Above Reproach

Social networking and facebook are simply the current model of what people have always done: present themselves to the people around them, watch what others are doing and make judgements based on what they see and hear. The speed of news in the village leaves the internet for dead at times. Although what the truth is underlying the story that is told can be equally mysterious in both places.

In this context, of both high speed village news and an online presence, I find myself juggling the concepts of doing what is right, being seen to do what is right, and living in the freedom of the Gospel. Let me give you some examples

Gossip is destructive, and once a story is out it takes on a life of its own and cannot be brought back under control. As a single woman, it is easy for gossip to spread about what man I was seen with and what we were doing. As my translation team is made up of men, I am often left juggling social situations to make sure that we are seen to be above reproach. When I need to talk with my village brother, we do so in the yard, not on the enclosed veranda. If we need to work on the veranda on the computer, his wife or his children normally come with, to keep everything above board. If a man needs his phone charged, he will send it to me with his children. If he comes himself, kids will always come with him. All of this social engineering is to make sure that rumours cannot be spread, as there was a group present, not a secret meeting of two people.

It is not just in the village that I juggle these things, as Ukarumpa has been called Uka-rumour with good reason. One time a single guy came to visit while my yad meri (gardener) was working outside. We sat in the lounge by the big glass windows, where she very obviously kept an eye on us to make sure nothing happened. Had she not seen enough to keep her happy, valley rumour would have had us ‘married’ by nightfall. Another time a colleague came to help fix something in my house, and his wife came with, to make sure no-one could spread rumours. It was not that she didn’t trust me or her husband, but that she did trust the speed at which rumours can develop and damage can be done.

The social management involved with being a single woman is not the only area in which I find myself making sure I am seen to do what is right. Alcohol is another area. At home in Australia I like a glass of wine with friends. In PNG I very rarely drink. At home social drinking is normal. Here drinking is associated with drunkenness and is not Christian. I agree that drunkenness is not the life Christ calls us to, but I do miss a quiet drink with friends.

The challenge of being seen to right, as well as doing right, is not just my challenge. I have reminded my village brother, who was the voice of Jesus in the Jesus film of this a few times. If he does things that people see as immoral, they will no longer trust the film or the story of Jesus. For all Christians, it is a challenge to proclaim Christ with our action as well as our words, but for him, this is doubly true.

All of this social engineering seems very restrictive at times, especially when I consider myself free from the law to live a life of grace. Putting on what can feel like act to show others that I am doing the right thing, when the fruit of the Spirit is self control and I should be trusted to do the right thing, regardless of appearances, is frustrating. Still, I need to balance doing right and being seen to do right. I also need to balance the living in the freedom of the gospel with the knowledge that people will make their own judgements of their actions and base future decisions on this.

 River view from Ubuo.

Tanks, Taps and Lent

In Lent each year I like to give something up and to do something proactive. The combination of these disciplines reminds me of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, where he actively moved towards a goal, with the knowledge he was giving up his life.

A Lenten still life.

Taps, plumbers tape and my coffee plunger. 

This year the fasting half of my Lenten discipline was coffee. A coffee with breakfast in the village is part of my ritual that starts the day well. Giving it up was hard. Going on the YWAM ship during Lent, where they had good coffee easily available made it harder. Still, my daily reminder of sacrifice was a part of my Lenten journey.

The active half of this year’s Lenten discipline was to work on providing taps for the community tanks in our village. I think that was the harder journey!

Water can be a challenge in our village, with very few people having private tanks. I am one of the few and struggle with watching the women walk past to the bush well when I have water on tap in the house. There are two public tanks in Ubuo village, but both of them are broken. One tank has no lid and no tap; therefore no-one has plumbed it with gutters to catch water from the nearby school roof. The other tank has a broken tap, so although it is full of water, it cannot be accessed except for catching the drips from the tap. My Lenten idea was to fix these public tanks with working taps so that the community could have water, and my conscience would be eased over my private tanks.

