Winter in the Tropics

While many of my friends back home are posting about the beginning of summer, we are heading into the throes of winter in the southern hemisphere. What does “winter” mean in the tropics? Technically they don’t have winter in PNG. There are only two seasons: rainy and dry. On the coast, “winter” (dry season) means slightly cooler temperatures and less rain. In Ukarumpa, which is at an elevation of about one mile, it often means very chilly mornings and evenings!

On the morning we woke up to move to our new house last week, it was 48 degrees F. For my New York friends, that probably seems downright balmy for winter. However, the houses on center have no heat and no insulation. That means often it is colder (or hotter!) inside the house than it is outside. Luckily we have a fireplace in our house, but we still have to drag ourselves out from under the covers in the morning to build a fire.

Another factor in our chilly mornings is that if there wasn’t enough sun the day before, the water will not be warm for the shower! All the houses have solar panels to heat up their water, so cloudy days mean tepid water. You also have to think about your hot water consumption at night; e.g., if we use the hot water to wash dishes, there will be less hot water to use in the morning. Often, we heat up water for dishes rather than using our supply of hot water. Don’t forget that since we’re on the equator, the sun always sets between 6 and 7, so there is no chance to collect more solar power after dinner!

Over the River and Through the Woods

We stood at the base of a steep hill, tired from all the climbing we had already done that day, wondering if our legs would survive ascending the hill AND carrying us all the way back home. Were we back in training? Nope; we were hiking to Lone Tree Hill, a nearby mountaintop from which you get a stunning view of the missions center and the valley.

Our group—those of us from training who live in Ukarumpa now—started off in the morning, looking forward to a pleasant walk after three months of increasingly intense hiking at training. We had barely left the center when we came to a river. This was not the refreshing experience of crossing water during the hot and humid hikes on PNG’s coast; this was the chilly water of mile-high elevation, knee-deep in the middle. We removed our socks and shoes and proceeded across the river, discovering on the other side that we had no way to dry our feet. Not wanting to hike the rest of the path barefoot, we shoved wet, dirty feet back into our socks and shoes.

The trek was really not very arduous, but being at mile-high elevation, breath is often harder to come by. When we arrived at Lone Tree Hill (which actually has more than one tree), one of the girls asked us to be in a video she was filming for a school project. Her assignment was to do a book report on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and she chose to direct a scene from the book. So the majority of us played “extras” in a battle scene while her mom and dad portrayed Peter and the White Witch! We haven’t gotten to see the movie yet, but we heard from her teacher that our acting was superb. J

Water, Water Everywhere

In Ukarumpa, each house has a tank to collect rainwater, which is used to provide water for the house. Another source of water is the nearby river, which is pumped to houses and largely used for laundry and showering. (We filter our drinking water and use bleach in our dishwater.) A few days ago, our neighbor children were playing in our yard while I was talking to their mom. They ran over to tell me that there was a leak in our rain tank, which I already knew, but their mom and I went over to look anyway.

As it turns out, another leak had sprung in our tank, and now a thin stream of water spurted out from the side. Our neighbors are Dutch, so we told the kids the story of the young Dutch boy who held his finger in the hole in the dike to keep the water back. I told that oldest he had to stay there all day with his finger over the hole! That didn’t appeal to him, so I patched the hole with a thick piece of grass, but the youngest girl pulled it back out—and immediately was struck in the face by an even bigger spout of water!

The kids thought it was great fun to play in our rain tank “sprinkler,” so we let them play until lunch time, and I patched it back up again with another piece of grass. Later some local children who like to play on the trampoline in our yard came up to the door to tell us the tank was leaking again. The hole was bigger, so this time we patched it with sticks. The tank is so old, though, the hole just kept getting bigger and bigger the more we tried to fix it…so finally we stuffed a rag in it, and the owners of the house ordered a new rain tank!

To Market, To Market

My eyes widened as I walked around the store on center at Ukarumpa. Marshmallows?? Campbell’s Chunky Soup?? Reese’s Pieces?! I snatched up a box of Reese’s Pieces because you never know how long things will stay in stock here. In addition to products that are available in PNG, the store ships in some items from Australia and the US (which means $9 for a box of Cheez-Its and sometimes waiting a while for things to be restocked!). I was so excited to see my favorite candy on the shelf and to see a few things from home that I hadn’t seen in several months.

As soon as we got back from the store, I tore into the Reese’s Pieces and stuffed a handful in my mouth. To my chagrin, they tasted like an attic! I feebly attempted to air them out all day and kept trying a few here and there in the vain hope that they would somehow start tasting like Reese’s again. Unfortunately, they never stopped tasting like an old attic. That’s the risk you run into here, with grocery orders sometimes staying in storage for a long time because they’re shipped by slow boat and then have to go through customs. One time a supply of food got here tasting like soap!

Thankfully we haven’t had the Reese’s experience with any other foods. And the fresh produce available is incredible! Three days a week, local villagers come to Ukarumpa to sell their garden produce at the market. Table after table is filled with pineapples, bananas, strawberries, passion fruit, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, beans, and on and on… Beyond the food tables are displays of local craft items for sale, like woven wool bags and wood carvings. Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s fun to go to market just to look at the wonderful items available!

From the Oceans White with Foam to the Mountains

Nine people plus the pilot crowded with their luggage onto the tiny plane sitting on the runway. Since we were new, I got the opportunity to sit in the front next to the pilot, who warned me not to touch the pedals or the steering wheel (what do you call a steering wheel on a plane?) because they would move on their own during the flight. Having never been on such a small plane before, I wasn’t sure what to expect as we started taxiing down the runway.

