Village Living

We arrived back to POC in Madang on Thursday, November 10^th, just in time for lunch. We are happy, healthy, and safe. Village living was a life changing experience for us – we know this was an invaluable learning time for us that what we’ve learned will be useful for us during the rest of our time here in PNG. A few years ago, neither one of us would have ever guessed that we’d be living in a village in Papua New Guinea for 5 weeks, tromping through the jungle, and loving it!

We were allocated in a village called Nag (named after their drinking water source, the Nag River). It was a village of about 60 people, all related family, with grandparents, uncles, aunts, and lots and lots of cousins. We were given our own house, which had 2 rooms and an outdoor kitchen/cooking spot. The family to which we were assigned was 2 parents in their early 40’s (we think, nobody is quite sure of their age) and their 5 children, ranging in ages from 3 – 16 years old. They took excellent care of us, and made sure we were never wanting for anything. Often, we would wake up at around 6:30 a.m. and find that all our pots were sparkling and shiny because our Mama had already taken them down to the river and scrubbed them with a special leaf that puts steel wool to shame. They were very helpful, and always wanted to make life easy for us in the village, knowing that this was a very new experience for us. They often worried that we would trip, stumble or fall and hurt ourselves, and so were very protective, sometimes to the point that we felt like children again instead of grown adults. But gradually we were allowed to go on some hikes on our own, and were given more independence.

The village's water source is the river, so for every activity involving water, you go to the river. That is where we bathed, washed our dishes, and collected our drinking water (which we had to boil before drinking, very tedious). All these activities have a designated place in the river.

Nag was an hour’s hike from the nearest road, so it was very quiet, and we never heard traffic. This was the perfect place for us. We hiked so often that if we sat around the village for more than a day we began to feel restless and wanted to get moving. We hiked to many of the other villages where other POC students were allocated, so we got to see lots of other villages other than our own; the farthest hike

we did was 3 hrs each way.

Activities

Though we were in the bush and away from technology, we were rarely bored in the village and there was always something to do. Paul went with Papa to check his wild pig traps one morning. They did find a pig but it had been dead for a few days so the meat was bad. It could have been an exciting experience had the pig still been alive. We did get the chance to eat wild pig one day when a young man from the village caught his first pig in one of his traps. Everyone in the village was given a piece, and they included us. (Paul even had eggs and “bacon” for his birthday!) Another day we both went out to a garden and helped plant taro - the physical work was exhausting! (They were very careful that we didn’t overdo it and made sure that we rested often.) Heidi spent some time with the village ladies teaching them how to bake bread, banana cake, and scones. She also spent some quiet afternoons sitting under the mango tree with a small group of ladies talking and making bilums (string bags).

Food

Are you wondering what the food was like??? We ate a lot of food that the people from the village would bring us - sweet potato, cooking bananas, corn, greens (some nice, others quite bitter) and taro (part of the tasty root family). These were usually all in one pot, cooked in coconut milk. We also had the chance to try some of the meat that the village eats, including chicken, wild pig, wild fowl, hornbill, eel, fresh water shrimp, bandicoot (medium sized rodent, looks like a big gopher), kuskus (a fuzzy possum-like animal with short ears), and bat. These meats ranged in taste from lovely to horrible. But we were willing to try them all (at least once)! People would also bring us cucumbers and watermelons - these 2 and corn were our favorites. We did also bring along our own food so that we were able to eat things that were more familiar to us, such as pizza, spaghetti, baked beans, and 2-minute noodles.

Church

Feeding their souls through fellowship and reading the Bible was also important to this village. They met under some mango trees for a Sunday morning “lotu” (worship) service, and again on Sunday evening for singing and a shorter sermon. Wednesday evenings there was another “lotu” service with singing and a short sermon/devotion, and after, a potluck.

Farewell

Our village gave us a big goodbye party, complete with a singsing (singing, dancing, lots of drums, and people in traditional dress), a comedic play, heaps of food and many gifts of string bags and clay pots. It was an all day event that left us exhausted but very happy. It was a beautiful way to say goodbye to our village.

So what did we learn???

We learned much about communicating with people who speak a different language and have a different culture, and different learning/teaching styles. This kind of communication can be challenging, but is worth the effort. Our attitude was that we wanted to go into village living to learn and observe the people, not to change them. During our time in Nag we observed several community needs, such as better access to medical care (there was no aid post nearby so people had to go into the Madang hospital for medical care, which is an hour hike and then a 1 ½ hour PMV ride). Many parents struggle to pay their children’s school fees. This opened our eyes to the daily challenges that Papua New Guineans face and helped us recognize even further how blessed children in North America are and how many resources and opportunities are available for people there.

The Next Chapter…

We are currently enjoying 6 days of debriefing time back at POC just outside of Madang. Our next step will be moving up to the SIL center in Ukarumpa, in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. This is where we will make our home for the rest of our time in PNG. We are both looking forward to starting our jobs there; Paul with the survey team, and Heidi at the medical clinic.