Sailor Girl

You? A sailor? How did you ever end up at sea?

STV One and All

Well, it just kind of happened. I never planned on a career at sea…

When I was 15 there was a careers expo at school where the sail training ship Leeuwin II had a stand. I thought it looked like a fun adventure, but one that I couldn’t afford. When I found out it was possible to get sponsorship through the Captain’s Fund, I applied. I also got a job at the customer service training agency known as Maccas to pay the rest of the voyage fees. So I had my ten day adventure at sea…which I never planned on as a career, just as an adventure. An adventure I figured was finished when my family and I moved interstate to a land locked country town a few months later.

Then one day Mr Dooley came to school and spoke of sail training and the sponsorship he could help provide. A bunch of us signed up as interested, but I was the only one who followed through on it, so I got sponsored to go to sea a second time! My savings from the service agency paying the remainder of the voyage fees. So I had myself another ten day adventure at sea, this time on the ship from the city I then went to university in, the ship which has been part of my life ever since, the One & All.

Sunset on One and All

Moving to Adelaide for university, I joined One & All’s volunteer crew, slowly learning what I was doing then forgetting half of it before the next chance I had to sail. Maintenance days, day sails, voyages… they all added up and I found that I did indeed know what I was doing. When I graduated university six years later I knew that my long term plan was Bible translation, but I also knew that I was not yet ready to commit to that path. A job as a watch leader on One & All became available, so I took it. That which had started as an adventure, had become a volunteer pastime and was now a full time job!

A few years as a watch leader, including some experience overseas, and I was ready to return to university to start my theology degree and start the journey down the road to translation. I had also reached a point where I was bored with being a watch leader. As I had the sea time, I went to Maritime college and got my Master Class V. This allowed me to keep sailing, but gave me new challenges and responsibilities. It also gave me an income to help pay my way through a theology degree.

With other casual jobs, you can usually juggle them around your study schedule. With sailing, I would miss weeks of classes at a time, always pre-warning my lecturer and getting notes and readings to do so as not to be behind when I returned. Always keeping close tabs on the 80% class attendance requirements. I doubt I ever made it to more than 85% of any subject, but never to less than 80%. Mostly I worked over the summer holidays, often missing the last week of the school year to go to sea, and the first week of the new school year as I’d not yet returned from sea. Somehow, with no real holidays in three years, I managed to not burn out and to pass all my subjects. Thank you to all my lecturers who made it possible for me to juggle study and sailing, as well as to my compassionate and long suffering housemates.

When I left One & All it was as first mate, with a passion for sail training and an unexpected yet successful career at sea. I had also worked as an officer on other traditional sailing vessels, enjoying expanding my accidental career path. When I left Australia to work as a Bible translator, I thought I had given up on sailing. My best hope was that it would be an occasional pastime when home on furlough.

Playing with a telescope on HMB Endeavour

Then the organisation I am part of joined the Wa’a partnership with other organisations working in the Pacific region. They asked for volunteers to help build the partnership, in particular by joining YWAM on their medical ship, Pacific Link, during her annual season in PNG…

…so it was that I found I could bring together my former life at sea with my new life in PNG. The adventure that started in high school and became a career was once again needed, but as part of my translation career. Sure, this was a far cry from sail training, but it was still a chance to bring my lives together and contribute to something worthwhile. A chance I very much enjoyed.

Cultural Leaps

Hand cranked Singers for sale

One day I’m working in the PNG regions, the next having pizza at an air conditioned shopping mall in Port Moresby and the following day sitting in a café on the boulevard in Cairns. Such leaps between localities and cultures can take some adjusting to. Returning to Australia for the first time in fourteen months, I was unsure how much I’d suffer from reverse culture shock. It was not a big problem (thankfully), but I did have some observations along the way.

Before arriving back in Australia I had a day in Port Moresby with a friend who works there. We walked along the foreshore, her boys splashing in the water and dodging the rubbish along the high tide line. We went for lunch at a shopping mall with the first escalator I have seen in PNG. Much of what was available I was not used to seeing in PNG, yet the mall was an odd mix of developed meets developing nation.  Across from the expensive jewellery store was the fabric store with a window full of brand new sewing machines…hand powered Singers for the majority who have no power to plug an electric machine into. Some stores sold skimpy fashionable clothing, other sold cover-all meri blauses.  It was a good way to ease myself out of regional life and prepare myself for a return to ‘the west’.

Some of the things I enjoyed about being back in Australia were the smooth and safe roads, fast internet and all the yummy food (cheese! icecream! chocolate!). It was nice to walk down the street on my own and not be stared at, but I had to remember not to smile at everyone on the street or greet them though. I expect the locals would have thought me a little odd if I did!

Looking at the people around me, it often felt like the women had only got half dressed in the mornings…put a top on and forgot the bottom half. In PNG I am used to wearing long tops over pants or wearing skirts past my knees. On the streets of Aus  I saw ‘dresses’ I’m not sure I’d even wear with trousers here!

Being a tourist on something you do not see in PNG- a train

Public affection also stood out. No more men holding hands to express their friendship, but plenty of couples cuddling up. When a guy friend gave me a welcome hug in public, I was a little stunned. I’ve got so used to shaking hands of even close guy friends and only hugging gal friends that it caught me by surprise. In many villages it is not even appropriate for me as a single woman to look a man in the eyes. When shaking hands with everyone after church, you glance at each other before looking past them while shaking hands. That is as far as friendly physical contact goes. It’s not that people are unfriendly, far from it, it is just that they express it in other ways.

