Ubuo Housewarming

 All aboard for the trip from the airstrip
 to the village (R.Petterson)

Among all the ceremony of the Jesus Film dedication, one thing I very much enjoyed was having outside friends come to visit my village, meet my village friends and stay in my house. After months of living in my Ukarumpa house, I have not organised to have a housewarming, but my village house had a housewarming in my second week of occupation.

Coming from Kapuna were Robbie and Debbie, my mentors and friends as I work in the region. Aunty Barb, Segana and Nilza came too. As the hospital is my second home in Gulf Province and these are people who support me both prayerfully and practically, it was really good to have them here. They were able to renew their own local connections and to see the outcome of their help with getting toilets and water tanks installed in my house.

Coming from Ukarumpa were two couples from my Bible study group. My Bible study is my Ukarumpa family and now some of them have seen my place and met the people I spend my time with. My regional director came as the official representative from our organisation, but she too is a friend. One person came from the media department and spent all her time behind a camera (there will be a video produced eventually). As we used to have offices across the corridor from each other, we are good friends. We had a visitor who was only in PNG for two weeks, but managed to squeeze the dedication trip in and experience village life. Another woman who is part of a family that Robbie and Debbie are close to, came as their representative. As there was space on the plane, a father and son pair came to experience the village side of our work. This was not a man I knew well, but he represented all the people who work quietly in the background at Ukarumpa to keep things running. It was nice to share with him the field side of what the support of our office workers makes possible. I really appreciate the work these people do, even if I don’t understand most of it.

 Group photos of all the visitors (H.Schulz)

With all these people coming for the dedication and a sleep-over, my house was full! It spent a few days swallowing mountains of cargo that first I, and then the visitors, brought with us. The verandah kept receiving a pile of cargo that then got sorted into various places in the house.

Robbie and Debbie used their room. The wall has woven into it, ‘Uncle Robbie and Auntie Debbie’, so there is no denying it is theirs! The Kapuna visitors were in the room with ‘Kapuna Visitors’ woven into the wall. All of the women who flew down from Ukarumpa slept under one enormous mosquito net in my living area, and the men under a collection of nets on the verandah. I kept my room to myself, as a place of escape amidst the chaos.

Chaos it was, especially on Saturday morning as everyone was waking, changing, packing and eating. I gave the women my room as a change room and offered the storage room to the men as it was the only room left available. Debbie shared her coffee supply and made a saucepan of coffee for everyone. I have a plunger to make coffee for myself, but for a crowd the saucepan did a fine job.  I had brought muesli and milk powder for breakfast and Debbie had brought bread. Her bread proved the most popular and I ended up with an excess of muesli and a shortage of peanut butter. Thankfully I had some back-up supplies I could break into.

 Farewell wave from the village (H.Schulz)

When it was time to go, the cargo was sent ahead of us to the boat and it was time for farewells. A group photo was taken at the house and we walked to the wharf. More photos were taken at the wharf before everyone got onto the waiting boats and we finally waved them off. Robbie and Debbie stayed an extra night, but the house seemed very quiet after the noisy fun of a crowd.

I have a record of their visit though, in my visitors map. A while ago I found a world map at a fabric store. It still has the USSR marked on it, so it is not very politically current, but the geography has not changed. Well, except for where a piece of Siberia has been printed in the Pacific Ocean. I’ll sew a patch over that some day… after all this is a map from a fabric shop. Around the map I added a border of plain cloth and this is where my visitors signed. A string runs between their name and their place of origin, even if that is a trick question for some of my friends. Many of them have been here so long, or moved so often, that they had to choose a place for the string to end. I look forward to adding more strings when others visit, but the map is off to a good start, after such a big housewarming.

A corner of my visitor's map (H.Schulz)

More than the fun of having people to visit though, was the fact that they went away with a much better understanding of my life, friends and work in Ubuo village. They have slept in my house, eaten village food, walked between Goiravi and Ubuo, taken a boat ride on the river and met my friends. When I share stories, they now have not just a photo in their mind, but a place with real people, sights, sounds and smells.

Who will be my next visitor? :-D

Aba Robbie

 Being led forwards (A.Evers)

During the Jesus Film dedication there was a very special event that occurred. It was listed on the programme as ‘surprise event’ and I was the only outsider who knew in advance what was happening. The chiefs of the Kope tribe had decided to honour Robbie’s work with their tribe by making him a ‘chief and patriarch’ (their words). What an incredible honour! … and it was not one bestowed lightly.

On the day of the dedication we reached the point where the special event was to occur. Robbie had no idea what was coming as the chiefs gathered in front of the stage and a respected leader, Rev Gemo, stood at the microphone. I took Robbie’s camera from him, so that I could get a record for him to keep. Debbie (Robbie’s wife) already had the video camera rolling, as the chiefs looked impressive standing as a well dressed group, and ended up filming the whole event.

