Every Thursday night we have an evening meal with a local family. Each family or single have their own Wasfamili (which means foster family in Tok Pisin). There are many benefits in these evenings, allowing us to develop relationships with nationals outside of POC, practice our Tok Pisin (which is all we are allowed to use), learn more language, learn more about the PNG culture and experience life within a local village (preparing us for our village living). Some families have a 30 minute walk in the dark to their Wasfamili’s village and others have about five minutes. Our Wasfamili’s are from different villages all over the Nobnob community. I share my Wasfamili with another single guy and we have a tiring walk of five minutes to the village next door.
Two weeks ago was our first evening meal with our Wasfamili’s. They were our guests at POC, where we met them for the first time. My Wasfamili have four pikinni (four children), ranging from three years of age to early high school. Our first evening I really struggled in conversation, as I could understand what was being said, but I struggled to construct sentences to keep a conversation going or initiating a new one easily. But they are very helpful in teaching Tok Pisin and very patient. We talked about what we do, where we are from, family and friends, what we are doing here after POC, state of origin, politics etc. We ate our evening meal the way Papua New Guineans do and that’s seating on the floor. It was a good evening and an interesting experience.
Last Thursday evening was our second visit, but this time we were their guests in their village. This visit was even better than the first. We spent our first hour outside talking to different people in the village, but mainly to our Wasfamili’s son (I don’t know how he is related, extended family can be referred to [brata] brother or [sista] sister). This was really encouraging as we were able to communicate well and being able to see a big improvement with my Tok Pisin since the previous week. We had an evening meal inside their house (photo above, but my Waspapa was still on his way home from work) and had some really good conversations. We talked about several different things again and I was able to tell a few stories and made them laugh by being funny in Tok Pisin.
This Thursday we will all be staying overnight with our Wasfamili’s. But because I am a yung pela man (young single man) I will be sleeping in my own house. It is quite normal for yung pela men to have their own little house for themselves until they get married. So here is a photo above of where I will be staying this Thursday night with a few single guys (it is quite a flash looking village house from the outside). Again it should be an interesting experience and looking forward to getting a grasp on Tok Pisin. But it has been a real beneficial experience and a blessing so far with my Wasfamili.
June 11th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Oi mate now thats the way of living .hope you had no running water or electriks, joke well it looks good .
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