Checking Party

I am living a topsey turvy life when a spelling test is a fun community event and a checking party more closely resembles an exam. Labels can be so deceiving.

A checking party comes late in the Bible translation process. It is when the book is nearly ready for the printers, but needs a final check and edit for small details of formatting etc. At the checking party we were looking through thousands of pages checking for consistency. One thing I checked was that headings were consistent in format (bold, centered, no full stop). I crossed out a lot of fullstops in the interest of consistency. We were also checking cross referencing and abbreviations, which meant learning all the books of the Bible in a different language.

Each time we found an error, even something as small as a misplaced full stop, we circled it, put a red line through the whole page and put it in a separate pile. This pile then got returned to someone to enter all the corrections before publication. We checked the Bible book by book, criteria by criteria. As we finished a book and a criteria (ie page numbers are consecutive) we would initial the list to say it was complete.

Bible translation has stage after stage or working, checking, editing and progressing. This has to be one of the most finicky stages I’ve come across, but it is an essential one. A book with inconsistencies in presentation, page numbers out of order etc is not a well produced book. It is the small things like that which people notice and which lead them to ask if the big theological questions have been accurately dealt with or not. From my experience so far, I can say that each stage has numerous checks, and although I am sure a full stop or two escaped my attention, the big issues are the primary focus is and should be done well.

Although the checking party left me feeling a little cross eyed, it also left me feeling encouraged. Here is the fruit of years of work. Here is God’s word in a local PNG language. For me to give several hours to small details is a gift I’ll gladly give to the bigger picture of faith and discipleship. The real party, with singing, dancing, costumes, speeches and food will be when this book comes back from the printers and is dedicated among the people it speaks to. 

Modern-Traditional Balance

As we spent our five weeks living in the village, I was impressed at the balance of modern and traditional life in each day. Mostly people seemed to have found a workable balance that they were happy with.

Our village was an easy PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) ride to Madang. A few PMVs operated on that route and each went at least twice a day (on the days they weren’t broken down!). Ladies going to market to sell buai and others going to town to work an office job were the bulk of the PMV passengers. These people then brought back cash and store goods to supplement village life and produce.

Bilum making with plastic string

While many people had mobile phones, the village did not have electricity. This meant some people charged their phones when at work or rigged chargers out of four D batteries taped together. Although the phone and the need to charge it is a modern thing, using it to keep in touch with family is an ancient thing. Community announcements were still by garamut. Different rhythms pounded on this hollowed out log indicated a gathering for church purposes, for community purposes or a death.

Often modern equipment had been applied to traditional lifestyles, making things easier. The cooking seemed fairly traditional, but the big metal pot was not. Clearing the land is traditional, but bush knives, axes and chainsaws are not. Buying a two kina heavy duty plastic bag is easier and cheaper than making a string bilum for taking buai to market. Bilums are mostly made of plastic string, not bush rope, although the technique is traditional. Clothing is very much western, as is the need for laundry soaps and buckets to wash it.

Houses mostly appear traditional, but they are held together with nails rather than bush rope. Metal roofs allow people to catch water, but they also make the house baking hot during the day. Traditional roofs are cooler. Our house was half and half, so we could catch water on one half of the house and nap under the other.

Our house, with half morata half tin roof

Traditional life is biodegradable because it is produced locally. Modern items are produced in distant factories using lots of chemicals and do not break down. Flat batteries, bleach bottle, plastic wrappers…these were all things I saw discarded. Yet unlike traditional items, they remain where they are thrown and do not return to the soil. Some items, such as rice bags, are not discarded, but are used a fire starters in the haus kuk, with questionable environmental and health consequences.

At a glance village life seems very traditional, but in each day we would find touches of modernity. Often this was beneficial, by saving time and energy, but the downsides were there also, such as the rubbish. 

Cocoa Fermentery

Woman carting water

While we were in the village, a series of meetings happened at our waspapa’s house and under the shade of a nearby tree. Our Papa was a respected leader in the community. The men of the village were discussing the building of a community owned cocoa fermentary. On the day we left, work had begun on laying the foundation.

Women carrying rocks

It really was a community driven project. Everyone had put in an amount towards the materials needing to be purchased. Everyone had also taken part in a small loan to make up the difference between what was raised and what was needed. On the first day the foundation was being worked on, women came to and from the site with their heavy loads of rocks or water (for mixing cement). The men were digging the footing for the foundation and securing the form for the concrete under the supervision of a carpenter.