As Rev Gemo introduced what was going on, one of the chiefs came up on the stage to collect Robbie and to bring him down before them all. They sat him on a specially prepared mat, which gave a loud and surprising crack. Robbie jumped up, everyone laughed, and all was exactly as it should be as a dry piece of bamboo had been placed under it for exactly that purpose. It was a light-hearted start to an otherwise serious ceremony. As Robbie sat on his mat listening to the leader, you could see he was feeling emotional. Thirty years after he and Debbie first started working in this swampy corner of the world, not seeking any credit from anyone, but seeking to make a difference, here was a community choosing to give him their highest honour when he least expected it.

 A serious ceremony (A.Evers)

One by one the gathered chiefs presented Robbie with items of his office. A headdress from one of their heads, a shield, a bow and arrows, spears and shell necklaces. Rev Gemo spoke of the significance of the role, that it places on Robbie the responsibility to act in the best interests of the Kope people. He also spoke of the tribe giving Robbie land and that the title ‘chief’ is earned and cannot be passed down from father to son. Robbie had earned it.

 Symbols of office (H.Schulz)

The crowd watched with great interest as the man they have long called ‘Aba Robbie’ officially became an ‘Aba’. This name is also used for fathers, but when used outside the family, is a title of honour and respect. The ceremony was not long, but it will stay in my memory for a long time as a both solemn and joyous occasion.

The next morning the men gathered to discuss what land was to be given to Robbie. They decided on the block where my house is and some of the land around this. I now live on Robbie’s land and I’ve been commissioned to plant lots of fruit trees. Maybe one day there will be a translation or a literacy centre here, but we will see what develops.

Aba Robbie, chief and patriarch of the Kope tribe. Their first outside chief, their first white chief and a most humble and deserving chief.

The Event

After the big welcome to all the guests and a rest, we returned to the stage for the official dedication of the Jesus Film. By now it was late afternoon and the bite had gone from the sun. That is not to say it was cool, just hot and sweaty instead of meltingly hot and sweaty. This was a good thing for me as by then I was in a costume.

Being dressed in my new outfit (A.Evers)

I had been told that I was the ‘mother of the feast’ and as such I needed to be traditionally dressed. The chief’s wife had measured me the day before to create a skirt and top for me and that afternoon she and her husband came around to put them on me. They tied them over my clothes and then trimmed the top to fit. This meant a pile of grass gathering around my feet as the excess was cut off from the top. They also tied two festive shell bracelets onto my wrists. Being dressed in this way, in traditional clothes put on me by the chief and his wife, was a beautiful moment of adoption. In so many ways the Kope tribe has taken me in, but in this moment I very much became their daughter.

The amazing bird of paradise head-dress (A.Evers)

My costume was nothing though, in comparison to the chief and his wife. Tompkin is paramount chief over upper Kope, an area of four villages. Over his neat trousers and collared shirt he wore so many bands of shells that he made gentle music as he walked. On his head was an impressive headdress of feathers with a decorative band of shells. He certainly wore the most shells of anyone on the day. His wife also had the most amazing headdress out of all the women. Hers was topped with a rust coloured bird of paradise that her son in law had caught for her. The beautiful feathers shone in the sun as she smiled out from underneath it.

At the official dedication in the afternoon there was the usual collection of speeches. Most people kept it short and to the point, although there was at least one who took the moment to do some politicking. Eventually there was the dedication prayer, the showing of the first few minutes of the film and the promise of the full film once it was dark enough to project onto a big screen (aka bed sheet). There was also a very special event which I’ll write about next week before people dispersed to prepare their feast food and return.

The gathered crowd (A.Evers)

As the evening grew dark, people started claiming their places near the screen. We waited on the stage for our part in the feast and the wait was well worth it. I am not the first Kope daughter from Adelaide. A while ago a Kope man married an Adelaide woman and although they have separated and he has returned to PNG, his children are all still in South Australia. Two of them are cooks, and I don’t know if they learnt from their father or their father learnt from then, but either way, this man knows how to cook! I’ve since learnt that his two assistants for the day were people who have also worked in a company camp kitchen and in hotel kitchens in Port Moresby. It’s amazing what skills and histories are living quietly in the village. Between these three men, we were served village gourmet food and everyone appreciated it.

Setting up the projector (A.Evers)

Food done and plates cleared (put in a bucket to take home and wash later), it was time for the film showing. We were blessed with very few technical hitches, as the sound system, generator, dodgy looking extension cords and my projector that keeps resetting itself to Chinese all worked together well. The crowd stretched back into the darkness, all eyes focussed on the screen. Around me near the front were little children watching wide eyed. My Kope is not yet good enough to follow the words, but the story is familiar and I followed the images instead. Even then, I find this story that I have known my whole life confronting to see illustrated in this way.

As the film finished there was silence as the crowd stayed still and thoughtful. Someone prayed and dismissed everyone, but even as they walked away, the thoughtfulness remained.

I returned to my house with the last few visitors who had made it to the end of the film. As they had all had an early start and did not understand the language, many of them had quietly gone to bed once they had seen the crowd transfixed by the film. I wove my way among the mosquito nets and sleeping bodies filling my veranda and living area until I found my way to the sanctuary of my own mosquito net and mattress. Untangling myself from a grass skirt and top, I fell into bed exhausted and happy.