"Church and Visiting Lucy" by Chana

We went to two different churches: a Baptist and Four Squares. the Baptist had no singing but it had Pidgin English and Engan. The person who was talking in Engan was shouting. (It's a wonder he doesn't get a sore throat). In the Four Squares church there was a lot of singing that was mainly in Pidgin and English. They only started talking when the children's program started. When the singin was happening there were even synchronised tamborine players/dancers.

We went inside Shamaia's mum's (Lucy's) cookhut. When the fire was there it was very smokey because there was no chimney. It was made from the same things as house materials. (See Information Page, number 10). Lucy was making a bilum because it was raining. She showed us the way she sometimes cooks sweet potatoe. You put it underneath the fire, buried in ashes.

getting the fire going by blowing through a pipe

this is Lucy making my bilum

having a "sleep" in the cook hut

"Getting ready for a wedding" by Everyone

Abram: We went to the market and saw a wedding.

Judah: We saw a bride and bridesmaid. They were singing.

Chana: One day we heard some singing so we decided to see what was going on. We found out that a woman from another tribe was going to marry a man from Kompiam. the women were the ones that were singing. They dressed up in their traditional wedding dresses. Here is a picture.

After a day of telling everyone about the wedding, there will be a ceremony where the people in Kompiam will pay a certain number of pigs to the lady's family. This is called the bride price. Then there will be the actual wedding ceremony.

"Swimming, School and a Hospital Visit" by Abram and Judah

About School

Abram: They have no bags. There is no playground.

Judah: They have grades in only one room. They do singing first.  

A prep classroom in Mt Hagan

The classroom in Kompiam

About Swimming

Judah: We went swimming. I jumped where it was extremely deep. It was super fun.

Abram: We went to the lake. We made slides. It was very watery and we made a shop.

About a Hospital Visit

Abram: There was a boy in hospital. He got burnt hands because he was by himself and playing with the fire.

"Comparing PNG with Australia" by Chana

 There's few cars so people carry everything in their bilums.

 PNG fashions

taking the pigs for a walk

"Experiencing the Culture" by Chana

We went to a Moo-Moo. Instead of having a party if there was a celebration, the people of that tribe would have a moo-moo. My grandpa said that how to remember the name of a moo-moo you remember that you eat Kou-Kou (pronounced Cow-Cow) at a moo-moo (get it? A Kou-Kou says moo-moo). We ate greens (disgusting), cooking banana (disgusting), sweet potatoe (ok) and pig cooked in the traditional ways on a spit (ok). There also was a table of “western” food because a lot of us were from Australia.

here is the food served up on a banana leaf

We went on a walk which was a bit like the hill walk. (Mentioned in the post “First week at Kompiam”). It leads down to a waterfall. I went underneath the waterfall. It felt like someone was jumping on top of my head.

We went to the market and bought sugar cane. Here is a picture of it. You peel off the skin, chew up the insides and spit the rest out. That is almost how they make sugar. People make sugar by crushing the cane, which squeezes out the juice. Then they dry the sugar cane juice, which makes the sugar solid.

sugar cane growing at Lucy and Shamaia's village

eating sugar cane

"Bananas" by Nobody

video of chopping our bananas

Peter, the dentist, wrapping his bananas to help them grow fatter

"More Life in Kompiam" by Judah

I went down a hill. It was fun. It was a slippery track.

We went to pick bananas. They use big knives to cut the tree down so they can get the bananas.
We made card houses when it’s a rainy or cold day.

We have to do 100 pumps for water every day.

We saw some boys who had a sling shot and we had a go.

We saw a big eel it is about 1 metre long.

I went to to the moo moo. I ate pig, greens, pumpkin, cooked banana, rice, chicken and taro. We played “do” which is tag.

the moo moo food is dished up on banana leaves

I went on a sleepover. I watched Ice Age 4 and played Tin Ball. That is where you defend yourself and put up the castle. At the start you take it in turns to knock the castle over.

We saw a MAF aeroplane. It was noisy.

 I ate sugar cane. It was juicy and sweet.

Me and Grandpa went on a walk that wasn’t a track. I slipped one time and I had fun.

coffee beans on the walk with grandpa

a good way to dry your washing.. put it on a hot rock

bush bashing on the walk with grandpa

you can't tell from the photo but this is steep

"Life in Kompiam (mostly)" by Abram

Grandpa says he has a hole instead of a brain.

I got a banana tail.

On our way to get the bananas

In Mount Hagan I made a slide. It’s going to have an underground tunnel.

In our holiday house we have six rooms.

When the kids in Papua New Guinea go swimming they take off everything. They take off their pants. They take off their undies. They take off their shirt.

We saw a big eel. We took a picture.

They play a game which you knock a tower over, then they kick it down, then you will try not to get hit by a ball by defending yourself with your board.

playing Tin Ball

Testing out a bush knife.

The lady in the background is making mummy's billim (bag) as she walks along the road.

