This and That

My co-workers parents came to visit a few months ago and re-do our classroom floor.  Lesley (right) had been bragging on her mom's (Marg, left) cabbage rolls for months so I was determined to get a lesson while she was here.

 At Interface we find an excuse to have a party for almost anything. 

 I work with Janie in the office here and we have a lot of fun together.

 I knew Lesley's parents back when I was in the New Tribes Mission training so it was fun to catch up with them again while they were visiting. 

 Have you ever heard of a rat this thirsty for water?  I had to throw away half a case of water.

Another rat did some damage to my Tupperware, too.

 Joyce and her daughter, Dawn, come for a visit.  Grandpa Johnson stands proudly behind them.  Seeing everyone walking around with bush knives takes a bit to get used to at first, but you wouldn't believe how handy they are.  Chopping firewood, cutting the lawn, cleaning under your fingernails - bush knives are multi purpose tools around here. 

 I recently got a package in the mail that arrived exactly like this.  It was from a friend in Germany and thankfully I managed to salvage most of it.  Packages from anywhere make our day around here, but an entire box of German chocolate was a dream.

 We finally had enough of the attempts of rats at taking over our homes here, so we took action and got some kittens who we hope will turn into good mousers. 

 Living and working in a multi-cultural environment can be challenging, and we're so thankful for a co-worker in PNG who put together a great presentation on tackling the challenges of a multi-cultural work place and learning how to understand each other better.

We were using our classroom with its new concrete floor for the first time at Easter, so we decided to celebrate with bouquets from around campus.  We were all pretty water logged by the time we were done collecting flowers.

 I always enjoy visits up in the village with friends. (photo by Dale Stroud)

 We were able to get two new guard-dogs-to-be a couple months ago and its been fun to have puppies on campus again. 

 These girls were having a blast on the trampoline.

 We had to laugh seeing this gigantuous cow in the back of this guys pick up.  Look at the size of its head!

 Every once in a while we enjoy eating out in the nearest town of Goroka.  Eating Chinese food in Papua New Guinea with a group of German friends...talk about a multi-cultural experience.

 I was enjoying the moon this night and loved the moonlight shining off my grass roof.

 Some of my co-workers encouraged the ladies in the village to try selling flowers at our weekly Monday market where we buy fruit and veggies.  Bouquets like this are what showed up the next week for a whopping 50cents and we've been loving it! 

 A co-worker recently came back from home assignment with a new son, Levi, and we had a great time celebrating.  A new baby on campus is rare and every time you see him he's in someone else's arms.

 In moving overseas it's true that you are giving up aunts and uncles, cousins, parents, sibings and more.  But in place of all that you gain family in so many other ways.  Little Levi now has dozens of "aunts", "uncles" and "siblings" who adore him.

  Some of our beautiful New Guinea road work. 

 Momore came by one morning, having caught a "mumut," or bush rat, in his trap.  A little fattening up and that'll make a great meal.   

Me with two of my favorite girls.  I miss my nieces at home like crazy, but I've got some pretty cute stand ins here in PNG! 

 Good sausage is really hard to find in PNG, so I finally got Beth to show me the ropes to homemade sausage.  It was so much easier than I thought it would be, and tasted so good!  For those of you who are as clueless as I was, you start by mixing ground beef with spices, curing salt and a bit of liquid smoke.

 Then you divide the meat up and pack it down as hard as you can before rolling it up in saran wrap and letting it sit in the fridge overnight. 

 You bake it at a really low temp for several hours...

...then slice and eat!

 I snapped a few pictures of Janet as I stopped by her house one day.  She uses the rotting shells of coffee beans to fertilize her garden.

 That's the pig house on the left.  In Papua New Guinea, pigs = money.  You can buy them for around $50 as piglets and sell them for hundreds of dollars when they're full grown. 

Janet's yard is right next to our property line so we see a lot of her. 

