A Day in the Life....

I feel like I have done a horrible job with my blog….but, I am going to give myself a break since we did just go through a MAJOR transition in this past year.  It is so hard to believe that we are coming up on our “one year in PNG” mark.

 

So, sandwiched between my fun and cheerful Christmas posts….and tomorrow’s “Happy Birthday, Ben” posts, I thought I would take a minute to comment on living here.

 

We definitely live in a place where everybody either knows you personally or knows of you.  When I go out on any given day, I could probably tell you the names, occupations, number of children, and circle of friends of everyone that I see and meet from here to there.  There is one store here on center, so you have a good chance of seeing friends there.  Being a mission community, people here tend to be a little more “get right to the heart of the matter” and openly share their struggles and joys. Is this good or bad?? I haven’t an opinion just yet…

 

It feels a bit like my college campus, except that instead of studying for classes, I have other things that occupy my time.  But, the social life is similar.  Bible studies at night, church on Sundays, sports on the week-ends…..and lots of time to talk and hang out with people from so many different walks of life.  In college, I didn’t have cable, so that is pretty similar, too.  Usually in college, when you were about to watch something on TV, you would all congregate in the lobby of one of the dorms….and it was pretty much an open invitation to whoever wanted to join in.

 

Right now, Caleb is playing Frisbee Golf….there are a group of guys who play almost daily.  Ben sometimes goes with or sometimes stays home with me.

 

Today was a pretty busy day for me, but looking back, I don’t feel like I DID anything.  There are a lot of days like that here…..you come to 6pm, exhausted, but look back on what you actually did and cannot pinpoint any one exhausting thing.

 

This morning, I woke Ben up in time to take him to Pikinini (Tok Pisin word for child) Playtime.  It is a Parent’s Morning Out.  After dropping him off, I went the gym to work out.  After that, I went back to the apartment and prepared coffee and tea for my haus meri (Priscilla comes two mornings a week to help me with dishes and cleaning).  She only speaks Tok Pisin, so it is nice to sit down with her for morning tea so that I can continue to work on my language learning/skills.  After morning tea, I started on my work.  I am the bookkeeper for the security department…..so I spent the whole morning looking over the month end statements and preparing the check/payment for our contact security company.  Then, it was time to pick up Ben.  Ben went to the playground for a bit while I finished up my work.  Caleb made lunch for Ben and hung out with him for a bit.  Ben then went into his room for quiet time.  During this time, I worked on Daycare work (as I am the Daycare Manager here on center).  After Ben’s quiet time was up, he and I worked on making bread for tonight’s dinner.  Once everything was in the bread machine (thank goodness for this), he and I made cupcakes for his birthday party tomorrow.  Ben and Caleb ran off to Frisbee Golf, and I took in all the laundry that was on the line (thankfully Priscilla hung most of it up in the morning).  I had one more load of wash to hang up on the line to dry.  Now, it is already 4pm…..and I have no idea where the day went!  In about an hour, our friends Carl & Carol and Jessie will come over for dinner….an after Christmas party!  I guess I really should stop writing this blog post so that I can go cut up all the veggies for dinner, get the potatoes ready, and then take a shower before they all get here.  After dinner, we are all going to play board games…..and then crash I will probably crash while watching episodes of House!