Life in Wamena certainly keeps me on my toes. I thought I would share with you a few things that have happened since I've been back. The first was when I was making my first supply run since being back in town. I was at one of my last stops at a little shop in what you would call the down town area buying the last of the supplies for a flight. I was in the store getting tomatoes when the employees literally start throwing stuff onto the store. Normally goods are displayed out on the side walk in front of the store since the store are quite small. Once everything was inside they closed the doors with me still inside! I looked out to see the whole street was a buzz with the store keeper all doing the same thing franticly shoving their goods inside and closing up shop. I asked the store owner what was going on. He said a fight had broken out at the end of the block between the Papuans and it could turn into a war! Me, safely behind the bars of the store, finished my supply buying, chatted with the employees and after a bit it was safe enough for me to leave although the store owner did not fully reopen his store. Nothing gets the heart pumping like potential war in downtown Wamena with me stuck in the middle. :-) Thankfully God is good and it all came to nothing. The fight was only a block from the police station and they arrived quickly and calmed the situation.
The second was when I was at the local market buying vegetables. I had gotten all that I needed and was headed back to my motorbike when I hear a child crying. This is nothing new at the market. Children cry all the time and normally I don't pay much attention. This time however, I saw the child maybe 2 or 3 years old, that was crying and saw blood running from his hand onto the ground. I went to see what had happened. As it turns out the child had got a hold of his mothers exact-o knife, they use them to cut up the vegetables, and had sliced the tip of his finger almost entirely off! His mother was pouring what I could only imagine to be very dirty water over his hand trying to get the bleeding to stop. I found a small pharmacy bought bandages and some clean water. I cleaned the wound and I had to wait several minutes before the bleeding slowed enough to bandage it properly. I checked on the child the next day and found him with knife in hand I changed his bandage and left.
