I think I need to write a few light-hearted things down so that if you read this, you will know that things are not all serious and terrible and desperate. We actually have even a somewhat “normal” life here at times. We get up in the morning, cook, eat, do our work (which is a lot of language study for me), homeschool, and often have a lot of fun with the tribal people. We go swimming in the river with them and visit at their houses or at ours. They will always have some kind of interesting story to tell, either about spirits, ancestors, or a simple walk through the jungle. Animism penetrates everything about the way they think here.
The tribal people love to have fun and make jokes. A lot of times their jokes are very integrated with their culture, so you have to understand their culture to understand their humor. For example, one time I was talking to someone about the mythical ancestors of the different animals of the forest. Every animal has some kind of mythical ancestor, which they say is its grandfather. So they told me some stories about the grandfather of the monkey, and the grandfather of the python, and others. The grandfather of the python is who they say went through the land and carved out all the hills and valleys.
So I was asking about the different grandfathers of the different animals and listening to the stories. I was sitting in one of the tribal people’s homes as we were talking, and I asked who the grandfather of the skunk was. This lady looked at me, and said, “Egsa (that means cousin), he’s sitting right there,” and she pointed at her husband sitting next to me! Well, everyone laughed at that, including the one being pointed at, because they all knew what that meant!
That is just one of the ways we have fun with the tribal people.
Even in somewhat scary situations, we can often find something to laugh about. Consider the following. Yesterday morning I woke up to find a snake in the middle of the kitchen. Don’t worry, it was not one of the very poisonous kinds. Yet nevertheless, it was a snake, first thing in the morning. I held the dog and sat there staring at it. For some reason I couldn’t think of what to do. Probably because I had just woken up and was still a bit sleepy. Remember that time when I had to pour boiling water on the snake that was hiding in a crack in the wall? Well, that was the only thing I could think of. But I figured the snake wouldn’t wait around for me to boil water to pour it over him! Hmm.
Suddenly like a light shining in the darkness came a voice out of the silence, breaking through with magnificent thought and reason. It was Ginny. “Would you like me to hand you your machete?” Wow! I wonder how long I would have sat there staring at the snake if she hadn’t prompted me! So I took the machete, chopped off the snake’s head, and end of snake!
The tribal people never chop off a snake’s head. They think that if you chop it off and throw it out into the jungle, the next time you cook rice, the snake’s head will magically appear in your rice pot, jump out, and bite you on the neck! So naturally I want to challenge this assumption (gently of course), and so I took the snake with the severed head over to the tribal people’s home next door and showed it to them. I asked them what kind of snake it was. “Sawa manok,” they said (which means chicken snake). Later I came by and I told them I had thrown the snake and its head out into the jungle. There was a pause as they stared at me uncomfortably. So I asked, “Do you think the head will appear in my rice pot and jump out and bite me on the neck?” That broke the tension, and they all fell over laughing!
The reason they laugh at that is because they know it is a silly idea, but they still believe it enough to not chop off a snake’s head. They have no basis for thinking that the snake’s head might not reappear, but they are still scared that it might.
So, score 1 for the challenge, done gently and in love.
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