Sago Making

The canoe making I described last time was happening alongside sago making.

Sago is a staple of the Gulf Province diet. It is produced from the pith in the core of a mature sago palm. This is a process that takes a lot of hard work, but which results in a starchy food which tastes good when cooked with coconut and served with fresh fish.

To make sago, first let your sago palm mature. They are ready to cut down when a tall flower starts to sprout from the middle, unlike any of the ones in this picture.

(Photo C.Rivard)

In cutting down your sago palm beware the very sharp spines along every branch. Once the palm has been reduced to a log, float it along the river to your village and cut it into manageable pieces with an axe. The leaves can be used in roofing and for other purposes.

Split the log open and chip the pulp into small pieces.

Once all the pith is pulped, put it in a bag and transfer it to the beating station.

Put some pulp into the top of an inverted palm leaf and soak it with water.

Beat the watery pulp for all you are worth, forcing the starch to separate into the water from the pulp.

 The pulp is strained from the watery starch through a sieve.

(Photo R.Drew)

 

The edible sago then settles out of the water into a big brick.

The pigs will happily eat the pulp which the humans discard.

I have come to very much enjoy sago when it is cooked with coconut, which was common in Gulf. The place where we took these photos, Maipenairu, is a Koriki village. In this language the word for sago is ‘pu’. As much as I like the flavour, the thought of eating pu for dinner is a bit harder to cope with!

(Photo: S.Pederson)

Canoe Making

The afternoon was punctuated by thumping noises from along the riverbank. When we went to investigate, we found a hive of industry as men made canoes and women made sago. Both of these are heavily physical activities that contribute to the essentials of village life. Without a canoe, your family cannot travel to the garden or go fishing. Without sago, a large portion every meal would be missing.

As wooden boats are a personal interest of mine, I shall start with telling you of the men’s work.

First, catch a log and bring it home…

… don’t forget to put your name on it…

…or to tie it up so the flood can’t reclaim it!

Next, flatten off your log to make the top of your canoe. Shape the sides and underneath.

When an axe is swung with skill, a stern can be shaped and the bare feet are safe.

Once the outside is done, start to hollow out the inside.

Once you are happy with the shape, move on to decorations. The transom is optional in traditional dugout canoes, but is required if you wish to fit an outboard motor.

Decorations are done with lime and ash.

Burning dry coconut fronds under your canoe adds a greasy soot which helps prevent worms.

 Now it is time to go out on the water!

(photo C.Rivard)

Flood

The riverbank at Purari airstrip.
The water had covered all the
ground on the right. (D.Petterson)

Before our recent work trip, we were aware that there had been flooding in the area where we were going. On July 11, 2014, The Post Courier reported that “continuous rain in Gulf Province has caused the rivers in the Purari delta to burst their banks, displacing 2006 people and destroyed 53 houses.” When we landed at Purari airstrip on July 30, intending to spend the next few weeks around the Purari delta, the impact of the flood was immediately evident.

At the river bank, the ground was still soft from where the flood had inundated usually dry areas. The steps to the boat had been partially washed away. As we travelled along the rivers, the flood scars were everywhere. River banks had subsided into the river, leaving trees poking out of the water or hanging at an angle. Trees which had been swept downstream piled up on river bends, where the force of the water had thrown them.

A slipped bank and fallen trees
(Photo R.Petterson)

As we visited villages, we heard stories of the flood. We did not visit anywhere that had lost their houses, but some had lost their gardens. When people are subsistence farmers, losing your garden is a big deal. It is like burning a small family business to the ground. As river people, they were still able to fish and find sago palms to convert to food, but that is a limited diet.

Another slipped riverbank

There were relief efforts happening in the area, coordinated by the Red Cross. At least once we passed a dinghy loaded up with rice on its way to affected villages. In other unaffected villages, people were hard at work making sago. The relief team was coming to purchase it to give to other villages. One village’s misfortune was proving profitable to those who had escaped.

Yesterday this was a well laid
path. Today it is a floating log
challenge.

Another bonus from the floods was the trees washed downstream. Men had been collecting these and were busy building new canoes. A shipyard would be hard pressed to beat the boat building industry I saw in the Gulf!