In planning and ordering taps for tank repairs, I also visited the neighbouring village, Mira Goiravi, to find out the state of their community tanks and was shown three tanks. One had no tap, no proper base and no catchment area. The discussion was that if I provided the tap, they would organise the rest. The second tank had a spectacular jury rig of a tap that I hoped to improve. The third tank had a huge hole cut into it where a drunk had one day attacked the tank with his knife. This is a good illustration of the benefit of NGOs helping to provide multiple small private tanks: one idiot cannot deprive the community of life giving water.

 Bush mechanic jury rigged tap.

With my information gathered, I sent measurements and requests to a friend in the Highlands to send parts down on a flight. The parts arrived while I was on the YWAM ship and I was ready to install them when I returned to the village. While I was on the ship, I found out that one of the crew, Simon, had a particular interest in helping communities fix their tanks, particularly through the provision of taps. It is a sad fact that tanks are too often provided without a tap, meaning they are of no benefit to the community. When YWAM did a clinic in my village, Simon was able to come along and make sure I had all the necessary parts for my impending tank repairs. I spoke with leaders in the community and told them that once our tank had guttering in place, I had the tap ready to install. In the next village it was a similar tale, that once a foundation and guttering were in place, I had the tap ready. Everyone seemed pleased to finally have their tanks on track to being functional.

Fast forward a few weeks and I am back in the village again. It has been dry and people are walking past my house to get water from bush wells. I ask people in the village what is happening with the tank preparations, as I am standing by with taps.  In my village, the school maintenance has been focussed in another area. They are reinforcing the floor as it broke one day as there were too many students in class. The gutters will happen ‘later’. When I ask about ‘later’ it turns out that people do not know where the guttering that was in the office has gone.

In the next village, I am quickly finding out that two of the three tanks I was initially told are community tanks are actually private. Only the useless tank with the big hole belongs to the community. One of the private tanks was supposed to be public, but has been claimed by the largest family in the village. The village magistrate and others talk with that family, suggesting that if they are willing to make it a community tank, I am willing to provide a tap, but they are not willing. I have made it very clear that I am only providing taps for tanks that service the whole community, not for individual families, so I find myself with two spare taps and no repaired tanks in the neighbouring village.

Testing the tap for size… we then removed
it until the gutters were in place.

Fast forward a few months, and a phone call from the village tells me that the tanks are still not repaired. The school tank still has no gutters, so the person who I gave the tap to has not put it on. He is someone I trust to keep hold of the tap until the tank is ready. The other tank, with the broken tap, is still full but unusable. People are not willing to empty the tank to replace the tap. So that tap and tank also sit unused.

When I think about the women walking into the bush to get water from the well I am sad. Before I felt guilty because I had my own water supply, but now I am sad. Sad because the resources are there to fix the community taps, but for complex reasons beyond my understanding, it has not happened. I am sad because I suspect it is largely the politics of men that keep the women doing the hard work. Sad because I wanted to bless the community, the women in particular, and feel like I have got nowhere.

This exercise in taps and tanks started in Lent and continues well beyond Easter. I sought to bless people, but have been prevented. This really leaves me with a lot more of Lent to reflect on, as Jesus too sought to bless yet was, and is, rejected by so many. If I grieve over taps and water, how much more must God grieve over those who reject the eternal water of life. 

Feast and Famine

I have touched on the question of ownership and generosity before , but as it is an issue that I continue to be challenged by, it is an issue that I continue to write about. This post is some thoughts on a variety of related issues, all pertaining to the question of giving or holding.

