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!