The National Haus Krai

Today has been marked as a day of mourning, repentence, and protest; raising awareness of an issue in Papua New Guinea that has escalated in recent years.  Violence against women is nothing new.  In every time and place it has been a sorry feature of society.  After working in social services in the UK for several years, I have gained a grisly insight into one of the darker sides of my own country.  In Papua New Guinea, it is estimated that 75% of women are affected by domestic violence.  

The National Haus Krai (funeral gathering) is 'a stop-work demonstration and call to action' event, grieving for all the women who have been killed as a result of witchcraft related accusations, or who have been brutally attacked or raped.  The movement is a coalition of women's groups, NGOs, church groups, charities, trade unions, and businesses.  

Laura, dressed in black, introducting the day to all our translators and literacy workers

We marked the day, here in Arop, by having an extended morning devotion time.  As a team, we decided not to have a time of singing, but looked at a drama of the incident recorded in John 8, where we see Jesus' astonishingly counter-cultural response to a woman accused of adultery and the possibility of violence.

The drama drew people from the village who came out of curiosity because of the commotion!

We then split into groups and looked at various Bible passages relating to anger and violence, how men should treat women and the status of women in God's sight.  It was moving to witness the women's eyes light up on  re-discovering that they are just as integral to God's Kingdom as men.  

Roslin sharing about the place of women in God's heart

After a time of feedback and reflection about our own contexts, we held a minute's silence, shed tears of repentence and prayed for God's mercy and forgiveness for each country and community represented in the project.

"Right now, women aged 15 - 45 are more likely to be maimed or to die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined." ('A Year of Biblical Womanhood' by Rachel Held-Evans, 2012).

"It appears that more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century" ('Half the Sky: Turning Opression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide' by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, 2010). 

Photo credit: Vlad Sokhin, The Global Mail

Maybe we should all be covering our faces with ash and tearing our clothes in mourning...

If you would like to read more about recent incidents in Papua New Guinea, you can click on the following links, though, please be advised, the subject matter is gruesome and the pictures are graphic.

It's 2013 and they're burning witches

No arrests made after brutal gang-rape

Where women fear to tread

Appalling violence - Amnesty International article

Unearthing the Uncommon

About eight months into our analysis of the Sissano language, we thought we'd share a few recent anthropological and linguistic findings (which you may or may not find of interest!).  If you missed the last post written about our initial discoveries in the language and culture, please click here. 

Benedict, Luke & Alan (language helpers from the village of Nimas)

Like many languages, Sissano does not have a direct translation for the the verb 'to be'.  Rather, it has to be expressed using one of several different forms.  In English, you can say that "the canoe is on the beach" or "the canoe is on the water", but in Sissano, the canoe 'stands' on the beach and 'sits' on the sea.  The Holy Spirit 'sits' in our lives. Children 'stand' in your family, work 'stands' waiting to be done, and a house 'stands' in a village.  Blood 'sits' in your body, as do dreams, worries, and sickness.  Whereas, the moon 'sleeps' in the sky and cooked food 'sleeps' on the plate.  If movement is involved, yet another variation of the verb is used!

canoe - is it sitting or standing?!

Throughout Papua New Guinea, indirectness is a strong cultural value.  The word 'why' is, therefore, almost considered taboo.  We had some difficulty in even prompting our language helpers to say the word in a sentence! In Sissano, questioning someone in such a direct way is considered disrespectful and not appropriate to ask of anyone older than you or anyone in your family, even to a disobedient child.  Examples of sufficient grounds for asking this are: being wrongly accused of a crime, questioning an unfaithful spouse, or someone taking more than their fare share of buai (betelnut).  Buai is VERY important in PNG! It is chewed with ground clam shell and mustard pepper as a digestive stimulant and narcotic; staining one's teeth, lips and spit bright red.  It is the world's fourth-most popular psychoactive substance after nicotine, alcohol and caffeine.

Great to chew, even better to share!

Now for some charismatic words!!

otot (SSO) [literally, to continually prod] - du (TP) - temptation.  Sounds like a pretty good description of the mechanics of temptation to me!

αijsulrkiynα (SSO) - this can mean both 'spell' or 'gossip'.  It conjures up a particularly malevolent (and accurate?!) picture of talking behind someone's back!

'iep (SSO) - this can mean marriage, possession, or to hold something.  It sounds rather reminiscient of the English phrase, 'to have and to hold'!

