Fake Autumn…
Sunset whilst we walk with Koda
We have been making the most of the continued El Niño dry season and enjoying taking Koda for walks in the evenings on days when Ryan isn’t flying. As we only have a short time left before we go on Sabbatical and will have to leave him behind, we want to make the most of our time with our beloved puppy!!!
Recently, due to the extreme dry season and all of the bush fires we’ve been having as a result, we’ve noticed a kind-of fake autumn in the trees around Telefomin. At the edges of the forests, many of the smaller trees, bushes and some grass have turned red or even a golden-brown.
Autumn or Fall, depending on where you’re from, doesn’t normally happen in PNG. And, in fact, it still isn’t a true Autumn, not because it’s not getting colder, but because it appears to be Autumn in the pictures we’ve included here, but if you look across the other side of the road, or in our front garden, many of the flowers are in full bloom! It is all fake, caused by the bush fires which are still putting a lot of smoke into the air on a daily basis causing a lot of irritation to noses and throats. Some days the smoke in the atmosphere has been so think that it has delayed the airplane’s take off due to poor visibility.
It is a real blessing to live in Telefomin, a mile high in the tropics, where the temperature range is usually within 10-25 degrees Celsius all year round. But we do miss the changing of the seasons in the UK & Canada. Sadly, we’ll miss Autumn this year as we return to Alberta in November, but we should get to see a bit of Autumn in the UK in September next year, before we return home to PNG!?
The tree line around the edge of Telefomin town, which was on fire early in the El Niño dry season. Many of our friends’ gardens also got “cooked”, destroying their major food source. Without the regular rainfall returning, most of them are unable to re-plant their gardens as the ground is so hard and water in the rivers is so far from their gardens. Please pray for our rain to return to re-fill water tanks and water the gardens!
“Autumn” along the tree line where the bush fires blazed, but the usual greenery everywhere else.
A beautiful, but brief sunset. As we are just south of the equator, sunset only lasts about 15 mins.
