Mistakes and many meetings

A common thing in PNG culture is to be indirect. Imagine I want to tell my friend that I’d like them to give me their T-shirt; I would say “Hey, that’s a nice T-shirt!” The message comes loud and clear that I really would like to have her shirt. Imagine the potential for misunderstanding as, when we as westerners say “nice T-shirt” we intend to give a compliment and bond with our friend.

Kovol people’s expectations

Today when I started my morning language session it was a bit frustrating and discouraging. Nambi, a man who has some sort of authority in this village, came and wanted to tell me all the little names for rats, bushrats, birds, frogs, tree kangaroos and so on. My plan was to talk about pigs and I had already started talking Read more…

Double lockdown?

Before the soccer tournament should have finished, we heard from someone, that a young guy got injured and broke his leg. That stopped that hole event. They said there was some fighting and people fled into the bush. We are not sure until today what really happened. The people seem to avoid telling us what happened. We might never find out.

Rain season

We have been here for a full year now. And while many of you have enjoyed the first big snow, we are full in the rainy season. Well you have rain as well throughout the year, and so do we. So what does it mean to be in the rainy season?

In Complete Isolation Again?

Yesterday I was able to join some ladies on a trip to their garden while Lisi my friend and visitor was watching our kids (Philip helped too). I ran down with some young girls and kids the huge mountain. That was fun. On the way down, I learnt lots of ways to say ‘run’ =) This was sooo much faster than the other times when we were dragging/ carrying down our kids with us.

Kolom

One week ago, Kolom came, an almost 2 year old boy. There are no words to describe what we saw and pictures don’t even justify the reality. A starving to death baby crying quietly in agony, on the doorsteps to death. As soon as I left him, I started crying.

A wedding

Can you image getting married without a ceremony, without your family and friends, without presents, without really knowing your groom, and moving to a new place, new people, in a house full of people?

Gardentrip

Gardens are essential to their lives. There is all their food, there is their work, there it is were a lot of live happens. Everyone has several gardens, old and new ones. They have garden houses were they sleep, or there is a small shelter. Families work often together or help each other in the gardens. It is often a steep hike to get there. And if it rains, it is really muddy too.

Overwhelmed

Where do I even start? We are living in Kovol now for about 5 days. And one thing is sure: the Kovol people are extremely generous and have been overwhelming us with food. The local food keeps just pilling up in our house. We share it then with them, and then suddenly we get even more. Also, they love to cook with us. As soon as some hear us getting up, they start walking around our houses to spend time with us. They are just waiting for us to come out.

Slipping wood

There are no screws anymore’. What? But we want to start building our house now. Philip already discovered that Madang was totally out and he was hoping there would be some screws in Goroka. But Goroka town and also our mission’s supply was out of them as well.