adjustments to change

April 4, 2011

We have only been back a few days. 3 people have showed symptoms of cerebral malaria. Only 1 of them has come to ask for medicine, and he is better now, though I don’t know yet if he is fully recovered. The people here still believe it is caused by a bad spirit. The human mind gravitates towards searching for a reason, and in the absence of a foundation in the truths of scientific observation, their minds will naturally tend towards the spirit world.

Nuutnuut said he saw a huge person big and dark (meitem, which means black or brown) and hairy. The creature looked at him, and his mind started getting dizzy. Then he started reaching towards people and grabbing them to bite them. This seems to be the common manifestation among the people here. The same thing happened to Selem. We gave them both medicine. Nuutnuut took his, but Selem threw hers up and asked for a different kind. There aren’t any other kinds that we have here. We will see if she gets better or progressively worse. Because they think it is a spirit, they don’t always come get medicine until it is really serious.

At least with Nuutnuut, his mother is wise enough to pursue getting medicine early on. That is what happened, and probably the reason he is well now. Selem is considered intelligent in her culture, as is her husband, as they know the jungle very well. They also do well with relationships with other people, and they do pretty well with us. However, they are not town savvy at all. Once we sent them to town to the dentist’s office, which we have done with many other people, and they couldn’t find it. They sat at the dentist’s house for hours waiting for her to come home, which she never did. They finally left, and he walked around with a toothache for a month or so. I hope that one day I can learn to pull teeth, as this would give them a relief from time to time from the incessant toothaches.

It will be interesting to see how this government program works out. They were told that they all have to build outhouses. They will not use outhouses – they move around too much. Well, Ipaya’s family does have one, and he already uses it because he is from another culture. Also, they don’t move around so much, but stay in the same house year after year. The others, though, they will not use them. They said they are supposed to build them for “visitors” when they come. I wonder who the government plans to send up here to visit on a regular basis.

Giving away handfuls of money has implications in many areas. It is not free money – the people are required to send their kids to school. This is good, because Palawanos are routinely taken advantage of by townspeople. Not all townspeople, of course, as there are plenty of nice people in town. Nevertheless, if they can speak Tagalog and do math, then it will be much easier for them to get along in the downriver culture. 

However, giving out handfuls of money, especially in the quantities they are receiving, will require some adjustment in the thinking of those who receive it. Yesterday I was talking to a family who had received some 8500 pesos. They showed me a receipt they had for 200 pesos of goods they bought in town, and they showed me that they only had 1100 pesos left of the 8500. I asked where the other money went, and they said that they had bought 1 sack of rice for 1800 pesos, and some other dry goods for 1400 pesos.  The man at the store where they purchased the dry goods, they said, refused to give change or a receipt for the 1400 pesos. Where is the rest of it, I asked. There should be around 5100 pesos remaining. They didn’t know. I wonder what they will do when the government overseer of the program calls them to give an account of the money (they are supposed to have receipts for everything).

The Lord calls us to do this work for His glory and for His sake. Today I will push to try and get some more direct language study in, on top of all my other duties. I look forward to the day when I can communicate clearly.