PNG Relationships
The picture above is of our cat, Aurora, and one of the cats who lived in our house in Mibu. Are they hugging? Fighting? Is Aurora just annoying? It’s tough to tell. And this is how we feel about some of our relationships in PNG. It’s tough to tell. In my previous post, I mentioned the expectation of reciprocity in relationships. When I used the word “reciprocity” I meant that there is an expectation that friendship will involve a mutual, though...
PNG Economics
Today I took Ginalyn (above) to the clinic again with Hoax (they skipped her previous appointment while we were in Mibu so Ginalyn is doing quite poorly.) We were at the clinic for more than five hours while the staff administered IV fluid and medicine giving Hoax and me plenty of quality time together. During this time we had a conversation that highlights one of the challenges we face as Americans in PNG. Hoax talked about Digicel, the main cellular provider here,...
Baby on Board
I’m not sure that I could jump on board with this, but I love how the ladies here put their babies in a bilum (woven bag) and hang them up on a tree or fence or whatever to take a nap. Sometimes you just see a dangling bilum start to move around and cry. The bilum is quite versatile, seeing as they also swing the baby in the bilum to put him to sleep and carry the baby in the bilum on their head, so it serves as a swing and a backpack/baby carrier, as well as a...
Funeral (Part 3)
And now, the thrilling conclusion to my funeral coverage–or at least the last part. I first heard that Hoax’s mother had died on Friday when he called me to say he wouldn’t be able to come to our house for our “language session.” He had planned to come, but explained that he had to cancel because his mother’s family had shown up and there had been a fight. I was a bit confused, but didn’t try to get the scoop on the phone.* Over the next week we did...
Funeral (Part 2)
The funeral was just over a week ago, but I’ve been a little slow writing more about it, so here we go. The day before the burial (Friday) was the day I walked out to Hoax’s house with one of our friends, Josh, and gave our “sorry” which I described previously. While we were there, this was the scene: You can see Hoax’s mother’s house on the left decorated with banana trees that had been chopped down and stuck in recently dug holes....
Funeral (Part 1)
Last Wednesday, Hoax’s mother passed away. Though we didn’t know her any better than to say “hello,” we certainly know Hoax and wanted to express our sympathy. Doing that here is a little different than in America. In PNG there are cultural traditions, expectations and even demands beyond what we are used to. In order to fit in culturally, we took Hoax and his family some food (a bag of rice, a bag of salt and a loaf of bread) and some money. This is called...
Watering Hole
Last week I was out and about chillin with one of my homies (a fifteen year old and his family to be specific) and he asked if I wanted to see where they get their water. Of course I did. So he led me, and few younger kids, on a twenty minute hike that started on an obviously beaten path, but soon turned into this: We eventually made it to the water source here: What you can’t see in the picture is the small pool of water a few feet out of the top of the frame....
Mourning
Hoax, our language helper, recently told us about a tradition here in PNG surrounding the death of a family member. Apparently it was customary to have one’s finger cut off to express the sorrow associated with such a loss. After explaining this, Hoax showed us his mother’s hand. As you can see, the ends of two of her fingers are gone. These were cut off when she was a child–one for each parent. Though this tradition is not practiced around here anymore,...
Elizabeth Kills a Chicken
After watching our dinner be killed a few weeks ago–and helping a little, Elizabeth took things in her own hands. Check out the video.
PNG Living
We’ve shown a bunch of pictures of houses here in PNG, but I realized we haven’t shown much of what they look like inside. So to remedy that, here’s the inside of one house. This is pretty typical from what we’ve seen and heard. There is usually a bamboo platform that serves as a bed lining the walls (often in a horseshoe shape) and a fire place* in the middle. This could be the house of a single family, but often it would be for extended family...
Killing a Chicken
***Warning: This post is about killing a chicken! And there are pictures. If you are eating breakfast while reading this post, it is your fault***
Our First Mumu
Here in PNG, one way to cook food is called a Mumu–it's actually more of an event than just a way to cook food. Today we participated in our first one.
The Cost of Friendship
Here in Papua New Guinea one of the important aspects of the culture we are learning about is the role of "friendships." I put the word in quotes because a PNGian would translate the word "wantok" into english as "friend," but it would not accurately reflect the true meaning of the word.
Bow Making
Yesterday one of our PNG friends took me (along with two other guys) on a hike a few miles away to visit some of his family (the actual relationship is not totally clear at this point.) When we got there, his cousin-ish relative showed us how to replace the “rope” on a bow (as in “bow and arrow.”) The rope is actually a piece of bamboo. Here he is measuring out the bamboo on his bow… And trimming it with his “bush...
Museum
We went to the museum here yesterday. It was full of interesting things about the history of the people in PNG. Honestly there was way more than I could really appreciate in one trip…especially when that trip included all 3 kiddos. So maybe another trip will be in our future. I actually have more pics than this, but the computer was being TERRIBLY slow uploading tonight, so I thought I’d just share with you one of my favorite things from the museum....
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