Even before we were ever presented with this need to head to PNG, I’d used Google Earth (and Microsoft’s Virtual Earth) to do the same exploring, getting the same results. Ukarumpa is the town/village we’re in and the SIL airport is less than 3 km away in Aiyura. If you find Aiyura, you’ve found us!
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| At Port Moresby, loading the SIL plane |
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| Winging our way to Ukarumpa |
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| Beautiful heavy cloud cover |
We’ve heard stories for years about PNG mountains (and why this is the main reason there is isolation causing 830 different languages in the one country, half of this large island) and seen pictures more recently over the past 10 years so we knew somewhat to expect. Still, to head inland from Port Moresby on the SIL plane last Wednesday and begin our descent from 25,000 feet as we began crossing the highlands, descend through the clouds and begin to see the mountains for ourselves was quite an experience.
We’re now actually living in a valley, ringed by comparatively not-so-impressive, rounded hills/mountains so our daily view looks more like Vermont. There are several villages in this valley, with some historically violent conflicts between them (as recent as last year) over water rights, retaliation for past wrongs, etc.
The pilots and those who work in and travel to the villages get much more of a reminder about the geography. Just walking up the hill ½ way from our home to my office at this high altitude is enough of a reminder and I don’t know how I’d handle hiking the mountains for even a couple of hours, much less the days that some people do.
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