Sundays

Missionaries did a serious number on Papua New Guinea. As a result more than 95% of the population follows some form of Christianity. Usually a rather fundamentalist version. Unsurprisingly, the local villagers, which we employed as workers on the site, would not work on Sundays. They had to go to church.


Since excavation was not possible without the help locals, we had Sundays off and were left to our own devices... After we had visited the volcano and the mask store in Rabaul we had to find something to do for the next five Sundays. Fortunately, one of my team members was savvy enough to ask around and soon discovered that the small island we could see from our hotel was deserted, had a perfect white sand beach, and excellent snorkeling.


Needless to say, the next Sunday we arranged to have the hotel's boat take us out there for the day. Loaded up with bar-b-que equipment, sunscreen, snorkeling gear, and a large cooler of refreshments we headed out for the day.

Super Green

After the completion of my primary goal on my last mission my team and I headed out on a few surveys to find new sites for excavation. Typically, this process started by getting touch with an individual who had previously contacted us about a site they knew about. Cell phone was the most common method of contact. The catch to this step was that it was quite often the case that the informant did not actually have a cell phone, but had given us the phone number of one of his cousins. This usually resulted in a one to two hour run around to track down the actual person we wanted to talk to. Once we found the correct individual they would lead us out into the jungle. Sometimes we got to drive on nice paved roads and enjoy views out over the valleys.


More frequently, however, we would quickly find ourselves off of the main roads, out in the boonies, doing some serious four-wheel driving.


At times it was a very frustrating process. We would be taken way off into the middle of no where and would be shown what turned out to be a Japanese plane. Worse, sometimes we would be lead to a place that a previous team had already excavated. The long hours in car on bad roads did pay off in the end. We were successful in locating a few new sites that may possibly be excavated in the future.

Turvurvur Eruption

It erupts like this every minute or so.