While we were in Gulf, there was a new round of flooding. The previous flooding had been primarily due to heavy rain upstream. This round was largely due to king tides. The village would flood twice a day, with the water subsiding in between. This did not have the force of the rain-induced flood, but it still insidiously brought salty water into gardens and villages where is was not welcome, damaging bridges and walkways. 

Although we went to Gulf knowing it was the wet season, the flooding meant that we saw and waded through it in about peak sogginess.

Tiramu’s draft

A bug-eaten corner of a draft

Tiramu, a translator in his own language of Kope told us he had some drafts of Bible translation at home. What he brought to us was a pile of papers, yellowed with age and bug eaten at the corners, but obviously stored with love and care for many years. Among the pile was nearly half of Acts, back translations of the Acts drafts and several chapters of Mark.

Sorting through the document pile
with Tiramu (Photo: D.Petterson)

In the 80s there was an expat translator in that village for a while. Tiramu joined the translation team, got training and set to work drafting in his language. In time the expat translator moved on, but Tiramu kept working. Eventually he too ground to a halt. It is hard to maintain momentum when you work alone and when village pastor responsibilities demand your time.

The drafts and back translations had been typed up by another expat. This was a lady from my home town who had formerly been married to a man from that village. As we were from the same town (Adelaide), it was decided that I was family to the village, even though I’ve never met this lady! I did have a lovely chat with her ex-husband though. Her typed copies were dated 1990, so it is a long time since any work had been done.

Tiramu supervising Catherine’s

typing (photo: D.Petterson)

We took photos of all of the papers that Tiramu had. I was impressed with the document setting on my camera, which I’d never used before. Catherine and Susie then spent several hours typing away to enter Acts into a translation program that we commonly use, Paratext. Although we do not know what the next step will be, having recorded this work in photos and type means that should the well-cared-for file of papers be damaged, the work is not lost. It has now been copied, stored and backed up in several locations.

Susie typing with lots of local
supervision (Photo: D.Petterson)

At the moment Tiramu is working with a new and younger team on translating the Jesus Film. It should be recorded later this year and be ready for showing next year. He is hoping that this will encourage the community to revive their translation programme and return to work on the Bible. Maybe these recently typed drafts will help get things rolling. His beaming smile sure encouraged us in our typing and photo taking, as his face spoke of his desire to see the work continued.

Introverts in tight spaces

People can use personality type and inventories as an excuse or a weapon (“I can’t do that. I’m an XXXX). I prefer to use them as a tool for understanding that allows me to grow. According to Myers Briggs I am an INFJ, a description I find generally fits well. For those of you wondering if I just used a four letter word to swear at you, do some google-research and decide if the description is accurate. Being an introvert by this definition means I am someone who gains energy in downtime and is worn out by too much people time.

Lookout…how to introvert on a crowded ship

Friends who know me well were surprised when I went to sea full time. Me, packed into a small space with lots of people and no escape?! For sure it was challenging, but I learnt to manage. The benefits of being at sea on a traditional sailing vessel far outweighed the seasickness and personal space challenges. Being on look-out allowed me to stare at the horizon for half an hour at a time and block out the rest of the world. We all respected that when someone was in their bunk with the curtain drawn, they were not to be disturbed. When I got home from sea I would take space for myself, and was thankful for housemates who understood and let me be.

Village work is also a challenge to introverts, as there is little escape in a village situation. People express their hospitality and care by not letting you become lonely and by keeping you safe wherever you go. Sometimes it feels like they crowd me in and stalk me to the toilet, but that is not their intention.

Four nets in a row, in the biggest room we stayed in.
The smallest was about half this size. (Photo: R.Drew)

On our recent trip to Gulf Province, we were four introverts travelling together and being housed in the one room. The psychological barrier provided by a mosquito net is amazing! In each place we stayed, we would survey our room and make a plan. All of us preferred to sleep along the grain of the floorboards, which sometimes made a very tight fit. We’d hang up our nets and come bedtime crawl into our individual caves. Sometimes we were packed so tightly that we almost had to synchronise rolling over in our sleep, yet the nets gave us a sense of personal space. Each in our own net cave, we could read, write, sleep and recharge. Once we managed to walk along the beach. In another place I could sit on the river bank and watch the sun set. These were the snippets of space that kept me going.

