Singing in a New Language

The scene is familiar to us now: sweat dripping down our faces, sun beating down on us, temperatures and humidity soaring. Only this time, we have added a new variable. Fire. For the next four weekends, all of our cooking will be done over a fire, so we practiced making and cooking with fires this week. Unfortunately, all of the wood we were given to practice with was wet, so eventually our waspapa (adopted PNG “dad” who works at POC) had to come start our fire for us since we couldn’t get it going.

Later in the week, we visited our wasfamili in their home. Shortly after we got there, one of the grandkids asked me if we had a card game they could play. We got out the cards we used last time for our version of Go Fish (Yu Gat Dispela?), and they enjoyed playing until we ate. We are going to look for a new card game when we go to town this week so they don’t get bored with Yu Gat Dispela! In addition to the rice and stew we brought, our wasmama cooked some sweet potato, pumpkin, and native greens, all of which were from her garden.

After we ate, our waspapa brought out his songbook, which was written in his tok ples (local language—Nobnob in this case). I asked him if he wanted to sing, so he sat down next to me and opened to a song he knew…as it turns out, I knew it too! The sounds of Nobnob were close enough to Tok Pisin that I could sing along with him to the tune of “Rock of Ages.” When we finished singing, he translated each line into Tok Pisin for me. We sang a few more after that, including “What a Friend We Have in Jesus” and “Silent Night.”

Soon our waspapa said it was time for the kids to go to bed since they had school the next morning, so he and two of the grandkids walked us home (about a five minute walk from their house). They kept our pots and pans with the leftovers from dinner in them, but they showed up here the next morning, all clean. Good thing, because today we need them to start our weekend of cooking over the fire!