Planim Kau Kau

 

Planim Kau Kau or Planting sweet potatoes.  This was a lot of fun.  We started with only our teacher who was helping but soon we attracted three more meri’s who wanted to help.  All I can say is PNG meri’s are hard workers.  Some of the meri’s I met there that day are now good friends.

 

 

We started by digging mounds of dirt, like little mountains in a row.

 

 

Next we collected parts of adult Kau Kau from a different garden.  (If you are friends or from the same clan, than you can pick from each others garden!)  We brought them back to where we were digging.  Then we took three little plants and gathered them together and swimmed them into the ground.  (You hold them with you’r hands and push the ends into the ground leaving the tops exposed.)  This was a lot of fun.  Somtimes it worked out great and other times you would have to do it over.  But all in all it seemed very simple.  Fun fact: Kau Kau is not native to this country.  It was brought into the country about 300 years ago by the Portuguese.  It grows very well here and has remained as a staple food.

 

 

This was a great leason is working in the garden.  We had a lot of chances to try out our language skills as they were slowly growing.  Made many mistakes and had lots of laughs.  Spending time with our PNG friends in their gardens was priceless!