This is my Life: Independence Day

PNG’s Independence Day (September 16) fell the weekend after we arrived out here. In honor of the holiday, our village had a whole lot of activities planned over a four-day weekend. So there were lots of people around and lots of activities going on for us to watch.

On Friday morning, we went over to the school soccer field where all the school kids were doing skits (dramas). Matt and I enjoyed hanging out with people and watching the dramas, but the kids quickly got bored and started begging to go back to the house. Eventually we gave them the keys and let them head home. Dramas here tend to be either stories that have spirits and such in them affecting something or someone, stories about people trying to get or capture women, or else, impersonations of teachers and students and such. It seems like the ones that get the biggest laughs are when the boys dress up and act like girls (like the one drama about schoolgirls -- where all the participants were boys dressed up as girls—the one where the boys imitated going to the water to bathe and stripped down to shorts and a bra had onlookers practically rolling in laughter)! Another drama was about some young men who were trying to get the attention of/win the affection of some girls. Off in the background was an “old man” (really, one of the teenage boys) who was working ‘poison’ (sorcery/magic). After many attempts by the young men to get a woman, the old man hobbled in and (because of his sorcery) had a girl come willingly with him. I’m sure there’s a lot I miss or don’t understand in the dramas, being an outsider to the culture, and the humor, but they were interesting to watch.

While I was hanging out watching the dramas with the ladies, some of them informed me that when the sports tournament started up, they wanted me to play basketball one one of the ladies’ teams from the village. I thought it sounded like fun, even though I hadn’t played in over a year, and probably wouldn’t be all that good. The men told Matt that they wanted him to play volleyball with the guys as well. There was also going to be a big soccer tournament and quite a large sum of money had been collected to be given as prizes to the winners.

But despite all these great plans for sporting events and semi-finals and then the finals to determine the winners of the tournament, the weather chose not to cooperate and to just be rainy and miserable. Friday afternoon, when the events started, it started pouring rain. A few games were squeezed in around dusk when the rain finally tapered off. Saturday was more of the same. There was a short period of sun, and then the rain continued. Someone came and got me about noon to say that the ladies were ready to play and I needed to come, so I grabbed my umbrella and set off. After I got there though, the ladies were quick to try to talk me out of playing, because of all the mud, and because of my bad knee, I let them talk me out of it. If I didn’t have a bum knee, I probably would have played, mud or no. But when I always have to be cautious about my knee giving out, and seeing the condition of the court, I was happy to just watch.

When we arrived the previous Wednesday, the school kids were busy finishing up digging the basketball court. The ground it’s on is more like clay than mud, and when it gets wet… wow! It’s something else! Watching the ladies’ play was like watching basketball on ice. Seriously. Their bare feet were slipping and sliding like crazy and more than one woman ended up face-down in the mud. Basketball here is quite different from what you might be used to in the US (or other places!). There is almost no dribbling. On the last court, the ground was really rocky, and dribbling always ran the risk of the ball hitting a rock and shooting off in an unintended direction. Here, on this new court, it just would stick and not bounce. So basketball here is more passing and shooting, and very little dribbling. With the muddy, slippery conditions, there was even a lot of rolling the ball across the court to a teammate. So the more I watched, the more glad I was that I could just watch, and didn’t have to play!

Sunday was more of the same. They had as many games as they could, but the rain really messed things up. The soccer field turned into one gigantic, black, slippery mud pit. Eventually, it was decided that the winners would just be the best team out of the semi-finals because there was no way to get all the games finished up on Sunday.

On Monday morning, there were singsings (traditional dances and music) and dramas put on by the adults and groups from the other villages who had come for the weekend. I went and watched for a couple of hours. After holding Elijah for about an hour, and then holding him for another hour while he napped, my arms were getting tired. The ground was pretty muddy, so I couldn’t put him down. Eventually he got tired of being held and wanted to get down and crawl around, so I had to bring him home.