“We’re in the middle of nowhere, but it doesn’t feel like it when you have an internet connection,” Gerdine Stanley stated a month ago.
The next day the internet signal disappeared and as yet has not returned. There is a Digicel tower nearby, in fact on a clear day they can see it spearing up into the sky on a distant ridge, which provides them with phone signal. When it suddenly disappeared one evening they had no idea how problematic it would be for them!
Now they are relying on their inreach satellite messenger with which they can send 160 character text messages.
Co-ordinating flights and supplies became much harder, the medical clinic felt much further away and of course there was no blogging and keeping people up to date on what is going on.
Steve and Gerdine with Oscar have left Kovol for a two-week trip to Australia. Gerdine needs to have wisdom teeth extracted and has been having dental pain for months now and Oscar is due a check-up and ultrasound scan.
It also means they are able to let everyone know that they, along with the Hansen’s and the Stous’ are all doing fine. The last weeks have been more of the same; building things, cooking root vegetables, picking up a few Kovol words and helping medically every now and then.
The boy with the broken leg had treatment in town, the femur was broken all the way through but it is set to make a full recovery. Unfortunately, this was not the only serious case. A 6-month-old baby who had been dropped in a fire, has horrific burns over his entire right arm and left hand. The best they could do was to pray and apply antiseptic and bandages.
They are pleased to report that their house is ready for them to start full time language learning. They are happy to put the projects that are left on evenings and weekends so that they can transition into full time CLA (culture and language learning). Their co-workers have the next three weeks to catch up and finish their houses because when Steve and Gerdine return they will be bringing CLA consultants with them for their CLA kick off. CLA kick off is an onsite refresher on the language learning techniques they learned in training and some ‘steer talk’ to help them get started learning language effectively.