First Impressions

The Borneo Mama has landed in Papua, but the tyranny of the urgent is keeping me from changing up my blog to reflect our change in location.  Bear with me!


We left Savannah a week ago on a cold and blustery morning.  After three days en route, we and our four kids, 17 suitcases, and 11 carry-ons, arrived in the city of Sentani.  I used to think traveling to Borneo was bad, but flying all the way across Indonesia added a whole new layer of fatigue to the trip.  It just seemed so wrong to travel so far west, then south, just to back east and north.  But - we made it.

Waiting to get our first glimpse of Papua

The flight arrived early morning and the views of the mountains and Lake Sentani were fantastic.

We live on the MAF base right across the street from the airport, so starting about 6 in the morning we can hear passenger announcements and airplane engines warming up.  Other new sounds for us are the voices of dozens of preschoolers singing their hearts out at the preschool across the fence from our house.  I was serenaded yesterday by a pair of black and white birds that were just lovely, but some not-so-lovely noisy birds come to roost in a tree by our yard every evening - literally hundreds of them, and they squawk and chirp and make the most racket.

Looming behind our house is Cyclops Mountain, which is often shrouded in clouds.  

The kids have enjoyed the playground that is on base.  Within a few hours of our arrival, our kids were running around the base with new friends.  I forgot how dirty my kids get living in Indonesia, from all the playing outside and sweating.  But they are happy!  

We've been working to get our house set up this week.  Thankfully all our stuff from Kalimantan had arrived and now it's just a matter of finding a place for everything.

Chaos reigns for the moment, but hopefully not for long.  I love my new kitchen!

All kinds of things are growing around our house - so far I've spotted pineapple, chili peppers, mango, papaya, and avacado.  

The MAF team here has been very gracious to help us with our settling in.  They've provided meals, helped us unpack, taken us around town, and answered our questions.  Even though we've lived in Indonesia for a while, this is definitely a different Indonesia than where we were before, and it's going to take some time to acclimate.  But we are excited and grateful to be here!


Back to the unpacking!