5k Kate

Today was a big day! As the women came back from Malam just two days ago and the entire village will be returning to Malam to head to Wim in just a few days, we had only a few days to do a few big community events. And since events keep the village from doing other important work, we fit them all on the same day.  First up was the much anticipated anti-violence march, followed by a celebration of Diwa Nägäm, Wäli Wäziag, Dipa Nägäm, and Mangkol Sobam, the first Ende pastors and the stars of the documentary, Ende Tän e Indrang, then the closing of the technology class, which made this documentary, then some goodbye words for me, and finally the premiere showing of the movie.  The anti-violence march accomplished exactly what it set out and thus was a success I think. Mostly I wanted a forum in which I could tell the entire community exactly what I think about the domestic violence in Limol, support the women, and not enrage the men but push them to do better. I wanted this for ...

What a magical birthday! And full of surprises! I went to sleep thinking that today would be nothing special. I knew I had a card from Grace and could expect some sat phone messages from friends, but I had planned my birthday feast for next Wednesday and planned to celebrate when everyone returned to the village (all the women left to do ministry in Malam two days ago!) Well, I should have remembered from how giddily everyone here planned Grace’s surprise birthday party that mine would be no different. I woke up to the bird calls at 6:00 am as usual, but this morning I also heard Jerry’s voice outside. Jerry lives across the village and has a very distinctive laugh and tenor. I knew something was up! I got up and instead of my usual morning routine of an hour of work and hydration before greeting the world, I got dressed, grabbed my camera and walked outside. The entire house was decorated in flowers, young bamboo shoots framed my veranda and stairs! Upon clearing the steps, I was gree...

The journey of a flying titi Wind rustling the coconut palms A single note from the kokopasi Foreshadows a darkness soon to come.  A stir creeps over the village As they expect the mourning wail Whose name will be in the message? From near or far has it sailed? “ Ngämo män, ngämo män, ngämo män! ” Leaps from mats, houses, and stairs. Collective cries and sighs of kandärmang. A strain as the village prepares.  A blast from the conch for loved ones away, Fronds chopped for filling the hall. New wails arrive in every language to say, That shovels clang to turn a hole far too small. An avalanche of coconuts for scraping, Beating starts of the sago towers. Hymns carry the girl through the weeping. A final prayer as the grave fills with flowers. Titi - ‘bat’ Kokopasi - a type of bird known to bring messages of death Ngämo män - ‘my daughter’

Travel update: I’m back in Limol! A very quick trip through Sydney, Cairns, Moresby, Daru, and Upiara in just two and a half days! Running update: Back to my every other day routine, trailed by a gaggle of children. I would write about it more if it were more interesting. Lack of food, abundance of sun, and rolled ankles keep me at a cautious pace, but I’m feeling happy. A, meanwhile, is killing it - he ran the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in 32 degrees this morning! Language update: this week has been about settling in and typing up all the transcriptions that Tonny and Warama completed while I was in Canberra. They did amazing work! Hope to get to some more fun activities soon.  Writing update: I’m very excited about my writing progress! While in Canberra I was able to complete rough drafts of four chapters to send my advisors! I’ve decided to devote weekends to writing this trip, and each weekend I’ll spend two days on a different chapter. This weekend was Chapter 1, the introduction...

What a crazy past ten days it’s been! Ten days of extreme contrast. February 17-21 were my final work days this trip and I finished gathering 61/64 sociolinguistic interviews and one special 4-hour recording by Tonny before I left. Conducting the interviews really improved my Ende. It was 16.5 hours of actively interacting in Ende with lots of different people in the village. Not only did I learn a lot about the language but I also learned a lot about the people in Limol, their histories, their families.  On Feb 22, we set off for Kapal in the 40HP community dinghy. No goodbye feast this trip, save a delicious fish and rice meal at Wagiba’s the night before. My send-off was happy and quick. Plenty of hand shaking, and picture snapping before we were off racing down Taolang road to get started in the dinghy before it got too hot. We made it to Kapal in record time - the huge engine sucked up 15L of fuel.  Once in Kapal, I mostly hid in my room away from the constant...