"First week in Kompiam" by Chana

I met lots of new people. The two that are my age are Bonny and Shamaia (pronounced Sha-my-a). Bonny also came from Australia but Shamaia is a local kid. The next day after we arrived I helped my grandma teach the preps (there are 5 of them, Dodo, Unity and Simon).

Dodo learning clapping games

Bonny at the Mu Mu

Shamaia playing games outside her village hut

"Cigarette Bush" flowers on our eyelashes

In the afternoon it was the school sports day. There were two teams each with 12 people. We joined red for the day. The difference between their school sports and ours is that there is a lot less individual sports and more team sports.

There are lots of wild pigs, a few wild dogs and a few wild goats.

We’ve done heaps of things in just the first week but I’ll just tell the things you’ll be interested in. We went to another small town called Iokos. My dad and grandpa were going to build them. They were going to use old wood but the locals had a budget to complete the project and said they hadn’t spent it all so they wanted to buy more. I thought they were crazy but my grandpa said they’d come a long way because around a century ago, most of them were cannibals!

at Iokos we spent time with Elsie and her daughter, Talith Methew

The nearest supermarket is 4 hours away so we always visit the market to get fruit and vegetables. It is fairly smelly and sometimes there’s not much food being sold. Everything is very cheap. The most common are peanuts and bananas but you never see apples, watermelon, rockmelon, cherries of berries because they don’t grow here. Paw Paw is their equivalent to rockmelon.

small market

coffee shop

sign on coffee shop

Mt Hagan market (4+ hrs drive away)

We went on a walk down a very steep hill to get to a river. The track was very slippery and it was very tiring. No one would allow a path like that in Australia. We called it the hill walk.

Every holidays, some kids host a sleepover. There were 9 girls, all 11 or over years old sleeping on mattresses in the lounge room. Here in Kompiam the power goes on at 6:30pm and turns off at 10pm, so we went to bed at 10pm.

We went to the hospital worker Jim’s house to get bananas. They grow in a HUGE bunch with a BIG flower on the end. The bananas here taste different because in Australia the bananas are ripened by gas and here they’re ripened naturally.

"Travelling to Kompian" by Chana

Mt Hagan

There are some nice kids here in Mt Hagan but the oldest I know is just over Judah's age. Sometimes people chew this red drug called beetle nut which makes them feel funny. You can tell when someone's had it because their teeth and gums are all red. There is rubbish everywhere in Mt Hagan but not so much in the countryside. I tasted Paw Paw and Sugar fruit. Some new words I learnt in Pidgeon English are "Pikinini" meaning child and "wappela" meaning one of something "tupela"meaning two of something

When we got here my grandpa and uncle were there to drive us to where we were staying for the night before we went to Kompiam.

Travelling to Kompian

The next day my uncle flew back to Australia then we started a four hour drive with most of us in the back of a ute.

We stopped at a market that was very smelly to get some food. Things were sooo cheap! We got around five kilos of beans for 4 kina ($2), but a packet of cornflakes is 40 kina ($20) because it is brought in from Australia.

We soon had to stop to change the tyre and we saw a man building the roof of a grass hut. Here is a photo.

We had only been driving for half an hour when we had to stop at a road block. My grandpa said if we went to the road block robbers would steal everything we had, threaten us with knives and leave us walking on the side of the road so we had to turn back. He says that road blocks are caused when someone gets killed and normally the person who killed them has to pay money to the family of the person whose been killed but if they don't pay then people can get angry and set up road blocks until they get paid.

The next day the road block was still there so we went to the airport to try to book a flight with M.A.F. They said that there aeroplane for the day was full. The next day we found the road block had been taken care of so we could FINALLY go.  

"Travelling to Kompiam" by Abram

In Mount Hagan I made a slide. It’s going to have an underground tunnel.

We went to the market and you could buy anything you want unlike here in Kompiam.

On the way to Kompiam we saw 4 goats, 3 dogs and lots of pigs.

In our holiday house we have six rooms.

"Life in Kompiam" by Judah

19th September, 2013

Grandpa has “mouse grass”. That means beard.

21st September, 2013

I played Monopoly Deal and I won.


22nd September, 2013

We made a billy cart. We played on it all day long.

testing the billy cart in the grounds of the hospital

24th September, 2013

We went to Icos. We played soccer and tried to get the ball down the hill. I got a sore. When we were going there we got bogged. We had to put rocks on the road to get up. When we were going there I stood up in the back of a truck like a dog.

"Travelling to Kompiam" by Judah

  16th September, 2013

In Papua New Guinea, I went to go up the hill but there was a road block. They carried a big knife. They call utes open backs.

 

this is where they cut the road for the road block, Judah is riding in the back

17th September, 2013

Now I tried to go on an aeroplane to get there but it was full.

18th September, 2013

When we went up the hill there was potholes and bumpy rocks. We went through the river. We saw dogs and pigs and 2 goats. Me and Chana made up a story of Big Pig. It goes like this:

   Big Pig was big  

   Big Pig was a pig

   Big Pig did a jig

   Big Pig stepped on a twig

   And that is the story of Big Pig

   Who did a jig

   And stepped on a twig