5.18

The TTC students learned a bunch of ways to use their new scriptures today. They learned about Story telling, which is about telling the Bible stories in dynamic ways to catch peoples attentions, and it becomes like their traditional stories that aren’t written, but memorized by everyone. They also learned about dramas, and how to do dramas in churches. They practiced a short and condensed version on the book of Ruth and it was hilarious!!!

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5.17

Every morning they have a lesson in Bible Background to help them understand better the texts they are reading and translating. These are some of the posters that were made and hung up around the class to tell the whole storyline of the Bible.

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5.16

Well, we made up for the rainless day yesterday!  Its been pouring non stop, and no naps today.  I didnt have much to do at the Translation workshop (because they are learning to be independent) so I started working on the phonology project for the Aitape West Team.  There are 4 languages that need help and today I started listening to the word lists for one of them and transcribing the words.  Im looking for tones, and then I will compare them to each other once they are all transcribed. :D

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5.15

This was the first day it did not rain since I got here.  Just so everyone knows, its technically the start of the dry season......AHAHAHA!  The first few days I barely even saw the sun because it rained all the time, but for today its not raining (although rainy Sunday afternoons are the best for napping!)

 

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5.14

Every few months the teenagers in Ukarumpa put on an "everything sale".  Its like a giant garage sale.  They collect stuff for weeks and then set it all up in the teen center to sell.  It was a madhouse in there!  I looked around and there were people crowding the clothes section and clothes were just flying everywhere.  Then on the way out there were some Papua New Guinean women reselling what they had bought inside to people that didnt get anything!  AHAHAHAH!  

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5.13

I went back to work today!  YAY!  The class has done a lot in my few days away.  They started learning some Hebrew, Bible background and have started the second chapter of Genesis.  They are learning to work more independently now because they won't be able to take us back to their villages with them.  Its great to see the progress!

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5.1

 

My sister graduated from UF today!  (actually it was the 30^th, but we are a day ahead).  I walked around all morning waiting for her to call me.  She is not very happy that she had to suffer through my boring graduation service and I didn't have to for hers.  I was sad I couldn't go *tears* O well.  She is going to send me a picture with me photoshopped into it BAHAHAHA!!!  

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4.29

First day back from the village and we had lots of story time. We were only allowed to tell one story from our time because if not it would take too much time. I told the story of how my Waspapa didn’t understand the concept of dessert and I baked at least 20 cakes in 5 weeks. If I go to the village again to work on a language team, I am NOT baking that much. You have no idea how much time it takes to bake a cake over a fire one by one and make enough for a village to have even one piece.

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4.28

Came back to POC today. It was hard leaving our village family. They were so nice and looked after us so great. I cried when I left and so did our wasfemili. Our Waspapa has already called us 4 times today to tell us he almost broke his phone in a crying rage when he got our text that we were back in POC, or to tell us he was crying looking at our house. Its sad :( Life in the village is so monotonous and then they suddenly get these two Americans to look after for 5 weeks. We literally became their children to them and then we have to leave. :(

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4.27

This is our last day in the village. We gave our wasfemili their gifts and they were really excited about them. Our Waspapa didn’t want anything but my Tok Pisin Bible because he didn’t have one. We gave the kids a soccer ball and lots of toys, a kids Bible and comic books, we gave them our mattresses and our pot oven too. I also left all my clothes for them (except the ones Im wearing out AHAHAHA! Although I guess I could wear my grass skirt and bilum!) They’ve given us so many bilums and singsing decorations too. I have a clay pot that they usually give as part of a bride price and they killed a pig in our honor. Im going to be sad to leave them. Our family is already crying thinking about us leaving :(

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4.26

Today we had a big goodbye feast for us. Apparently I didn’t make enough cakes yesterday (6 of them) , so I went to another village to use someones drum oven and made 8 more. Then we gave them the rest of our rice and soy sauce because they wanted to make fried rice. There was so much food and then they killed a pig for us! The plates they gave us were so huge, like a weeks worth of food that I couldn’t possibly eat even if I was starving. We had to save it too because they wouldn’t eat our left overs. They usually take it back but because they killed the pig for us, they wouldn’t this time. I dried the leftover pork to fry tomorrow and give away (they would eat it tomorrow, but not today….i dunno why?)