It wasn’t until late in the evening after I wrote that last blog post that I really realized what I might have lost from my computer. Not only was I missing 18 days of FLEx work, but the most recent copy of my Verbs Database (containing information on 500+ verbs and the meat of my dissertation) was also on my computer and I couldn’t find a back up. This resulted in a worry-filled frantic night in which Andrey came to the rescue and found a copy in one of my back up accounts. In the worry however, I made up my mind that it was worth it to return to Australia to fix the computer. Dineke helped the idea along suggesting I simply lengthen my second trip and then I won’t even be losing any fieldwork time. So today Grace bought me my tickets back to Canberra for one week from today. Conversations with Nick and Penny have been reassuring and Andrey and I are shifting our schedules around so we can still see Australia together in the summer. Work has been difficult without my computer but not ...

Well my computer died today. As they say, it’s not a question of IF you’ll lose your data it’s a question of WHEN and HOW MUCH. Luckily, I’ve been well trained and I made regular backups and three back up drives of all my recordings, transcriptions, translations, photos, etc. I last backed up last night and I was able to grab a few transcripts that I typed before my computer really crashed. These data were irreplaceable and completely saved! However... I wasn’t regularly backing up my FLEx files which include all my text analysis and an enormous amount of work that I’ve done mostly at night the past seven weeks. I also potentially lost all the documents on my computer. So I feel like a back up queen and a total idiot at the same time. Luckily I have a back-up laptop (!) but doing my work for the evening felt like someone took my beautiful well-oiled machine and replaced it with a stick. I’ll be able to keep doing my work and an evening run persuaded me that in fact I will still do ever...

Today is Saturday, the first day of week 8 and officially the longest I’ve ever stayed in Limol in one go. Because of Grace’s 60-day visa restriction, we’ve only been able to stay in Limol for 7 weeks, using the last days as cushion to travel and get out of Port Moresby. My visa allows me to stay for three years, and just mentioning that enormous amount of time makes my “eight weeks” seem insignificant, but I’m celebrating and feeling grateful that I haven’t run out of anything I really need, that I’m still healthy and happy, and most importantly that my hosts/family have not gotten tired of me or the work yet. I sent Nick a text yesterday catching him up on the past two weeks: we’ve recorded five instantiations of what’s called the Family Problems Picture Task which include four recordings each of two speakers each. They are supposed to be interactive speech so this dataset is really diversifying my corpus which is mostly narratives and songs. This task has also been done throughout m...

I love, love, love Mondays. They are my actual favorite day of the week unlike Thursday which is what I like to say is my favorite day.  This Monday was particularly wonderful because it involved so many of my favorite things: a schedule, a to-do list, heaps of productivity, new notebooks, and a tale of female bravery overcoming a horrible situation.  Warama shares many of these favorite things and yesterday when I went for a visit and to pay him for his outstanding transcription work, he showed me a blackboard on which he had drafted a potential daily schedule, beginning at 8 am with morning prayer, including breaks at 10:00, 12:30, and 3:00, and ending at 4:30. I loved the idea and so started a fresh moleskine notebook with lists of all the tasks that need doing, followed by five daily schedules for the coming week. In the schedules is room for to-do lists and notes. So in the morning, a time for planning the day is penned in after “opening prayer” where all language workers...

Yesterday’s run was exceptional. Huge dark clouds were rolling in right at 5:30 when I was wrapping up language work for the day. As people hurried to bring in their laundry and solar lights, I hurried to tie my shoes and get as much of a run in as possible before the heavens opened. This particular run I was chased by about 20 kids. We ran ‘the loop’ twice before drops began to fall, at a record pace since I didn’t know how long the clouds would wait for me. When it really started raining we turned the group around and raced to the house Grace and I call “the bachelor pad” which is tall enough to stand under comfortably. Together we all did my 8-minute strength routine as the sky poured and huge gusts of wind blew the water into our circle. The kids love jumping jacks and high knees and think squats and jump squats are hilarious (they like to make pooping noises). During the other exercises like push ups and lunges they mimic my breathing. We laughed when my feet slipped out from und...

