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...

I have the passport and visa in hand. Life is good. I'm ready to go!

Here are a few pictures of Goroka from the Internet to whet your appetite...

Goroka by air

Goroka Market

Goroka meris at the market

A typical raunhaus

Asaro Mudman

Good news from the PNG Embassy, as of yesterday: my visa approval arrived from Port Moresby and my passport, visa, etc. are all on their way back to me. Cost me an extra $78.25 for the visa fee...but I'm just happy to hear I don't have to worry about this anymore.

Now I just need batteries. Costco, here I come...

On Monday I bought a dozen L.A./Venice Beach/California t-shirts to bring to my family members in PNG. Size large, so as not to leave the ladies with "inappropriately" short shirts. (They have to reach mid-thigh for modesty's sake.)

I read a WONDERFUL book over the last few days about a woman's Peace Corps service in Mali in the late 1970s. It's called Monique and the Mango Rains by Kris Holloway. It's about her two-year stint working with a midwife in a Malian village. I never get tired of reading books about others' experiences overseas. The other book I'm midway through right now is called Chameleon Days: An American Boyhood in Ethiopia by Tim Bascom. It reminds me of one of my favorites, Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. You know, the childhood experience in Africa... Fuller is still one of the best I've ever read at really *getting* the child's perspective. It doesn't feel forced in her book. But Bascom's book is interesting too, because he was there as protests against Haile Selassie increased.

I always thought I'd like to write a book about PNG. I wrote about 50 pages of stories when we first got back in 1999... Now I'm not even sure where they are. Some disk somewhere... I need to find those.

I reconnected with an old friend last night by phone. He's totally sober now after years of what wasn't so good for him. Props to you, Mr. J, for sticking with it. 'One day at a time' is the mantra for both of us!

Still no paperwork for the journalist visa at the PNG Embassy, as of yesterday. 13 days until I leave. I'm a little worried about this.

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...

Look for Port Moresby, Goroka and Madang... That's where I'll be!

It's a full-time job preparing to go on this trip... Write the initial proposal. Find funding. Thank my lucky stars for the kindness of a man who realizes how great PNG is. Finalize story ideas. Prepare itinerary. Make endless phone calls to PNG (19 hours ahead) using a bad calling card to deal with the visa -- research or journalist? Collect meds from Kaiser: typhoid vaccine, cipro, malarone. Laptop. Check. New microphone and headphones. Check. Book tickets at Qantas. Check. Book lodging in Port Moresby, Goroka and Madang. Check. Freak out about whether the visa will come in time. Check. Fax a copy of the passport. Check. Email the resume and a list of recording equipment I'm bringing into the country. Check. Relax and realize I can't do anything more. Check.

I'm excited. And a little nervous. Still, I'm so grateful to have the chance to share this amazing, frustrating, beautiful, challenging country with more people. It's about as different from the States as you can get.

And I can't wait to see my homestay family after 7 years of sporadic letters back and forth.