Communication

    Even though we live in an age of ever increasing access to communication, human nature stops it always being instant or easy. Even in PNG access to mobile phones is increasing, but that does not always mean communication has improved.

    On our recent trip to Ghayavi we sent a letter a month ahead of us with the dates of our trip. It arrived a few weeks before we did, but sat unopened on a desk. The owner of the desk were certain they had told the recipient the letter was there. The recipient was certain that they’d asked if there was any letter and been told no. Communication breakdown! Regardless, the community was very flexible in making time for us and the work we came to do, even though it was the end of campaign season and other work was underway.

    A mobile tower has recently been established near Ghayavi. For months it was being turned on ’tomorrow’ and actually had been turned on the week before our visit. We collected mobile numbers for making contact in the future, but communication is still fragile. A phone needs to be charged. Some people have little solar panel chargers, others rely on someone else’s generator. This in turn requires them having the generator functioning and enough fuel to run it. Neither of these is a given. If people are to call us, they need credit, which requires money and someone to sell them credit. Once again, things which are not always available.

    Here in the big smoke of Alotau, we have internet but it is slow and expensive. 3G is being turned on ‘tomorrow’ but we are not holding our breath. Slow internet, plus having the pictures turned off to save expense and time, takes the fun out of facebook, so I find myself using it less and less. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone’s important announcements, you’ll need to contact me personally.

    I am a person with a foot in both e-mail and snail mail camps, seeking to balance the two. My thoughts do not flow as well at a computer, yet the instant communication is convenient. If anyone reading this blog thinks some things are very like a letter they received, that may well be the case. Often I’ve thought of things in letter writing that are then reshaped into a blog. The letter may take weeks to reach you, in which time you’ve already read the blog, but I said it personally first.

    Balancing a postal budget has lead to my rediscovery of aerogrammes. These quaint pieces of paper which fold to become the envelope are much cheaper than sending a letter, but long enough to say a decent hello. You can send them from Australia too…

    This blog is a good example of the balancing act I try to do, with not only fast and slow communication, but with personal and bulk communication. This blog is probably mostly read by friends and family, so I would like it to be a true reflection of who I am and how I am doing. At the same time it could be read by anyone, so I seek to protect my privacy somewhat. Sending out newsletters each quarter and prayer updates each month require similar balancing acts, although in each case the audience is smaller and more personal.

    My favourite communication available to me at the moment is the occasional phone calls home. Hearing the voice of people you love makes them seem so much closer. The poor internet connection means video skype in not an option as much as I would love to see the faces of my family, especially as I have a brand new nephew.

    Regardless of the method of communication, it can still get messy. What one person thinks they are expressing and what the other reads or hears can so easily be a mismatch. All of my correspondence (both incoming and outgoing) is best read with a patience filter. I try to read things in the best possible light and not respond immediately to things that upset me. Maybe on a second reading I can see them in a better light.

    While I receive international sms about my nephew’s birth and wait impatiently for a parcel of photos I know is on the way, the other communication I enjoy is thousands of years old, yet still personal and relevant today; the Bible. People have not changed much in thousands of years. We still need to hear that we are loved. We still need someone to encourage and correct us. We still cry out in anger, grief and frustration as well as in wonder and joy. Like with other correspondence, we need to apply filters of culture and time and read critically, not taking texts out of context. There are fancy words for the complexities of these filters such hermeneutics and exegesis, but it is still a letter of love that speaks to us today. Of course, if we leave that letter just sitting on the desk unopened, there is a communication breakdown once again.

-->

Spelling Test

Kipling leading a community discussion on spelling choices

Writing practice

The community outhouse

Our outhouse

Goodenough Island

During spelling tests in school did you ever want to object to the correct spelling with an alternative that made more sense? English spelling is inconsistent and frustrating and our chances of ever streamlining it, when there are so many dialect variations, are slim.

Not so in Anuki. This people group is small enough for the community to gather and review their alphabet and spelling choices. The corpus of literature is small enough that changes can still easily be applied. It is possible to walk the length of the people group and back in a day. In fact, many school students do almost that to get to school and home each day.

A few weeks ago a colleague and I visited the Anuki to lead an alphabet review workshop. In 2000 they had their initial alphabet and writers workshop, where they made orthographic choices. Our job this time was to help the community test their spelling by reflecting on their choices and discussing any problem areas they had with their alphabet. Maybe a four day spelling test sounds like a chore to some, but we had a lot of fun.