Delivering rocks to where the foundation will be.

Most of the families in the community already have full grown productive cocoa trees. Most of the cocoa goes unharvested as they do not have easy access to a fermentary and there is no regular buyer for unfermented cocoa. Occasionally a buyer will come along the road and tell everyone the date of his return to purchase fresh picked cocoa. This happened once in our five weeks. All the families picked ripe beans and had them ready to sell for a small profit.

Working on the foundation

Once the fermentary is established, the community will buy the unfermented beans, ferment them and sell them on. The profits will be returned to the community. Then a harvest every two weeks and little wastage from the trees should be possible. Numerous local communities have a fermentary functioning successfully on this principle.

Finished Fermentery in another village

Within this I wondered if the cocoa would ever gain a fair trade label. They are too small a group to pursue such things, yet the cocoa is all grown on family land and sold by the community. The only reason there is sweaty labour involved in the process is that the climate is such that you wake up sweating. If children are part of the labour force it is because they are too young for school and gardens are an activity that all the family is involved in. I hope that the fair-trade label has room for such low level business.

All this cocoa, yet so little chocolate. All the beans are sold overseas. By the time they return as chocolate, the price has gone up considerably. 

Village Living: Animals

Animals domestic, wild, edible and otherwise; they all manage to feature in our five weeks in the village.

Funky Chicken

There were the pests, like the mice who kept us awake at night. They were clever mice, as one time I heard them set off the trap, but in the morning there was nothing in it…they set the trap off, then ate the food and escaped. Another morning a less clever mouse ended up in a shallow bucket of water. Not deep enough to be drowned, too steep and slippery to escape. Michelle had mercy on the mouse and threw him out with the water. The chicken had less mercy and chased it across the grass and under the house. Apparently the mouse then escaped into our outhouse, as the chicken was guarding the door. Yet the mouse was having a bad day, for there was no mouse in the outhouse, just a splashing sound coming from down the pit. I guess it drowned after all.

Punky chicken

Another pest in the outhouse was a snake. It fell from the roof and slithered across my feet as I left one time. Not nice. Not nice at all. I was not reassured by people who told me it was a house snake and harmless. Another family was equally uncomforted by that information when a similar snake made an appearance in one of their beds.

Stumpy chicken

More amusing were the funky chickens who roamed our village. In Australia there is a movement to protect heritage breeds of hens so that the dominant white breed do not become the only breed. Well, we had enough chicken varieties to calm any fears of a chicken mono-culture. Chickens with mo-hawks, chickens with bald necks, chickens with no tails and a chicken whose feathers all pointed in different directions. The shiny black rooster who strutted about the place as head of the flock redefined ‘cocky’, but I would have gladly strangled him when he took to crowing well before dawn in the tree beside our house.

Hair being burnt off pig.

Two pigs made an appearance in our village in five weeks. One was full grown and we ate it for dinner over several nights. The other was a piglet who took a liking to our waspapa and followed him all over the place. More than once the piglet was chased back to the village when Papa wanted to go further away. A wild pig also got into one of the family gardens and stole a lot of food. For subsistence farmers this is a significant loss.

Baby sugar glider

Another POC family got a reputation for liking animals. Not only did they start in a village with a pet cocky (sulphur crested cockatoo), they were brought an injured chicken to look after, a baby sugar glider and a small bird that escaped.

Victoria Crowned Pigeon

Strangest of all were the animals we ate. In an area of low protein availability, you eat what you catch. This included bats, ‘bush rats’ and birds. When the beautiful blue bird was brought to us, we wondered what endangered species we were consuming. A Victoria Crowned Pigeon, we found out. Wikipedia gives me little comfort by giving it the status ‘threatened’. It truly did taste like chicken though. The King Parrot on the other hand, had a stronger beefy taste.

 I’ve not yet eaten them, but muruk and kumul are two favourite animals that people hunt and eat. Unfortunately they are also two of my niece’s favourite zoo animals; cassowary and tree kangaroo. My next zoo trip with her when back in Australia could get interesting…

Village Living: Gardens

Gardens and family are the mainstays of PNG village life. Families are the social network. Gardens are the economic and survival tool.

