Suck it Up and Suck it Down

One of the favorite foods on this particular island—both PNG and Indonesia sides—is sago, or as it’s called in Tok Pisin, saksak. The sago palm provides all sorts of resources in places where it grows: its branches are used for fishing rods and brooms, its “meat” is used for cooking in a multitude of ways, and even the sago grub provides a tasty source of sustenance! No, I didn’t try one, but only because I wasn’t given the opportunity. I did taste a sago mushroom, though…tasted it, and then gave it to the fish in the river to eat!

Every day, Eric and I had to go to the local water pump at least once to fill up our containers with water for drinking and cooking. One afternoon as I walked back with my bilum (PNG-style bag) full of heavy water containers on my head, we saw a woman standing by our house with a bag FILLED with garden produce. She was going to teach me to cook, she said. Teaching methods are different in PNG, and usually in the village we stayed in, being taught to do something meant watching someone else do it. So, I watched her cook food, and then according to PNG custom, I delivered plates of it to all the nearby family members who thanked me for making it for them!

The next morning, she—who turned out to be our waspapa’s aunt—was at our house at 6 in the morning to teach me how to cook sago! There are many ways it can be done, and we already knew from experience that most of them are unpalatable to our western taste buds! There is a process for harvesting sago that we were shown in the bush, but Auntie T had bought some already processed at the market. It was a powdery substance that we mixed with water until it turned to paste. Appetizing! Then she poured in boiling water while I stirred it, and right before my eyes, it turned into a gelatinous glob.

To serve the gelatinous glob-style of sago (other methods include frying and smoking), the traditional technique is to take two sticks and spin some of it together to form a ball. I could not get the hang of that, though, so I was given a spoon with which to serve it. We had at least eight plates to fill, but there was so much sago that Auntie T kept telling me to put more on each plate. When each plate was overflowing with goo, we topped it with ibika and snake beans (local vegetables), canned tuna, and the gravy that came from boiling the vegetables with ginger. I don’t have a picture of it, so you’ll have to google sago. I prayed and prayed that I would be able to get it down without throwing up!

Finally it was time to eat. Our waspapa told us not to chew it; you just let it slide down your throat. Thankfully, it’s not the most flavorful thing in the world, so it wasn’t too terribly hard to just “suck it up and suck it down.”

Eric Plants a Garden

If you’re a gardener in America, you likely use your garden to supplement your meals, and you can probably see it from your house. In PNG, most of their sustenance comes from their gardens, which are a significant distance from their houses. We visited our wasfamili’s garden with them on a Saturday (there are no weekends off from work if you want to have food to eat!), walking about twenty minutes into the bush to reach it.

This particular day, we were planting taro (a potato-like starch) and banana trees. On the way to the garden, our waspapa uprooted part of a banana tree (it must have belonged to a relative) and carried it the rest of the way to the garden. We walked through another relative’s garden where we uprooted taro to plant in our wasfamili’s garden.

Once we arrived at the garden, it was the men’s turn to work first. Using a spear-like tool, they broke holes into the earth in a pattern mimicking the footprints of a native bird. The women sat and rested in a “garden house”—like a small house without walls—while we watched the men prepare the holes. Then it was our turn to work while the men rested. Similar to the way we garden in America, one plant was placed in each hole and covered with soil. Later, one relative told me that the taro I planted was growing well, while the taro he planted was weak. I’m not sure if I believe him! [He's a single guy, so he has to perform both roles of breaking the ground and planting.]

After planting, it was time to harvest. The gardens in PNG are huge, so if one area is just being planted, another area is ready to harvest. Our wasmama plucked a handful of a leafy vegetable called ibika and handed it to me. It was more than enough for two people. I put it in my bag and thanked her, and she said, “You have to fill up the whole bag!” It was a big bag. She put enough ibika for about two weeks in my bag, along with two coconuts and some taro from another area in the garden. Since there are no refrigerators in the village, we had to cook all the leafy vegetables right away to keep them from spoiling! It just so happens that ibika is one of my least favorite vegetables here. Everyone must have thought we loved it, though, when they saw me carrying such a huge bag of it home (it was heavy!), so plenty of people brought us mounds of it throughout the rest of our stay!

