Our time in East New Britain was a success! Our team of six surveyors, one baby, and one friend/babysitter/cook extraordinaire split into two. Katie and I were in the North Team, tasked with living it up at the Kokopo Center and getting some work done on the side ; )
The task, in all seriousness, was difficult to picture ahead of time. Four languages, several of them possibly dying, two of them potentially large… how exactly were we going to go about assessing the vitality of each, if we didn’t even know precisely where they were? Traditional surveys here in PNG involve getting dropped off in some remote location, walking, and staying in villages. Though tough, we usually know more or less which villages will be included. This time around we really weren’t sure.
Our strategy, therefore, was to take advantage of the more-developed nature of East New Britain by using the modern technological wonders known as cell phones and paved roads. We made some initial contacts and played phone treasure-hunt to find leaders of the communities we thought we needed to visit. We hoped they’d be able to guide us to other villages to complete our research.
And it worked! During our first two days in Kokopo we were able to meet with leaders from two language communities and had arranged times to visit them. We celebrated by going to the pool at a local resort hotel… The supper menu had us wide-eyed about the prices, so we simply bought a plate of chips (fries) to share, enjoying the views of the volcanoes over Rabaul.
During Silisili (our survey in February) our adventures consisted of steep terrain and disappearing trails. In New Britain they involved avoiding axle-snapping potholes (we drove) and finding people who could help. Oh, and the volcanoes.
The South team, having surveyed Simbali, came to Kokopo a week into our three there and we all worked together to finish the task. Our four languages were Kairak, Taulil, Minigir, and Lungalunga. We were able to visit several communities from each language area and discovered, to our surprise, that all the languages continue to be learned by children and used by all generations. Meaning that each would benefit from literature in their language. A program is in the planning stages to train these communities to produce their own literature; please ask that this will indeed happen, and that it will be successful.
Thanks for thinking of us while we were out! The team dealt with several illnesses and some of our members are still recovering. Please keep them in mind.
As for climbing an active volcano… well, I’ll let Katie tell you about that.