Garden when we arrived

When we arrived in the village they had finished clearing this year’s garden for planting. Clearing means cutting down larger trees and burning off all the undergrowth. Fallen trees are used to define the edges of the garden or collected for fire wood. With our wasfemili, we helped plant the garden with corn, taro and bananas. As in every garden everywhere, we also spent a lot of time weeding. In the area we were in, gardens were planted with a range of productive plants and never in straight lines. Corn becomes the frame for beans to climb up. Banana palms give some shade to taro.

Garden four weeks later

This year’s garden was across the road from the house on a steep slope. Last year’s garden, the one we were eating from, was an hour’s walk away on an even steeper slope. Here we could see the plants that had grown up together. Some food also came from the gardens of previous years. As we walked through the jungle  I could not always tell where gardens began and ended, but Papa and Mama could always tell us who the garden belonged to and when it was planted. We are each knowledgeable in our own field and this was theirs.

For us, the diet of cooking bananas, taro, yam and sweet potato, flavoured with ‘greens’ and coconut milk quickly became dull. Yet these are the staples which they are capable of raising with the land and conditions they have. Plenty of carbohydrates with whatever protein you can catch. Fruits (pineapple, pawpaw, pomello) seemed to be eaten more as snack foods.

Bananas anyone?

Close by the village were plenty of coconut and buai trees, the fruit of which was consumed daily. Near our house was a small garden with greens and tobacco for regular use. It also had a row of flowers for decoration. With all the energy that daily went into travel to and from gardens, work within gardens and work turning produce into food, a row of flowers for beauty was an addition that made me smile. 

Village Living: Cash Economies

Young boy climbing a buai palm

One afternoon our wasbrata (brother) came home from school and asked for money for the school picnic. Cash is not something that the family keeps much of but the solution was straightforward. Our brother and sister went down the hill to the family buai (betel nut) plantation. He climbed the thin palm trees, threw bunches of buai down to his sister and she put them in bags to take to market the next day.

People and buai loaded onto a PMV

The following day we went with our was susa (sister) to the market. We piled onto the PMV (Public Motor Vehicle) with all the others bound for the market plus their produce. It was cramped. Before we even got off the PMV at the market, the bargaining had begun. Teams of men had come down from the Highlands to buy bulk buai to take home and resell. Although the Highlanders are bigger and fiercer than the coastal people, our sister was taking no nonsense from them and bargained hard. As the men bought the bunches of buai they would gather, strip the nuts from the branches, put them into sacks and sew them shut once full. Once all our sister’s buai was sold, we caught another PMV into town to buy store goods (rice, tinned meat, milk powder and a cream bun) then back home with the rest of the cash to give our brother for his school picnic.

Loaded PMV going to market

Buai, or betel nut, is a mild stimulant when chewed with lime and ‘mustard’ (not what we think of as mustard in Aus). These three combine to a red paste which people then spit out, resulting in bright red spatters on the ground and a high incidence of mouth cancer in the country. It only grows at lower altitudes and the trade with the highlands was the primary income for the family we lived with. Other cash crops were cocoa and coffee…feeding the stimulating addictions of the west rather than their own addiction.

Selling bulk buai at the market

It saddens me that the cash economies of this country seem to be tied to addiction. Sugar, tobacco and natural gas are other exports, each of which is addictive in its own way. Most of it is feeding the addictions of the culture I am from. Yet this is the cash which families put into education or into nutrition (the protein of tinned meat, not the cream bun!). A big LNG project is driving the economy and enabling the government to promise free education, better roads and better healthcare. Surely these are good things, but at what cost? There is no simple answer, but it is interesting to be observing  the grassroots level of production and cash return. It is good to ask the questions, even if I do not have answers. 

Village Living: Family

Our was femili (host family)

At the end of five weeks in the village, it was sad to say goodbye to the people who had become our family. For over a month these people had been our guides, our teachers, our encouragers, our security and our friends. They had built our house for us and provided for us, given generously of their lives and experience. To leave  with no knowledge of when we shall meet again, is difficult. Although communication by sms and mobile phone is possible, my ability to communicate by these means in Tok Pisin is quite limited.

Our other was femili next door

Our immediate wasfemili was Papa and Mama plus their six children, two grandchildren and grandfather. The extended family included Papa’s three brothers who lived nearby and their wives and children. One of these families in particular were very much part of our lives as they lived next door. At least one of Papa’s sisters lived along the road as did Mamas brothers, all of whom became our family…although in five weeks I never quite got all the names, faces and relationships sorted!

