I finished work today at the news organization. It's been a bit of a haul the last week for a number of reasons, but I made it through despite feeling totally humiliated. I started getting really excited about the trip today while showing my friend Ms. M some pictures of PNG that were on Flickr. One guy made some amazing photos at the Mt. Hagen Cultural Show. Check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytripsmypics. Then you can check out my photos too: www.flickr.com/photos/skyerohde. Not quite as arresting as Mr. Lafforgue's, but I like 'em.

I am fascinated by the Asaro Mudmen. Asaro is maybe 15k outside of Goroka. It's my former boss's wife's hauslain. I also had a friend named Puli, an older man from Asaro. He'd come visit the J.K. McCarthy Museum and we'd hang out and eat peanuts at lunchtime and talk about PNG and the U.S. One day Puli brought me a little mud head, a miniature version of what the Asaro Mudmen don when they perform at cultural festivals. It's now one of my prize possessions, one of the few tchotchkes I like. Puli let me try on one of the big mud heads once -- the thing must have weighed 25 pounds. How do men dance around gracefully while wearing hot, heavy clay masks like that?

Anyway, I'd like to tag along with the Asaro Mudmen for a story if I can. May as well ask... The worst they'll say is no.

My god, I feel like this opportunity to go to PNG is such a gift. Makes up for the challenges of trying to make a living freelancing. When I get my first bout of giardia, I probably won't be quite so happy to be in a third-world country. But I am so, so excited to be back in my second home and then take on the challenge of sharing this place, these people, this way of life in my chosen medium. PNG may not be a fountain of "hard news," which seems to be what public radio is headed toward, but I remain convinced that listeners will love a little slice of life from there.

I said in a recent job interview that I see my role as keeping the heart in radio. I believe that. I'm a storyteller. I follow the news, I know it well, but my passion is drawing the curtain back on people and places and things that listeners may not know about. I'm a good listener. I'm a good writer. I take time. I enjoy the conversation.

I think I fall in love just a little bit with every story I'm doing. Maybe that's because I've been lucky enough to assign my own stories, for the most part. Alpaca farming looked great after meeting Ellen in Croghan, NY. I thought home birth midwifery was my calling for much of grad school. I kept going back to Chantry Flats after finishing the story on the donkey packing station there because I feel such peace and acceptance there.

Enough for tonight. I'm exhausted. Four days and counting down...