Monday, December 07, 2009

Loosing weight

When the MAF airplane showed up at the Mundri Airstrip (the international airport!) on Thursday, Samuel, the pilot informed us that he had instructed MAF to notify us that our weight limit going out was only 10 kilograms each, instead of the 15 we had had coming in. Since we were all flying on the same plane (we had taken two planes in to get the extra 50 kgs of art supplies in to Lui), he was quite insistent on that limit. He used a spring scale to weigh all of our luggage and informed us that we were a total of 16 kgs above his limit. We quickly filled Marc's hard-sided cases with extra bibles (English), prayer books, a whole pharmacopia of extra drugs (anti-biotics, tylenol, and all the things travelers bring with them), books, clothes and things we were willing to leave behind. I gave my English bible and prayer book to Manyagugu to keep or give to whoever needed it. We quickly came up with 40 kgs to leave behind. When the pilot of a little plane like that tells you you need to travel with less stuff, you don't argue. Part of the lesson of the trip: just exactly what do we need, and what can we live without? The answer is surprising in a place like Lui.

1 comment:

Lisa Fox said...

Great story, Dan!
I had a similar experience when I left Lui: I shucked probably 75% of what I had taken there.
I bet there's a sermon in there somewhere about "the baggage we carry" and "what we need."

Many thanks for this account.