Jan 4 & 5

Saturday, January 4

Three nights in a row, groups have roamed around the village, singing, dancing, banging pots and pans.  I can hardly think straight because I'm so tired.  Lord, please give me love for the people around me. 

Sunday, January 5

We haven't paddled over to Karumulun since we left for fulough, and today seemed like the perfect time to go.  We borrowed a canoe and reciprocated with a bag of rice, an onion, a bottle of curry powder, and a big jar of dry mince/TVP.  Hiva went with us to help steer the canoe and because he is chairman of the Translation Committee.  Everybody paddled.  Even Katherine.  So our little fiberglass canoe fairly flew over the glassy ocean.  

When we pulled up on shore, we found a large group of women and children in the midst of “sing-roll”,  the banging, singing, and dancing that characterizes this time of year.  They greeted us by throwing water on us – tuwetting us – the traditional New Year's greeting!

Our first stop was to Chief Raymond's house to drop off some lelenga and tell him thank you for holding my medicine the day the Bilikiki came by Karumulun.  I asked when they expected the diving ship to return next, thinking that it would be next week or the week after next.  But instead, I heard that the Bilikiki wasn't expected until March or April.  Wow.  God's timing sure is good to bring the ship to us exactly when we needed that medicine. 

Katherine, Olivia, and I took one of our pineapples over to the District Priest's house and met his new baby boy.  He is a cutie!  Then the rest of the group caught up with us and we met Ezekiel coming toward us.  His house is at the very end of the village, so we all walked over together.  

My big kids found some other kids and begin to play games while Aaron sat down for a business meeting and Katherine and I watched Janet (Ezekiel's wife) make bread to cook over hot stones.

Katherine even helped build the fire and layer the stones on top. 

While Aaron talked about linguistics and the upcoming year's program for the translation, Janet and I sat and talked about how we met our husbands, where each of her eight kids are right now, and gardens.  Two hours flew by!  

Ezekiel walked us back to the canoe, and before we paddled off, he splashed water on each of our backs and wished us a Happy New Year.  When we returned to Marulaon, several people commented that we were paddling so fast it looked like we were using an engine.  I think I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Friday, January 3

In the middle of school this morning, we heard the pig behind the church squealing.  Just before lunch, Skita showed up and asked for an onion.  Slow me didn't connect when she showed me some pork in a pot, I just thought she wanted the onion to go in that particular pot.  I gave her the onion, and she surprised me by handing me the pot.  Her sister and brother-in-law are throwing a big party tonight, and they've been keeping the pig for the occasion.  So, we got a hunk of fresh pork as a thank you for the onion. 

Wednesday, January 1

Ring out wild bells to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.
Rind out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true...

The bells begin to ring at midnight.  Along with the drumming, hooting and hollering, and pots and pans.  And the noise stopped only intermittently until the sun came up around 5:30.  The bell for morning prayer rang at 6:15, and we all quickly downed some oatmeal and did some food prep (picking & peeling eggplant and scraping coconut) before church.  After church, we discovered that the breakfast to which we had been invited was being held underneath our house because of the rain.  So we helped set up tables and brought down some stools to accommodate the twenty or so people that would be eating together. 

Dawa spent much of yesterday and last night diving for fish and gathering clam shells.  By the time we had finally gathered everyone, the three tables were laden with delicious food. 

Naris brought two buckets full of beautiful flowers to adorn our tables.  I absolutely love suta (clam), and Naris made a delicious soup from the shells Dawa brought back.  

We were honored to be invited to share the beginning of the new year with Kate (who rubbed my leg with leaves a few weeks ago) and her family, Ofoaen and her family, Naris and her family, Walter, and Marulaon's fill-in nurse. Rube, Dawa and Naris' three-year-old son, loved coming up into the house and helping us carry down food, and he is certainly Benjamin's buddy.  His giggle is infectious, and it didn't take long for Benjamin and Rube to be rough housing one minute and working together moving tables the next. 

