Ttongdae män a daeban

I haven’t been writing posts so frequently this trip, but it’s not because I’ve been running less (I’m still running every other day!) or because less is happening. Honestly I think it’s because I set up a chair and a mosquito net on the balcony which allows me to work until 9 or 10 or even later at night. Before I would go to bed around 8 or 9 because it was dark and because of the mosquitoes. And it’s just too uncomfortable to do work in bed. But now I can stay up transcribing and glossing stories until I’m nice and tired. Then I’m too tired to write blog posts when I crawl into bed. 

Anyway, I passed a little milestone yesterday. The Ende text corpus now has more than 70,000 words! I wonder if I can get to 100,000 by the end of the year. Now that would be a nice base for a dissertation! Work is still going strong and steady and mostly by myself. The village is mostly away in their gardens or chopping sago. I feel a little guilty for not being more helpful with the gardening work and sago work. Especially because Wagiba often complains that she has only one girl to help her and it’s me! And I’m busy with other work all day. I don’t quite know if she really expects or wants my help since I would be quite useless and would probably hurt myself squeezing sago or digging yam mounds. But I’m sorry that she doesn’t have other girls to help her and I hope I’m not disappointing her.

I feel pretty useless and selfish on this front and I feel pretty bad on the medical front too. It’s hard to say that people are taking advantage of me when I’m their only option for healthcare... but people come to me expecting medicine, are disappointed when I tell them that I’ve given it all out, or that I don’t know how to help them, or don’t react gratefully when I give them my last bandaid. It makes me feel anxious and bitter when I know that a good nurse should be feeling sympathetic and giving. It’s not a good look for me, nor is it helpful to my friends, so it’s my current battle. 

This week I did have a fun time showing people what a lunar eclipse looks like using a solar lantern (the sun), a pineapple (the earth), and a coconut (the moon). I can’t wait to see the lunar eclipse in January 31st. I’m also excited for February because I stored most of my clothes away and I will take out one fresh, clean outfit!

Falling asleep,
Kate

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