And, since I haven't posted in a while, I figured I'd share a few pictures from the past two months. Just a few shots of life here in the tribe.
Our kids are in a "lets touch every animal we see" phase right now, so pretty much any village animal is game for petting. Including the pigs. They're pretty harmless, but they can be pretty big!
This little girlie is doing so well here in the tribe! She loves to go outside and play, and she waves to everyone she sees. She walks like a pro and follows Kyler everywhere she can.
Last month was rough for our whole team in terms of sickness. Everyone in our family except for me came down with a cold/fever for a while, so we stuck pretty close to home for a week or so. And our teammates have been battling colds, stomach bugs, and strange skin rashes. It's been tough at times, but we're thankful that we seem to be relatively healthy again.
Language study is going well, though sometimes we can feel like we're not making any progress. We're starting to form sentences and communicate some basic ideas, so that is encouraging!
We're also striving to learn as much as we can about the culture here. It's nice when common events occur near the village so we can observe them easily. Most of the time, the ladies have to hike into the jungle to scrape sago (a staple food that comes from the sago palm tree). But on this particular day, one of the men floated a few logs down river so his wife and a few other ladies could work right on the beach near the village.
The guys play a lot of soccer here. It's a great time for Clint to build relationships with the guys and pick up some more language.
But, sometimes the guys are a bit rough when they play soccer. Clint hurt his foot a few weeks ago while playing and couldn't walk on it for almost two weeks. So a few of the guys made him some crutches out of jungle materials.
Last week, the entire village got to vote. Some polling officials came by canoe with official ballots and set up cardboard polling booths underneath the house of one of the village leaders. Even though it wasn't a major election (for Prime Minister), it was still a big deal to the people here. They were all thrilled to get the chance to vote.
They had a few posters taped up to help remind people which candidates they wanted to vote for. Each person over 18 could vote for their top 3 choices for 2 different government positions. Hardly anyone knows their real age, though, so some of the teenagers kind of have to guess. :)
Since there are not really any good identification methods in place in PNG, each person who votes has their left pinky finger marked with ink to indicate that they have already voted.
The other big event from last month was buying a canoe. Our team has desperately been in need of a new dugout canoe for when we bring in supplies or need to go out to town. Ours was leaking terribly. So one of the men in the village offered to sell us his canoe. Clint, Jason, and Lisa all gave him some money to show that all of our family units were represented in the purchasing of the canoe. Then, everyone shook hands to show we were all unified and in agreement with the purchase.
