Arriving

I made it!!! My plane had been delayed an hour and it was pitch dark and raining buckets as I stepped off the plane at the tiny airport on the coast. An airline employee stood at the bottom of the stairs of the prop plane and handed me a very large umbrella. I found the whole family waiting for me in the shed that passes for an airport arrivals lounge. They greeted me with a lai of fresh frangipani from the island and a hug.

I had spent nearly 4 hours at Port Moresby airport waiting for my connecting plane. I got talking with a young, Papuan guy with a heavy Australian accent, wearing an electricians uniform. As the only solo woman (and conspicuously blonde in an airport where 95% of the people were locals) he seemed to have pegged me as a potential damsel in distress. While extolling the beauty of PNG, he didn't gloss over the dangers (especially for a conspicuously blonde solo woman). He told me to trust my instincts and never walk around towns alone. He gave me his card and the name of his company's rep near the town where I'll be staying and vehemently urged me to get in contact if I ever “got in trouble or felt the need to flee”. He would make sure I was taken care of. I was genuinely touched.

Of course, I'm not wandering around PNG, blonde and alone. As soon as I walked off the plane, I became part of the household and community of the family that has hired me to teach their kids. The family patriarch and owner of the plantation had been here 50 years and had married a local woman (actually, a couple of local women). My new students are a gorgeous mix of English, Papuan and German.

They checked me into a room at the resort hotel in town. A sprawling place with seven swimming pools overlooking the bay. Of course it was still pitch dark and pouring with rain as we sat in the posh dining room having dinner. It wasn't until morning when the clouds lifted and the sun came out that I finally got my first breathtaking look at the coast. Sometimes you can see the island from here, but not today. It's still a little too misty. It's a shame, because the view could really use an active volcano island floating in the azure sea to add an extra sense of danger and wonder and the feeling of being at the edge of the world.

The strange sense of foreboding seemed to lift as I partook in a lavish complimentary breakfast buffet.