Better than TV

Life in the village is typically slow paced and very routine: work in the gardens in the morning and then around 2 pm, it’s off to market with produce to sell. (Read about my market adventure here.) After the evening meal, everyone sits and talks for a while, and then it’s time for bed.

On occasion, though, things that are slightly out of the ordinary happen…

Where's the Beef?!

We don’t eat a lot of fresh meat in Papua New Guinea (PNG) for a variety of reasons: for one, it’s quite expensive, and for another, many translators and linguists live in village allocations where there is no electricity, so by necessity we eat a lot of tinned (canned) meat. Think Spam, only not actual Spam (even if the store does have it, it’s a bit pricey since it’s imported). If you haven’t ever had the pleasure, you should try some…it can be reasonably tasty when prepared correctly!

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.

Washing Laundry...in a Bucket?!

What does the phrase “do laundry” bring to your mind? The washer and dryer in the basement laundry room? Folding clothes still warm from the dryer? Well, in the village that’s not quite how it goes…

The laundry bucket

First you collect your dirty laundry, which isn’t usually very much, because you typically do some every day. The dirty laundry, laundry soap, a bar of Klina soap (good for getting stains out), and the laundry scrub brush all go in the laundry bucket, which you take down to the river; and since you’ll be down at the river anyways, you may as well waswas (bathe), too. (See my post about waswas here.) After you’ve gathered up what seems to be everything but the kitchen sink, you head down to the river.

A Missionary's Best Friend

During my four weeks of living in a Papua New Guinean village, I discovered that there are several things that could be considered a missionary’s best friend. High on the list (which is not exhaustive by any means!) are: 

• Mosquito repellant, aka missionary perfume: the higher the DEET, the better. RID is the brand of choice, being the most readily available, although its efficacy is hotly debated among my colleagues and I. (Personally, I think it attracts more mosquitos than it repels…)

Here We Go Waswas

For the uninitiated, waswas is Tok Pisin for bathing. Now, you may be wondering why a whole blog post is dedicated to waswas…well, for starters, there is no electricity in the village; therefore there is no pump and no shower. There is, however, running water—in the truest sense of the word—a river. Every day we gather our things and go down to the river to waswas. So, for your reading pleasure, here are 30 steps to a successful waswas experience!

Now We Go Wokabaut

One of the “big” deals of Pacific Orientation Course (POC) is the two day/overnight hike. Basically you hike out from POC until you arrive at the village you’ll be staying overnight in, then the next morning after breakfast, you hike out and catch a Public Motor Vehicle (PMV) back to POC. Well, that’s the short story, anyway.

Village Living

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.