring some parts while highlighting others, sure enough it did seem to change it's size and shape... I mean, it was uncanny, not just clouds swirling but clouds seeming to actually LIFT the mountain and then gently set it down again.  When you're head is in the clouds (quite literally) and the rest of the world is below the clouds the world seems like an entirely unknown place.  Have you ever seen Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon?  I remember sneaking into that movie with Oliver in grade 13.  That's what the world looked like.  Bamboo and vines and a dense jungle canopy perched in a mass of cloud.  I felt like I could have stepped off the boulder and either strolled across the tree tops, weightlessly or fallen into the clouds and kept falling until the end of time.  Perception is reality, but isn't reality more objective than that?  Surely stepping off a cliff and falling to your death wouldn't be a matter of perception.  

So on the way down the mountain, after exploring the caves underneath the massive boulders, we made our way to the river.  We all released our feet from their shoes and waded downstream through the frigid, rushing montane water.  This was the only place where Sherwina had to be helped.  Along the river were some 5-6 foot drops, small beautiful waterfalls, treacherous enough to scale when you're six feet tall, impossible if you're 3 feet tall.  

What a way to spend new year's eve, I hiked without a camera but some compatriots had theirs so I will try to get you some photos of this hike.  Later that evening I had dinner with friends and we watched Soul Surfer.  I think that may be the one surf film PJ hasn't watched, or maybe he has watched it.  If I were surfing regularly that movie would have frightened me because there is a Shark.  I was going to draw some profound conclusions from that but I forget what I was going to say right now... Peace Out.  

Home for the Holidays, but not really.

Pretty near forgot I was in Papua New Guinea earlier this week.  Spent Monday night in the coastal resort town of Madang to stage an early program into the Finesterre Mountains early Tuesday morning.  So after a long day of bustin' hump huckin' everything from coffee beans to frozen lamb flaps we arrive at the Madang airport and start preparing Tuesdays load before heading to the hotel.  Turns out the missionary guest house in town was all booked up this being the week before Christmas so we had no choice (woe!) but to stay at the Madang Resort.  I'm sure in a developed nation this would be maybe 3 and a half stars but it felt like a dozen stinkin stars after coming from Hagen town.  It was after 19:00 by the time we checked in so it was getting on 19:30 by the time we made it to the resort restaurant for supper.  It was clean (the floors actually shone!) and air conditioned and full of well dressed well groomed resort dwellers and the smell of first class food cooking was nothing short of rapturous.  There was even Pop music playing.  Nothing like the highlands.  Then of course because this place is what it is the food didn't arrive until 20:20 which I normally wouldn't mind but we were looking forward to a first light (early morning) departure the next morning, sleep is important.  I had a delightful fillet of Snapper that had the odd bone still hiding inside it, delicious but requiring caution.  By this time I was seeing the value in the simplicity of overnighting in a smokey grass hut in the highlands, thinking about the sleep I could be getting on a cut foam mat under a tin roof in the cold, high mountains.  But it was a lovely setting for a meal nonetheless, perched in a comfortable clean dining room overlooking the Arafura Sea, listening to the waves calmly lapping the rocky shore and watching the lights of small fishing boats pass.  

Anyway, we got up Tuesday morning and made our way to the airport in the black morning, watching the flying foxes begin to silhouette against a slowly lightening deep blue sky.  Wheels up shortly after 06:00 and enjoyed the view of the rising sun opposite the jagged Finesterre range on our quick hop over the blue-green water of Astrolabe Bay.  

