To Market, To Market

One Thursday morning during Village Living, one of my roommates and I decided that we needed to get out of the village for a few hours. We asked our wasmama (host mother), Patrisia, if we could go to market with her later that day; she was pleased as punch that we wanted to go again (we had gone the previous week), so we quickly ate our lunch and gathered up what we needed for our trek through the jungle down to the Mediba market.

The four of us (waspapa (host father) went, too, to help carry the produce to sell) headed down the bus rot (bush road or trail), which wasmama was pleased to inform us was much shorter than taking the main road, as we had done the week before.

The bus rot

Remember the song lyrics “over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go?” Well, if you amend the lyrics just a bit, it fits quite well: “ford the river and hike through the jungle, to market we shall go…” and that’s exactly how we went: down a bit of a slope to the river, which we waded through, then back up the other side and on down the path for about 20 more minutes until we got to the main road; after about 10 minutes’ walk on the big road, we arrived at the market.

Wasmama carrying produce from her gardens to sell at the
market-in a bilum, on her head

All along the way, wasmama would proudly introduce us as lain bilong em (her family) and visiting SIL workers, to which everyone would smile broadly, green us, and stare at the wait skins (white skins) until we passed out of their sight.

Once we arrived at the market, wasmama quickly located an open spot on a table and set up her produce: greens, snake beans, buai (betel nut, an addictive tree nut that nearly everyone here chews, even the children), and tomatoes. We sat down on the bench behind the table to rest and cool off for a few minutes. As we sat, people came over to look at wasmama’s produce and have a look at the two wait skins that came with her. We were introduced to another of wasmama’s sisters, as well as waspapa’s brother, who gave us a gift of snake beans.

Tying a strip of leaf or grass around the beans to sell in bundles

We sat for a few more minutes, hoping to stop sweating, then decided to go into the store next door…the real reason we wanted to go to market on such a hot day! Inside the store was a small paradise…tinned meat, biskits, some clothing and flip flops, and the mother lode—cold water and Coke! We wandered through each aisle, just looking at all the options (it didn’t take long—there were only four aisles), then we looked at our lists to find what we needed. A pair of flip flops for me (my last pair met an unfortunate end in the mud a couple days earlier), some chicken biskits, batteries, and a cold water and Coke, of course!

After making our purchases, we headed back out to the market, where we guzzled our cold water and visited with some of wasmama’s relatives. By this point, it had started raining; when it slowed down for a bit, waspapa came to take us back to the village. We started back down the road when it suddenly started pouring again. So we both reached into our bilum (string bag) and grabbed our umbrellas (never go anywhere without one!) and waspapa paused to grab a leaf off a nearby banana tree. We trudged on through the rain until a truck pulled up next to us—it was one of the Catholic brothers from church, offering to give us a ride! We accepted gratefully and arrived back in the village much sooner and significantly drier than we otherwise would have!