We did everything with our family. We helped in the garden, we went to market and town, we sat in the shade and made bilums, we shared stories, we laughed, we cried, we ate, we waited for the birth of the newest grandchild and celebrated when she was born safely. Sometimes we went on ‘tourist’ outings; to Heem to see the view over the Gogol valley and to explore a cave and to Omoru to see the bat cave and tour the coconut, coffee and cocoa plantation. Some days doing everything with family was tiring, but once we left I missed them.

Looking down the bat cave

Family is the glue of PNG society. It defines the structure of villages and there are responsibilities that go with those relationships. For awhile in the village we were surprised at how many women worked at one particular business in town, until we found out that a ‘liklik papa’ (uncle) owned the business. Then it made sense for all the family to be employed there.

The night before we left we shared in a feast. Everyone brought food to share and we sat and ate together for the last time. We were given gifts of bilums and necklaces. We shared stories and songs. As I looked around me I was touched by the closeness of family. Aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, all sharing life together. I wouldn’t recognise some of my first cousins, let alone my second cousins. People who here they call ‘sister’ (daughter of father’s brother) are strangers to me in my own family.

Looking across the Gogol River

I hope to visit my wasfemili again sometime, to continue the relationship that was started. In the meantime, I live distant to my wasfemili and distant to my genetic family, yet enjoy the company of my POC family and build relationships with my new Ukarumpa family. Although single, I am rarely alone.

POC: Village living (before)

Teachers go on ‘prac’, pastors have vicarage and POCers go on a five week village living stay. This is our practical time where all our previous learning comes together and takes on a new depth. We are off to Amele area on the other side of Madang, to a series of villages where we each have a new wasfemili and a house set aside just for us. I am going to Auron Ples with Michelle (Tennessee) and Inga  (Germany), the other single women at this POC.

Village living is a time of learning, even though we have assignments to work on. The purpose of these assignments is to get us asking questions and reflecting on the life which 85% of PNGns live. That’s over 5 million people, includes most of our co-workers in translation, literacy and support work. Even for those in the cities, this is the life they have usually come from, still have family in, send money back to and return to when they can. Village life is the heart of PNG life.

We’ve been planning and packing in the week leading up to our departure. Food has been purchased, sorted into weekly rations, packed and labelled. We are going through our personal things to decide what to take and what to store here at POC. I’m trying to catch up on emails, blog, business etc before I go. There is a last minute shopping trip.

Once we are in the village, we will be looked after by our wasfemili, but do most of the cooking ourselves. Conversation with villagers will be in Tok Pisin. Sometimes we may go to the garden with people, other times we may be on our own. Reports of village living from previous POCers are positive, but so varied. Some people got bored with how quiet life was. Others were overwhelmed by the constant presence, hospitality and generosity of their wasfemili. I am going with plenty of books and other things in the hope we are on the quiet end of the scale. Should I find myself crowded by people I’ll have to make a much more concerted effort to have time to myself.

I am looking forward to this village stay as a chance for time to be, rather than a time to do. In a relationships oriented culture just being together is the important thing. Coming from a task oriented culture, I struggle to not have something to do. I hope to be able to spend this time building good relationships with my wasfemili and my colleagues and as well as deepening my relationship with God. Five weeks of being, not doing, is a gift to be celebrated and enjoyed.

See you on the other side!

POC: Wasfemili

Our wasmama

Another part of POC is having a local wasfemili (host family) who we spend time with about weekly building relationships, learning about PNG life and practicing Tok Pisin. The first time we met was here at POC, as they all came for a meal with us. For many it was an awkward meal, as our Tok Pisin was not yet very good, the relationship new and we weren’t sure what to talk about. Our wasmama was great. She has been a wasmama a few times before and kept the conversation rolling when we ran out of words.

Betip village

Next visit it was time to go to their place instead of them coming to ours. We headed off before sunset, about a 20 min walk, with dinner to share in hand. We sat, we chatted, we ate, we started to learn to make billums (local string bags that carry everything) and we relaxed into a forming friendship. Our Tok Pisin had improved and so had our comfort levels with these people who were no longer strangers.

Wasmama outside her house

The visit after was an overnight stay, then once again a dinner visit from us before it was time for our wasfemili to come back to POC. That time we entertained them in our haus kuks, showing our skills at cooking on the campfire, but still learning plenty from them as to how to get the fire just right for the tea and just how sweet the tea should be. By this time we were having fun hanging out together. Sometimes we chatted and at other times the silence was comfortable.