The verb 'eat' can be used in some fun ways:

rαiyn tkαin (SSO) [literally, water eats] - rot

wos tkαin (SSO) [literally, rain eats] - drench

ten tkαin (SSO) [literally, fire eats] - burn

buai (PNG lipstick)

Compound nouns are used very frequently in Sissano.  For example:

mαiyn-su-mαs (SSO) [literally, bird face spirit) = owl

ni-wli'αl (SSO) [literally, a person with a lizard's forked tongue] - a hypocrite or deceitful person.  Again this provokes an interesting image of the perpetrator!

ni-tαwlkuen-eltin (Sissano) [literally, person with two sets of eyes] - glasman (Tok Pisin) - a seer who claims they can see spirits and talk to them and who sometimes has pre-cognitive dreams.  There are two types of 'glasman' - those who learn the 'trade' and work 'spells', and those who are born with a special kind of ability to heal people and 'talk' or 'pray' to spirits.
 

A typical PNG dog 'sleeps' on the stair

I don't know about you, but when I look at some of these words, they convey a sense of meaning that is somehow more colourful than their English counterparts.  Eddie Arthur, the Director of Wycliffe UK  summed this up really well:

"Just as each culture brings something new to humanity, so does every language. Each language is capable of expressing some things better than all other languages. Why else do coffee shops sell cafe latte rather than milky coffee?”

So next time you see us, if you find we've adopted a few Tok Pisin or Sissano expressions into our everyday vocabulary, you'll understand that it might not be entirely accidental!


 

6.8 in a boat

All packed up and ready to fly from Wewak with three of our teammates, the morning greeted us with torrential rain.  This meant the that it was not safe for the plane to take off.  Six hours later and we received a call from the MAF pilots saying there was a break in the weather if we thought it wasn't too late.

Wet season

The flight was just over 30 minutes and when we reached the airstrip the clouds were hanging low but the pilots made a great landing.

Flying over the Sepik, with one of the many rivers running into the Sea

We managed to load all our cargo on one car and made the three hour journey to Arop.  Because the car was so full, we had to leave the tailgate open which didn't always feel that safe - there were moments when we all lost contact with the vehicle!

We'll get by with a little help from our friends...

When we finally arrived in the dark with some bruises, feeling that the ground wouldn't stop moving, we had to supervise carrying our stuff to the mission station (not that easy in the bush at night with myriad folk streaming through with countless boxes!).

Four of us sat at the back, three guys stood on the side, and there were three more people riding up front!

A couple of days later, the two of us left Arop to travel to Sissano, our language community.  We hiked and then caught a motor boat from the next village.  As we were travelling toward the lagoon down a small channel, a large wave rocked us from behind.  We turned around but there was nothing there.  The men in the boat with us, exclaimed "GURIA, GURIA!" (earthquake), as waves started to pummel us from every direction.  It was quite surreal, though we felt safe throughout (it lasted several minutes).  When it had subsided and we carried on, we noticed there was an unusual amount of debris in the water from fallen trees and an exceptionally nasty smell.

We later learned that the earthquake was 6.8 on the Richter Scale and its epicentre was only about 50km east of us (near the airstrip we had landed at a couple of days earlier).  It had been quite unsettling for the local populace whose last experience of such a large quake had been followed by the devastating tsunami of 1998.  Here is a link to a piece from the BBC on the quake.

Shaken, but not stirred.

When we arrived, the community had decorated the area with leaves and flowers and they sang and danced (with us in tow) as they led us from the water.  There was also the customary splashing with water and smearing of ash on our faces - good times.

They very kindly made us a ladder!

bilas 'decoration'

We stayed with a family who cooked for us - sago and greens each day (we provided the rice) - and let us use one of their rooms.

Women and children sweep the area each morning keeping it presentable

Unfortunately the mat is even less comfortable than it looks :(

Rose helping Laura to pound ejl raman (the seeds from a tree with edible leaves) in the kitchen

Melina making 'pikar' - sago mixed with coconut, tied in a leaf and cooked on the fire

Laura having a wash in the river.  The cool water was amazing.

Taking a canoe out on the river

We sat and talked with various visitors and visited some folks down the river.  The women were washing Sago.

Yummy.... ?!

Before the women can wash it, the men have to 'harvest' it!

Klara and Darusala

We noticed an interesting display of jaw bones.  One family had kept a record of all the wild pigs they had caught over the last few years.

How many can you count?

 

Laura & Sonya (she's chewing a gobstopper-sized betel nut)

After we recruited two more men to work with, we left the community to make our way back to Arop.  Once again, the affectionate villagers daubed our faces, put shells and beads around our necks, and beat lizard skin kundu drums as they said goodbye to us en masse.

The red pigment comes from seeds and it stained our faces for a couple of days!