What Time Does it Start?

What does Monday morning usually look like for you? If you lived in the village of Sarang 2, you would be finding a shady spot in the center of the village to sit for the community bung (basically a town meeting; pronounced “boong”). That is, that’s what you would be doing as long as other people had already shown up so you knew the meeting wouldn’t be cancelled, and as long as you didn’t have more pressing work in your garden! The bell rings around 8 or 9 in the morning to alert people to come to the bung. I’m not sure what time people start showing up since our wasfamili always waited until about 10 to go down and check whether people were there.

Usually the meeting started between 10 and 10:30 (even though it was supposed to start at 9!), and the village leader opened with prayer. Then the head men from each of the committees (such as school, water supply, health, etc.) spoke about any problems that needed to be worked out. For instance, the village needed to raise the money to build a house for a nurse so they could have better access to medical care. The nearest medical facility was quite far. They also needed to repair the water supply system, which broke twice while we were there. Afterwards, the men went to do community work (the first week it was cleaning one of the water tanks), and the women cooked food for when the men were done.

The first week we were there, the meeting ended with an election for the school board. First they took nominations for a male representative, followed by a vote conducted by people raising their hands. Then the procedure was repeated for a female representative. The meeting went so long that our wasfamili told us to rest for the remainder of the day!

The last community bung we attended was also attended by a regional government representative, and the village board chair had a list of four points they needed to discuss as a community with him. After two hours, they finally closed the first point. Eric and I politely left to go make lunch. We don’t know how long it took to finish the last three items!

Fishes and Dishes

Fish swim up to my feet as I stand ankle deep in the water. Which of the many village activities do you think I am doing? Fishing? Swimming? No—washing dishes! Our waspapa’s (adopted PNG father who took care of us) aunt took me to the river to show me how to wash my dishes. First, everything is submerged in the water, and then one by one, each pot is scrubbed until it shines like new. Sometimes I used steel wool to wash off the black stains from cooking over a fire, but often I used wet sand like the other women did. The fish came up afterwards to eat all the food scraps from the dishes!

Washing clothes and bathing were also done in the same river. After a heavy rain, the river was muddy for a few days. Although I avoided doing laundry until it cleared up a bit, we had to give in and take a bath in it at some point! Luckily the water in Sarang 2 (our village) was deeper than it was the first time we bathed in a river in PNG, so we were able to submerge easily and wash our hair. The river ran into the ocean, so we had a nice view of the waves and a few islands as we took our baths!

One morning after a heavy rain, the water was so high that waves from the ocean splashed into the river as I tried to wash dishes. I had to run after two pot lids and my flip flops before I realized that none of the women had submerged their pots that morning and were instead just washing them on the beach. Now the challenge will be remembering how to wash dishes in a sink!

The Journey Begins

The day had finally arrived. Four weeks of supplies for seven families were loaded onto the back of our Hino truck, with room for all of us to squeeze into the back on the floor. Remember reading about all the bumps we bounced over while seated in the cab of a pickup truck? Now we went over those same bumps while sitting on the floor! Pulling out of the POC driveway, we were surprised that instead of turning down the mountain toward the ocean, we turned UP the mountain. A few seconds later we pulled back onto POC grounds. The Hino was out of fuel, so the workers had to come fill it up.

Finally we began proceeding down the mountain. About halfway down, a motorcycle began tailing us. Soon he pulled up next to us, and the truck stopped on the road. In the back of the truck, we wondered what was happening. Our driver quickly came back to inspect the rear of the truck. One of the tires was flat! We pulled off the road, and two of the men attempted to change a Hino tire for the first time in their lives. They finished fairly quickly and must have done a good job because an hour and a half later we pulled up to the first village.

After dropping off three other families in their village location, we arrived in Sarang 2, a community that started on an island and later expanded to locations in Sarang 1 and Sarang 2 on the mainland. We unloaded our mattresses, suitcase, and trunk full of food, and the truck took off. Little did we know as we received a tour of the village how close we would grow to those people over four weeks and how living in a Papua New Guinean village would become second nature to us quickly.