Marulaon Woman's Daybook

Just for today, Monday, December 30 

Outside my window...cherry tomatoes ripening in my little canoe garden patch and Chinese cabbage dying like crazy in the same little canoe. 

From the learning rooms...we're in the mid 1800's when so many amazing people lived.  I've pulled out some picture books about Henry David Thoreau (“Henry David's House” edited by Steven Schnur, “Henry Hikes to Fitchburg” by D.B. Johnson), Ralph Waldo Emerson (“Mr. Emerson's Cook” by Judith Byron Schachner), Fannie Farmer (“Fannie in the Kitchen:  The Whole Story from Soup to Nuts of How Fannie Farmer Invented Recipes with Precise Measurements” by Deborah Hopkinson), Emily Dickinson (“Emily” by Michael Bedard), and Gregor Mendel (“Gregor Mendel:  The Friar Who Grew Peas” by Cheryl Bardoe).  This period in history is so much fun to study! 

On my bookshelf... “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” by Rebecca Skloot.  Fabulous book suggested by my friend, Christine. 

I am hearing...lots of Mendelssohn as we learn a little bit about him in school this week.  I have such great memories of playing his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra and The Hebrides/Fingal's Cave Overture.  Though I've never played it, his Octet in E flat minor makes me smile, too! 

From the kitchen...more Pakistani Kimi today, almost finishing off our precious onions.  I doubled the recipe so I could take some to Walter as a thank you for serving as Marulaon's catechist in December and to return some in Naris' bowl which she brought with fish yesterday. 

Praying for...my friend, Kiko, who has “red-eye”, what we would call pink-eye.  I noticed Saturday evening after church that she was holding her head in her hands like she was in pain, so I asked her, “Ngo vat lau?”  Does your head hurt?  She said it was her eyes again, her extended family all deal with recurrent pink eye.  So, yesterday, I took over some antibiotic eye ointment, antibacterial soap, and clothes washing detergent and explained what she needed to do to heal her eyes and to keep from getting these recurring infections.  My neighbors just use the same dirty rag to wipe their eyes over and over.  They don't use soap to wash their hands, either, so I'm hoping and praying that these little things will make a big difference! 

Pondering these words...”We must be ready to allow ourselves to be interrupted by God.  God will be constantly crossing our paths and canceling our plans by sending us people with claims and petitions....It is part of the discipline of humility that we must not spare our hand where it can perform a service and that we do not assume that our schedule is our own to manage, but allow it be arranged by God.”  ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

Around the house...our wooden spiral is almost full of candles as Epiphany approaches 

One of my favorite things...the radio working again.  Our colleagues sent another radio on the Kosco.  It arrived this afternoon, and now we can check e-mail and stay in touch again.  Happy, happy, happy! 

A few plans for the rest of the week...New Year's Day breakfast with some other families, hoping to do some back translating on the story of the boy Jesus in the temple later in the week.

Dec 28 & 29

Saturday, December 28
Aaron let me sleep in this morning, so when I walked out into the dining room, he told me that the Kosco had unexpectedly come this morning around 5:00 instead of tomorrow morning.  I can't begin to describe the disappointment I felt.  We knew that ships frequently changed their schedule, but with everything that has happened this week, we didn't even think to ask around the village to find out when the Kosco was expected.  As far as we knew, it was still following the schedule we had posted on our bulletin board.  Ugh!


Sunday, December 29
Last night I made a big pot of soup with pumpkin leaves and umalau cooked in coconut cream and curry with the leftover fish from Moses.  We had enough for us to eat and still share a big bowl with Naris.  When I took the bowl down to share, Chief Leonard's sister was sitting near Naris' kitchen.  She saw the bowl and reminded me that I still had a bowl at her house leftover from the Christmas food we shared with the District Priest.  One of the best things about the conversation with her was that she was talking slowly in Lavukaleve, even though I was replying in Pijin.  When I responded to her, she would rephrase what I said in Lavukaleve.  How patient!  I walked over to her house to get the bowl and was reminded that her mom is an invalid.  Her mom is the last living sibling of a group of amazing siblings.  My guess is that at least 75% of the village is a descendent of one of those siblings.

