11 days out of touch and off the grid- Part 3

We brought a couple of Frisbees, a soccer ball and a Nerf football. All we had to do is open the front door with the balls in our hands and the kids and adults alike were ready for a rugby or soccer match on the grass in front of the house. Sometimes they would play both at the same time with the two games overlapping and some players involved with both games. After about eight days, both balls were completely worn out and destroyed. This is a testimony to how hard their bare feet are from a lifetime of walking in the bush with no shoes.

One of the closest relationships that we have is with Pastor Dixon. He is the local pastor of the church at Dusin. He’s about 5’0 with a huge grinning smile. He speaks English but knows why we are in Dusin so he repeats everything we talk about in Pidgin several times so we can get the hang of it.

(Pastor Dixon is on the left.  Coincidently, one of his sons is named Randy…)

A few people have given us produce from their gardens which is their main and in some cases, only source of food. We got a few bananas and a bunch of hard green fruit we found were a type of passion fruit. At first we could’nt figure out how to eat them since they were full of seeds, until we saw how the local kids ate them. It turns out that they hold them by the stem, break open the rind and slurp out the inside seeds and all. I tried it and it was delicious. Unfortunately my system wasn’t used to it and I got a case of “runny tummy” as my Fijian friend Sam calls it. We also got a pile of the biggest green onions I’ve ever seen which they eat raw for breakfast, a pumpkin (which we don’t know how to prepare into a meal) and some corn.

Ethan has a new favorite game. He loves chasing the chickens while saying here kakaruk, here kakaruk (Pidgin for chicken) I’m still waiting to see what happens when he catches one.

Today I walked around station for half a day in my swim trunks and a t-shirt waiting for the daily rain. Due to a leak in the tank, we went through our supply of water alarmingly fast. We were in full conservation mode since we didn’t want to run out of water with eight or nine days to go. The reason for the swim trunks was to try to get a ‘free shower” without using the household supply. It worked. It’s amazing how a little shampoo in the pouring rain refreshes you. I was able to fix the leaks in the tank’s plumbing a few days later and soon we had all the water we needed. This was good since our alternative was a hike to the river 5 km away and down the side of a mountain about 1000’ feet below.

(That's the river at the bottom of the valley)