PNG Monkey Business (The Memories of an MK, well atleast this one.)
1. Harvesting Karuka (pandanus) nuts in the bush behind Tun.
2. Hunting for Flying Fox
3. Chasing pigs off the mission station.
4. Ripening bananas by burying or wrapping them.
5. Catching butterflies
6. Cooking minjamp (caterpillars)
7. Wild mushrooms
8. Pranks around a bush fire; pretending to poke your friend with hot coal but have another stick longer than the coal and it pokes him and hurts so assumes he has been burnt.
9. Glowing hallowing pumpkin face, with hot coal in mouth, breathing in/out and makes whole face/cheeks glow in the dark.
10. Tincan smoke stack... running around making smoke trails.
11. Lawn mower sparkplug and tankets experiment at expense of my PNG friend.
12. Eating and collecting paper wasp nests/larvae.
13. Eating bugs; spiders/cockroaches in bamboo tube.
14. Birds head... crunchy treat.
15. PNG playmates eating the horned spiders.
16. Eating a rat, only if I ask Dad the next time.
17. Hard up for a play house... cleaning out the Eby's chicken coop... and making up a little rhyme/chant. coold ense, mong ense kimbed.
18. Marata meal, not a meal to have with much company.
19. Tenting in the back yard with my mates... having our own 'tent' meeting, singing and Bible readings.
20. To catch a kingfisher... banana leaf, grass hopper on a string.
21. Pet python... in washing machine... let loose in the buses on the mission station. Mom, not impressed.
22. Holding 3 ft python Dad found on the road and discovered fang marks on arm the next day.
23. Flying fox shot down in front yard, ends up being discovered on our stove, in our pot the next day. Mom was not impressed.
24. Fish tin rocket with fire cracker put in hole on side and stamped in the moist yard/dirt.
25. Climbing Mt Engalemb, gave me altitude head aches, so Nui and I stayed at camp and collected witchedy grubs out of rotten logs. It fixed my head aches.
26. Dad jogging past the cemetery at Tun, my mates told to hide and check him out. Came back with a box of paper... a drawer from the Eby's filing cabinet. Rascals thought it had to have treasure in it.
27. Things we did in the PNG rain. Ran in puddles, splashed with our feet; went down to the Tun river and watched it floot, and listened to the bolders rolling down and see howmany dead pigs we could count.
Ride our bicycles or motorbike through the puddles. Sit by the hour on the back porch and watch it rain, sometimes so hard on the tin roof you would have to yell to be heard.