Taking food to share with someone else (A.Evers)

PNG is traditionally a feast or famine culture. When the harvest, the fishing or the hunting was good, people feasted. When the crop died and the prey got away, people went hungry. As there were not many foods that kept well, things were consumed while fresh and available, not preserved for another time. When things were abundant, they were shared. This was a practical measure that meant things did not go to waste. It was also a pragmatic investment in relationships that meant when someone else had a time of abundance, you would be given your share. This tradition of feast or famine continues to shape ideas of ownership and sharing in PNG. This is particularly true for the majority who remain subsistence farmers, but also true for those in towns who deal with pay checks and budgets. As someone from a culture that preserves and rations, I am often in conflict with the feast and famine cycle. I am used to keeping hold of what I have and making sure I have enough over an extended period, keeping my consumption more level. That I hold on to things when others are in a famine period can seem selfish from one perspective, but good stewardship from the other.

A table laid and waiting for speeches to be done
and the feast to begin

Another challenge is that in a culture of reciprocal giving is that I can never outgive the other person*, regardless of if I have more than they do. Part of this culture is that one party should always be slightly indebted to the other. This ensures that the giving keeps going and the relationship remains strong. If accounts are balanced, then the relationship is in danger as there is no longer a need to connect. To maintain relationships, and as a promise that I will continue to come back to the village, I am always slightly behind on the giving. There is no official tally, but there is a sense that I am indebted to the community.

Corruption is a big challenge in PNG and is also part of this complex web of questions of ownership in community. Traditionally, goods were shared primarily with one’s own network to build and maintain relationships. When political power is gained and people are given control of public money, those with a relationship to that person expect this pattern to continue. They helped to get their relative into power, now they want their slice of the pie. This is a huge social pressure that it is difficult for people to resist. I am not in favour of corruption, but I do recognise the long and challenging road that it will be to bring change, as this is about old cultural practices, not just about greedy individuals.

A feast at my house before I left at
the end of one village stay

Alongside of these issues I find myself chewing over the idea of the ‘theology of enough’. The little I have read appeals to me, as it is a challenge to live with enough, but not too much. How much that means varies, but it means assessing what I have and deciding if more necessary or if it is better to share with others, so that they too may have enough. It is not a call to renounce all earthly possessions and live in poverty, but a challenge to not be swept up by the consumption of a world that bases identity on possessions.

What is enough in a feast or famine culture? What is enough in a preserve and pace yourself culture? What is enough when reciprocal giving is the foundation of relationships? What is enough when I am richer than many around me? How much do I save for later and how much do I give away now?

There are no easy answers to these questions, but it is a good thing to be kept alert and not complacent about these issues of poverty and riches, giving and receiving, and owning and sharing.

*Yes, every place has its greedy people who take and do not give. This is a breach of the reciprocity on which relationships are based, and is therefore a bad relationship.

Third Gender

A while ago there was a pastoral support team visiting Ukarumpa and they put on a session for single ladies. This was a bold move by a married couple, so I went along to encourage them to continue to recognise the different needs of singles working cross-culturally. So often if feels like everything is focussed on families and we singles are sidelined as if somehow incomplete.

The session was a good time, as it was basically a safe space in which to share our challenges and joys with a compassionate audience, which was both a group of singles and the wife of the pastoral couple. Along the way, one of our singles who has been here decades made a comment that rang true: When working as a single woman in a traditional PNG village, you are effectively a third gender. We do not fit the culturally defined role of women, yet clearly we are not men, so we must be something else.

Women cutting and raking grass to clean up the village.

Women in my village spend their time gardening, fishing, cooking and looking after children. Few have good English and many did not make it past grade three. Meanwhile, I do not live off my garden, do not fish for my supper and have no children. I have a collection of university degrees and spend my day working with words and books.

Men in my village also garden and fish, with hunting and house building also being their responsibilities. They are more likely to have gone further in school and had reason to travel outside the village. They have much more access to, and therefore understanding of, life outside the village. One man has a Masters degree and has travelled the world before retiring to the village. Another man from our village is one of the Prime Minister’s body guards and has travelled to many more countries than me.

I dare not speak for all of PNG with its hundreds of tribes and cultural variations, but for there to be distinct roles for men and women would be fairly normal. For me to not fit into these roles is also normal. Instead, I find myself in a ‘third gender’ role, where my education, livelihood, life experience and lack of children set me apart.