The captain was talking about how his young son has discovered some of his old music collection and so we reminisced and sang Eagles' songs (I'm a runnin down the road tryin to loosen my load, I got seven women on my mind!) all the way to a beautiful little strip called Isan.  What a place to enjoy the morning light.  Isan is perched in the middle of a mountain range that in 25 short miles rises from the sea to nearly 14,000 feet.  Both sides of the airstrip slope down into steep crevasses, the bottoms of which I'm sure never see the light of day because the walls are so high and vertical.  The folks here are accustomed to being served by the smaller planes, not the hulking DeHavilland Canada Twin-Otter, so they were pretty stoked to see such a volume of their produce hauled out all at once.  It's hard to believe that only a few short, busy hours later that blue sky was packed up with heavy, dark, boiling clouds meaning that we couldn't get back into the Finesterre mountains in the afternoon.  This set a bit of a tone of disappointment that seemed to follow us the rest of the week.  

Tuesday night was spent 'home' in Hagen and Wednesday we traveled West to Telefomin since that town has been left without an airplane as the crews based there have chosen to take their leave over Christmas.  We had our work cut out for us as a week's worth of passengers from across the province and the country were pilling up and waiting anxiously for a ride home that they weren't sure would come.  Below is our fearless and incomparable cabin attendant from Telefomin, Robert "Max" Puga, demonstrating for me how to drain the nose locker after washing out whatever it was in the passenger luggage that stank so bad in there. 

Much of the work we do from the Telefomin base is centered around the mining town of Tabubil - taking people to and from there to buy groceries, sell their produce, seek work, health care or education, all that sort of thing.  When we got to Tabubil the little MAF ticket window was full of hands and arms and faces, fists clutching and waving wads of money, people desperate for a last minute chance and getting home for the holidays.  I'm sure it would have been a good idea to try to make a booking weeks ago but here we were, three days before Christmas, trying to make the most of a crumby situation.  Friday rolled around after two days of pleasing some and disappointing others and still the wire-mesh ticket window was filled with people trying to get home.  In particular there was a group of people from a little place called Kuyol.  Kuyol is a particularly nasty little airstrip, there is even a recently derelict BN-2 Islander sitting lopsided off one side of the strip to remind us of the importance of diligence in this environment.  

 (photo courtesy of Captain Volkher Jacobsen, circa Oct 2011)

Now on Thursday there was another MAF airplane in the nieghbourhood to help ease some of the pressure and for one reason or another they weren't able to complete a Kuyol run as had been planned.  So Friday we started with a full program slated for the day and figured that if everything went well we might be able to squeeze in a quick out-and-back to Kuyol.  Noon time rolled around and we were nine minutes behind schedule but still figured we could get 'er done so the old captain gave the ground crew instructions to ready a load for Kuyol to be ready to leave as soon as we got back from the next short round.  Well we got back and the load wasn't ready.  We had no choice but to abandon the Kuyol run and proceed with the rest of the day behind schedule but as planned.  As I walked back out to the plane to help with the next load the ground staff were explaining in no uncertain terms to our once potential passengers that their flight would not happen, I will not soon forget the look in the eyes of one particular old man as he walked away from the passenger waiting area with several frozen chickens under his right arm and several more under his left arm.  Guess it'll be sweet potatoes for Christmas dinner in Kuyol.  

So we bust balls and beat brows and push the schedule, push the weather, push each other and continue to please some and disappoint others.  This week I've encountered new dizzying thresholds of physical exhaustion and found that discipline and determination can in fact overrule bodily imperatives for a short while before something has to give.  I've reminded myself and those I work with that the almighty "Programme" is worth fighting for, worth compromising for, worth suffering for but I'm not sure if I really believe it.  There is a good in living and loving peacefully, I mean, there is a good in driving hard and achieving very tangible, pragmatic goals but the more I work and the more I think about it there must be a greater good in living simply and peacefully.  Confrontations are reduced, disappointment is mitigated and sleep is unhindered by stresses and plans for tomorrow's flight.  There is a need for sacrifice, Jesus said he came to divide, there must be a value in sacrificing health and bodies for those who need the help but when this sacrifice manifests itself in discourtesy, conflict and broken promises to those we are meant to serve then it cannot be worth it.  These are my conclusions as of tonight.  What does this living simply and peacefully look like?  Friends, I'm sure it's safe to say that before long we will find out what it really looks like.  

