kind of odd then that is likely to be the reason.
Right, well on Saturday I went on my first trip outside of the
Ukarumpa mission centre. I was going with a bunch of other people
from Ukarumpa to a bible dedication a couple of hours drive away.
When I say a couple of hours drive away you must realize that I am
talking about a couple of hours on PNG roads away, so it wasn't actually all that far, maybe 100Km or so.
Anyhoo, we all met at 7:30 am and headed out. After about 5 minutes
we had to stop because the radiator hose on the vehicle I was
travelling in blew off. Like all good blokes we all got out and
looked under the hood to see what the problem was. Being the
incredibly handy guy that I am in all situations mechanical, I
decided the most useful role I could play would be the photographer.
Some of the others were more mechanically inclined and quickly found
that the radiator hose was no longer attached and then proceeded to
reattach it making good use of some electrical tape that of course
they had in the back of the vehicle. So after 10 minutes we were
back under way with our patched up radiator hose. Thankfully there were no more car troubles for the rest of the trip.
I recall while in Vancouver complaining a little about the state of
some of the roads and thinking there were quite a few potholes
around. I now look back on those roads and have a good old chuckle
as they were many times better than the roads over here. There were
huge potholes all over the place,
some of them particularly difficult to see amongst the shadows on the road. We were in a pretty decent size 4x4 and still there were several times that I was sure we were
going to do some serious damage to the axle or blow out a tyre. At
one point the road looked barely passable and yet the 2 others that
were with me said that there had been significant improvements on
that part of the road in the last 3 weeks, apparently the road bore
more resemblance to a lake 3 weeks earlier.
Well enough about the roads, I am sure you all want to hear about the
bible dedication. When a new translation of a bible is completed and
printed the tribe who are benefactors of the new translation hold a
bible dedication. I have been told that they vary quite a bit from
tribe to tribe, some of them being pretty solemn and others having
more of a celebratory mood. This one was leaning towards the
celebratory side of things thankfully. People had walked to the
meeting spot from miles around, and there was much singing going on
as we drove along the road.
People were clearly very happy. A number of people were dressed in traditional tribal attire, they generally don't wear this any more but have adopted a more western
style of clothing. When everyone had arrived the ceremony got
underway. The 'White Skins' as we are called were invited to sit
under a blue tarpaulin to the right of the stage, however we managed
to avoid this by moving quickly to a grass bank to the side and
making ourselves comfortable there.
Once the seating arrangements were sorted out there was a drama,
re=enacting the arrival of the white skin missionaries, it was
narrated in the local language so I had to do my best to follow what
was going on by looking. I couldn't really see very well from where
I was so I went for a bit of a walk around the area to see what else
was photo-worthy. There were lots of decorations around, often
comprising of large bunches of bananas with some hibiscus flowers on
them, or in other cases a cabbage hanging on a wire. I guess they
made use of what they had available.
After the drama the speeches began, and they continued for quite some
time. Every now and then I picked up a word or 2 and Steve Curry (my
manager) did a good job of translating what he picked up. It turns
out that the original translation work was begun in 1965. The
translation being dedicated was a revision of the old translation as
the language had changed quite a bit in the last 40 years.
After the speeches we were invited to have lunch so we accepted the
kind offer and joined the other white skins in a nearby classroom for
a lunch of potato, kau-kau, chicken, coleslaw, lettuce, pawpaw and
pineapple. Not bad although the chicken could have done with a
little seasoning.
2 comments:
Zach has a question - is the chap in the red hat Santa, or one of Santa's helpers?
Good question Zach. The chap in the red hat is in fact a woman. I didn't get a chance to ask her if she was one of Santa's helpers but I don't think she was.
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