Here is my journal entry from yesterday and today, after seeing family in Texas over the holidays and having just returned to the tribe. I have changed the names of people and places from my actual journal entry.
2/2/11
Day 1 , Tuesday, 1 week before today - The first day back we entered into our house and the whole thing was covered in mold, from floor to ceiling all over. Every place we stepped there would be mold residue on our feet. We immediately set to work with a mop, filling a bucket with bleach and water and cleaning everything up. It took several hours to mop up the floors, and the bleach water was nasty. While I was mopping, Ginny and Abby were bleaching the walls and cabinets. Raji brought our dog back and told us she was a good dog while we were gone but didn’t eat much dog food. He said she prefers cassava.
A family from downriver brought one of the ladies to us this evening, by the name of Lani. She has been throwing up and cannot eat or drink anything, and is showing signs of cerebral malaria. They also told us that it hurt her really bad to urinate. We started her on a course of chloroquine for malaria and paracetamol to knock the fever down. She was able to swallow the medicine without throwing up, and we also gave her some oral rehydration drink to keep her hydrated.
Day 2 – Wednesday – Ginny opened the clinic and spent the morning there, while I continued to straighten and clean things up. The boxes of supplies for the next few months were mostly emptied. After Ginny returned from the clinic, she spent the afternoon cleaning out the main cupboard – emptying everything and removing all the residue of bugs and things that nested in there while we were gone. It was a tremendous amount of work. Ginny also started homeschool with Abby today.
We checked on Lani in the evening, and even though she was able to take her medicine last night, from about mid-day on today she has not been able to keep anything down. The slightest bit of drink was causing her to throw up, so she has not been able to follow up on her 2nd course of treatment for malaria. We sent word out that we may need to have her flown to the hospital. She also has continued to be in pain while urinating, but has not shown signs of dehydration yet. She has not been able to keep down the antibiotics for a possible UTI.
Day 3 – Thursday – In the morning, we checked on Lani again and her condition did not improve overnight, and is now showing signs of dehydration. We called in the airplane to take her to the hospital in Puerto Princesa. Fortunately one of our co-workers is there now and will be able to attend to her needs. We sent her out with her husband and mother. It was a challenge getting them into the airplane, and this took up all morning.
Got a text from the internet technician that he would be flying into Puerto Princesa on Friday. I told him to make sure and take the early 5 am bus from Puerto Princesa because it is a 3 hour walk to our place once the bus drops him off in Egnew.
I hiked down to Dihuba for the afternoon and talked with Pibak and the other folks there about things. I arranged for Dakisiyo to come with me to town on Saturday to pick up the internet tech. I asked about getting wood cut with a chainsaw and he told me that we needed to go to the Baranggay and get a permit, but that it would not be a problem. He said to let him know before I go so that he can come with me.
Day 4 – Friday – I continued working on straightening my office, and Ginny worked on finishing up the last of the boxes and had ladies come in and help bleach the walls and remaining cabinets. It has taken a tremendous amount of work to clean up from the mold.
The word from our partner is that Lani had both malaria and a kidney infection. They put her on an IV and gave her antibiotics as well as malaria medicine. They are saying she will need at least 2 days in the hospital.
In my office I needed to install a new wire for a 110V connection so that I could run off the small 110V inverter instead of the large 220V inverter when I don’t need a lot of power. This took some time to measure and install. I did a small engineering calculation, and plotted the balance current as a function of light bulb wattage on a double power supply system to determine the correct size light bulb to use as a current limiter. That was fun, reminded me of the old days. I also straightened my office here to be able to be ready for when I can start full time language again, even though I know that won’t be for awhile yet.
Day 5 – Saturday – I hiked down with 3 guys from here to meet the internet technician coming off the bus. When we got to Egnew, because the bus was not going to arrive for another hour and a half, we went to Pibak’s house in town, where Dakisiyo and Tibak’s kids stay and go to school. It is a decent little house with a nice arrangement and a large porch. We talked to the neighbors a bit also, and she had me look at her solar panels and batteries to see if I could fix them. Then she told me the batteries were 8 years old, and I told her that is why they don’t work anymore. Batteries never last that long.
The internet technician arrived by bus, and we were able to hike back up to our place. He spent all afternoon and evening troubleshooting the satellite dish, and could not get it to connect at all. He decided the problem must be the modem, and he called his boss and asked them to send another modem. I stayed with him the whole time just in case he needed anything.
Day 6 – Sunday – the internet technician hiked out in the morning to take the early bus back to Puerto Princesa to pick up the new modem. It is Sunday, and normally we would have had a time of fellowship, but we were arranging things at the last minute because the final decision on whether or not the tech was going to go out was not made until this morning. We had to see if leaving the power on the satellite overnight would make it connect, but it did not. The tech had his azimuth aligned correctly, but the satellite still would not connect.
Ginny and Abby and I were able to spend a lot of good time together today. We were able to go swimming at the swimming hole together where the last flood washed out 2 huge nice areas to swim in. It was glorious. After swimming there for some time, some of the tribal people came out with a net and their spear guns to fish. There were a lot of fish. We helped hold the net while they speared fish and caught lots. I was able to grab 2 fish that got caught in the net, and Ginny was able to grab one. It was a great time to be together and enjoy life here. After that fun afternoon, we went home, showered, and then went over to Elise’s for dinner and some singing. We had a very nice time.
We also got word today that the patient, Lani, was discharged from the hospital and would be coming home on the bus tomorrow. Maybe she will be on the same bus as the internet technician.
