Wednesday was the day we’ve been anxiously awaiting...when we
found out where we will spend our four weeks of village living! We got to see
some pictures of our house and wasfemili
(host family) and get a feel for our new “home.” The village allocation team
(made of an ex-pat and three or four Papua New Guinean men) were very excited
to make the announcement and show us pictures.
My roommates and I will be living in Maren and our waspapa and wasmama are Joakim and Patrisia. (Waspapa, wasmama: host papa and mama; our family for the month.)
My roommates and I will be living in Maren and our waspapa and wasmama are Joakim and Patrisia. (Waspapa, wasmama: host papa and mama; our family for the month.)
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| Our house |
A few of the requirements of hosting POC students are
providing our own house, a haus kuk (a
cooking house), a liklik haus (an outhouse), as well as teaching us how to live like
they do, which covers everything from bathing and washing clothes in a stream
to planting or harvesting their gardens. They’ll show us where to collect
drinking water (don’t worry, we won’t be drinking untreated water—filter,
filter, filter!), how to start a fire in our haus kuk (which is typically on the veranda) without burning the
whole house down, and any other daily living things that pop up. We will go to
market with our wasfemili to buy
produce (and maybe sell it; the staff told us one time a student went with
their wasfemili to sell produce at
the market; everything sold almost immediately because of the wait skin (literally, white skin; any
non-Papua New Guinean); everyone was curious!).
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| Where we'll go to fill up bottles for drinking water |
Family in PNG is a big deal; family takes care of family—they
look after each other, even going so far as to give one of their children to a
childless family member. So while one village family actually adopts us for the
month, in reality the whole village is taking us in and caring for us. We’ve
been told that at any given time, basically the whole village will know where
we are; kids will follow us around, people will gather on our veranda to stori (talk) in the evenings… It is
community living to the max!
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| Waspapa finishing up the veranda so it's ready for us to come next week |
Looking at that water, I hope you have a REALLY good filter! What a rich cultural experience this will be. I know God is teaching you things he will use for a lifetime. You are in our prayers.
ReplyDeleteIt is dirty, isn't it?! I think we'll gather water from the bamboo spout that flows into the little pond, which should be slightly cleaner. :) Thank you for all your prayers!
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