Lukautim Wewak Senta (looking after the Regional Centre)

We left Arop by car, crossing the Yalingi River to get to Tadji airstrip.  Fortunately, the Prime Minister had visited Aitape to open a new government building and so the grass was cut, meaning we could get picked up.

Thankfully, the water wasn't too deep for the car! 

We then waited a couple of hours for our plane to arrive.

Laura in the 'Departure Lounge'

The flight to Wewak takes 30-40 minutes and gave us a chance to re-acquaint ourselves with the town (we hadn't been here for over four months).

 

You can see the town centre in the top left.

 The Regional Centre is located on a hill about 10 minutes from town. 

it's behind the big fence!

view from the hill.

We were managing the centre whilst all of our colleagues were meeting at the national HQ for their bi-ennial conference. Some of our duties were more fun than others:

• having weekly devotions with the three national staff members - Rondie, Julie, and Jonly
• buying coffee for the night guard so he can stay awake at night
• standing for hours in line at the bank
• sitting in the office answering queries at the window
• photocopying for school kids' homework
• answering the telephone 
• booking guests in - taking cash, giving them a room key etc
• airport runs - and delayed airport runs!
• getting the mail from the MAF hangar or the PO box in town
• being on call with the centre mobile phone/ radio

On the road to town, looking left

looking right.

The frontage of some of the shops in town.

We also got to enjoy some of the treats of town life, like seeing friends from other mission organisations, going to the beach, spending time with our favourite cats, and taking the opportunity to bake things like pretzels!

 

 
We met this guy in the laundry room!

"Manners maketh man"

I like the song, but I think it takes more than manners, Sting.

 

But what does 'make a man'? It depends greatly on where you are in the world.  When I visited the Maasai Mara, Kenya, I remember speaking to a Pastor who told me that it was required for an adolescent boy to go into the 'bush' and kill a lion if he were to be declared a man by the community.  When we were visiting Sissano, we were shown this stone which sits on top of the biggest hill in the area.  Apparently, that is where initiation rites into manhood used to take place.  

Ol Prum 'big mountain' initiation site

I asked our guide, Casper, if he had been initiated as a young man, and he said no, but then went on to say that he had scarified himself (in a rather sensitive place) in the sea to mark his coming into manhood, and to imbue himself with 'strength'.  I asked him if it worked and he described the immense sense of power that he had felt upon completing the 'ceremony'.

We attended a celebration in the Sepik where some young boys were being 'initiated'.  It involved ritualistic dress and body paint.

They then had to lie face down on large strips of bark whilst men (whose identity was a closely guarded secret) who had dressed in costumes and masks 'embodying' various spirits of the jungle (such as the crocodile and the parakeet) performed a traditional dance around them.  

One of the smaller boys was distressed and didn't end up taking part.  Women sang around the perimeter, swaying leaves and fronds, and other men beat traditional drums, whilst the dancers swung large flaming torches around.  

The ceremony reached its climax as the dancers jumped over the prostrate boys, brushing their backs and heads with their costumes, much to everyone's amusement.  They were then given masks and they joined in a parade in front of the community.

 

Initiation into adulthood is an important feature of many cultures, although, I am not sure, personally, when I felt like I had become a man.  I feel like a man now, but when did the change take place? 

Was it when I became accountable under the law? When I committed my life to Jesus in more profound way than I had as a small child? When I was selected to represent my school in the sack race? When my voice broke? When I first shaved? When I could drink alcohol? When I first snogged a girl? When I got baptised? Got my first Kung-Fu belt? Opened my first pay packet? Purchased my first car? Earned my degree? Moved out from home? Achieved my Pilot's Licence? Was Best Man at someone's wedding? Bought my first house? Proposed to my wife? Would I feel like more of a man if I had a child? I guess in the absence of any official ceremony, 'rite of passage', or moments of epiphany, it has been a gradual journey.

what a beauty!

The New Testament doesn't say much (explicitly) about that transition from childhood to adulthood.  Jewish culture has things to say about it, but does the NT have anything to offer? The only passage that I could find is in 1 Corinthians 13, in Paul's famous homily on love.  In verse 11 he says "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; now that I have become a man, I am done with childish ways and have put them aside".  It's a bit vague, but it comes in the midst of Paul's treatise of love, which seems to suggest to me, that Paul is measuring his manhood by the way that he understood love (as a noun) and exercised love (as a verb).

I wonder if some of the folks I think of as immature, are really that, because they have not had their eyes and hearts opened to understand what love is all about.  And I wonder if people were to judge me by the calibre of my love, if they would conclude I had attained to the full stature of manhood...