My Cairns budget can probably be split into two main categories; eating out and supply shopping. Eating out is a very rare occurrence for me in PNG, so I enjoyed catching up on all the foods I’ve not had in awhile and the novelty of dining out. Indian, pub meal, cafes, iced coffee, cakes, salads, sushi rolls, kangaroo mince, bacon, wine, cheese, all those yummy deli smallgoods…many of them are things I could buy or make in PNG, but am not willing to spend that much money or that much time to do so.

As for supplies, Spotlight, my credit card and I had a date (or two) which will see me supplied with sewing projects for a while to come. Wandering in and out of stores also supplied me with ideas for what I might like to sew, resulting in a return trip to Spotlight for more supplies. I also restocked with the boring essentials…socks, shoes, underwear, antihistamines, face cleanser.

An old photo but a good summary; books, journal, cafes...

Then there was the item I have resisted for a long time… an e-reader. I like books. I like to read them. I like to borrow them and to loan them. I like to hold the weight of them in my hand. What I do not like is to pay per kg to fly them around PNG. With the rate I read, this can become quite expensive if I am going away for a few weeks and will have little other entertainment in the evenings. So it was that I bought an e-reader and downloaded a pile of free classics. Now I only have to pay to fly a few hundred grams about while carrying a small library in my bilum. When home, I will continue to enjoy ‘real’ books, including that mouldy smell which cannot be avoided here in the tropics.

Stepping back in and out of Aussie culture went well. As my exit from PNG was made easier by an hour or so at the mall, I eased into my return to PNG by joining the YWAM medical ship, Pacific Link. Here we could be quite western on board, but step into PNG village life during the day, but more on that another day.

Pinglish

‘Pinglish’ is a term we use to refer to the mixing of Tok Pisin and English. Often this occurs when I am speaking Tok Pisin and use English instead of Tok Pisin. As the two languages are closely related it is very easily done, particularly when it comes to writing. There are many English cognates in Tok Pisin, so I have to try hard to write them using Tok Pisin spelling rather than the more familiar English.

The Pinglish effect goes the other way too, as Tok Pisin words and phrases prove themselves to be more useful that the English variant. Below are a list of some favourites which are creeping into my English;

raunraun; to go from place to place and eventually return to the start. Raunraun can be with purpose or just an afternoon wander.

daunblo; from ‘down below’ this can be used legitimately in English, but I know I now use it as a description in places I would previously not have described something as daunblo before Tok Pisin influenced my speech.

antap (the opposite of aninit); as with daunblo, it can be legitimately part of English, but it is not a phrase I used very often before learning Tok Pisin.

laik bilong yu; Whatever you decide to do is fine and the consequences are yours to live with. Whatever.

maski; Although most English speakers say there is no English equivalent to maski, in my sailing register there is a close equivalent in ‘belay’. For those of you who are still confused, it means to leave something be and pursue it no further.

ʌ ʌ   ;The gentle raising of both eyebrows in response to a question, meaning ‘yes’. This is a real problem when it slips into my English as people think I’m ignoring them when I’m actually giving an affirmative response.

em tasol; ‘That is everything’. Sometimes used in a clear way, but also used to sum up huge tasks as if they were nothing…’Today I saved the world, em tasol.’

Dedication

PNG is the ‘land of the unexpected,’ a motto well proven one afternoon when we found ourselves late additions to the Bishop’s VIP guest list for the decorative, ceremonial and long dedication ceremony of… a fuel pump. There were tears in the prayer of dedication, long speeches and choral items. As special guests we were ‘flowered’ (that’s what the programme called it) with a necklace of plastic flowers. As the leaders of a Sunday School translation workshop, we found ourselves singing in the vernacular with the choir. We were introduced as the ‘Tiang Translation Team Choir’… nothing like being named on the spot! We were thankful for those who could not come, as it meant less speeches and amused by the fact the longest speech was by the man who started with ‘I have nothing to say’ (that at least seems similar across cultures). Then, after three hours, we were amused by the final item, when the ladies guild and the youth group started line dancing to a praise pop song. I really did not see that one coming!

Decorations, man skirts and an official fuel pump opening

Although the events of the afternoon amused and bemused us, there is more of a story than the surface decorations suggest. The fuel pump was a dream of the late Bishop, a part of his desire that the church circuit become financially independent. I admire their commitment to not relying on outside funding and that they are working with local needs. The tears in the dedication prayer were for the late Bishop, his dreams and that he did not live to see this one realised. He must have been quite a man, as people were genuinely touched by his absence. It is interesting to note that while this church was seeking independence through fuel sales, their equivalent denomination in Australia was pulling all investments out of the oil and gas industry as an expression of their care for creation. Different reasons drive different decisions in different places.

Line dancing mamas and youth

That we were flowered guests even though the Bishop only met us that day is testimony to the generous welcome we receive all over PNG. People appreciate the work we do and so make us most welcome however they can. Singing with the choir was another way we are welcomed and included, for although we had only worked a few days with the Tiang, they claimed us as their own during that event and made sure we were part of things.

As for the line dancing mamas… there is no response but delight to such an unexpected event which everyone was enjoying.