One time my position as a third gender was clear was the day the village was preparing for visitors. The young men were building shelters for people to sit in during the meeting. The women where cutting, raking and burning grass so that the village looked tidy. The older men were sitting under a house, chewing betel nut and supervising proceedings.  I was invited to join the men under the house. The conversation covered local, national and international politics as well as development issues, and I was included with the respected men.

 The shelters being built by men for the visitors to sit in.

On the same day, some re-fencing happened at my house that included me with the women. When I arrived in the village a week prior, there had been a welcome gate put outside my house. I was enjoying having my own gate. That day, the gate was removed and a fence put in its place, with the very clear message that I would come and go through the neighbours’ gate, as I came under his protection and was part of his household.

Most of the time I am thankful for my unique third gender role, as it gives me freedoms not given to village women in a patriarchal society. It leaves me room to be different and to do my work in Bible translation. I am allowed to teach and work in a way that local women are not able. Some days being an outsider is a burden. It is difficult to connect with the women around me when our everyday lives and experiences are so different.

Being the outsider (in so many ways!) in the village is one of the reasons I enjoy time back in our organisational base. There I can be normal… whatever that is! There are other single women who work in villages like I do that I can connect with and we can share our stories and challenges. There I am in a community where education and experience are something we all have and where I can be with my own kind. Being a third gender in the village is mostly a good thing, but so is belonging.

Cancer

Cancer. It is a word that strikes fear into many of us, as we have seen the suffering of friends going through treatment, or you’ve experienced it yourselves. It is a rare person who does not know the loss that occurs when the disease is stronger than the treatment. In the last year I have had friends all over the world fighting various manifestations of cancer. Some of them are winning, some of them are not. I am thankful for the access they have had to quality treatment and care.

In the village though, it is a very different story.

My friend is a doctor at a nearby hospital. She came to stay with me in the village for the night when she was doing a TB clinic in a nearby village. In the morning we had a crowd of people waiting outside for their chance to see the doctor. When I say the hospital is ‘nearby’, it is actually three hours away and hard to get to for most people and having the doctor in the village was a chance not to be missed.

 View from my verandah, which was briefly a clinic that morning.

As there was a limited amount of time before my friend had to leave, she prioritised the patients who got to see her. One of the first was someone who had been unwell for some time. After a discussion and an examination the diagnosis was cancer. To receive treatment, the lady would have to go to a hospital far away. Reaching the hospital would require three hours of boat travel and 18 hours of travel in the back of a truck along treacherous roads. She would then have to stay for months, away from family and garden, with the outcome of treatment uncertain. When one is a subsistence farmer who is reliant on a network of relationships for social security, this sort of time away from people and place is nearly impossible. She chose to stay in the village, where she will die from the disease.

As part of the same trip, my friend had returned another cancer patient to their village. Cancer treatment is not something her small rural hospital is able to offer, and the most compassionate course of patient care was to return them to the village to die among their family.

Off to the TB meeting with community leaders,
having finished the critical consultations. 

This is the reality of life and death in the village and people largely accept it as such. At home we fight death for all it is worth. I am glad that my friends have been fighting death this year, as I do not want to farewell them quite yet, but I also see the value in accepting that death will come. I wish my village friends had access to the healthcare my international friends have access to, yet I respect their valuing dying at home and among family rather than fighting for life in a strange and distant place.

Having a foot in both worlds, I am slowly learning to live with this and the many other contrasts and tensions that are ever present.

Chalk, pencil, pen and pixel.

How does one go about writing a draft of the Bible? With a variety of implements!

First the Kope translation team works on a draft together, writing ideas on individual pieces of paper, sharing them and then writing their combined draft on the blackboard. This draft is then reviewed and rewritten until it is clear, accurate and natural. Once the team is happy with the draft it gets written into the exercise book of drafts, in pencil. It is their choice to use pencil even though I would prefer pen as it is easier to read. This draft is then read over and corrections marked with red pen. I take the draft and type it into my computer for eventual printing.

