Teop people

Rebekah and I have decided that we would like to work with the Teop people to help them translate the Bible into their own language. All of Bougainville is wonderful and very beautiful, including the Teop area and people. I have put a few photos of the Teop people up on the internet for you to see some of the beautiful people that I will be getting to know in the future. Click on the title of this post to see the photos. I have also put the link on the panel at the side, so you will be able to click to look at the photos any time.

Photos of kids at Buka

Here’s a selection of photos of children that I took in the west Buka area. Remember if you want to see a photo a bit better, you can click on the photo and you will see a slightly larger version.

First few photos are of kids at Hitau Island.

It’s common for fairly young children to carry babies around.

Man! What a huge, toothy smile!!

The people of Hitau Island gave each of us one of these huge shells.

This is Priscilla, who was my little friend at Petats Island. She really took to me and followed me around, and sometimes held my hand while walking somewhere. She hardly spoke a word to me. I think maybe she didn’t know Tok Pisin yet and only knew the local language.

These final three photos were taken at Matsungan Island a few minutes apart. Some of these kids were from the highlands.

An older boy with a younger boy.

A bunch of kids.

Glorious sunsets

It always seems to be my luck that I am on the east coast and don’t get to see the sun set over the sea and since I am not a morning person, I don’t get up early enough to see the nice sunrise over the sea on the east coast. So I was happy that for once I was on the west coast on this survey trip at Buka and had the opportunity to see nice sunsets over the water. Here are a few of the sunset photos I took.

Dangerous waters: There are sharks

When we arrived at one island on our survey trip, we found some people at the shore, cutting two sharks that they had recently caught.

Small hammerhead shark:

Baby shark:

They cut off the fins to sell as they can get good money for them.

Shark fin soup anyone?

Fins on top of the hammerhead shark.

It’s a strange world, with combination of modern technology and traditional materials. Here’s a traditional canoe that has familiar looking fishing gear, yet in the background you can see a modern boat with outboard motor, in the top left corner of the photo. (Did you know that you can click on the photos to see them bigger?)

The basics of life

Food, shelter, a toilet, and a place to wash are some of the basics of life which we relied on other people to provide for us when we were on the survey trip. I’ve already talked about the food, so now for the other three.

Our living arrangements were very varied. Sometimes we stayed in a house that was made out of modern materials and was fully screened, so we didn’t need to use our mosquito nets. Other times we stayed in a traditional bush material house.

We stayed in bush houses similar to this one in some villages:

The toilets in most places had been provided by World Vision, and were little huts, with a concrete floor, and a ceramic toilet bowl with plastic seat and lid, over a pit. Thank you to World Vision and everyone who donates to them. Not only does their work benefit the locals, it benefits the foreign visitors too! Two places we stayed had even better toilets – one was a fully functioning flush toilet, and the other one was similar, but you just had to fill the cistern manually.

Here’s the inside of a western style house:

We didn’t have any showers with hot water on the survey, but the best shower was like a normal shower, just that it was only cold water that came out of the shower head. Everywhere else, we had a bucket filled with cold water, and a dish to pour the water over ourselves. The shower rooms had varying degrees of privacy – from full privacy, to fully open (no shower room). A lot of the places had just a simple, small square frame with tarp around it as the walls. I have a skirt that I can wear to cover myself while bathing, which means I don’t need to worry if we don’t have a fully private shower room.

This is the house that had the flush toilet and normal shower:

Good, clean drinking water was available too – also thanks to World Vision who provided water tanks for the villages. I shouldn’t give all the credit to World Vision however because Care International, Red Cross, Caritas and Ausaid are some of the other aid organisations that work in the area too and have probably also provided water tanks and toilets.

Survey trip food

We were so well fed during our survey trip. Often we were served two huge meals each day, and a snack at midday. Our tummies were working overtime digesting all that food, and I wasn’t hungry too often!

The food was served buffet style – all spread out on a table in different bowls, and we could fill our plate with whatever we wanted and however much we wanted, and of course we were always encouraged to take lots and come back for more!

At every meal there was usually rice, two minute noodles with greens, fish, sweet potato, taro and cooking bananas (savoury ones). Sometimes there was shellfish and I tried a few different kinds. I’m not a big fan of seafood, but most of the shellfish were okay. There was just one – a big one – that I couldn’t swallow – it was a bit gooey and gutsy. I threw that one out for the dogs, but I think the chickens actually got there first.

Here are some photos of the kinds of food we were served:

We were only served mud crab once – on our last morning of the survey. It was really nice.

Garamut drums

This picture shows a garamut drum at Kahule village on the west coast of Buka. Many parts of PNG have these or traditionally had them. At Kahule, only the chief is allowed to make these drums and he has passed the skill onto his future successor, who will only be able to make one after the current chief dies. It is made out of one piece of wood and the inside is hollowed out using a special tool.

This is the chief sounding the drum. He hits the side of it to make the sound. He is sending a message to the community that the visitors are here and they should leave what they are doing and come to help us with our work (maybe not quite as detailed as that though!). There are different messages that can be sent depending on how the chief hits the drum. For example, if he hits it in a different pattern, he could send the message that someone has died. It’s a great way of communicating a message to a lot of people without using modern technology!