Each day Tuula lead a number of literacy games. These were designed to help get people thinking about words, sounds and syllables. Each day we also had spelling tests. After each word was read out, we collected all the alternatives for spelling, wrote them on the board and the community decided which one best represented their language. Some decisions were made and then remade as more words with the same sound came up or a better understanding of syllables developed. Another feature of the workshop was practicing writing and reading stories. Although we could not understand the stories, there were clearly some good writers, based on the responses of the listeners.

Trips like this are tiring as we are in the public eye the whole time. In such strongly communal cultures to leave us alone would be very unhospitable. We often went to bed early, and then read by torchlight, as our only quiet in the day. Although workshops ran all day and the trip was tiring, there were also many beautiful and relaxing moments. We ran the workshop in view and hearing of the beach. Across the bay we could see Goodenough Is appearing from the clouds on occasions. The hospitality of the community meant a new wash house and a new out house had been built just for us.  The Anuki proved themselves very good hunters and we feasted with the community. When we had a free day at the end of our stay we walked to a neighbouring village, coming home via mangroves and beach. All in all a very fun way to hold a spelling test!

Printing, binding, packing

Hazel collating Anuki booklets.

VITAL Module 22 has nearly come to an end. Tonight is the closing meal and participants leave tomorrow. I’ll be leaving with them, to go on a village trip for a week, but that is a story for later.

The last few days have been frantically busy, as teams do final checks and changes, format for printing and get in line to use the printer. That machine has been going almost non-stop and thankfully has been very well behaved. The heat from the it competes with the air conditioner in the print room. The ceiling fan adds a little to the cooling effect, but cannot be on too high else it causes carefully collated pages to flutter about. With up to eight people in the tiny print room at times, the cooler fights hard, and we appreciate any drop in temperature or humidity it can provide. The print room is home not only to two  printers, but also to all the card and paper stock, the industrial stapler, two guillotines, the laminator, a spiral binder with all its associated parts and not enough bench space. Printing, collating and binding all happen in this small room.

Betty and Eric binding Are booklets.

Humidity and printers are not good friends. At night all paper is taken out of the machine and returned to the warming cupboard. This is where all the paper stock is kept so that it remains usable. The stocks in this cupboard have dropped significantly in the last few days as team after team feeds another ream into the hungry machine. With eleven teams printing their translated sections of 1&2 Kings there is a lot of paper being consumed.

I have twice been through the print queue, once with Anuki yesterday and once with Are today. Betty, the mentor for the Are team, is also running as a candidate in the current election. Helping her get her teams books finished meant she could go out and get into campaigning. She is up against some local ‘big men’, so it will be interesting to see how a local woman will fare. Her network is extensive and her faith and integrity are well respected.

Anyway, back to the print room…

Each team prints 30 trial copies to take to their language group for village checking. They also print a master copy to mark all changes on and a series of questions to guide their checking process. Covers for the booklets also need to be printed, with each language group making their own colour choice. Yellow for Anuki, red for Are and blue for Maiadomu, but no one has chosen the pink yet.

Marian binding Misima literacy materials.

Upstairs the literacy room has turned into a book production factory. All through the course the literacy coordinator has been printing big books on A3 as they were completed. In the last few days all these have been taped, stapled and taped again to form a (hopefully) lasting whole.  The final step for all printed and bound books is to package them up with plastic wrap. This keeps them safe from moisture on the boat ride home.

Now that almost every team is done with printing, binding and packing, people have walked into town for last minute shopping. Many of the participants live quite remotely, so have come to town with shopping lists for their village or area. They may not be back in town before the next module in October. Kwadima is loading cargo this afternoon, ready for our departure tomorrow.

Books packed and ready for the journey home.

We’ve had interest from people in joining us as passengers on Kwadima, but the boat is already full. Apparently Goodenough I, the primary transport to and from Goodenough Island is out of service, so people are looking for a way to get home. They may well have to wait for a week to find a boat going where they need to go. The alternative is to go by open dinghy, but it is a long trip for that sort of boat.

So it is that this VITAL module comes to a close. It has been a good month; intense, busy, a steep learning curve, lots of new people and lots of new friends. The next chapter starts tomorrow as I head off to visit the Anuki. Hopefully I’ve packed everything I need, without just packing everything. Mum used to always say on family holidays that “What we don't have we don’t need”. Seeing as my teddy bear got posted on after me at least once, how we define ‘need’ is highly variable and sometimes we do forget things. Hopefully, tired as I am as I pack, I truly don’t need that which I don’t have! Food, shelter and company are provided, for ten days, what more can I need?!

(Amusingly, as I typed that I remembered to add malaria medications to my luggage. Hopefully I don’t need them.)