Introverting by a river

Returning to our base, we all took the time to catch up on the personal space we had not had for three weeks. I did a very good impression of a hermit for several days. Had the walkway to my backdoor been retractable like a gangway, I would have pulled it in to keep everyone else out. As I have no front door, this would have left me happily isolated in my castle. My big outing was to market, as the desire for fresh food (something else we had been missing out on) outweighed my desire to hide. I don’t think I snarled at anyone at market, but I felt like it.

Just as sailing was worth the challenges, so is translation and village work. While I may struggle to get enough personal space and have sufficient people energy to interact well, I am learning to manage my time and environment better. The rewards of good relationships and opportunities to connect, encourage, support and train people are worth it!

Robbie and the Cards

When making new cards becomes an
impromptu private lesson (Photo: D.Petterson)

A common interchange while in Gulf Province went:

‘Is Robbie ready?’

‘He’s just sorting/making/organising his cards’

‘Oh.’

Don’t get me wrong, we love Robbie and his literacy flashcards, but the consistency with which they emerged was amusing.

Robbie has made it his personal mission to improve literacy in the province, including through uniskript. His enthusiasm for these things meant that in every place we went, we would meet with the community to discuss literacy. It was a meeting that generally ended in a uniskript teaching session.

In village after village, we would hear parents express their concern about their children’s education. We would emphasise the advantages of learning to read in the vernacular first, as then children have the advantage of already being fluent speakers of the language. Learning to read in a language you are still learning to speak is a much bigger challenge. This was illustrated as trying to walk on two separate logs at once. It is hard to take a step on the new language log while also taking a step on the reading log. If we first walk on the reading log, it is then easier to step across to the new language log and concentrate on that.

 Teaching the teachers in Maipenairu

Parents easily caught Robbie’s enthusiasm for uniskript as they quickly learnt to recognise the symbols for their language. Introducing the symbols was done by combining sounds, hand signs and flashcards. These were the cards Robbie was always producing, as he would leave a set behind in each place and create a new set for the next place. We left a trail of flashcards in our wake. Soon parents and teachers were able to use the cards to build words and to recognise words that Robbie built.

We also did some uniskript sessions with school children. They too were quick to catch on, and enjoyed the process. It is our hope that these students will use their new skills to help the younger children learn.

 Ara’ava kids and cards (Photo: D.Petterson)

Just as a bush knife can be used to build a house or to cut someone in anger, uniskript is a tool which can be used poorly or well, and we saw both things happening. In one school, uniskript was mixed in with other unhelpful teaching methods and became just as unhelpful. In another school, the teacher was using uniskript well and the kids were learning quickly. The good thing in this situation is that they have someone, Robbie-of-the-cards, who is willing to keep providing training and resources so that the tool may be used well in more and more places.

I was also able to drop in on Ara’ava, the village where we first introduced uniskript over Christmas. It was encouraging to see the trainee teachers we’d worked with running their classes and the kids clearly learning and enjoying doing so.

The true impact of this approach to literacy will only really be seen in the longer term, but it is encouraging to watch and participate in the first steps.

Teaching parents uniskript at a community meeting (Photo D.Petterson)

Village Soundtrack

To follow on from my post about the challenges of recording songs in a village situation, I’d like to paint for you a word picture of the aural scenery of a village.

The most ubiquitous sound is the rooster. Although children’s books may have the rooster welcoming the dawn, they are much more vocal than this. They crow all day and start up again well before dawn, when I still consider it to be night. When one rooster crows, the next one responds, then the next, then the next…down the length of the village and back again. If a rooster is disturbed during his nightly rest, he will set off the crow-chain so that all in the village have their rest equally disturbed.

Mother hens are a different poultry sound track. They cluck along like a homing beacon, keeping their chicks in range. The chicks cheep back, a panicked note setting in when they cannot see their mother. Do not get between a mother hen and her chicks, else you’ll also hear the sound of flapping wings as they attack you to defend their young.

Children are another village sound. Babies crying, children playing, parents calling out. The chatter and giggle of their observations to each other about the strange white people. The snippets of English they’ve picked up, such as being greeted with ‘Morning!’ in the afternoon. I probably sound equally out of place to them when  I attempt to reply with the correct local greeting.

