Families and friends

A sad and feeling-sorry-for-myself day today after having to say goodbye to my little sister. It was a fantastic 11 days having her here – everyone loved her, as predicted – and it was so much fun to hang out with her again. Same with everyone who came and visited me – it’s so cool to be able to share what life here is like with them – for them to be able to actually see all these places I keep on talking about – to meet the people I’ve come to love - to laugh with them and listen to their stories so that when I talk about them they can actually hear those singsong voices in their head and memory. This blog and the photos and emails become real instead of just pictures on a screen. And my family become everyone’s family – the girls and teachers and Pia claim them as their own now, and tell me stories about them. Pretty cool.

I haven’t done a whole lot of e-ing while they were here – this blog is sadly out of date and my email correspondence has been reading only sorry – too busy making the most of having real people here to talk to!

So, a brief update on the activities of the last few days of Em’s visit…

Friday we said goodbye to Lindie, and came home from the airport to a deserted school because the girls have all left for their week of holidays (or study, as my grade 10s should be doing).

Saturday morning was Ela Beach market – Em really chose a good time to be here, because this is the best market in PNG I reckon (me, who’s such an expert on PNG markets now!!) – it’s clean and well-organised and safe – and has lots of stuff to look at. I still remember my first Ela Beach Saturday - I’d been here about a month or more and this was the first time I had walked anywhere by myself – first time anywhere without a bodyguard! I loved the freedom of it – wandering by myself in a crowd where I could actually get lost and not feel like the odd one out, because there were so many other tourist-looking-types there too. I’m proud to not just be part of the expat scene or a tourist – I love feeling like I’m part of the local PNG community - but every now and then it’s nice not to be the only whitey.

Anyway, we were both excited to be heading off to Ela Beach because we’re both big marketers from way back – but unfortunately I couldn’t stay there too long because I was going to a funeral. Em and I had a quickish spin around, sussing out the shells and necklaces (and I got another painting by my new favourite artist) and then it was time to pass Em over to Neil, and head off to Boroko.

It was the funeral service for one of my classgirl’s mums. Roberta is the youngest daughter of the late Mrs Morlin, and my class and I had arranged to meet at St Joseph’s to be with her and show our sympathy and support. It was a sad thing to go to – my second PNG funeral, and the only one outside our school – but it was really nice to see so many of our girls there to be with Roberta and her family. And it was lovely to hear the Nth Solomon’s band and choir singing and playing in celebration of her life and family. I was very glad that I went.

After the funeral, we all went our separate ways, but I collected one of my girls who lives out at 9 Mile to give her a lift home, and another student who had organised her family to make mumu that day, so Em could see and taste some traditional Highlands food. Lapieh had written me a note in class after the Yellows had interviewed Lin and Em, offering to cook a mumu for them, and she told me after the funeral that it was ready – did I want to come and get it? Such a lovely gesture from a really lovely student. I was sorry that Em wasn’t with me to come and see it, but we decided I’d drive Lapieh home and at least I’d get to see the mumu pit and bring the food back to M’Ville and Em for our lunch. We made a brief detour to Malouro so I could stock up on kulau (Em still hadn’t tasted it yet – and I figured I’d make use of my two girls with me!) and then we went to Lapieh’s place. I met her family and had a bit of a laugh with her mum and dad, as we agreed that it was Lapieh’s task over the holidays to learn how to climb the coconut tree to collect the kulau herself. They explained how the mumu was made and cooked, and invited me back sometime to make it with Lapieh myself. Really friendly people and I’ll definitely take them at their word and go back sometime for more stories and cooking.

Then it was time to drop Genny home at 9 Mile, and I went in to her place and met her family too, which was also really nice. She was telling me stories in the car about the white woman who lives on the farm behind her house who according to her and her brothers is really a devil in disguise – a real one, even with a tail apparently – and I giggled with her, especially after I realised I’d met this woman on a couple of occasions – and told her I’d look more closely for horns next time!

It’s lovely knowing my girls are now comfortable enough with me to want me to come to their places and meet their families – and lovely that despite language differences and colour differences their families are comfortable enough to sit and tell stories with me and see that I want to be there too. Papua New Guineans are so welcoming and open and generous in this way – it’s a really warm feeling seeing that the shyness is going – like I’m not a visitor anymore, but part of their lives. And makes it even nicer that I can share mine with them too, as my family come here.

Sunday was an even bigger and better day for this sharing of families and lives, as Em and I got picked up by Norma Jean and her family in the morning, ready to head off to their village. Norma had mentioned in her journal months ago that her family often went to their pontoon at Bootless Bay on weekends. I wrote back that I’d love to come and see her place sometime, so we planned it for during Em’s visit so she could come and see village life too. It was such a great day – one of the best I’ve had here, and I was so glad that Em had stayed an extra few days so she could come along too.

We got picked up by her mum and dad in the truck in the morning, and Em loved the chance to sit in the back of the ute again as we went back to Hohola to pick up the rest of the family, and then drove out to the Bay. I’d met her mum and cousin before as one of the other AVIs had worked with Veronica and had brought Rita out with us one night, so we were already easy with each other – and all the family were so friendly. And of course Em’s so open and ready to meet people we all got along like a house on fire. They had a couple of other white meri’s coming too – colleagues of Veronica – and a whole bunch of family members came for the day trip.

We had so much fun there – walking through the village along the Bay, climbing down to the boat and being pulled along by the rope out to the pontoon, exploring the pontoon and fish farm, then jumping in the water – the water was beautiful and it was fantastic to swim when it was so hot.