These thoughts are rather nebulous, lets conclude with something a little more concrete.

You and I are people who understand that the world requires a reinvention.  The world is beautiful but it is bent, in some spots broken.  Fixing it requires grass roots changes, a reinventing of cultural wheels.....   this isn't any more concrete is it?  What I'm trying to say is I think we are on the right path.  

I am reminded of an epic time in the history of Ottawa's Underground.  Once upon a time there was a band that sang about such a reinvention of cultural wheels.  I am listening to this band now.  Do a google search for "Roads to Shiloh Discography" and you can listen to them to.  Dig it. 

Merry Christmas. 

Benji, I'm sorry there is no video of the owl. 

For the past few days I've been dangerously close to becoming some sort of avian equivalent of the proverbial 'crazy cat lady.' I've immersed myself in reading and emailing experts 

and learning all I can as quick as I can about caring for birds. I've declined two dinner invitations this week in favor of caring for the owl. I downloaded and red pertinent parts of a 

hundred and fifty year old British exposition on falconry. I've taken Myspace style self-portraits with the owl. I've even contemplated cross-stitching owl doilies to decorate my front 

door and adorn my couch, well, not really but you get the picture. 

I found out that this Papuan Hawk Owl might not be a good candidate for falconry training since he isn't easily motivated by the food I have to offer and he is in fact mainly an insect 

eater. But since he is a non-imprint bird (still cautious around/frightened by humans) he would be a good candidate for re-introduction to the wild or possibly for falconry hacking 

which involves slowly getting him used to a new outdoor home and new environment where he could live wild but return to a fabricated house nearby when he's not mating....

Anyway, I went to bed last night as usual to the sound of the owl's shrill chirping. All night every night he chirps loud and long, he's taken to sitting near one of the windows and 

pooping on the sill while chirping at the going-on's outside. During the day he pretty much just sleeps and preens a bit and poops some more. Last night I had the bright idea of 

getting a good night's sleep by wearing earplugs. Worked like a charm. I woke up to my alarm at ten to six, took out the earplugs and lay on my back for a few minutes. For some 

reason I didn't hear the chirping that sang me to sleep last night, or the chirping that I woke up to for the past five mornings. So I got up and checked the curtain rods and window sills 

where the owl likes to sit at night. Nothing. He was on the couch, face down, wings outstretched. I read about the sleep of young owls and another owl owner who was worried by the 

way her baby barn owl slept, so I picked the little guy up and tried to wake him. His eyes blinked slightly and he opened his mouth halfway and shook a little as if to try and chirp but 

no sound came out. I immediately started feeding him some bits of liver and a couple grass hopper bits that I had caught last night. He was obviously week but did his best and 

successfully swallowed a couple small chunks. I wrapped him in a face cloth and put him in a cardboard box under a desk lamp to keep him warm because I had to get ready for 

work (about twenty-five after six by this time, bus leaves at six-thirty). I contemplated calling one of my neighbors after getting to work to ask them to look after the owl for the day, he 

obviously needed some sort of care. While I was brushing my teeth I went back to check on the little guy and he was no longer moving. His eyes were open a little wider and I 

watched as his pupils dilated and his body stiffened. No more owl. I don't know what went wrong, he was eating but I guess not enough. He was eating less than I thought he should 

but I only resorted to force feeding on the first two days, I figured he was just getting used to his new surroundings before getting his appetite up, or that he was eating so little 

because he was in fact very small, much smaller than the puffy feathers make him look. Maybe he was just a wild animal, meant for a different world than the one I offered... I don't 

know. 