Growing up, my mom was always such a good example of taking care of our older female relatives, following the Biblical example of caring for the widows.  My head is full of memories of going to visit my great-grandfather's sister or my grandmother, raking leaves, taking perfume, sitting and visiting.  So, I was prompted last night to ladle up the end of the soup to share with Chief Leonard's mom.  I asked for both of my bowls back so nobody would feel the need to reciprocate.  My neighbors have to work so hard for the food they eat.

After church this morning, we had back to back deliveries of food.  First, Moses and Margaret's daughter brought up a very nice fish with some umalau and uvikola.  Right behind her, Naris brought another fish.  Since we ate breakfast around 6:30 before church, we were ready for “second breakfast”.

Friday, December 27

I'm so glad my friend Margaret has returned to Marulaon for a few months.  She's been living in another village with her sister for most of the year.  While we were on furlough, her husband, Moses, was attacked by a shark who took a hunk of his leg as a souvenir.  Moses spent months in the small hospital in Yandina, and Margaret looked after him.  Hospitals here aren't like hospitals in the States, you have to provide your own food and do your own laundry and you don't get a private room.  So Margaret would have had her hands full.

Moses brought a couple of nice fish by our house this morning, and he and Aaron sat on the porch and talked for a while.  I've tried to find Margaret at home several times, but she's always out and about, so I asked Moses if his wife would be home this afternoon.  He replied in the affirmative, so I told him to pass on the news that I would be coming down to visit when I was finished teaching school.

Everybody had told me that Margaret had lost weight in our absence, so thankfully I was prepared to find a very thin friend.  She offered me fish and umalau.  My neighbors have no problems with talking with their mouths full of food, so I have to work really hard to talk and visit at the same time.  Listening is certainly a challenge to my language learning skills!

Wednesday, December 25

Wow!  What a night!  While we were waiting for the bell to ring announcing the beginning of the Christmas carols, Aaron read us Dicken's “Christmas Carol”.  We made cookies with red and green M&Ms and brewed a press of decaf coffee.  Around 9, Katherine decided she wasn't going to be able to stay up, so she crashed in her bed.  All of us were fading fast, and around 9:30, the Master of Ceremonies knocked on our door to tell us that the caroling had been moved to tomorrow.  Nobody planned ahead to buy petrol for a generator to power the lights for the evening's activities.  So we quickly went to bed.  

Knowing that the District Priest could come as early as 10:00 p.m., Aaron and I both had trouble going to sleep in anticipation of the big round of bells that would ring to arouse the village.  Around 12:30, Aaron and I both noticed the fire being lit for the incense and lots of flashlights moving around.  Soon the bells bonged to wake everybody for the service.  Aaron closed our curtains, since the church is right next to the house.  He was preaching, so he walked over to the church, but I stayed home with the sleeping children.  I had asked several of my friends if this was okay, and they had all assured me that it would be fine to stay home.  In fact, several of them were planning to stay home, too!  Aaron finally returned home a little bit after 3:00 a.m.  The bells for morning prayer rang around 5:30, and our Christmas Day in Marulaon began!

After morning prayer, we awaited the next bell which would ring to tell us to take our lelenga off the hot stones and bring it to the tables that had been set up for the village feast.  Small forked branches had been pounded into the ground, and roofing iron was set on top, then covered with a tablecloth of banana leaves.  All of the food was piled together, then several ladies distributed it evenly around the three long tables.  

The rest of us stood around the edges of the tables (no chairs) and waved away the flies.  The flies were a little bit interested when the lelenga was put on the tables, but when the fish arrived, the flies descended in hordes!  

Marualon took up a collection to buy a pig.  Last night, we donated three of our precious onions, one for each group to make stew with the pig. 

