Day 10 - Are You My (Dead) Daughter?

Sunday. Our last Sunday we’d been at the mining camp, so no service. This Sunday we were told people went to the church in Uruf, 45 minutes away, and that it started at 9am. So we started at 8:25am. This kind of math works in PNG. Must be the humidity.

We thought we would have a nice walk to Uruf. After all, the kids of Onom traveled there every day for school. The trail began through peanut gardens, then kunai grass. I took some nice video of the morning sun on the hills but first ran out of battery, then card space. Thankfully I had a spare of both.

Then we reentered the waterworld. It was kind of odd, because the grass was simply flooded. It wasn’t nasty-muddy, because the grass just bent over and formed a green, watery path. Actually there was some mud, and a nasty, mid-thigh-deep bog halfway, but otherwise it was green waterways.

We weren’t clean or dry when we arrived in Uruf, but didn’t need to be concerned about walking into church that way, because it didn’t start till 10:30am. See, told you the math works here! The regular pastor was away, so we were all in danger of falling out of our seats while the man at the pulpit read a sermon, never looking up. Oof.

Our work did not go smoothly that afternoon, despite a warm welcome from everyone. They were slow (reluctant?) to gather, and then kept asking us, “So why are you here?” We ran out of ways to explain it. This has happened before, and I can certainly sympathize with their mystification. But it’s still frustrating.

We were also surprised to have a man stand up and – in rather forceful tones – warn the villagers to be careful what they told us. We might steal the spirits of their water and ground, he said. Another man challenged us about the absence of PNG’ans on our team. We were a bit taken aback by the questions and the tone, but were reassured when one of the local men apologized for these two as they left. They were government health workers, and though we didn’t expect them to demonstrate the attitudes they did, we were relieved that it was outsiders – not Uruf residents – who were asking such heavy questions.

Our house was near the river, and that evening we hoped to have a quiet team meeting on the bank. No such luck. We were mobbed by people, and Janell exercised her storytelling skills to keep them entertained.

I’m going to cheat and tell a short story from the next morning. As we were packing our stuff to go an old man stopped outside the window and asked if Janell could go get coconuts with him. This was a strange question on several levels: 1) they usually bring us the coconuts, 2) people rarely ask us to do anything in the village, 3) men don’t go places with women unless they’re married.

We looked at each other confusedly, then Brian volunteered to go with him. He returned about 20 minutes later, looking slightly shell-shocked. He’d sat down with the old guy and had learned that he thought Janell was his daughter! His daughter who had died within the past few years, that is, and returned as a white person. Another man asked Brian if he was his dead son. I’d heard of this kind of thing happening, but it was surreal to run across it ourselves. Brian was able to talk to these men about where their children really were (they were Christian families) and to pray with them.

We set off down the turbulent Watut in a 35 foot long canoe. Five seconds into the ride the pole the skipper was using to punt broke…