Relax in Lumi and fall in love with KENNY! 10 July

Oh, my God!   If you aren't screaming in delight when you see this
creature, then I'm not sure we can be friends.

I'll bet you've never seen a spotted cuscus.   And if you have had the pleasure, it certainly couldn't have been more charming and doggone cute as Kenny.   Rachel and I wanted to play with him constantly, and took at least 1000 photos of him.   We both miss him alot!!!

Jean and Jim kept us very amused on a down day for them (no "required" work to do today, a Saturday) which also happened to be quite rainy.   Jean, who is a delightful woman, always smiling, very kind and thoughtful, told us that she gets very frustrated with the villagers from time to time because of some of the things they do (or don't do), and so somewhere along the line she had gained the Pidgin nickname "meri bilong cross", which roughly translates to "woman who is always angry."    I joked that "Jesus bilong cross, Meri bilong happy!"

Jim tells us about some of the functioning of the conservation site here, and gives me a tour of the solar panels that have already been put in place, the diesel generator, and plans for expansion in the future.

Part of Jim and Jean's compound... the enclosure in the foreground
is for their "pet" crocodile

Jim and Jean in their office... mostly solar powered!

He also tells us of some of the trouble they've had, on and off in the area, and with the locals.  Mostly it's unhappiness over money and resources.   Sometimes the unhappiness manifests itself in man who's completely barking mad, chasing people with an axe, and very bad intent.   Or threats to slash each other with machetes.   We have worked out that the people here would love for tourists to come and see what they are doing, and they are convinced that, just around the corner their are busloads of eco-tourists coming to see their forests and spend lots of money in PNG.  But of course, they don't realize the bigger picture:   there are no tourists in PNG.