Plenty Laughs—“EEEEEEEEE!”

When you’re in a country like Papua New Guinea, you laugh a lot…you have to!  Either things are really funny; or things aren’t funny at all, and you have to find ways to make yourself laugh!  Here are some things that I’m thinking of that I’ve been laughing about this week!

*The kids (and adults) LOVE Sophie!  The kids always want to touch her and pull on her.  It’s a little annoying, but we’ve taught her, and Olivia, to say “No, you no ken touchim me!”  So Sophie screams this, and it’s so funny, it makes everyone laugh!

*Mostly everyone here is “boon”, which means bone/skinny.  Well, I’ve been called “fatpela meri”, which means fat lady plenty times.  I told my language helper that it makes me sad.  And she said that it was a great thing to be fat!  So she said to say, “Tenkyu, mi Amamas!”, which means “thank you, I’m so happy!”  So now, I sarcastically say, “TENKYU, MI AMAMAS!!”  Makes me laugh!

*The kids run around naked…which is “ahs nutting!”…funny in itself!!

*Some women walk around topless a lot!  We don’t always say it, but we think “Oh, good morning susu (breasts)…I mean susa (sister)!!!!!!  Now, that’s funny!!

*”Mi les!”  This is a frustrating phrase, but we’ve learned to laugh at it!  Here are some ways it’s used: You see a kid, and he isn’t at school.  You ask him, “oh, no school today?”  He says, “Yeah, but I’m les (lazy).  If it’s cloudy at all, they say that it’s not a good day to do anything…go to work, come to your house, go fishing/find food, etc.  If they just don’t want to go to work…”Mi les!”-You gotta laugh!

*There is so much to do around here.  I do the laundry, and hang the clothes up on the line…but sometimes I forget about them!  It rains almost every night now, so if I forget, I’ve learned to laugh and say, “oh well, I guess they will dry tomorrow and we will smell like rain!”

*My language helper, and almost everyone else in the area sings, “EEEEEEEEEEE!” when something is funny.  We do that all the time now.  It makes you feel good!

* Last thing: When you really need a good laugh at the end of the day, you can always find a lizard crawling on your window screen.  You just walk up to it and flick the screen.  The lizards goes flying off if it!  EEEEEEEEEE! Funny!