Two Worlds

My students took me on a field trip yesterday afternoon. I’m dying to learn how to spear fish so one of my grade 8’s, his buddies, and his gaggle of pikini cousins (this is not an offense; it’s actually what they call little kids) took me to their black stone beach. It was postcard perfect. Waves crashed up the steep shoreline where kids ran on the rocks barefoot playing some hybrid of freeze tag and capture the flag. (I tried, but my previously pampered feet just couldn’t take it.)
Just off shore, a beautiful baret (reef) lay just beneath the surface. A quick dip took me over channels carved out by lava flows and now alive with coral and fish. We leapt from islands of deposited basalt into crystal blue waters and the kids played a game of sink-and-seek (with everyone’s eyes closed, someone would throw a clam shell then all the kids would dive to find it—at 10 ft depths, mind you). Back on the beach, we sipped fresh green coconut milk (kulau) the boys had kicked down from the nearby grove and watched the sun settle into puddles of red and orange on the horizon. The spear never appeared for me to attempt the hunt for dinner, but I’ve been promised it will next time.

As we walked back to the village, we sang lotu (praise) songs at the top of our lungs. Father Abraham and Deep and Wide were favorites. As we passed the houses, dark except for a kerosene lamp or two, you couldn’t see it, but the smell made evident the fresh kaikai—boiled greens, bananas, sweet potatoes, and rice in coconut milk—that awaited my escorts. Above us, stars twinkled in numbers you’d never see through the haze of a light-polluted American city sky. In my own host’s house, dinner and a family game of Bananagrams (akin to Scrabble) were waiting.

It’s days like these that make me wonder why anyone in PNG would ever want change. Why leave a lifestyle where dinner is readily available from the backyard, cousins abound to splash with in a coral reef, strangers always call out their hello, and everyone makes time to tok stori?

Then today it poured. Torrents turned the roads into rivers and brought roughly 50% attendance at school. I stepped in to cover Pop’s grade 7 class while he went to the other side of the island to collect the pay for all the teachers. The lesson on linking reasons and results with conjunctions was fairly successful, if only for the 15 present students.

This afternoon we received word of alternative explanation for some of the absences. Last night, the sister of another grade 7 student died of malaria. Mama says the parents were busy with jobs at the plantation and had neglected to get her treatment—which is available, and cheap (less than $1). It’s terribly sad. If I was in need of a reality check after yesterday’s play in paradise, I’ve found it.