Despite the plane size, the flight was much like any other flight on a larger airplane. Madang is situated on the coast, so we flew over the beautiful blue ocean for a bit (brown in the places where rivers ran into it), and then we started southward toward the mountainous interior. Tall mountains rise and fall through the highlands of the interior, rivers cutting through the landscape here and there. About half an hour later, we soared over a community of buildings and landed on a dirt airstrip just beyond. We were in Ukarumpa.

A friend we had met last year in Rochester was there to meet us when we landed. He and his wife were our “welcome family” who helped us take care of things the first few days. And what a lot of things there were to take care of! We had to learn how to dispose of trash—one can for items we burn, one for food scraps that we bury in the garden, and one for non-burnable items (which are collected weekly). We had to learn to buy groceries—most people here don’t have cars to take their groceries home in, so we pack up our purchases in an orange bin, put our house number on it, and a small truck drives around to deliver groceries. Our washing machine and fridge didn’t work, and we couldn’t take our clothes down to the river anymore to wash them! Several families had us over for dinner the first week, but eventually we had to learn to cook with a gas oven. And much, much more…

After three and a half weeks, we (mostly) know our way around and (mostly) know how things work. We are glad to have many friends from our orientation course to go through the transition process with us, including our neighbors from orientation who are now our neighbors here!

Food, Family, Fellowship Part II

When a guest has come to stay with someone in PNG, the traditional way to send them off is with a bung (gathering). Eric and I were blessed to be part of a wonderful large family that we really connected with, and also to have become a part of our church family after just one month. Each of these families held a bung for us before we left.

Two days before our departure, people from our church gathered to say farewell. First a few people gave speeches, and then Eric and I gave a speech to the best of our ability in Tok Pisin. We had learned a few songs in their tok ples (local language) which we sang for them. Our waspapa (host father) told us everyone was honored that we had pronounced all the words correctly! Then they gave us a huge bowl of food that was just for us. It included rice, fish, cooked bananas (there are many different kinds of banana here), taro, and turtle meat! After we ate as much as we could, they presented us with some gifts, and the pastors prayed for us.

The following night, we had a bung with all of our host family’s relatives. Our waspapa told everyone to come between 4 and 5 because he said we had eaten too late the night before (around 7). So everyone came between 4 and 5…PNG time! That meant we ate after 7 again. As we sat around talking earlier in the day, our waspapa asked if we had ever eaten chicken that didn’t come from the store. Later we heard the petrified squawk of the rooster who lived under our house, followed by silence. Now if we are asked that question again, we’ll be able to answer yes!

For the family bung, we weren’t given a whole bowl of food just for us…we were given an entire table! In addition to chicken, we had lamb chops, fish, rice, potatoes, bananas, taro, and a pizza-like dish made from tapioca. Again there were farewell speeches and gifts. Earlier in our stay, I had shown people a picture of when I taught some students in NY about Papua New Guineans carrying string bilum bags on their heads, but since I didn’t have any bilums, I had used plastic bags. They all thought it was hilarious, but they told me I needed to learn how to make a bilum so when I go back, the kids can use the real thing. I think everyone took on the challenge of providing me with bilums for teaching…we were gifted with 16 bags!

The next morning, we prepared our luggage and sat underneath our house with our waspapa and wasmama (it was too hot to sit in the sun even at 8 a.m.!). Slowly more relatives came, and by 10:30 when the truck arrived to pick us up, we had a big crowd. As people began to run around to load our supplies, Eric pulled me aside to show me a carved eagle he held in his hand. The carving belonged to our waspapa’s brother, who is around our age and had become our closest friend in the village. It was part of the slingshot that he carried with him everywhere, which he had decided to give to Eric. Gifting and reciprocating gifts is a huge part of PNG culture, so it was very appropriate for him to give us the carving, but this was a very special gift because we never saw him without it. Tears flowed as we said goodbye to everyone, and we all waved and waved as the truck pulled away until the village was no longer in sight. The eagle now sits on an end table in our living room in Ukarumpa, and some day we hope to reciprocate the gift by visiting our village with marshmallows—something we were never able to explain as we sat around evening campfires!

Food, Family, Fellowship Part I

In the PNG lifestyle, there are three f’s of high importance: family, fellowship, and food. You don’t walk past someone without saying hello, and most people live in the same village with all of their family members, although that is starting to change. Because life in the village is in many ways simpler and less hectic than life in the west, the church we attended was able to have fellowship group four nights a week, in addition to Sunday morning service!

The first Sunday we attended, we were invited back for fellowship group that evening. We arrived “late,” though that concept is hazy in PNG culture, and they were already singing. We joined in, and after a while, the worship leader told everyone to sit down because someone was going to bless us with a song. Eric and I sat silently with everyone else, looking around to see who was going up front. After a few seconds of awkwardness for us, a young man we knew came over to us and whispered that I was the person who was going to bless everyone with a song! He and I had played and sung together before—he happened to know “How Great is our God” in English—so we borrowed some guitars from the worship leaders, and thankfully he told me what to do to follow social convention as we sang for everyone!

For many occasions, gathering with family to fellowship over food is the way of life. We attended one family bung (gathering) to decide whether the wife of a man who had passed away should go back to her family or stay with her late husband’s family. Both sides of the family came, bearing food. Everyone from the husband’s side brought a plate of food to give to the wife’s side, and the wife’s side brought a pig and hundreds of bananas. We all sat in a circle while the important members from each side of the family shared their opinions. Apparently the decision was not made that day; the bung was to allay any animosity on either side, and the decision was to be made afterward, per traditional PNG culture.

Since Eric and I were guests, we got to eat food from both sides of the family! All of the food for the wife’s side was distributed that evening, so we didn’t have to cook that night. The husband’s family gets to decide when they want to kill and roast the pig, so they waited until the next day. One of the family members brought us a slab of roasted pig—skin and fat still attached!