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Paignton (Palace Avenue) Methodist Church
Palace Avenue, Paignton, Devon, TQ3 3EQ. |
Home Page • 'Our History' • Members Page(s) • Room Hire/Letting • Contact us! • Useful Links! • Website Map
Home Page • 'Our History' • Members Page(s) • Room Hire/Letting • Contact us! • Useful Links! • Website Map |
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Missionary Aviation Fellowship News from Papua New Guinea
Missionary Aviation Fellowship NewsNews from Michael and Nicki Duncalfe in Papua New Guinea Click to visit the Duncalfe family website Click to visit the MAF Papua New Guinea website
Further News from Michael & Nicki Duncalfe re Mission Aviation Fellowship, Papua New Guinea Well, how can I describe last weekend’s adventures? Wow? Awesome? Amazing? None of them seem to cover the entire gamut of what we experienced and what went on. The reason for the trip came from David and Jenny Wilkinson’s association with the South Seas Evangelical Church (SSEC) in the 1980s. The church leaders at Bongomachi, the village we were going to, had invited David to come and take part in some celebrations. A team of four of us came together - David, Godfrey Sim (a neighbour), Rick Velvin (a pilot) and me. I was the youngest by several years. Early on 23rd April we left Mount Hagen and flew to Ambunti, a district administrative centre beside the big Sepik River. Although in length the Sepik isn’t among the top rivers in the world, it is up there with the really big ones in water volume. Some folk from Bongomachi met us at the airstrip, and we wandered down to the river and hung around for a while as they needed to buy some fuel and a new spark plug for their outboard motor. Everything then had to be loaded into a dugout canoe - a hollowed out tree trunk about 9m (30 feet) long: the fuel drum and a water-tight drum holding some of our stuff, other boxes, our film projection equipment and generator, and about a dozen people - there wasn’t a lot of legroom! It was immediately obvious that the canoe was heavily laden. On the Sepik this wasn’t a problem, but going up the more rapidly flowing tributary that led to Bongomachi it could be, so it was decided to stop at a small community called Avatip, just where the Yimmi River (the tributary that we were to follow) joined the Sepik, and get a second canoe. Chugging up the Sepik was enjoyable, watching a few villages pass by, most of them flooded by the high water level due to the prolonged and heavy rains we’d had recently. After a while we left the Sepik, about 1km wide at that point, and went down a side channel to Avatip. Like other villages we’d seen, the whole community was flooded with knee-deep water. Dugout canoes were the main means of transport and children played in toy versions, splashing around and laughing when they fell off them. Some families were making saksak, or sago, the pure starch staple food of the lowlands. A fishing net lay across part of the open area between the houses (all of which are built on long poles because of the flooding) and while we were there several fish were caught. A second larger dugout canoe was procured and some of our belongings moved into it along with some people. The river-worthiness of this canoe was not inspired by the colony of white ants living in it and some cracks in the bow plugged with clay. As we continued our journey, it became apparent that there was an engine problem on this second canoe and also on the first canoe where the new spark plug had not solved the problem of the engine cutting out. We later realised that the fuel pump wasn’t working on the second canoe and fuel had to be pumped manually into the carburettor. All this took about an hour and a half and it was obvious that we wouldn’t reach Bongomachi by the evening. The start of the Yimmi River was fascinating. Huge fish eagles soared overhead and many varieties of parrots and birds flew away at the sound of the outboard engine. Pairs of large hornbills also took flight and lazily flapped away into the forest. The water level of the river was high and fast, bringing with it large amounts of debris, from leaves and small branches to entire trees, adding to the hazard. We soon learnt that dugout canoes are not very stable, having a round bottom and no keel. If the outboard engine is turned too quickly, it creates a rolling movement that can easily capsize the boat. The length also made it very difficult for them to turn back into the current if they went broadside to it. The adrenaline began to flow! Now the real fun began! With two lighter canoes, we anticipated making fairly quick progress but that was dependent on having two functioning engines. The one on our canoe regularly cut out when the skipper flooded the carburettor when he slowed the engine. Then the engine on the first smaller canoe died completely. The canoe I was in had gone on ahead and, after waiting beside a mudflat for a while, we went back a kilometre or so and found the other canoe at the side of the river with the engine cover off. (To be continued in next 'Newslink') Please visit our website http://www.duncalfes.com and feel free to sign the guest-book. We'd appreciate any comments you may have. You'll find photos of us, Papua New Guinea, Papua New Guinea people and MAF aircraft, etc.
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