Unexpected Guests

Papua New Guinea is often referred to as “the land of the unexpected”. Well, being the only MAF pilot family living in a remote community, sometimes our lives include some of that unexpected…

Last month, we had Fiona (pictured, centre), our Finance Manager, plan to pay us a visit in Telefomin for 2 nights. As we had 2 members of our Maintenance Team staying in the MAF transit house, I arranged for Fiona to in one of my absent neighbours’ houses. We like to provide a meal to our MAF visitors, and as Fiona is Gluten intolerant, I made Pumpkin Soup and Gluten Free Bread. Then, mid-afternoon, Ryan called me over the radio (the mobile reception was out!) to tell me that the Wewak pilots (Brad & Andy, pictured) were stuck on the ground in Eliptamin waiting for the weather to clear up. Their flying programme had them coming to Telefomin next and as they had been on the ground for so long, it was likely they would run out of daylight and not be able to make it home to Wewak.

Thankfully, our local cleaner was preparing Fiona’s house, so I asked her to quickly pop to my other absent neighbour’s house to make the beds there and dust before the pilots arrived. I’m so glad she was available because I had to get straight on with baking another loaf of bread and some cookies for dessert, as I know from experience that hungry pilots eat a lot, and I don’t have a store to pop to here in Tele! It was lovely having all 4 MAF pilot houses occupied again, if only for 1 night. :-)

Just a little thing, but we think it’s important to make people feel comfortable when they visit us, especially when their plans have been messed up, even if it causes us a little extra unexpected effort.