"Singsing" Know How

A couple of weeks ago our friends in the village were doing a "singsing" in another village and invited us up the morning of to see them prep for it.  A "singsing" is usually held in celebration of an event and is a blend of traditional dancing and singing, while dressed up in the style of that particular area.  I've been to a lot of singsings but never understood the hours of prep that it took beforehand.  It was one of the highlights of my time here to get "behind the scenes" and see what goes on.  There was a specific process for every piece of "bilas" (decoration) they put on, and it made me curious what the meaning and importance of each piece was.  I didn't ask too many questions as they were pretty focused on getting ready, so I just enjoyed the process. Above is my friend, Rose, who also works on our campus in the main kitchen. 

Different headpieces to choose from, conveniently stored on a banana stalk.  Most of these are made from either bird feathers or entire birds, including Bird of Paradise.   

Headpieces stuck in a wall until needed. 

I'm pretty sure their ancestors didn't use sunglasses, but at every singsing I've been to in our area the ladies wear them with their bilas. 

Efeke also works on our campus and lives close by.  Out of all the ladies in our area, I'm not sure how they decide who gets to be involved in the singsing but Efeke was sitting this one out.   

I'm not sure who this lady is but she's a lot taller than others in our area and has a different look.  Makes me wonder if she married in from a different area.

Kotile does security for us at Interface and he's rarely seen without his cowboy hat.  I always think he has such bright and kind eyes. 

There's little Annie on the left, hanging out with her friends.  Just an ordinary day in the village for her.

I'd never put too much thought into how all their headdresses stayed in place, and have to admit I was shocked to see all that was involved.  They begin by tying thin pieces of bark rope into the hair to start as a base to attach things to.  Ouch!

A woven cap (made from plant fiber rolled into rope) is held in place by a stick that's run through it and the bark rope tied to the hair underneath. The first head piece is then added, taking two men to get it on.  You can tell by Janet's face that this isn't the most comfortable process.

 

More head pieces to choose from.

Sese watches from up on the hill.  She was my very first language helper when I got to Interface.

Random items adorn a window.

 I decided to stop standing around looking like a tourist and looked for a way to make myself useful.  More often than not we tend to mess things up more than help (humility is learned pretty quickly here), but these ladies were crimping pieces of plants to be used for bilas and it looked easy enough to help with.  Below are some other plants that were crimped for decoration.

 Heti uses a kids' paint set to touch up his wife, Janet.  Whatever works!

Another case of "whatever works" - a flip flop sole with feathers stuck in it.  It's attached on a piece of coiled wire for some bounce. 

 And in case you were looking for a use for leftover ginger and coconut husk, they hold head pieces in place pretty well.

One of the ladies refused to let me get a picture of her holding a mirror.  There are traditional beliefs here that we often know nothing about until we stumble on something like this.  I asked my friend Janet why the mirror would be a problem (I had heard of reasons why in other cultures) and she didn't seem to know.  Sometimes they genuinely don't know, but other times they just don't want to talk about it.  I find if I come right out and ask a "why" question I don't get the most open response.  But when you spend time with people and have a genuine relationship, tidbits of their culture will come up in conversation naturally and I love discovering new things I didn't know before. 

 These two guys, Kotile and Kokore, cracked me up.  The men were the ones decorating all the women and it was neat to see them in action.  You could tell they'd had years of experience doing this and there was a specific way for each headdress to be "built."  Kokore (at right) seemed to be heading up the whole bilas department, and here he and Kotile were discussing differences of opinion as to what head piece was supposed to go next.   

 Kokore and his wife, Mena.  Notice the mop used for Mena's dress.  These two are a part of the small Bena church here and they wanted their picture taken together.  They're probably the age of my grandparents, and it's amusing thinking of either of my grandmas in anything remotely close to this. :0)

 People watch as everyone loads into the vehicle.

 We couldn't believe how many people they got packed into the truck, and we had to laugh at all the feathers sticking out everywhere.

One last photo op heading down the hill to go home.