Hurry Up...and WAIT!

Mt. Hagen's Kagamuga airport

I always said during our years of living in PNG that "you hurry up just so you can wait." That's true in many areas of life in PNG, but especially true when you are traveling. With all the air travel, much of the time you're racing to get to the airport, but then you sit around and wait until everyone else is ready. Your luggage has to be weighed, the plane need to arrive and be fueled, and there can be any number of unexpected delays. Weather can also prevent timely departures.

This day was no different. We were told our charter would leave Mt. Hagen early in the morning for our flight into Yehebi.

"Be at the hanger by 7:00 a.m." they said.

We set the alarm for 5:30 the next morning. We arranged to get a ride into town with the other pilots at 6:00 a.m.  We prepared our breakfast the night before, so we could grab it in the morning. We boiled eggs, made peanut butter sandwiches, carrot sticks and cheese.  We all filled our bottles of water.

There's no fast food, so we had to bag it.

Eating breakfast at the airport (photo courtesy of Lee Fairbotham).

This was breakfast.

When we got to the airplane hanger, we were told the twin otter had a flat tire in Telefomin, so it wouldn't be arriving for several more hours. This was that "hurry-up-just-so-we-can-wait" part. We rushed to get there; now we needed to sit...for 5 hours. So we ate our breakfast and sat around in the
 break room.

Sitting in the MAF break room - photo courtesy of Lee Fairbotham.

Waiting.... -photo courtesy of Lee Fairbotham.

And waiting some more!

Then I remembered the market was near. Hey, we had time to go there!

It would be great to get a few fresh veggies to take to Yehebi, and I hadn't had the time or transportation the previous two days to get to the market in town. (See, the Lord even worked out that little detail!) Louise and I decided to walk over to the market. In the highlands they can grow beautiful vegetables. The soil is more fertile than in the lowlands where we were headed. 

We grabbed a few bags and left for the market along with one of the lady employees in the hanger that came along to help with the language.We bought potatoes, broccoli, beans, carrots, tomatoes, ginger, scallions, pineapple and bananas. 

After going to the market, we still needed to wait. We walked down the street to a nice coffee shop and all had a drink.

Our last cup of good coffee before going bush. It was instant after this cup!

Walking into the coffee shop. (courtesy of Lee Fairbotham.)

I really didn't mind all the waiting; it's part of life in PNG. It's a definite change from the frantic pace we live in America. You just need to take along a snack, a water bottle and a book to help pass the time.