You'll never guess what I heard in church today...

“If any of you have cell phones with you today, please turn them off or put them on vibrate.”

I never thought that I’d ever hear this from behind the pulpit in Papua New Guinea ~ just goes to show you how uninformed I was! 

Cell phones are becoming increasingly popular in PNG, which is amazing when you stop to think about the number of people that don’t have electricity in their houses (I don’t have numbers on that though...I’ll have to look that up sometime).  In the village where I did village living last fall, there were about 11 houses and the closest electrical source was a 30 minute walk, at the local plantation-run store.  When we visited the village at Christmas, we learned that one of the families had recently pruchased a cell phone.

When I was living in Madang provice last fall for my orientation, a new cell phone company had recently started up and was placing new cell phone towers all over the place.  They also had billboards up all over town, and they were giving away T-shirts and baseball hats—really getting their name out.  Now the same thing is starting to happen down here in Alotau, and cell phones are really catching on.

It is understandable that people should find cell phones handy, as most don’t have access to a land line phone ~ there is a phone book for the entire country, and it is about the size of my area phone book back home, maybe 2 inches thick.  And the cell phones are set up so on a phone card system where you would purchase one for a certain amount of money, calls and text messages cost x, and when you run out of money you would just purchase another phone card. Pretty handy. No year long plans that you have to sign up for, like you do in the States.

 

everything but the kitchen sink

Don’t think I’ve talked too much about the stores here in PNG.  They are really quite amazing.  Most have unexpected variety and carry everything from board shorts and tinned fish to guitar strings, shampoo and radios.  Today I was in a stationary store, where they were selling not only the usual office things (pens, paper, staplers) but also electric guitars and plastic shoping bags. And then it struck me. Toilet Paper.  The stationary store had rolls of toilet paper for sale by the casheir.  And when I was in the bakery last Wednesday buying bread a lady came in and bought what? a roll of toilet paper.  You can get it pretty much everywhere.  I suppose in the States there is variety in stores too, maybe it’s just becuase the store buildings are small that I don’t expect it (no Super Targets around here).  But I just want to comfort you all with the knowledge that, when you come to visit, we’ll have no trouble finding toilet paper for you!

a day in the life

I mentioned in a previous post a bit about VITAL. After being here for 3 weeks now, I know a bit more. This February module (the 9^th VITAL module) is finishing translating the book of Mark, the first book they will have completed, and doing some final overall checking. So exciting for me to have my first time here be celebrating finishing a book!

So what does a day at VITAL look like? As I mentioned in my “Praying in Tongues” post, we have a time of staff prayer every morning. Then off to breakfast in the mess hall. Breakfast is usually crackers and sandwich halves filled with jam, peanut butter (not together mind you), and vegemite (a favorite bread topping for Aussies and Kiwis {New Zealanders} ~ it seems to be an acquired taste as most Americans are used to sweet things for breakfast, and vegemite is rather salty). We .

get our food buffet style off a table, and then sit around the edge of the room on benches.

After breakfast we all gather in the large meeting room, the Hall, and sing a couple of songs

and have a short devotional (staff and participants take turns leading the devotional). Then there is a grammar session,

where someone talks about various grammar ideas that would be helpful for the participants to know. Some topics this session have been: participant reference (how often do you mention the person doing the action, and is it a separate word, or just a marker attached to the verb), long sentences (Greek, the language the New Testament was written in, can have some REALLY long sentences that get confusing if you left them that way in your own language, so how do you break them up into smaller pieces), and borrowed vs. foreign words (all languages “borrow” or “adopt” words from other languages and it is ok to use them in translation because we would use them in speech; there are also times when you have to use a foreign word that might not exist in your language (for example “Sanhedrin,” the Jewish court in Jesus’ time).

Following the grammar session, one of the staff will talk through the passage being translated that day, explaining and clarifying difficult parts. Then the language groups gather together, 2 translators with one mentor, and work on an initial draft of the section, typing it into a computer.

At the same time the translators work on this, the literacy workers, one from each language group will meet separately to work on translating simple books that can be used to teach people to read. This module the literacy workers are also working on translating a small Bible study book on the book of Mark, in hopes that people will be encouraged to use the book right away.

Lunch happens, as usual, at noon. The participants are asked to bring certain amounts of food (usually sweet potatoes, yams, taro & bananas) as a type of payment for the module; this helps to give value to the course, and is also a chance for their communities to get involved in helping the translation process. So, for lunch we have sweet potato, rice, and tinned fish (tuna, mackerel) or tinned meat (think something like SPAM) with cooked leafy greens. This is a fairly standard PNG meal.

Then back to work in the afternoon, touching up on the 1^st draft, finishing entering it into the computer. Then the literacy workers come in and read through the translation as a first check. After the course, each language group will be given printouts of what they have translated (this is my job...to print out 30 copies for each group) and they are asked to check it with the folks in their village. They would read through it, asking questions to make sure the right message is being conveyed, and also making sure that it sounds like good language.

About three days a week, I’ll drive the 20 minutes into town to pick up any thing that we might need at the store, and to by enough fresh foods (leafy greens, fruit) to last a few days as we don’t have a refrigerator, just a small chest freezer big enough to store a few days worth of meat (did I forget to mention that we do have “fresh” meat for dinner every day ~ the protein toping for our second helping of rice and sweet potatoes of the day). When not running around, I’ve spent quite a bit of time helping our Literacy Coordinator type up all of the translations from the literacy workers, which has been keeping us fairly busy.