Needless to say I was late for work and a little distracted this morning. The weather was shocking. The Hagen valley often has a thin layer of fog in the morning that makes flying 

difficult but today it was a thick, low cloud and steady rain, very uncharacteristic for a morning in the tropics, even at this altitude. So one of my learned old captains decided to give 

a bit of a slide show for the base staff since we weren't going anywhere fast. He showed photos he's taken over the past few months from bush places where MAF is the only reliable 

means in and out of the community other than days or weeks of walking. He concluded the slide show with three quick stories of recent medivacs where they were just too late and 

the patients died. One little boy with a fracture that got infected seemed to be making a recovery two weeks after the medivac flight but suddenly took a turn for the worst and died 

when the infection spread rapidly through his body. There was nothing anyone could have done. 

Later, two national friends offered me a ride home when they were going into town in the company car to buy some Christmas decorations for the office. I invited them in for coffee 

and when they came inside of course they noticed the dead owl, the expressed their sympathies and looked at me, I imagine I looked somber and sad, then the both laughed a bit, I 

looked up at them and they kind of looked down, perhaps slightly ashamed at their lack of empathy but then they couldn't help but look at each other and giggle some more. Then I felt 

silly. They must have been thinking "Silly white man, they must not have birds where he comes from" or something to that effect. We spend our days trying to spread life in a dark and 

difficult country and here I am loosing sleep and getting all sad over an owl. I don't think it's bad to be sad, it's just that well, there are 'bigger fish to fry' as they say, more important 

things to be brokenhearted over. I miss the owl. 

When my two friends were at my house they were admiring my stalwart tomato seedlings and helped me pick out places and discuss options for transplanting. While we were 

chatting I asked them about this one little green sprout that was growing among my tomatoes. Now I often leave my tomatoes outdoors on the lawn and there are often many weeds 

(and sometimes some little mushrooms!) that grow in the pots with them. I'm careful about picking the weeds out but the other day I saw one little green sprout that didn't look like the 

others. I decided to let it grow a bit and asked my friends what they thought it was. They both agreed that it was not a weed but couldn't agree on what it was, one figured it is a lemon 

tree while the other insisted it is a papaya tree. This, apparently, is the land where fruit trees grow like weeds. 

I was just storying with the night guard about the dead owl. He's an interesting dude, Saimon - He used to be a cop until there was a jail break on his watch, now, as a tribal elder, he 

supports the tribe by working as a night watchman for the missionary compounds. I apologized him for letting a bird of his land die on my watch. He sympathized and said "it's 

alright... the birds understand our words." He then proceeded to tell me a story, a story in the vein of a tale from Zac. When he was a cop he would regularly take a helicopter up one 

of the mountains to act as escort while crews did maintenance on the cell towers on top of the mountain. They would spend a few days on top of the mountain. Once while everyone 

else was sleeping Saimon woke up and was muttering to himself, talking to himself about the cares of the world I guess and suddenly a parrot came and landed on his chest. It sat 

there staring at him, and he lay there staring back at it. Another of the men woke up, a man from neighboring Enga province, and this man insisted on killing the bird for it's beautiful 

feathers and a nice little snack. Saimon said absolutely not! This bird stayed with Saimon for the next two days while they were on top of the mountain. The last night on the mountain 

Saimon explained to the bird, in front of all the other men, that they would be leaving in the morning, and if the parrot wanted to stay in his place he must leave before morning, but if 

the parrot wanted to come to town Saimon offered to take care of him there. In the morning the parrot was gone and all the men were amazed, swearing that this parrot understood 

the words of men. 

Well, between Zac and I, I think we've got your weekend reading supplied. Everything from ordeals in the barrens to drama and pathos to wisdom shared by the elders of the farther 

places of this world. Who would have guessed when we were younger that this is where we'd end up. Who would have guessed even a little over a year ago at that Comeback Kid 

show where we'd be today... All In A Year. 

Ok, I tried to think of some clever ways to segue into this news but nothing does it justice.  So I'll just tell it simple:  There is an owl in my house.  