Everybody was asked to bring their own bowls and spoons, and each group (we're in Group Two) ladled out even servings of the precious stew. 

Then Moses opened up with prayer, and the feasting began.  If you've ever played “Spoons”, then you might have a small idea of what the feast table looks like after the “amen”.  One second before, the table is full of food, one second after, everyone has grabbed every bit of food within reach.  If you are slow, you'll be hungry.  

(This is just about the whole village!)

There was plenty of food to go around, and it was delicious! Everybody found a place to sit down and finish eating. We brought our woven mats, Christmas presents from 2011, I think.  

All of the “big men”, including Aaron, made welcome speeches, and then then we were given a rest time.  Our family went home and played “Hand and Foot”.  When the bell rang to return, we made two big bowls of popcorn and two gallons of tropical punch Kool-Aid (I hit the sale rack at Target last summer and bought Kool-Aid for $.11 a packet!).  Now it was time for the carols.  Our family was second, and we got big laughs when we paraded off at the end of “Angels We Have Heard on High”.  

After the carols, the dances began.  Chief Leonard came over and asked Aaron to join his group for a reprise of the coconut scraping dance they had performed last year for St. Matthias Day.  So Aaron jumped up to join the group and practice for a few minutes before they performed.  Thankfully, their group was last. 

(My friend Daisy and her granddaughter sat behind us during the dancing.)

Sarah's group was second, though.  I am so proud of her!  She worked hard to be prepared in her dancing and in her costume. 

Kiko loaned her some ancient shell money to wear around her head. Nobody knows how to make it anymore, and nobody uses it anymore, either.  But allowing Sarah to wear that piece of her family history was really special.  

Sarah looked beautiful, and the girls did a fabulous job dancing.  

Aaron and Chief Leonard's group was small, only six dancing, and it was different from the other groups in that this group had both men and women.  Two married couples, another young man, and Aaron.  And they were absolutely hilarious!  I wish I could put video on the blog.  Their antics ended the afternoon with everybody hooting and hollering and laughing as the last speeches were said.  

Everybody was ready to go home and take a nap after a full night and a fuller day of celebrating Jesus' birth.

Tuesday, December 24

I awoke around 1 a.m. hearing shouts that were ending with “-oh!”.  People were moving around, and I saw lots of flashlights bobbing toward the shore.  I thought it might be Kosco, so I woke up Aaron.  He walked down the hill to check, but it was just the young men of the village going fishing for the Christmas feast.
Around 2:00, the Kosco arrived, and Aaron again went down the hill to find Belza so the two of them could go out in a motor canoe to pick up our things from the Kosco.  We were expecting some food for our family's Christmas feast:  a watermelon, some green beans, and eggs.  And one of the grandparents' Christmas boxes had arrived in Honiara, so we were also looking forward to those.  And maybe most importantly, the boxes have a new radio sent by our SITAG friends.  Neither our radio nor our e-mail has worked for the last week.  Sometimes we can get in touch with our colleagues by cell phone, but the signal is weak and using the phone is expensive. 
Aaron returned without any boxes.  One of our colleagues had given our boxes to a friend who was returning to Marulaon for Christmas.  Unfortunately, he arrived at the ship after it was so full that they began to turn away people and cargo.  This time of year, everybody returns to their home village to celebrate Christmas with their families, and the ships are always packed.  So our boxes are still in Honiara, but the Kosco plans to come back our way on December 29. 
Since tomorrow is Christmas, we harvested some more uvikola (cassava) to make lelenga. A cute little spider decided that Benjamin's head was the perfect place to build a new house! Our family is a great team!  The young people of the village also gathered flowers and branches to decorate the church for Christmas.  Our kids all went over to the church to help.  I'd never seen the pillars decorated with coconut branches before.  The spine of the coconut branch went up the pillar on one side, and the fronds were braided together on the other side.

