Thursday, June 25, 2015

Midwinter Day

While I know at this time of year many of my readers are lounging by The Lake (in Minnesota, it must be capitalized), eating corn on the cob and slathering on sunscreen, for us in the southern hemisphere, June 21 is our Midwinter Day. Yes, now the days get to grow longer again (by 10 min or so...), and we can look hopefully toward spring...

And for this tropical transplant, it has certainly felt like midwinter! In the Papua New Guinea (PNG) Highlands where Ukarumpa (our linguistic centre) is located—over 5,000 feet above sea level, it’s now the dry season, which essentially means that our rain is more drizzly rather than torrential, the mornings are filled with dense fog (called “sno” in Tok Pisin, the trade language of PNG), and it’s frigid enough in the mornings that my devotional time often ends huddled up in my bed with a dog, a cup of hot tea, slippers, sweatshirts, and a couple of blankets, while looking for the gloves and hat... (50 degrees F in the house—or,  gasp, one morning was 44 DEGREES!—with no insulation or double-paned windows, my friends, is a wee bit chilly). Even the dog has his own sweatshirt!

Poor Buddy!

In light of all this, at my house, we would like to propose a new energy source...clouds. 

Because, you see, on nice sunny days, the rays of the sun beam down and hit our solar panel and voila! We have piping hot water for showers...just what you want on a day when the sun is baking the earth. This, of course, means that on frigid, cloudy days, the water is also like ice...a nice bracing wake-up in the morning (until we buckle down and boil some water on the stove and go for the bucket bath)...and all the while, that thick blanket of clouds wafts by overhead, unharnessed by the little people shivering underneath.

Also, laundry. Let the record show that when laundry has to hang for a week so that it finally reaches a semblance of dryness, so the day you take it down is the day you do are supposed to do laundry again...well, what's the point?

Not wanting to hog all the goodness of this spectacular plan, we invite you to join us in this venture. Don’t be afraid! Submit your designs today! We offer our house as a free testing facility for all your grand ideas and will even bake you cookies (as we huddle together by the oven for warmth).