Update 14 June; 15 min after we left Alotau wharf we realised what we had forgotten- the satellite phone that was our communication for the week. We turned around, picked it up and left for a trouble free journey.

Farewells, again

Life in an NGO is full of arrivals and departures, particularly when based at a regional centre. Teams coming and going to the village stop here for a few days to pack and prepare or to rest and recover. Workshops with all their participants and staff make a bigger and longer arrival. I myself have gone on one village trip already and have two more planned in the coming month.

Arriving for dinner in style

Among all this coming and going, the people who hold the place together are the centre managers and staff. They welcome people, prepare rooms, look after the property, sign the cheques and generally keep the place running. Yesterday we farewelled the centre manager and his family. When you farewell the glue of a place like this, there is much sadness. They are returning to the USA and taking up a new role with The Seed Company.

Staff serving extra guests first

On Thursday evening we had a farewell dinner. They had asked for a simple farewell, but I’m not sure such a thing exists here. The VITAL participants made flower necklaces for the family and lead them in a procession of drumming and dancing to the dining hall. After dinner there were speeches, gifts and more musical items. The next morning people lined the driveway in a final farewell as they left for the airport. I admit to skipping the final farewell, as it reminded me too much of leaving Perth at 15, with most of the congregation plus my sister on the train platform waving goodbye. Many tears were shed then too.

How to deal well with all these comings and goings is a challenge that may take me some time to work out. I want to be able to be both welcoming to new people, even if they are passing through, and able to express grief with those leaving. I can see that a form of compassion fatigue could easily occur and neither welcomes nor farewells be given much notice. Yet another challenge of life here!

VITAL

This week has seen the start of Module 22 of VITAL (Vernacular Initiative for Translation and Literacy). This means that eleven language groups from around Milne Bay have sent a team to Alotau to live, study and work on translation and literacy for four weeks. We started a day late as Kwadima II only got in with the participants early on Monday. They were all looking rather tired after their journey in, so we delayed our start till Tuesday. Even when I'm working on land in linguistics, my life still manages to be shaped by maritime matters!

Each day at VITAL moves between community times and team times. In the community times we first gather to sing, pray and study the Bible. This is followed by a time of language discovery, or looking at how to map the grammar and discourse patterns in the language of the participants. After a break for breakfast groups head to their cubicles. These are small study rooms, although we managed to have six people in ours today. It was getting a bit cosy, but the fan kept us cool. In the cubicles the teams work on their grammar and then do an advisor check of work from a few days earlier. The work is given two days to settle before the advisor check so that the team can look at it with fresh eyes and ears. This work takes the teams through until lunch.

After lunch we once more gather as a community for an exegetical session. Together we read through the text of the day in several versions, noting problem areas and discussing how best to translate them. Sometimes this means discussing history and politics (How big was Jerusalem when David was king? How big was it when Solomon was king? What is a king?). Other times it means teasing out concepts such as being overwhelmed and how that might be said in language. One of my favourites is discussing euphemisms. These are the salt that add flavour to what some would consider boring historical accounts. What does it mean that 'David slept with his ancestors' and how do we say something politely in language? I was amused by the Anuki term 'road women' to mean 'prostitutes'. From the exegetical session the community breaks into small groups again as the teams work on their first draft of the text we have just discussed. 

It is good to see the centre so busy and to see the commitment the teams have to their work. Most of them continue drafting into the evening so that they can get the portion complete before the next day. This is no rush job, but a lot of time and effort is being put into the work being done. 

In case you're wondering why we're discussing prostitutes, check 1 Kings 3:16ff.

Diodio

Goodenough Island, Milne Bay Province

The second part of our translation awareness trip was with the Diodio on Goodenough Island. Our arrival here was much more low key and we wondered if they had remembered that we were coming. Sitting under the mango tree we caught our breath from the 20 min walk up from the beach. It had not been a hard walk, but the humidity had caused me to sweat so much that it was dripping off my nose. Yuck. Time seated in the shade and an eventual cup of tea did much to restore my spirits.

Goodenough Island is about 40km long and nearly 2.5km tall. Occasionally we could see the mountains, but they were often lost in the clouds. People live on the coastal plains around the edge of the Island. In this small space there are several languages; Bwaidoka, Iduna, Kaninuwa and a dialect chain that stretches along the north and west coast. The villages along this chain have over 80% lexical similarity from one end to the other. To say where a language begins or ends, and what it should be called, is a complex question. For now, we shall say we were in Diodio language, as that is what some people in the village I visited called it, although others said differently. 