The village is supposed to gather after Evening Prayer and supper for each group to perform Christmas carols.  We think the village has been hearing us sing Christmas carols with our evening devotionals, so now they think we've been preparing an “item” to sing tonight.  We decided to join in the fun and sing “Joy to the World”, “Silent Night” with a beautiful descant the kids learned last year in their children's choir, and “Angels We Have Heard on High”.  Just to add a little lightheartedness, we plan to break into clapping and a little rhythm as we repeat the chorus, “Glo-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ria” and march off.

Monday, December 23

Why not, instead, see those limitations as God's gentle wooing?  He is our Creator.  We, the created.  Who knows better how to love, forgive, enervate, and establish us than our Creator?  The limitations He sends are invitations to His heart, His ways, His abundance.  ~Mary DeMuth, “Everything”

I woke feeling like morning had punched me in the face.  A sinus headache has dogged every step I've taken in Marulaon since we arrived in November.  This is one of the many days I feel like I can hardly put one foot in front of the other.  I'm trying to see my limitations, my lack of strength and energy, as God's gentle wooing.

We've been without e-mail for five days now.  Today is especially rough because my side of the family is gathering to celebrate Christmas, and I have no way to communicate with them.  Once again, the Lord tucked a special gift of encouragement in my day, this time in the form of firewood!  Over the weekend, I asked for a cord of firewood from Skita and Eta's family because I knew we would be doing lots of cooking this week.  That firewood arrived in the morning, and throughout the course of the day, two more cords showed up from two more families.  I paid for each one of them and thanked them for helping us be able to be a part of the community by cooking.  Rain and “coolness” descended in the afternoon, and I walked over to Ofoaen's to visit.  She and two of her daughters had just arrived from their bush garden.  They were sopping wet and obviously cold.  I found them in their kitchen, now full of firewood.  I told Ofoaen that I would come back later to chat, after she had a chance to change clothes and warm up.  She said they had brought some firewood for me!  How in the world did everybody know that I had used up all of my firewood!?!  Her husband carried the firewood to my kitchen, and I went back to the house to get money to pay Ofaoen and to give her some time.  When I picked my way along the wet and  slippery paths to her house, she was sitting underneath waiting for me.  I tried to pay her, but she refused, saying that she was my friend.  Wow!

This culture is full of reciprocation.  Aaron is currently reading “Christianity and Animism in Melanesia” by Kenneth Nehrbass.  On page 80, I found this quote, “Tribal societies see giving and receiving not as a way of meeting a need but as a way of establishing relationships...the whole point of gift-giving is to attach strings.  Charity does not count as a gift, if inherent in the word gift is the notion of strengthening relationships.”  I don't know if this applies to my relationships or not, since I'm not part of a Lavukal tribe, but Ofaoean's willingness to think about me and provide something I needed, along with her unwillingness to receive money, certainly strengthened my relationship with her, and made me so thankful to my God who loves me and provides a sister when mine is so very, very far away.

Sunday, December 22

Today was a great day to rest!  As soon as church was over, the kids rushed home to take the kora off the hot stones. 

We had a huge tray full of the delicious stuff, so the kids walked around the village with our plastic green plates and shared with the District Priest, Ofaoaen, Walter (he's the catechist on duty this month), Leku, and Chief Leonard.  It's fun to be able to share food that I know my neighbors will like.  They don't really care for tomato based foods, and we tend to eat a lot of those when we are in the village.  It's been rainy and “cool” all day.  The Group Two girls practiced underneath our house for a while, and I think we all enjoyed a chance to do a little reading and lying down this afternoon.  

After my dirt hauling adventures yesterday and being on my feet most of the day, my foot and leg were really swollen and painful today.  I opted to prop up my leg most of the afternoon and to stay home from church tonight.

