Day 6 - PNG journal entry

This post is long past due, but here is more of the daily journal from Dale and David's trip to Yehebi in summer 2009. We will continue to post these in the blog. If you haven't read about the trip yet, you might want to read some of the earlier entries about the first several days. Here's Dale's account of Day Six:

Day 6 of 21 – Monday 7/13 – In the morning I needed to wash 2 sets of sheets and some clothes while David prepared his message for the afternoon. It is fruitless to try and wash sheets with a bar of soap in the river. I ended up, really, just rinsing them – swirling them around in the river water- at least it got the sweat out and “freshened” them a bit. The river is low and clean due to the lack of rain during this season. What you have is almost continuous cloud cover but no rain, maybe only a drizzle or two.

After that I tried to get the computer going so we could transfer photos from camera to computer – no luck – starts to boot and then freezes

Inspected the radio/battery setup. The wiring seems to be okay, I will probably clean up the contacts. Nevertheless the 9 -14 year old battery is dead, transmission power comes only from the solar panel…and the weather is almost only overcast! I spent over an hour trying to contact Rumginae to order a battery – finally at the end I asked if anyone could hear me. There was one station who copied my transmission and passed on the message for new battery! Hope they realize it is urgent.

David did a good job with his message, maybe a bit nervous the first time to speak through a translator. But the kids listened well. Afterwards he played basketball with them and they all seemed to have a good time – all 30 players!

Meanwhile, I was inspecting the church solar panel, cleaning the surface and also the terminals. I have a sinking feeling that the panel is bad. I know the battery has no power and is probably no good. I am going to check things out tomorrow with the voltmeter from the radio setup.

Took the voltmeter up to the church, first checked the 12v car battery we use for the system – got a whopping 5 volts! But the 25 year old panel was putting out 15+ volts – just right! So, all we need is a new storage battery…and maybe a 12v fluorescent light.

Well, it is now around 4 pm and I need to wash at the river while Dave cooks up some food – the kerosene primus is a disaster – very disappointed in it – one burner is not usable because it can’t be adjusted or turned off. The other is okay but our inexperience with this stove is making even the good burner a challenge. I am going to work on it a bit and see if I can get things working better.

So, we eat the minestrone soup packet from the U.S. – some Crystal Light lemonade mix and then hunker down for the long night. Praise the Lord we have a few books to read and LED flashlights to use!