The final wasfemili event completed the circle as we gathered together in the meeting hall as a group once again. It was a time of saying thank you for sharing their lives with us over the last while. We exchanged gifts, as that is an important part of expressing relationships here. Michelle and I now have matching bilums which many have ‘eye greased’ (envied) and our wasfemili has some new towels, a meri blouse and laplap I sewed and some earrings from Michelle. Our bilums have decorative tassels on one side. When worn facing outwards it means we are happy with life and all is well with relationships. When the plain side is worn outwards, it means a relationship is broken and I am giving my back to your village… facebook posts, bilum style.

Mi amamas. Laip bilong mi em I gutpela sindaun

Yumi gat bikpela hevi. Mi givim bek long ples bilong yu. 

Sharing life with a local family has been a precious thing. They have welcomed us, taught us, encouraged us and become our friends. I feel for my wasmama as she lives with chronic pain from a childhood injury, family history of arthritis and a life of hiking mountains, gardening and carrying heavy loads. I feel for my was susa (sister) as she prepares for her exams, exams which were delayed a week or two because the papers have not yet arrived from Port Moresby. I hope to visit them again sometime, to bring my own sister here when she visits, as we are all family now.

POC: Outdoors

Our group ready to depart

PNG life is mostly outdoors as people work their gardens, travel about on foot and spend time storying  on village verandas. To get us fit for life here as well as to give us an appreciation for PNG life, we’ve spent a lot of time outdoors during POC. This has mostly taken the form of weekly hikes and swims. The hikes recently culminated in a three day hike around the area where POC is based.

About to descend from the mountain

Ugal leading the way

Resting by a beautiful creek

Wading upriver

Following the creek

Survived!

The hikes started small, first just on the mountain top, then down the mountain, then down and up again…each hike a bit further and a bit harder. Finally was the three day hike. We went as two groups, each with a pair of national guides, a guy and a girl. Day one we went all the way down into the valley (POC is at 365m elevation), lunched by a river and then went on a little way to the village where we were staying in for the night. Our waspapa (host father) met us, showed us around and let us rest awhile before we chatted into the evening. The village was very quiet as most people had gone to the funeral of a three year old girl who had died of malaria. Death of children is always sad, but when it is of something largely preventable and treatable and the difficulty is in access to care, it is sad indeed.

Day two was the best day of the hike as we went over many ridges and stopped for a rest at a few creeks and waterholes. It was a day to appreciate the stunning beauty of this country. Ridges and valleys have different ecosystems. One ridge will be different to the next ridge. As we stop quietly by a waterhole butterflies and dragonflies flit about and land on us. A poisonous snake crossed the path but then wisely hid from us, for our guide with a bush knife was waiting for him to return. On the second night we chatted late into the night, an encouraging sign our Tok Pisin has improved as well as a reflection of local hospitality and welcome.

Day three was a long day of wading in rivers and getting back to our mountain top POC home. We started the day following a river, moved on to following a creek (slippery!), occasionally took steep ‘short cuts’ across ridges and finally faced the long, constant and at times very steep uphill back to POC. Yet again, we were surrounded by stunning beauty. After three days hiking my pack was a familiar presence and the weight did not bother me. After three days hiking I was running out of energy and the final uphill was a battle of will. One step at a time I made it to the top, drenched with sweat, but glad to have made it.

Although when hiking uphill I feel incredibly unfit, when we go swimming I feel the opposite. Each week we have gone to a nearby inlet, stretched a 100m rope out in the water and swum laps of it for fitness. The goal we were encouraged to reach was 1 mile (8 laps). I made that the first week and soon after made my ‘real’ mile (nautical) of 9 laps. All those years of swimming lessons paid off. While swimming I would lap people, while hiking I would be the slowest in the group… evidence I really am a coastal person and not a mountain person!

POC: Medical

Life in another land has many challenges, including staying healthy. The bugs are different to at home, cleanliness is thought of in a different way and access to health care is different. To help us stay healthy and remain in PNG, we’ve been having a series of medical lectures. Much of it boils down to being diligent in caring for ourselves and staying hydrated with clean water. At POC we’ve had our share of bugs, as people arrive stressed by major life changes and adjust to living together in a new place. The longer we are here, the more we adjust and the healthier we are.