Saturday, December 21

After market early this morning, I walked along the shore to deliver some things to Hiva and Daisy.  While I was visiting, Lolikia strolled by and held up her arms to me, so I picked her up.  Made my day!  Even better, she soon fell asleep on my shoulder as I visited, so I walked a couple of doors down to her house to return her to her mother.  I visited with Janet for a little while, and by the time I walked back up the hill to our house, Leku had already arrived to help us weed the yard.  She, Olivia, Benjamin, and Katherine had already taken out all of our umalau for making kora, and Sarah and Aaron had already gone out to the garden. 

We worked through the morning, chopping up slippery cabbage, then planting back the denuded stalks, hauling bags and bags of dirt to fill in our new Chinese cabbage raised beds (to keep the frogs from digging up the little plants), peeling a mountain of potatoes, and weeding the yard.  

After we had the potatoes sliced thinly to make kora (think scalloped potatoes made with thick coconut cream – yummy!), Sarah burned a spiral pattern on her stick for dancing.  First she cut away the bark, then she held it over our fire for the kora to char the stick.  Finally she peeled away the bark, revealing a beautiful contrasting spiral stripe.  She'll finish decorating it for Christmas with help from the other girls soon. 

The District Priest is touring the seven villages in our district.  None of the churches can hold communion unless he is present, so he usually goes to visit them on one big trip.  We are the last village on his tour.  He arrived in Marulaon this afternoon, and Group Two was asked to feed him.  I made a big pot of soup to share.  Group Two's girls have finally started practicing their dances for Christmas, and Sarah is going to stay up late tonight to practice with them tonight.

Friday, December 20

Today we began Christmas break, but more importantly, we celebrated Benjamin's 13th birthday.
We made a list on the chalkboard, “Things We Like About Benjamin”:  his laugh; kind, not annoying; brilliant; his dimple; his integrity; God's gift of competitiveness; singing voice; sense of humor; creative mind; hard worker.
Even though none of his birthday presents have arrived in country yet, Benjamin still enjoyed celebrating.  He got to choose the activities and the foods for the entire day.  He began with pancakes for breakfast, quickly followed by chocolate fondue with pineapple and coconut chunks. 

We played Settlers of Catan while we ate a precious package of Pringles that we've been saving from a care package.  We watched “Holiday Inn” and enjoyed caramel brownies, Benjamin's birthday cake of choice for many years.  It was a lovely day of rest, laughing, and playing together as a family.  We had already told our neighbors that it was Benjamin's birthday and that we would be staying home all day, and they were gracious to allow us this freedom.  Our Benjamin is a fine young man, and we're grateful that he is a part of our family!

Thursday, December 19

I scheduled “leaf school” with Leku and her mom, Sera, for this afternoon.  When I finished imputting all of my kids grades for week 16, I popped a big bowl of popcorn and walked down to Leku's armed with a camera, a notebook, some family pictures, and a pen.  I've been asking around the village for someone to teach me a little bit about all of the leaves they have here.  God has provided so many amazing medicines in the leaves that surround my neighbors.  Everybody I asked pointed me to Sera as a keeper of knowledge.  

We began by looking at family pictures.  People here have a really hard time grasping that I still have grandparents alive.  I'm so blessed that I'm the first born and that both of my parents are first born, so I have great memories of young grandparents who played and laughed with me.  I loved watching my kids interact with their great-grandparents while we were on furlough.

Then we moved on to our leaf lessons.  I learned about some leaves that are good for headaches and cuts and a sore belly.  I also learned about leaves that are good to take out to the garden to keep the evil spirits away (like the roroyo below) and to set on fire to wave at big rain clouds and keep them away. 

We ended up in a common conversation, wasn't everything about America good and everything about the Solomon Islands rubbish?  I told Leku again how thankful I was that God put our family here.  How there are things in each culture that I like and, honestly, things in each culture that I didn't like.  But most importantly, that I wanted to be content and enjoy the work God had for me, wherever He placed me.  And today, that place is Marulaon Village on a tiny island in the South Pacific.

When I returned to the house, I found Sarah and Foamela finishing up the skirt for Christmas.  It looks great, and I'm looking forward to watching Sarah dance with the other girls next week.