Day 7 – Monday – I hike out again in the morning to meet the internet technician at the bus again and bring him back. When we arrived at our place, we ate, and then he immediately went to work again. While he was testing things through the afternoon, Elise screamed as she was cleaning out one of her cabinets. There was a big brown snake curled up in it when she opened it. She called Ikli over (he lives right next door), and he and I helped push the snake out to a position where he could kill it with his machete. After he stuck it in the head with the machete, I told him to cut the head completely off. He didn’t want to, because he said that if you cut off a snake’s head, that will make more snakes come to that same area. That is an interesting superstition that I had not heard before. I made a mental note to explore that particular belief more at a later date.
The new modem didn’t work, just like the old one, so we had to lower the satellite dish to the ground and run tests on it down there. The tech decided he wanted to work late into the night, and we didn’t want him working on the roof at night, as it would be dangerous and slippery, so having the dish on the ground would make for much easier troubleshooting. I stayed with him most of the time to be able to help if necessary, although he pretty much did all the work. After about 8 pm, he told me he would just keep on working that night until he got it going, and so I could go home. At about 9:30 Elise called over to us to tell us that he had managed to finally connect to the satellite. It turned out that in our location, there happens to be some other satellite at the exact same azimuth, although a slightly different elevation, and he had been homing in on that one instead of the correct one. Once he and his home office were able to get that cleared up, we were able to get the internet back up and running.
We did not see Lani or her companions on the bus or on the hike, but that was because they took a different bus than the one the tech was on. We probably just missed them.
Day 8 – Tuesday – The tech was up early and re-installing the satellite dish on Elise’s roof so that he could have it all set up and hike out in time to catch the last bus going to Puerto Princesa. He got the connection going, and everything looked good. It took all morning, but he finally managed to be able to leave at about 10:15 am. He had a lot of walking – 4 days in a row walking to or from our place to town, about 3 hours, along with a 7 hour bus ride! He must have been exhausted.
I was finally able to download the 250 emails or so that I had received in the last 2 weeks, and Ginny was able to do the same. We are still sorting through them all.
This afternoon I went up to Ehud for the first time since I had been back. Raji had said he was going to be there, but apparently he was fishing the whole time. I spent a lot of time talking to 3 of the tribal ladies and one of the tribal men in the village before coming home.
Day 9 – Wednesday – today – my first “free” day since we have been back. When I say “free”, I only mean that I didn’t have anything that was pressing with an immediate need today. My plan was to do 2 hours of language review this morning and then press on with my other work, like writing this journal. I have several high priority projects that I have to focus on before I will be able to get back into full time language, but just being here and being around the tribal people gives some good exposure. We had a ton of weeds around the house, way too much for me to be able to clear on my own, so some of the tribal ladies came by to help (for pay of course, which they like). It is important to keep the weeds down around the house in order to prevent snakes from coming into the house.
We received a text message from Sarah’s dorm parents this morning that said Sarah was throwing up and was sick. This is always something that challenges our faith – to be able to know that our kids are being well taken care of while we are away. We do believe they are and are thankful for the dorm parents taking care of their needs. However, it is still a challenge of faith to not be able to be there when your own child is sick. This is one of the sacrifices we make for the Gospel, and so we give it to the Lord.
We have had some time in between the busy-ness to reflect on our future and the things going on here in the tribe. We pray for the continued efforts our partner is making in writing the Gospel lessons, as this is an enormous task and a tremendous responsibility. I have many projects to do in the next few weeks, and I hope I can push through them all quickly in order to be able to get back into language study sooner rather than later. Lord willing, when the time comes to teach the Gospel, my language will be high enough to help communicate understanding to the Palawanos, even if I am not the one doing the actual teaching.
In the afternoon, I dug up some cassava to cook for the dog, and dried out my peanuts that I harvested the first day. I will re-plant the peanuts soon. Then I sat down to write this journal. Wow, now I am finished. It has been a long week. Praise God for his goodness, and may He make Sarah better, and may He still my heart with peace about that.
2/3/2011
Last night after dinner, Ikli came by and invited me to go out and see a palumak. This is when the river fish are schooling to spawn in a certain shallow area of the river, and the tribal folks take advantage of this by catching lots of them in their nets. So we hiked down to the river. When we got close to the area, we turned off our flashlights and got very quiet. It was a bit precarious, wading through the river in the dark, with only starlight to see by, and trying not to slip on the slippery rocks underneath. We managed to make it there, and Ikli pointed out to me the area where the fish had schooled. There was a lot of thrashing about in the water, so we sat down quietly and he got his net ready. Then, quick as a flash, he jumped into the middle of the school and scooped up a ton of fish! He did this 4 times in order to fill his carrying pouch with fish.
In between scooping fish, we were sitting there on a rock in the middle of the river looking up at the stars. This gave us a chance to talk about the Creator God, and how great and mighty He is to make all those stars, as well as everything else. I asked him what he thought about the lessons he was going through with our partner, and he said he was enjoying them. He asked about why there are so many different languages in the world, and we talked about that some as well. On the way back home he said he had heard about tigers, and he was glad there are no tigers in the jungles here in Palawan. I told him that there probably were in the past, but people probably killed them off. He thought that was a good idea, to kill off all the tigers so that they wouldn’t eat children as well as the other animals that people need to eat. I told him that some people think it is bad to kill tigers, and he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to have living tigers.