Last night, we had front row seats to an amazing lunar eclipse! We sat around campfires at the community hall to watch the moon. We started an hour early because my timing was off but at exactly 9:48 the first hint of a shadow emerged front the lower right of the moon. When the moon is full, it’s possible to walk around the village at night without a light, just soaking in the moonlight and trailing a moon shadow behind you. As the shadow started to creep up the moon, the face of the moon was clearly visible, like a serene old woman. Language abounded as people chatted about the moon. I caught a fresh Wagiba-ism “If you keep looking at the moon like that, one of your eyes will fly up there!” This is something she said her grandparents would say when they were around. I guess there were some dreamy moon gazers in Old Limol 🌝. The shadow moved quite quickly and soon the moon was half, then a quarter, then a sliver, then just a dull yellow glow behind a dark mask. We walked home crowded ...

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...

I realize that although I am a linguist doing fieldwork, most of my writing is about very non-linguistic things. I guess it’s because I require more processing for these extra-linguistic activities while my work leaves me happy and excited (but I write about my findings in the Ende grammar and dictionary). So let me just tell you what I did today! I woke up at 6:30 and went on a run with about ten girls. Some girls joined late so I paid attention to how the currently running girls invited the others to join and noted this in my notebook later. After the run we had a race across the field and since I came in last, I played a trick and ran back across the field with a big head start. Then I asked the girls what happened and noted those new words in my notebook too. I made them laugh during stretching to thank them for their linguistic help.  I got home, bucket bathed, ate breakfast, and chatted with A. Then I gathered up my gear and headed to Kagär and Erga’s house, whom ...

New year! Sisor pazi! I’m laying in my sanctuary in my room: a sleeping bag on top of a thin air mattress in a miniature mosquito tent in a room about twice my beds size, floored with woven pandanus, walled with woven tree bark and roofed with woven leaves. Sounds of solar powered boom boxes fill the air, punctuated by loud booms, cracks, and cries of “2017 yawo! (bye!) 2018 sebor e! (welcome!)” Our last day of 2017 was spent happily. Three young women joined me on my run this morning! I hope it becomes a regular thing. It was fun to run and walk together, then do some stretches and go to the bathing hole. I wish I had some more tennis shoes or shorts for them to wear too... I just brought one set. I went to church again this morning since people were so happy to see me there last week. It was a packed house and the message was “God wants us to be happy today so be happy and peaceful (and don’t do anything bad)”. I brought my translation work and glossed a part of a text during the ser...

Yesterday Wagiba and I were walking together when something I feared would happen since the day I met her happened. Wagiba’s knife and my hand had a clumsy rendezvous as I swung my arms to walk and she waved her machete to gesticulate. Wagiba cried out “ngämo män! ngämo män! ngämo män! (my daughter! my daughter! my daughter!)” and I instantly went back in my mind to that wonderful moment walking down the village street of Batyrevo, Chuvashia and my mama in love calling out, introducing me to the gossiping neighbors “манан юратна херача!” (моя любимая дочка! my lovely daughter!) and I understood her and I went from feeling so awkward and tall and out of place to feeling like I belong and that I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, and besides the fear of the machete, I felt so loved as Wagiba fussed over me.  I haven’t been officially adopted into a family here - even though the obvious one is Warama and Wagiba’s who invited me here, feed me, house me, and work with me. There’s a ver...

