{"id":2845,"date":"2015-11-10T00:02:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T14:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/?p=2845"},"modified":"2015-11-10T00:02:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T14:02:47","slug":"the-pigs-found-our-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/2015\/11\/10\/the-pigs-found-our-garden\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pigs Found Our Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

We knew it was just a matter of time.<\/strong>\u00a0 We had hacked down the dense jungle undergrowth and cleared a nice plot for our “school” garden.\u00a0 We planted lots of sweet potato shoots as well as corn, beans, squash (called pumpkin here), sugar cane and taro.\u00a0 Despite the drought that has been affecting all of PNG, our garden was growing.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Caleb<\/a>
Caleb and Micah on a visit to the garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Then some pigs found a new feeding spot – our garden!!<\/strong>\u00a0 Pigs, along with gardens, are a big part of life in Amdu.\u00a0 And they often do not coexist in harmony!!\u00a0 Some people raise pigs and they sometimes<\/em> fence them in.\u00a0 Most often the pigs just roam around, doing what pigs do best – rooting up the ground and making a huge mess in their effort to find some tasty morsels.\u00a0 Then there are the wild pigs that roam around too.\u00a0 So far in our observations, neither the wild pigs nor the “domesticated” ones really care whose garden they wreck.<\/p>\n

When we first heard that the pigs had discovered our garden, everyone had an opinion about whose pigs they were.\u00a0 “It was definitely a wild pig.”\u00a0 “It must have been her<\/em> pig – I saw it wandering around down that direction.”\u00a0 “I know it wasn’t my<\/em> pig!\u00a0 Mine would never go way down there.”\u00a0 And so on.<\/p>\n

No matter whose pig it was, we didn’t want all our hard work to go to waste.\u00a0 So, we decided to do what our Amdu friends do to keep pigs out – build a fence!\u00a0 The whole point of this “school” garden is to experience a little more of what life is really like for our Amdu friends so we asked some of them to help us and we all got to work.<\/p>\n

\"Luke<\/a>
Luke helping to cut and carry wood for the fence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"IMG_1191\"<\/a>
Titus learning and helping to make the fence<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Caleb<\/a>
Caleb and Micah “helping” Bart<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Emily<\/a>
Emily working with the ladies to make lunch<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"One<\/a>
One side of the garden now fenced in<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The food is almost ready<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Enjoying<\/a>
Enjoying a meal after a hard day of work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The last step was to put branches all around to fool the pigs into thinking the fence was higher than it actually was. (It would have to be some pig to be able to jump over this fence – branches or not!)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While our garden is now safe from pigs, there are plenty of other rodents and bugs that no fence will keep out!\u00a0 And as we referenced above, PNG has been experiencing the worst drought in almost 20 years.\u00a0 Gardens are drying up and food (which is already a lot of work to grow) is becoming more scarce for our Amdu friends.\u00a0 It doesn’t seem like the drought is as bad in Amdu as in some other places, but it still makes life much more difficult for our friends who rely almost totally on what they can grow in their gardens.<\/p>\n

Please pray for sufficient rain.\u00a0 And pray for us as we continue to discover and seek to understand the culture and worldview of the Amdu people.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*The events in this post happened back in September, but we are just posting it now because we are currently in town with internet access and could include more pictures.*<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We knew it was just a matter of time.\u00a0 We had hacked down the dense jungle undergrowth and cleared a nice plot for our “school” garden.\u00a0 We planted lots of sweet potato shoots as well as corn, beans, squash (called pumpkin here), sugar cane and taro.\u00a0 Despite the drought that has been affecting all of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":392,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[448,637],"class_list":["post-2845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-family","category-ministry","tag-ethnos360","tag-new-tribes-mission","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/392"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2845"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2845\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2845"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2845"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/bart-allen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2845"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}