We have been in PNG for about 5 days now, we have been rushed around town and have been to several markets; when we use the word market, that is a reference to the national place where you get food, typically fruits and vegetables. The markets are outside, filled with people, typically women sitting down with big leaves laying over the ground with a plethora of fruit and vegetables to choose from, dogs walking, men standing and talking, flies buzzing around, and “buwai” shells littered everywhere. Buwai is what is most commonly known as “betel nut”. When we use the word store that would be referring to a common indoor grocery store/supermarket. This is where we would get pretty much everything else; paper products, cleaning supplies, rice, bread, box milk (which God has been so gracious and enabled us to actually like), etc. This society is changing so rapidly, it is not uncommon to see people walking around in western clothing, and then have a naked child being carried in a typical bag (bilum, pronounced “bee-loom”) from their forehead.
Here are just some of the interesting things we are learning about the culture, when we are in the market, we can ask for a second price (it is a form of bartering), but this does not work in the stores. There are so many things that are different, even how we walk! Typically in the west a married couple would walk side by side, but here the woman walks in front of the male. You would never have any form of physical touch (even holding hands) with the opposite sex in public, but it is NOT uncommon to hold hands with members of the same sex, it is a sign of friendship and does not have a bad connotation like in the west. We are getting to know our neighbors; we have had several sweet times of friendship and fellowship. Jephet is a young Baptist preacher, his wife Nashville is a loving lady, their son Dan is fun, and his mother Anna is a Godly woman (it is not uncommon for people to have a “common name” or English name, and then to have a name from each of their parents clans). Typically several members of a family live together in one household, Jephet’s sister, niece, and others share the same space, like Jephet said to us, “ we as Papua New Guineans love to have our family close to us, we love family”. They cooked us a typical meal, we sat around eating with a spoon and our hands, we talked till it got dark, we then sat around fire throwing coconut husks on the fire to make it smoke up and dispel mosquitoes. We smell like smoke and are covered in dirt often. We have been eating as much local food we can, and have not experienced any bowel problems yet. So far we have only found one thing we didn’t particularly care for. We are getting some basic sayings down now, along with nouns and verbs, we are able to extrapolate more language data now and are getting a little bit more confident in what we say. The pronunciation here is different to that of English, the vowels are made further back in the mouth.
We are trying to get into a good schedule, people in PNG do not have watches, so we just enjoy one another’s company with no compulsion of time. The only problem with that is we have class time with our fellow “whiteys” (Americans) in the morning :). But we are learning to get into the swing of things; we are learning how to interact with people, how to plan our day, going to the store, showering 2-3 times a day (it gets to a cool 79F degrees at night with constant humidity), and basic life. There are some similarities but everything is different. We have learned and experienced so much more, even our clothing. Men are pretty simple when it comes to modesty, but the attire for women varies from location, but it is pretty consistent with having high tops, and then have from the hips to the knee covered with loose material. Whether it be a loose long shirt over a skirt, or capris, or a loose dress, they typically wear what is called “meri” tops (pronounced marry). Either way, women do not show the form of their hips or inner thigh.
We have pets! Well not really, ants, geckos, and frogs are very common to see EVERYWHERE. We are not talking about outside, we are talking about geckos inside our house and ants in the kitchen, yay pets! Another thing we did this week was that Seth got his PNG drivers license! He even drove all around town and back to the base. Driving in PNG is an experience, people cover the roads, there are potholes everywhere, you drive on the opposite side of the road, and the steering wheel is found on the opposite side of the vehicle. We did not have any accidents or flat tires so it was a good day!
We are soaking in so many things, trying to get a grasp of both the culture and language. Pray we learn well. Pray we can encourage Jephet and his family, along with our language helpers Joshua and Amelia. They are all invaluable tools to both the culture and language, and are already dear friends in Christ. Pray we learn how to plan our days for maximum output and learning. Pray we stay healthy and strong. Thank you so much for prayers, we could not do this job without your partnership.
Your feet in PNG to the unreached, Seth and Nicole Stokes.
Seth With His License
Joshua, Amelia, & Russell
A Fish Market
Market
Pastor Jephet & Family
Joshua & Seth Planting Banana Tree
Jephet’s Mom Anna
First Coconut
Stoking The Fires 