Peanuts

Have I ever mentioned peanuts?  You can buy peanuts at the market. And actually when I was in village living our was sister got them for us one time, a handful that was still in the shell.  I opened one up and was surprised to find that they were sweet and almost chewy.  It had never occured to me that that word you see on all the peanut cans, “roasted,” actually menat that they were, well, roasted and that’s what makes them crunchy! Hee! 

Coca-Cola

This is not in any way an endorsement for Coke ~ in the States I don’t really drink that much and when I do, I actually prefer Diet Coke.  HOWEVER, I have come to really appreciate a nice, COLD Coca-Cola in the past three weeks.  There’s just not much around here that is cold, and I have to admit to treating myself to probably more Coke than I’ve ever drunk in my life. On a few occations, at the end of a hot morning of shopping around town, at the last stop I’ve broken down and gotten a bottle (which works really well for a water bottle when the cola is gone) to drink on the drive back to Hagita. Never thought that I’d think Coca-Cola was a treat!

vegetables and bullies

Not all languages use the same sounds, as I’m sure you are all aware.  Anyone who has taken French or Spanish knows that the “r” sound in those languages is a bit different than the one in American English.

 

Well, this week we ran across a funny mis-pronunciation in English as a result of language sounds.  The mother tongue of this particular person doesn’t have a strong “v” sound, so sometimes “v”s come out sounding more like “w”s.  As she was saying that she “needs to eat more veggies” it came out sounding more like she “needs to eat more wedgies.”  After her American friend picked her self up off the floor from laughing, she explained that you can’t really eat wedgies ~ it’s actually something that schoolkids in the States do to each other.  Hearing the description of a “wedgie,” the non-native English speaker was rather horrified at this activity. Her American friend had to go on to explain that this is something that bullys do to be mean, it’s not a socially acceptable custom.  I hadn’t thought before about the fact that people in different cultures would work out their bullying in different fashions ~ oh, the things I’m learning!

PASSION . . . the fruit that is

Don’t know how many of you have seen what passion fruit looks like ~ I never had until I arrived here, though I’ve had the juice flavor in stuff before.  It really does taste good, just like the juice that you would buy at the store, but the because of the aesthetics of the inside of the fruit, many Americans that I know can’t bring themselves to eat it saying it looks like brains or something.  I think it rather funny and I quite like it!

Praying in Tongues

OK – I admit it.  I thought of this title and used it as an attention-getting device.

 

But it IS related to my topic ~

 

So, every morning our VITAL staff gets together for a short time of prayer before breakfast.  We have 9 staff from 5 different countries, speaking 4 different mother-tongue languages (if you don’t count the dialectical differences of Australian, New Zeland, and US English).  As we pray, sometimes people pray in English, sometimes a different mother-tongue. And I was just thinking how cool it is, and wondering if this is one small taste of what heaven will be.  It’s a bit like my verse from Revelation 7 that you can almost read in the heading part of this blog:

 

“...there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:

“Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

 

I can’t wait!

Now a PNG Driver

I drove for the first time on a real PNG road this week...in this truck!!!

A couple of weekends ago at Ukarumpa, I browed a van and practiced driving a little bit around the center in a little van that had a gear shift on the steering column ~ that took a little getting used to ~ but for the most part I did remember to stay on the correct side of the road, which is left in PNG.

On Wednesday I started out driving for about 20 minutes on a lightly used road, driving in from Hagita, where our VITAL course takes place. This time I was driving a fairly good sized truck, and the gear shift was on the floor...on my left. Constantly shifting up and down as I negotiated the turns and avoided potholes gave me a good amount of practice. Rather brings back memories of learning to drive for the first time at home, when, after a few minutes practice in a parking lot, my dad directed me out to the highway that runs through town and, though I was petrified, I had plenty of oppotunities to shift up and down at between each stoplight.

Anyways, today after my 20 minutes of accompianied practice, I was sent off on my own into town to get fuel and a few other things. I was able to stay on the correct side of the road; which I learned is easy to remember if you keep in mind that the driver is always closest to the middle of the road ~ no matter what country you are in. However, one of the great things about PNG is that there aren’t too many cars on the road, so if you need to slip over into the oncoming traffic lane to avoid a pothole, it is perfectly ok (as long as there is not a car already in that spot!).

As the “buyer” for this VITAL course, I expect to have plenty more opportunities to drive to and from town, picking up supplies—by the end of February I should be a driving pro!

Next stop ~ V.I.T.A.L.

Life always continues to move and change.  This last week I left Ukarumpa, where I’ve been living since mid-November, to move to Alotau for six weeks.  Alotau is the capital city of Milne Bay Province, the province on the southeastern tip of mainland PNG (and it also includes oodles of islands off to the east).

For the month of February, and one week before and after, I will be helping out with a project called V.I.T.A.L.  VITAL stands for “Vernacular Initiative for Translation and Literacy.”  The VITAL project consists of 3 courses per year, each lasting one month (February, June & October), where 2 translators and 1 literacy worker from different Milne Bay and Oro Province language groups come together and, with the assitance of mentors, work on translating a section of scripture and some literacy materials into their own languages.

The course takes place at a camp ground – type place called Hagita, about 20 minutes outside of Alotau.  All the participants and staff live in cabins and are served meals in a mess/dining hall.  There is a schedule for the weekdays that includes devotions, a short grammar lesson, a drafting session, and an advisor check.

I seems like a really awesome program, and I am excited to be able to see how it works first-hand, while at the same time lending a hand.  I will be the desktop publisher and assist as a buyer for this February course.  That means that I’ll be responsible for making sure the final printing for all the materials happens at the end of the course.  At the beginning of the course I will help do as much of the food purchasing as possible, and then, throughout the course I’ll be running to town for supplies as needed.  When I’m not running back and forth to town, I will be able to sit in on the class sessions, learning and helping out as I am able.