Our Pacific Orientation Course, POC, was conducted from a small group of huts situated on top of a mountain called Nobanob overlooking the coastal town of Madang and the Bismarck Sea which is reputed to be one of the world’s hottest due to underwater seismic activity. The student ‘dormitories’ were very much like the asbestos garages being built in the 1950’s at home and with concrete floors. Ours had a double bed in the middle of the room and a large hole in the ceiling about 3 feet square above the bed. We did have a mosquito net over the bed, but generally the situation tended to freak my wife out, especially when creatures running across the ceiling sometimes fell through the hole onto our mosquito net while we were trying to get to sleep. Subsequently she did ask that the hole be boarded up and it was after a fashion, with a thin, black, plastic bag. Insects of various shapes and sizes, including enormous spiders which seemed to be immune to available insecticides, now ran across the plastic cover so it did not help much, but she did stick it out, more to her credit and for my benefit than anything else. There was one little creature though that endeared itself to us both and that was the gecko. These were so appealing that we would talk to them and they in turn would appear to listen, tilting their heads and looking up as if understanding every word. God’s creation really is quite wonderful and frequently brings me to the point of worship.
POC days were very busy. We were being exposed to the culture of PNG, studying the trade language, Melanesian Tok Pisin, spending time and stay-overs with villagers and generally learning to be self-sufficient in bush situations. We did long hikes through the bush visiting various villages collecting language data for later analysis. Practised giving injections firstly on oranges then on fellow students. One student I was paired with refused to allow me to give him an injection when it came to my turn to practice on him, so our tutor, a doctor, offered her arm which was so thin and the needle so long that I fully expected the needle to pass right through! We also had a rota of various chores to perform. I remember having to get up very early one morning to light the fire under the boiler for the shower water heating system. It was a Heath Robinson affair and some days we had to shower in almost cold water so I decided, along with my fellow work companion, to give everyone a treat with really hot water. We did achieve our goal but nearly blew the system apart in the process!
We were required to swim a mile and this we did just off the coast of Madang. I am not a strong swimmer but decided that I would go the ‘second mile’ and did so. I think many could not quite see the rationale behind this requirement and maybe that was why I decided to do what I did – a rebellious streak lurking beneath the surface which all too often seems to surface!
Much later, when returning back to the mainland after visiting a small island, the motor vessel, no more than twenty-five feet in length, in which we were sailing hit an underwater rock. We had just crossed an open stretch of rather rough tidal water with the light failing so quickly that it was decided to island hop rather than continue to sail in open water. It was now totally dark, and we had a number of children on board and no life jackets. Fortunately, no damage was done to the boat as we rocked it off the rock, so it was decided to change tack, make for open water and generally try to steer in the direction in which we thought our destination, Alotau, Milne Bay, lay. Once in open water the sky cleared, the moon shone and a shoal of dolphins appeared, just ahead of the vessel’s bow, leading us forward. The dolphins stayed with us, or was it us following the dolphins, until we could just about detect a pinpoint of light which we judged to be our final destination. Needless to say, quite a few prayers were uttered during this episode and a few more of thanksgiving when finally reaching dry land. Personally, I think the Lord was probably teaching us a lesson in patience since we should have waited till the following day rather than embark on a hazardous sea journey in inclement weather and so late in the day. It should be noted that the skipper, a Papua New Guinean, advised against sailing but all the expatriates voted him down with only one other dissenting voice – mine. But that is another matter which probably, at the time, escaped us anyway.
It was potential episodes such as we had just experienced that lay behind the rationale for the swimming requirement. PNG coastline has extensive razor-sharp coral reefs and small inhabited islands which are accessible only by boat, small single engine aircraft, or helicopter, that proficiency at swimming in the event of an accident at sea was considered a wise precaution. Following this experience, which caused an international stir within the organisation, MV Mark, the name of our vessel and wholly owned by our organisation, was equipped with an international, automatic distress system communicating via satellite directly to the United States who in turn would alert appropriate local search and rescue teams in the event of an accident.
Everything we did at Nobanob was designed to prepare us for six weeks living alone in an isolated village, either on the mainland, or in our case, a relatively small volcanic island in the Bismark Sea whose volcano had last erupted some 18 years previously. What we were not prepared for however occurred on the second night after our arrival on the island. I was awoken by a cacophony of voices immediately outside our house and wondered what was going on. I then noticed, through the walls of our bedroom – our house was constructed from bush materials and the walls from woven strips of palm-like leaves – a glow typical of a large fire accompanied by a deep pulsating roar. The volcano was erupting! This great monster of a volcano continued to erupt throughout our stay and I would go, with escorts, up the mountain to watch the progress of an eighteen foot high wall of red-hot molten lava slowly making its way towards our village and the sea where it would so raise the water temperature to such a level that fish in the immediate vicinity would be found floating on the surface where villagers would simply collect them – a bonus meal!
This unexpected event did not faze my wife one little bit, in fact, she simple revelled in the whole experience of village living so much so that she was reluctant to leave when our time came to an emotional end.