In the space of a day, the draft has been through chalk, pencil and pen to reach pixels. This may seem like a lot of rewriting to some, so let me explain the reasons for each.

Chalk is affordable and lasts well. Whiteboards are fancy, but the markers have a bad habit of drying up at inconvenient moments. This is not a problem with chalk, although kids getting hold of it and having some creative fun can diminish supplies rapidly. Using the blackboard allows everyone to contribute to one written edition as it is easily seen and commented on.

Pencil allows for endless rubbing out as people revise their ideas, which is a definite advantage over pens. Pens also don’t work well if people rest their hand on the page while writing and leave a trail of sweat and grease behind. You can’t see this trail, but pens don’t work well where people have previously rested their hand on the page, as my co-workers tend to do.

Pixels require expensive equipment as well as training. Not only do computers cost a lot, but the equipment to power them costs as well. Learning computer skills takes time. At the moment I am the computer owner and operator for the Kope translation programme. One day we will have a computer for the team and I will take on the bigger challenge of teaching computer skills, but I know that it will be a big task.

Chalk, pencils, pens and pixels. These are our implements as we draft the Kope New Testament.

Compartmentalisation

Living in a global world, with a global network of friends, comes with its challenges. While teens today apparently suffer from FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) if they are offline for too long, I find myself compartmentalising my life and deliberately tuning out.

In the village I can sometimes access facebook on my phone and have found that their messenger programme is one of my more reliable forms of communication. In theory this means I could be chatting away with anywhere, yet that is not what I do. I find that I message with the people who know the context I am in, my fellow workers in Gulf Province. It does not matter if these friends are in their Gulf locations, or home in the UK and NZ, they understand where I am, so are the people that I contact. When dealing with all the cultural stresses surround me, cutting down my communication to ‘those who get it’ makes a big difference.

  The view from where I sit to check facebook 

in the late afternoon. (H.Schulz)

I still scan facebook regularly and am touched by outward events, but I rarely ‘like’ or comment. Part of this is the frustratingly limited internet, where even achieving a ‘like’ is a minor miracle. Most of it is that looking at the outside world, but not joining in with it, is a balance that I can maintain. Similarly, I read my emails (when they can be convinced to download), but leave the bulk of them for when I am out of the village, where I have better internet and clearer head space.

When I am in Australia, I find myself doing the reverse. I am happy to talk about life in PNG for so long and to share my pictures, but then I reach a limit where I prefer to focus on where I am and who I am with. The gap between my worlds is so big that I can only bridge it for a limited length of time before I need to be in just one place. I suspect the same is true in reverse, that my friends can only engage with my strange life for so long before they too need to return to familiar conversational territory.

Compentmartalising life works well for me… most of the time. These boundaries all fell apart when the YWAM medical ship came to visit the area near my village. I am thankful for their visits and the work they do, but I also struggle with cultural clash of life aboard and day trips to villages. The ship is comfortable, air conditioned, has fresh veggies, cheese, lots of people from a similar cultural and linguistic background to me…it is basically a floating outpost of Australian life and culture, which can be a lot of fun. By day though, people visit villages, to a life I am familiar with and usually live in full time, but we only stay for a few hours before returning to the floating hotel. This coming and going so swiftly between worlds was a challenge and I was tired most of the time.

 Two worlds, watching each other, and I belong in both.
(photo: ywamships.org.au)

As I prepare to return to Australia for four months of furlough, I find myself wondering about what this compartmentalisation will mean once I am home. I will need to find good ways to share my story with those who are interested, but still to engage with the life and culture in Australia that is becoming increasingly foreign to me. Compartmentalisation is a survival skill for me, so we will see what it means in a different context.

PS I realise that I just admitted to being contactable in the village, but I also admitted to mostly choosing to limit that contact to a small network. Do not be surprised if you message me when I’m in the village and I don’t write back!