It is the 27th and everyone is still in full Christmas spirit! Yesterday I had the chance to observe an “uncle celebration” and today was the Christmas feast with a special speech by masar Kidarga.  I’ve been told that, in general, Ende people don’t consider their mother’s relatives as their family as their clan extends from their fathers side of the family. But one of their mother’s relatives is very important and that’s your mother’s brother or pope . Traditionally, Ende people marry through a practice of sister exchange, in which two men exchange sisters in order to marry. In this way, an Ende person’s mother’s brother is responsible for their mother’s marriage and thus their existence. A payment must be paid to one’s pope uncle when one comes of a certain age, and in general, one has to be careful to respect them and keep them happy. Yesterday, three elders in the community, Yugui, Warani, and Giniya, welcomed their pope uncle, Sipiki, who came to visit Limol for Christmas from...

Year 2: Grace, Grace, Kate, Kate, and Kate In a comment to one of the Limol posts, Elizabeth said she was curious about how our relationships were evolving in the village and how people perceived us. I guess I can only talk about how I perceive that people perceive me, but with that caveat, here's what I thinkǃ The word for white person in Ende is gabma, which has been said to be derived from the English word government  for the government people that came in to check on the villages back under the Australian government. The word doesn't seem to be used in a mean way; children yell it out as we walk down the street, and adults use it when talking about us, "The tall gabma  is here with the medicineǃ" Towards the end of this last trip, I had started to remind people that my name was Kate and they could use that instead of gabma , which felt so impersonal. People did learn that I wanted to be called Kate and some children and adults made the effort, but especia...

Thursday was our leaving day. I woke up happy and excited. I packed quickly as I was leaving most of my things in the village since I'm coming back in just one month. I left my pop up mosquito tent up in my room, and put my recording equipment, notebooks, prescription meds, and camping things inside. I hung my cassowary bag and crocodile necklace up with a picture of me and Grace above. I packed all the community equipment, like the laptop, batteries, back up drive, sat phone, pens and notebooks and things, in a separate pelican case to give to Warama and Tonny for their use this next month. Then I left with just my red backpack partway filled. Grace was also packed up quickly and we stood outside with friends while Lauren packed up and went around giving things away.  When all was ready to go, the village gathered at the language house and Kidarga arrived again still dressed in young coconut leaves. The men (Jerry, Gidu, Francis, Jugu and Kenny) dressed in grass skirts, cassowary ...

So much has happened in the past few days that it's hard to know where to begin. Our last full day in the village (Wednesday) was the first half sunny day in a week and it was a really good day. I got nine final recordings from Tonny (readings of the storybook texts) then spent the rest of the day teaching Warama, Tonny, and Wagiba again how to use the satellite phone, computer, and solar panels.  At 4:00 the feast started. We walked down to the community hall, a space in the center of Limol which is just a dirt floor covered by a sago leaf roof. Palm fronds and tarps were laid out and a huge mountain of pots with cooked rice and flour dumplings sat in the middle of the hall. Families sat around the periphery with their own pots of food (yams, sweet potatoes, noodles, fish, banana sago cake). We sat in the front center with Wagiba and Warama. Grace had helped Wagiba make a huge banana sago cake, and our friends came to give us small pots of food, purple yam, sweet potato, fish. It ...

Sixth day of rain. I did get out this morning and went with Wagiba to go pick up her sago bundles to carry them back to the village. Grace and I headed over to her house early morning and said hello to the puppies before heading out. Even in our hiking boots we slipped a bit on the path. Wagiba walks in front, swinging her machete along the path, breaking tree branches, small shrubs, hitting pieces of wood. Her erratic machete swinging is scary because I'm always worried I'll start following her too closely and get hit, but it does serve a purpose. First, it is a way of upkeeping all the trails little by little every time they're walked. Second, it's a way of marking where you've been so you can a)find your way back, or more likely b) someone can find you if you don't return. As she swung, Wagiba chatted about sago chopping and health plans and our ever approaching departure. As she talks, she effortlessly chops off branches for firewood, peels bark for rope, an...