Christmas in Limol

Merry Christmas! It’s been a long few first days here in Limol, culminating in a great Christmas celebration. 

Preparations for Christmas begin weeks before the actual day as families move around in the gardens and sago places, camping in the bush and gathering food for the holiday. Those who live outside of the village begin making their way home. On my first day here, the 23rd, I was able to help Wagiba make preparations. We went fishing (net dragging) down at Karama swamp and caught six fish! We went down a bit late though (8am). It would have been less hot (in the 30s/90s) and the fish wouldn’t have hid in the floating grass. We carried those fish and a bunch of taro home in our spalek bags. I thought I would faint in the heat but we made it. After a nap, we went to fetch water in the roller. It’s much harder without Grace to help me pull it up the hill. As soon as we got back it poured rain. We filled up all our buckets with rain water and had a nice shower too. 

The next day was Christmas Eve. The big activity of today is that at around 4:00 pm everyone comes to the village center and begins singing Christmas songs (in Ende). The group travels around the village sticking flowers and decorations in everyone’s houses. So the first part of the day is spent preparing the decorations. I made about 100 lotus flowers and they were hung in the church. After the walking singing tour of the village, Wagiba invited the other three corners to come to our house to play a game. She hid two waterlily seeds in our yard and gave some hair ties to the people that could find them! In the evening we concluded festivities by playing a movie on the projector. We started with a bunch of home movies from past visitors and concluded with a movie about a man named Francis who was the first athlete to win a medal for PNG at an international event (Silver medal at the Paraolympics)! 

On Christmas morning the bell was rung very very early around 3:30 am. Everyone some people got up, dressed in their best, and went to service. Following this the group went around the village again singing songs in the pre-dawn light. This time the young woman carried large bowls and spalek baskets and every house put some piece of food inside. People were instructed not to give dry sago. When we made it all the way through the village the sun had risen and the offerings were laid out on banana leaves at the community hall. Then everyone went through the line and took one or two items for their breakfast. It was really nice! After this there was another service at 10 am. All afternoon everyone played sports: basketball, touch rugby and volleyball. The village is divided into two groups based on clan membership and assigned to the red team or the white team. Since your clan never changes your team never changes either. Although I’m not in the clan system (to avoid conflict and favoritism), I was surprised to find I was assigned to the red team. I played a game of basketball in the summer heat and was wiped out. The other women were really good! Especially my friend Erga. It was easy for me to rebound and keep the ball and I even made one shot, but it was difficult to dribble on the uneven surface and keep up with the constant full court press!!

In the evening I recorded a video of Wagiba and Warama describing how Christmas used to be celebrated and I played that video for the village at our nightly movie showing. I also played a documentary called the First Peoples of America.

Tomorrow is the 26th and there will be even more games and sports. The Christmas feast is on Wednesday! Reminds me of how people spread out the holiday in Russia too :)

Merry Christmas!

Kate