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!