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4.25

When we first got to the village there were 4 puppies, but they gave 2 away. Now the two left have become my friends and the village people don’t beat them as much because they know I don’t like it when they do. I gave them names, one is cheeto because he has a curly tail and the other is El Calcetine (which means sock in Spanish) because he has a white paw (and they like asking me words in Spanish for some reason). Anyways, they are the mangiest, scraggliest, skinniest, flea ridden little things you’ve ever seen (which makes me like them even more). So today I decided to give them a bath in the river (since they follow me every where I go after I gave them my Mumut in secret) . It was fun and now they are clean and I can pet them with my fingers instead of rubbing their ears with a stick ^_^

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4.24

Today is Easter and its unlike any Easter Ive ever had before. At home we have a big feast at church and an egg hunt for the kids and do the egg carton Easter story. I had plans to make cross necklaces for everyone in our village out of nails, but we couldn’t make them work without welding them (we thought tying them with rope would work, but it didn’t. Any suggestions, has anyone ever done them before?) I really wish we could have. Then we wanted to do the egg carton easter story where each spot in the egg carton in a piece of the story (like a nail in one egg to represent the nails in Jesus’ hands,etc.) But our friends who we were going to do it with left the village early because one of them got malaria. So we couldn’t do anything fun really other than talk about the Jesus video we saw a few weeks ago. :(

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4.23

Here is a picture of our wasfemili. We finally got them all to sit down together and take a picture. The two in the middle at the top are our Wasmama and Waspapa. Their first daughter isn’t in the picture because she lives in another village. Their second is the girl on the bottom right holding the bilum shes making, the third is on the left of Waspapa, the fourth is the boy blowing bubbles on the bottom left, the fifth and sixth are the two in the middle, they are twins. The girl on the top right is a cousin who lives with them.

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4.22

Everyone here eats something called buai. It’s a nut that grows on a palm tree that gives an energy boost like caffeine. They shell the nut out, take this green pepper (not hot) dip it in dried and powdered sea shells and eat it all together. It makes your mouth red and they call it the lipstick of Papua New Guinea. If you have a red mouth and teeth its considered attractive. SO I ate one to see what it tasted like. Its disgusting. Gross. I cant even describe it, but the taste is awful and you have to spit it (you don’t swallow it). Apparently on your first try it makes you sweat and dizzy (which it does). It was gross……ewwwWWW!

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4.21

Today I was sick. I woke up feeling ok and then my stomach started to hurt and I threw up a few times. My Waspapa saw me throw up and came over and started asking me if I had a fever, if I was cold, if my head hurt and then, not even waiting for me to answer the questions, he diagnosed me with malaria. He made me go in the house and sleep all day. I was dead tired and my body hurt all over, so I didn’t object to that, but lots of people came from other villages and heard I had malaria! It wasn’t malaria, it was probably just something I was allergic to or something, I dunno. Anyways, I was glad I got to sleep all day :D

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4.20

Today we went to another singsing and got decorated to the exteme! They use a seed that has some red squishy stuff inside and mix it with coconut grease to make a paint to paint themselves red. They said they were only going to put a little on us, but I didn’t know that what they actually meant by that was it only takes a little bit of paint to turn you all red because you have white skin. They painted every inch of my face, arms and legs red! We got to wear our grass skirts and our headdresses and armbands today too! They gave us necklaces and perfume leaves too. Then they wanted us to take our shirts off (because they just go around topless, its nothing to them) But I said no and they put a bilum on me to cover my shirt as another decoration! AHAHHA! It was fun, but I didn’t want to actually singsing and dance because the red sweat would have ruined the bilum :D

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4.19

Today we went to town again to meet with all the other POC students and hear some of their village stories. The time we went to town before we had passed by the restaurant we were going to eat at, so I already knew how expensive it would be. Before we went I went to the store and bought a sandwich for about $1.50 US and then went to market to by an avocado and some peanuts and fruit. Then I ate that at the restaurant were a single coke was more expensive than my whole meal. YAY for being cheap! :D But it was fun to see the others and hear some of their stories.

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4.18

This is a picture of a mumut. They say the English name is Bendegut, but Ive never heard of that before. It’s a giant bush rat basically. Very cute. But they eat it. And its taste is not cute. Its so strong and has a bad smell (at least I think it does, my roommate thought it was ok). It was not pleasant to eat. But they really like it. Their jungle has been cut down a lot by a logging company, so the huge huge trees are all gone, the trees that were the homes of all the animals they used to eat, like wild pigs, birds, (theres a giant one called a Muruk that lays an egg the size of an ostrich egg!). But all these are gone now, and all the rivers are polluted so fish are all dead. This mumut, bush rat, is one of the only things they can get if they don’t want to kill their own pigs and chickens (which are mostly used for bride prices).

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4.17

Today we went to another village to talk to some relative of our Waspapa. (I don’t know how hes related exactly, but usually everyone we meet is introduced as brother….) He is trying to start something to get more tourists in the area. He wants an arrangement with a tourist company to get a tour to the caves I wrote about before and get singsing groups to perform for people that come on “big ships” I don’t know what kind of big ships he was trying to talk about, but I thought of cruise ships (the only big ships I know that have tourists). I don’t know if there are cruises that go to PNG. Anyways, he wanted me to talk to the government and get their help. I didn’t know how to respond to something like that so I said I don’t have that kind of power and that he should probably talk to the companies first and get their opinions of things. How do you answer something like that? I don’t know anything about tourism and PNG government/economics. O well, I hope I was at least a little helpful....I felt bad not being able to help….this is a picture of the singsing area he is preparing.

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