NAME BELONG ME SPREAD TOE

On Sunday, me and my family took a trip into the Mangseng tribe. This tribe was actually were Annika grew up and where her parents had planted a church. The church there was now completely independent as all missionaries have phased out. We left the base at 6am and arrived in the tribe at 9am. The 3 hour trip into the jungle was beautiful. We were in a small lorry/truck that just about made it there and back on the bush trail. We stood up at the back of the truck so we could see everything that was going on. The people here are so friendly, anyone we passed was so excited to see us and were saying good morning and waving, it was great fun.

 When we arrived at the tribe we first went and met a few people that Annika had known very well. We saw her work meri that had worked for her family for 15 years and another lady that used to look after Annika, her brothers and sisters from time to time. This ladies name was Emma (she is the lady in the 16^th picture down with the stick through her nose). She was so excited to meet me and called me her  “one name”. She would have done anything for me just because my name was the same as hers, such a lovely lady.

 We then went to the tribal church. Ladies sat on one side and men on the other. Church lasted for what seemed like ages. We couldn’t understand one word and it was so hot but we still enjoyed just seeing how they did things. It great to see the church surviving independently after all the missionaries had left. This is exactly what New Tribes Mission (NTM) is all about. Their motto is “ teach one to reach one.”

 After church was finished we met some of the locals. My favorite was spread toe. Believe it or not this is his actual name, spread toe. If you have a look at his picture (9^th picture) you’ll understand why. He was such a funny wee man. He just shook my hand with a huge big grin on his face and said “monin, name belong me spread toe.” Which means, morning, my name is spread toe. He was great. I liked him.

 We went to a couple of peoples houses for lunch, I thought I had a hard time with Mozambican food. Nothing had prepared me for PNG tribal food. I had some sort of root vegetable that is pounded, wrapped in a leaf and then cook under the ground in a “mau mau”. You can see it being cooked in the pictures, it’s a hole in the ground with hot rocks and then huge big banana leaves on top. You just had to smile and swallow, we managed ok though.

 One of the houses we went to for lunch was Emma’s house. As we sat and chatted we could see that they were just so happy to have Annika back to visit. When Annika had last seen Emma’s children not even all of them were born. Emma now has ten children. Her youngest you can see in picture 7, his name is Ten Man. He got his name because he is the last child, number ten. As you can see from the names mothers give their children, the people of PNG are very literal. They say things how they are. From hanging out with them for the day I noticed that they love to laugh. They were making jokes and playing about all day.

 About 3 o’clock it was time for us to head back home. We said goodbye to everyone and as we were leaving the whole village was out to say goodbye, waving and shouting after us.  We had a great day. We were a bit nervous about the journey home as if it rained we may have been stranded, because the bush roads here become a mudslide very quickly. It hadn’t rained all day so we were sure it was just about to. Thankfully it held off  just until we reached the tarmac.

 I really enjoyed my time with the Mangseng people, I will hopefully visit them again before I leave. I am also hoping to get into a few other tribes in the next few weeks so I’ll let you know how that goes.

 Some other news :

School is going well, I am enjoying it so far. The kids here are lovely and have helped me settle in quickly. One of my housemates arrives on Friday so that will be nice to finally meet her and get moved into my new place.

 Internet has been slow here the past few days but seems to be working again. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep you more updated now on what’s happening around the base.

Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Love,

Emma x