I went to a buddy's bride price ceremony today.  This is how they do in PNG.  My buddy, one of the cargo officers from work, has effectively been married for a while now.  Him and his wife have a year-old daughter but the bride price wasn't actually sorted out and celebrated until today.  So we got together this morning, all his family was there, everyone gathering and chatting and giving contributions of what they call "cash and kind."  This could be anything from cold hard cash to bananas to large angry pigs.  So as the 'bride price' was being arranged and gathered, and the pigs tethered in the middle of a sort of display area with everyone sitting around them the bride and her family began to file in.  Everybody was shaking hands and smiling and soon there were speeches with an emcee distributing "cash and kind" from various contributors to various receivers.  It seemed to be more of a ceremony for the sake of the family and important community members than for the bride and groom, which is cool, means I got to spend some time meeting my work buddies friends and goofing off with them while the old people did their talking.  

Anyway, one of the bride's family came in with an owlet on his shoulder.  Of course I was interested in this and asked him a lot of questions about how he found it and stuff and what he would do with it.  We continued to chat and get to know each other (his name is Doctor though he is not in fact a Doctor) and then parted ways for the ceremony.  Later his cousin came up to me with the owl and she said that Doctor's son, who was the actual proprietor of the owl, wanted to give it to me.  I wasn't sure about this, I mean an owl?  How do you take care of it?  I'm not one to clip it's wings, put it in a cage and make it a pet.  What would I do with an owl?  I chatted with some of my friends about it and they figured owls are easy to care for.  They've never cared for an owl but they're locals so I trust them.  I eventually accepted the owl.  

I came home to the compound and my Swiss neighbors were just saying goodbye to some German missionary friends of theirs.  This German couple are some of the most fascinating people I've ever met.  They've been in country for about 18 years and spend most of their time in the bush helping to slowly, organically encourage the local church to take root.  His hobbies include stuffing a dozen species of bird of paradise and painstakingly building his own chain-mail armor.  And lucky for me, he has owned an owl.  He informed me that owls can be trained for falconry just like other birds of prey and he was in the process of training his owl when it decided to leave him for the wild.  He shared a couple of tips with me while they were on their way out the door, as it were.  After saying goodbye my industries and hospitable Swiss neighbor set to work building a little leather bracelet for the owl and a stand for him (or her?) to perch on.  And now I have an owl in my house.  I think it's a Jungle Hawk-Owl or possibly a Papuan Hawk-Owl, we'll have to wait until he grows up a bit and his plumage matures to tell for sure. 

Now naturally the first thing I did when I got him in the house was put some newspaper under the perch.  The second thing I did was start Googling.  I managed to find a couple free Google books on falconry and a few basic websites about caring for owls.  I learned in just a little research that owls don't make good pets.  I learned practically that baby owls poop about once an hour while they're sleeping during the day.  So the way I see it now is that this owl is not a pet.  It is a wild thing.  I will be privileged to share my house with it for now but whether it stays will be up to 'it'.  I don't think I will name it.  I do think I will do some reading and try to train it in falconry.  We'll see.  Man this life is a journey.  

Just for the record check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Re644qgnCtw

Speaking of Mongolia, MAF has an airplane based in Mongolia under the operator "Blue Sky Aviation."  Somehow, a local Mongolian music promoter rented the MAF hangar and filmed a music video in front of the MAF airplane, complete with pretend stewardesses in tight clothes.  Guess he didn't know the real gang-stars fly around in Gulfstreams, not Cessnas, so good!  

As I was digging in the garden to try and find some earth worms to feed the owl I was serenaded by the sound of one of the largest proper riot I've seen here yet.  I could hear the sounds of screaming and banging of rocks swell from up the street and migrate in front of the compound and then move off down the street.  This sounds swelled and subsided and migrated around town for about an hour until, maybe a block down hill from the compound two gunshots rang out.  Then the yelling and screaming intensified briefly and quickly moved up the hill past the compound.   That's a extreme example of a somewhat regular Saturday evening pass-time.