Frog o’clock happens in both the morning and the evening. This is when the frog chorus starts, as one, on some secret signal. Sometimes their croaks get into rhythm with each other and a strange beat pulses in the air.

Then there are the village bells, which are usually made of old gas cylinders of some sort. They hang from churches and schools where they are beaten with enthusiasm with a stick of some sort. What they lack in tunefulness they make up for in volume.

Church will often have three separate bell ringings before the service starts. The basic principle is that the first bell is a reminder to start getting ready for church. The second bell is time to start walking to church and the third bell is that the service is actually starting. In at least one village, the bells set all the dogs howling, so church was announced by a bell and a canine choir.

The most unexpected bell ring for me was at 9pm. I nearly jumped out of bed, ready for an emergency! Instead, it was the bedtime bell on a school night. Within ten minutes, the village generator had been turned off and except for crickets, the village was quiet.

Generators in villages increase sound in every possible way, for not only are they noisy themselves, but they power other noise generating items. Loud music, from recordings or amateur guitarists have kept me awake late, as has the local evangelist with a message to declare. The State of Origin is a whole separate thing I try to keep well clear of.

Traditional items, such as a conch or a garamut (hollow log drum) are still used in some villages. In one place, the garamut leant up against one of the poles of the house where I slept. This meant that I was woken not only by the noise of the drum, but by the sensation of the entire house shaking beneath me.

If a village has motorised transport, people soon learn to identify every vehicle by its sound. The brand, horsepower and owner of a dinghy are known by the sound on a river village, while the cars and trucks are known on a road village. Planes belonging to different companies are known by their sound… although I can only tell you if it is one of our planes (a Kodiak) or not.

Songs of Faith

For a long time, my faith has been shaped by the songs I’ve sung. When something is on my mind, it is usually a tune that occurs to me, not a Bible verse, as truth with a tune is more memorable.

Growing up in the Australian Lutheran Church I have grown up with the All Together song books. Many of these songs are written by members of our denomination. Now that I live and worship in a multinational and multidenominational community, I find I miss these songs. They have shaped my faith, but others here do not know them at all.

Another source of music that has shaped me is Taizé. Their simple, Biblical and repeated songs are words that soak deep into my soul. Like a dripper that waters a root deeply, these songs soak truth to my depths.

Rebekah checking sound levels while
the musicians practice in Maipenairu

Having had music shape my own faith, I am always pleased when in a village I find PNG communities worshipping in their own language with their own music. As part of our time in Gulf province, we were able to encourage communities in this by recording their vernacular worship songs for them. These were then burnt to CDs or SD cards and left in the community for them to share and enjoy. Eventually these will hopefully be joined by song sheets, for singing a familiar song, or listening to it, while reading the words is a good literacy tool.

Village recording is very different to studio recording. Rebekah was in charge of recording and clearly knew what she was doing, but was faced with many challenges. First we had to find a good place for people to gather. Thankfully, bush roofs are good at absorbing sound in the same way a recording studio is designed to. In one place we used the covered market, in the other we used the church building.

Other people are a challenge when recording. As usual, our activities were the centre of attention and we drew a crowd, a crowd that needed to keep quiet. At the beginning and end of each recording Rebekah would count down from five on her fingers, indicating the silence was starting or ending. People would slowly settle in this time, hushing others. Some people would always be clear in the need for silence and police others. Some people never quite seemed to grasp the concept, and were forever shuffling, coughing or whispering, yet we eventually got there.

Each time we planned to record, we prayed that it did not rain. That is a sound which cannot be edited out. The weather must be waited out. As we had a fairly tight schedule, we were thankful that wet season decided to work with our schedule and hold off at recording times.

Recording in Kope language in Ubuo village

The biggest recording challenge was roosters. We would try to chase them away. We would ask children to chase them away. Yet, with impeccable timing, they would still manage to crow loudly in the middle of recordings.

Most of the songs we recorded were translations of English hymns and spiritual songs, although some were written by locals. Translated hymns tend to take on a new form in a new place as rhythm and tempo are adjusted to local tastes. I could not always recognise the connection to the original.

With nine songs recorded in I’ai language in Maipenairu village and 26 songs in Kope language in Ubuo village, it was encouraging to see songs of the faith shaping the people in those places in the same way that they have shaped me.