From Korrine Okland
Mary Lose Cuts Hair Before We PartVirgil Brandt, Sue Tuff, Korinne Okland in Chair, Bill Lose, Mary Lose.
Photo from ‘New Guinea Journals ‘ by Karen McCann a short term teacher
Kaiapit is NW of Lae
1963 March 1 from Kaiapit
From Korrine Oakland a short term teacher at the Bula School but was moved to Kaiapit February 15th.
Dear Ina, Al and kids and Phyllis!
About time I got around to writing to you - eh? It’s not that you all haven’t been on my mind. In fact, I dreamt about you last night – and woke up screaming. There, that told you!
I like Kaiapit, pretty well, especially now that it has turned 5 o’clock and the cool wind is blowing in. My, but it has been hot today. In fact, this “rainy “season may well turn out to be the driest “wet “season ever. It just hasn’t rained for ages.
Say Al! Would you please do me a big favor and get that man in Buakup to carve a 2 foot cross for my congregation back home? I want to take it with me and that means he has only five months to work on it. La-Wa! Do you think he can do it? Get him going on it, would you please? Thanks. Maybe if he knows who it is going to… Ahem!
Hoboic from Buakup who carved the cross for the Malalo church
Hoboic the carver
Hoboic the carver of this large Crucifex from Buakap. Crucifex was set on the altar of the Malalo church.
There are a lot of pets here in the Kaiapit station, and I surely enjoyed them. Now I have more time than I had at Bula. And also, I have more time to play the autoharp. Mrs. Pietz likes to hear the autoharp very much. It brings tears to her eyes. She is an excellent, accomplished, pianist, and not having any music around her is really very hard on her I guess. Anyway, about the pets. There are two sweet little kittens, much prettier than Mickeyo. Don’t tell Ellie! There is a beautiful likk-lik green and red parrot which whistles and makes a clicking noise and swoops into your hair and lands on unsuspecting hands, etc. And two dogs complete the picture. Two not just one. Oh yes, the little chicks follow one all around, so they can be described as tame also.
Auto harp from 1960’s
Marge and Bob are on holiday, so why don’t you people do something different. I just heard, for my current spy, that Ina isn’t looking so good. So, Dr. Oakland suggest you take off one day and swim around the world. Heh! You should take a vacation I mean.
Well, how is Bula getting along without me? I dare say ever so a while. I kind of miss the girls sometimes. But I guess that is to be expected. I wish someone would teach these kids at Kaiapit to sing so we could have a choir. La-Wa! You should hear them shout when they are supposed to be letting the melody flow! How does one get them to appreciate the melody and not volume? Well, even if I die in the attempt, these kids are going to render a number in two weeks in church. Determination has spoken.
Well, what can I tell you that you don’t already know? Dr and Mrs. Pietz surprised me this hot afternoon by liking “fizzies “. You know about them? We had root beer and they both exclaimed about it. But! Seeing as how I don’t like it very much and how I go on and on about something, so as not to hurt any feelings, it makes me wonder – are they capable of the same duplicity as I am. Horrors!
I eat morning, noon, and night over at the Pietz’s. When I recall that I was advised at conferences to eat breakfast in my own spacious abode, I wonder how Mrs. P is faring. She seems to enjoy my company, but sometimes she complains so much about her cramped house. Of course I know it is hard to have only two rooms. They actually have three but Dr. P uses it as an office. The house was built for short term and wouldn’t even be big enough for them, if they are all like me! Anyway, one night, I told her – it fitted into the conversation in fact – that mother lived in grasshuts in Africa, and that the house they live in now is made out of mud, whitewashed, true. And contrite she asked me not to write my mother that she complains so much. Isn’t she cute? I am now reading a book that she submitted for publication and, if I am any judge of books, she won’t get to first base. However, there is some good material there, and I long to get my fingers into it and make something out of it. As if I could. Anyway, I could try. How to get her to let me do it. It is another thing.
I must get my shower taken. Showers are just as welcome here as at Bula. Only here I have to take cold shower all the time as we have no buckets here. I think a bucket has it over a “thing” in the wall anytime? But I’m getting used to it and in fact getting to enjoy it very much. La-Wa! Did Phyllis remonstrate at the hundredth use of this term?
Oh. Here is one of my teachers to see me. Wonder what more work I get saddled with? At least I haven’t felt useless, yet. All the matters is the head of the school and quite good at teaching. There is plenty of work and so many kids.
God continue to bless your work. Don’t overdo, Ina and Al.
Love, Korrine.
Excerpt from a letter describing the education in the Malalo circuit
Thatching a roof -probably a school
Education in New Guinea is one of the prime targets of activity for both the government and the mission. There isn’t any New Guinean that has graduated from a professional school, in other words, there just aren’t any New Guinean’s that can take over the government offices, the hospitals, the dentistry, or the schools and the UN is pressing for independence for New Guinea.
The schools are certainly nothing like what we are used to in the states. The children can start what we call prep in their village schools. This is a bush building made of bamboo and thatched, rough, some with floors and some without. They have desks were two or three students sit at a desk. In our mission schools, the teacher teaches them the church language of their area. New Guinea has 510 different known languages, so the church selected three and tries to teach all of the people in a certain area one of these languages, so that we can have a command on language for school and for church services. Bibles are only printed in these three languages and Pidgin English, the trade language. Nearly every other village has different languages and they aren’t just dialect either but different languages. They learn to count and the ABC’s. Their teachers teach them, Bible stories and hymns and some simple English. The government requires the English be taught in all of the schools, eventually, hoping to make English the official language of New Guinea. They attend prep for two years, then go to standard school, where they learn, higher, arithmetic, and more English. This may or may not be in their villages. They may have to walk to a nearby village to go to school, as there is a shortage of teachers. If, after two years they pass their test, then they go to station school, this is usually where the missionary lives.
The boys and girls must stay on the station and go to school, leaving their villages. It gets to be quite a problem, because they aren’t very old 11 or 12, so really need their parents yet, but they do get along quite well. This is the end for most of them, as there aren’t very many higher school so only the very bright ones get to go on after two years of school. They’re the girls and boys are each going to separate schools. They take standard five and six here. After this many leave to get jobs. The girls teach kindergarten. If they have passed their standard six, they can go onto teacher, training or nurses training or be Dr boys that help in the villages. A very few are able to go on and study in Australia.
Both the mission and the government are working on technical schools where especially the boys can learn a trade, such as farming, carpentry, electrician and mission has several seminaries for those that have completed teachers training. Maybe someday there will be doctors and lawyers coming out of the schools.
One thing that is holding the country back is that everything is owned collectively. The village owns a lot of ground, and each one gets as much as the village as a whole allows them. If they work very hard and the village benefits, and those that choose not to work very hard profit from the willing workers. the government is trying to work out a system where there is individual ownership of ground, so that an individual may buy or sell his land. And if he works very hard, growing coffee, coco, or coconuts, the money will go into his pocket instead of the village treasury. And a way it is a shame to break down the village spirit, but New Guinea is being forced to join the 20th century whether they want it or not, so they will have to adjust to a way of life in the 20th century or become someone’s slaves when they eventually gain their independence and aren’t ready for it. With all of the outward changes many of the people are in quite an upheaval. All of the old familiar things are passing away. It is the important role of the church to show us stability, to be the foundation of their life, and it is now with all the material things in sight when the church is loose- end.
Thatching a roof -possibly a school or a dorm
You can visit the JOURNALS OF KAREN McCANN where she journals about her experiences as a short term teacher in PNG during the early 1960’s.
Karen McCann