Returning to Kwadima II

This time the workshop was attended largely by community leaders from both the United and Catholic church as well as from nearby villages. These churches have a long and strong presence on Goodenough Island and are behind most of the schools, clinics and aid posts on the island. This meant that people had much higher education and grasp of English. Not needing a translator certainly simplified the workshop! Once again, people engaged with the workshops and came away inspired to begin work in their own language. To me, that is the measure of a successful trip. 

Even in this area of higher education, the need for translation was highlighted for me in discussion with a lay preacher in training. Together we talked out way through the text she was preaching on the following day. We identified the foreign words and ideas, we talked about cultural assumptions and hidden meanings, and about how she could communicate the message of the text in a clear, accurate and natural way. This woman had a good grasp of English, but had clearly missed much of the meaning in the text. If the text had been in her heart language, the meaning would have been clear. 

Rainbow farewell to Diodio

We left Diodio on Sunday afternoon. As we walked back down to the beach, all I was allowed to carry was my own billum (handbag). All of our luggage and stores went ahead of us on the heads and backs of others. It is an expression of hospitality, but a bit awkward for someone used to looking after herself. I rainbow covered the sky as we waved goodbye to our new friends on the beach 

As the sun set and the stars came out, we were on our way back to Alotau. With no moon, the stars were incredible. I am thankful that I can still see the Southern Cross from here as it makes home feel a little bit closer. In the sea I delighted in one of my favourite things; dolphins swimming in phosphorescence. When dolphins move through these tiny marine creatures they glow like underwater fireflies. The result is a dolphin shaped glowing streak with a fairy dust trail that plays on the bow wave. Stars above and comets below. Beautiful.

Dimadima

Two weeks to the day after I arrived in PNG I was back at sea and on Kwadima II heading off on a Translation Awareness Trip. It felt good to be on the water, even if we were motoring. Leaving early afternoon from Alotau we rounded East Cape near sunset. In the morning we stopped at Worupa village to pick up Kipling, an Anuki man, and were at Yarame village, in Dima, by early afternoon. We had been invited there by the community to help them understand what was involved in starting a Bible translation project in their language.

Our welcome was grand! By dingy we came up the creek among the mangroves, landed and walked among banana palms and gardens to the village. As we approached the village, we were met by a welcoming party. Dressed traditionally, playing drums and singing they welcomed us to the village by replaying how they welcomed the first missionaries and pretending to spear us. It was a little intimidating, to be honest.

Dimdima man singing a welcome song

We were shown through the village to a house they had finished for us to stay in and given four chairs to sit on, the only chairs in the village. Once the song was done we came back down to the grass and met people through a series of speeches. There was quite a reaction when I was introduced as only having been in PNG for two weeks. Hopefully this meant I was readily forgiven for anything I did that was inappropriate, as I'm still learning about PNG life and culture. As the crowd dispersed we were brought fresh pineapple, pawpaw and sweet black tea. It was the beginning of an expression of hospitality which I almost found overwhelming. As an egalitarian Aussie I'm not used to being made a fuss off like this and had to be deliberate about accepting it as the generous gift that it was.

Church the next morning was distinctly Anglican, but with Dimadima songs, including in the liturgy. The drums, guitars and voices were beautiful. Less beautiful but more amusing was the choir that accompanied the church bell; all the dogs in the village gathered and howled every time the bell was rang, with the roosters providing some punctuation to their chorus.

Translation exercise

The workshops themselves went well. A good cross section of the community gathered and joined in the sessions. Although English is the language of wider communication in Milne Bay, we got Kipling to translate for us during the day. He has Dimadima people in his family and speaks their language. Like so many people in this country, he speaks several local languages. At the end of the workshops, the community was inspired to proceed with a translation in their language. This was decided in a town meeting held on the grass after the workshops.

Being part of a community process like this was good. We came by invitation, shared our expertise and then let the local community decide what next. The ball is in their court to make the next moves; forming a committee, nominating local people to be the translation team and organising for them to come to a training course later in the year. The community welcomed us and looked after us exceptionally well.

Ladies preparing bananas for dinner

On the last night we shared a meal with most of the village as well as guests from other villages. I watched enormous bunches of bananas brought in from the gardens, prepared, cooked and eaten. Men had been fishing and women had been collecting shells from the mangroves for us to eat. There were speeches of thanks and of motivation for proceeding with translation. There was much hand shaking and I got good at saying nuba yamaibi  'good night' to people as they left.

Farwell to Dimdima. Note the cross they have on the hill above their village.

Yamaibi 'good' sums up our time at Yarame. Invited, welcomed, hosted, listened to and able to inspire people. It was indeed yamaibi.