Good news, virtual readers... My passport, visa application and checks reached the PNG Embassy in D.C. You'd think this would be an easy thing to accomplish, but it wasn't. The address listed on the PNG visa application was not correct. I should have thought to double check online last Friday before sending it via Fed Ex, but I didn't. Long story...but after a plea to Fed Ex, it finally got there this evening. Now I'm waiting for the paperwork approving a journalist visa to make its way from PNG to the embassy in D.C. What a complicated process! It makes getting my electronic visa from Australia look like a breeze. Who'd have thought the PNG visa would be the most difficult part of the preparation for this trip? "Land of the unexpected," indeed.

I think I'm almost done buying stuff for the trip. Just need three extra cords for my microphones (backups) and lots of batteries. I'll be using a new recording system: what's called a solid-state flash recorder. It's a little bigger than my hand and records sound digitally onto a compact flash card (the kind you'd put into a digital camera). It's the latest and greatest in recording technology...at least for recording in the field. I've also purchased a stereo microphone (thank you, kind neighbor!!) to record a fuller, richer sound when I'm in places like the outdoor food market, the Goroka Show or Gahavisuka Provincial Park.

It's strange to think that I'll be out of the news loop for a whole month after being so in the middle of it, working at a major news organization. I look forward to tuning out for a little while...but I wonder what weird things will happen in the U.S. while I'm gone. I was in PNG when Columbine happened in 1999. I heard about it on VOA but didn't see any pictures for a month, until my Newsweek International arrived from the Peace Corps office. I did, however, read about Clinton and Lewinsky in one of the PNG papers. See, there's no way to escape the sensational stuff, even halfway around the world.

You know, one of the things I miss most about PNG is the smell of smoke in the evenings when families are cooking sweet potatoes and kumu (greens). I was showing my neighbor one of the tree bark bilums, woven bags made by PNG women, and I put it up to my face. After seven years away from PNG, it still had that smokey smell. I did that a lot when I first got back from PNG after my time in Peace Corps. I'd smell my bilums to take me back there...at least in my mind.

I'm in contact with a woman who worked for SIL, a missionary organization whose goal is to translate the Bible into every language in PNG. That's 800 or so languages! Anyway, this woman was an SIL missionary and taught childbirth classes. I was hoping she was still in PNG so I could meet her and possibly do a story...but she, her husband and their 7 kids returned to the U.S. in June.

Hearing that made me think about my own return to the States: the blur of the first few days, the unbearable loudness of Americans and the omnipresence of cellphones. I think my biggest culture shock was going into WalMart in Tennessee and seeing the cereal aisle. Box after box after box of cereal. So much to choose from after 9 months of Weetabix with powdered milk! (And I'll have you know I STILL haven't eaten Weetabix. Only took a month or two before I was craving sweet potato -- "kaukau" -- again.) Will a month in PNG be long enough to jolt me when I return to the U.S.? Or will my time in Darwin with my Peace Corps friends be enough of a buffer?

I know some of my family and friends are worried about my safety in PNG. Yes, there is petty crime. Yes, there is violent crime. Same as in the U.S. -- and anywhere else you travel! Rest assured: I'll be staying in safe guesthouses. I'll be dressing appropriately: loose, long pants and skirts and shirts that reach my thighs. I won't be going out at night. And I know that my family will watch out for me. So, in Tok Pisin, "no ken wari." No worries...