Medical approaches across cultures are very different. Illness in PNG is often attributed to broken relationships, for the spiritual and the physical are seen to be directly related. Maintaining healthy relationships equates to maintaining the health of a community. Although the US and Australia are both ‘western’ they too have different medical approaches. I am used to using dettol or just clean water for cleaning wounds. My US friends bleach everything. As for a response to choking, they teach the Heimlich manoeuvre, which first aid training in Australia told me never to use. Lateral chest thrusts, a fancy phrase for a good thumping on the back or side, is taught instead.

As an ex-pat in this country I have health advantages. The organisation I am with has its own health centre and a doctor on call 24-7. By phone (or radio) I can always get medical advice. I am sent to the village with medications for a range of conditions that the doctor can then remotely prescribe for me to use, a situation I am familiar with from life at sea. There too, we had a locked cabinet of prescription medication and a doctor at the end of the radio or satellite. The organisation I am with also has an aviation department, to get people to and from remote villages. They also do Med-Evacs when necessary, including to Australia for more significant help. Although I pray I never need such an evacuation, there is comfort in knowing the safety net is there and that it even delivers me to my home country! Knowing insurance will pay for it is also comforting, but I’d prefer to stay fit and healthy.

POC: Cultural Awareness

Increasing our cultural awareness is a significant part of POC. This is not just making us aware of PNG culture, but aware of our own cultures and how they shape our judgements and reactions. I have found this last part the more significant as I live and work with people from across the globe. Each nation has its cultural norms, but within that is still a great range of expressions and experiences.

To increase our PNG cultural awareness we have had a series of lectures on PNG life and culture. They have covered topics such as kinship, the spiritual and the physical and the relationship of the two, the significance of gift giving, the community based nature of decisions and life as well as the value of relationships over tasks. It has been good to get a range of pointers for what to look for and questions to ask. This has been much more helpful than being given all the answers, as PNG has such a plethora of cultural expressions that there is no such thing as one PNG culture.

Before coming to PNG, I was warned that the biggest conflicts are often between co-workers, not with nationals. It can be the small cultural differences that chafe the most and, as we all know, chafe is the enemy. Our sessions on multi-cultural teamwork have been aimed at reducing this chafe by introducing understanding. The model we’ve been working within has two main scales; the hierarchical to the non-hierarchical culture as well as the strong to the weak community. PNG has a very strong sense of community, the US a weak sense of community. Australia is somewhere in between. This makes for PNG a communal culture and the USA an individualistic culture. Each has its strengths as well as its weaknesses, as well as its conflicts with the other.

In reflecting on where I fit in these scales, I am constantly evaluating my responses and expectations. This allows me to understand both myself and the people around me. I can better see why I find some people greedy and selfish; they are living out their individualistic culture. The same people often have a great self confidence, which can appear as arrogance, as their individualistic culture has given them a valuable sense of their self worth. Meanwhile, I can find myself struggling with my own self-worth, as the communal culture knocks tall poppies down. Yet, on the communal end of the scale I value the sharing and care that occurs, that PNG people are very good at including people. Where greed is the sin of the weak community, envy is the sin of the strong community as that which is yours is, or at least should be, mine, so I may as well take it to even things up. The individualist points and says ‘thief’ while the communalist indirectly agrees with their peers that the other person is selfish and greedy. Name-calling rarely helps. Understanding and adjusting our behaviour is more helpful.

Learning traditional roofing

Cross cultural child care

 I find that years at sea have taught me to function well within a hierarchy, yet on land I lean towards weak structure and consensus. PNG, Australian and North American cultures all function within a low hierarchy. Our European and Asian colleagues are more comfortable with the rules and social order of a more hierarchical culture. Many at POC struggle with the set schedule, doing activities they do not like and living to rules they would write differently, as they are from the low hierarchy culture. Life here is less ordered than at sea, so I fit into it easily enough for the time we are here.

We’ve talked about many more things like this, including the different cultural values and divisions of personal and private, clean and dirty, what constitutes a ‘proper’ home, good and bad, the causes of sickness and conflict and much more. Learning basics for reflecting on culture has been an important part of POC. Many things I’ve learnt before, but encountering them again while I am in another land and surrounded by people from a variety of cultures and places has meant I’ve had to constantly be putting them into practise, which is the best way to learn. Hopefully now I not only survive, but thrive within a multinational organisation in PNG as  I continue to live and learn. -->