Village Time in Wasabamal - The Hauskuk

How many times have I sat down to write a blog about our month in the village?
It's just so broad of a topic.
It's like when I come visit a place and ask what's new.
"Oh. Same old, same old."
And it's pretty unlikely that nothing new has happened in anyone's life since I last saw them, which is often a solid chunk of time. But the question is so broad that, unless something really major happened, it just seems like there's nothing worth reporting.
But I hate it when people answer that way. Because it ends the conversation. So I'm going to try.
…
…..
Ok here goes!

My main objective going out to the village was different than most of the students at POC*. While they were going out to get a taste of how people lived in the village on the day-to-day, we had already seen and experienced that during our time in Anguna in 2012 and my time in Samban in 2010. So our objective was to figure out how we were going to live life in the village on the day-to-day.


So the first thing, I guess, is house layout. When you're doing tiny living, layout and organization is key. Our space was about 350 sqft. The hauskuk (kitchen) had a dirt floor, where the rest of the house was on stilts. A window from the "veranda" (or room with windows, as I would call it) had a window opening into the hauskuk (which was very nice for passing things up and down!) That was the only window in the hauskuk. And it had a copper roof. So, needless to say, it was hot. But I digress. The hauskuk had a door that had been repurposed into a table. Which would have been enough space if we didn't need to set our stove and "sink" (two wash basins) somewhere. So we prepped at the table on the veranda and passed things up and down through the conveniently located window. But then Jacob was in the hauskuk manning the fire and washing dishes while I prepped the food. Well, this isn't really culturally appropriate behavior for a man.

Yes, yes, I hear your outrage and indignation at outdated gender roles. Yay feminism, boo dominance in the name of tradition. But this actually ends up being a mysticism issue. My sources tell me that Papua New Guineans believe in something that they do not call, but we would, juju. And a man engaging in woman's work is bad juju. And if you try to do things with a man with bad juju, then those things won't go well. So people may like Jacob just fine and recognize that he's serving his wife and that's all fine and good, but as long as they believe in juju, Jacob will be ostracized from various things. And that's not really a good position for a missionary to be in. So we'll combat juju when we can do it in ways that won't jeopardize our ability to share the Gospel, and where we can't, we'll trust God to as He transforms lives in Papua New Guinea.

Observe the inlaid basins

So we need a better hauskuk layout for sure, to maximize square footage.
An area for prep.
We'll bring out a more real stove ($215), so it won't demand counter-space (and to have more than one burner, and an oven! And not have to stand on tip-toes to look into the pot! Oh, I'm swooning!)
Windows. It was so hot, it was miserable to be in there.  
A spot to have my wash basins in the counter, you know, like a real sink.
And a pantry sized rat box (a box that rats have trouble getting into (rats can chew through concrete. You can't really keep them out but you can make it more of a hassle than it's worth).
....



Bam! Look at that! That's a decent sized blog post! With a description of our time in the village, a cultural tidbit, and a glance at the future?! Nailed it!
Let's see if I can pull off a continuation of at least equal quality tomorrow!



*Pacific Orientation Course - The three month training course on how to survive in the jungle that was concluded with a month stay in the village and just successfully completed by us!