Yesterday, our whole family hiked out (maybe a forty-minute hike) to Tom’s place. (Don’t be fooled by the name. He’s not American. He’s a PNG citizen.) A hike by his place the previous week led to an invitation to come learn pidgin from his family and eat with them. Maggie carried Bailey on her back, I carried Maisie on my shoulders, and the boys walked. The walk took us through just about every type of landscape there is here in the Goroka valley. We walked by huts and through people’s yards, underneath trees and over creeks, through coffee gardens, sweet potato gardens, and other gardens, up and down hills and through empty fields. We remembered how to get most of the way there and then made a lucky guess at one fork in the trail.
They (Tom and his family) were watching and waiting for us. A half dozen kids met us on the trail coming up to his house line. We released our kids and they went running and playing . Bailey was swooped out of Maggie’s arms as soon as she got her off her back. We sat and talked for a few minutes and then mumu preparations got underway. Some ladies were peeling kau kau and Tom was preparing the tapiok. Another lady took Maggie to go cut some leaves off a banana tree and Ben and I prepared the fire.
We made a bed of hot stones and then laid some banana leafs on top. The tapiok ‘liquid’ was poured into another banana leaf and wrapped up in it. We laid more banana leafs on that and then placed the kau kau on top. Next we tossed more hot rocks in among the kau kau, put more banana leafs over that and piled some dirt on top. Maggie and I helped through this whole process, learning and asking questions the whole time.
After an hour we gently scraped the dirt off the top, then removed banana leaves carefully layer by layer. More banana leaves were used as plates and we sat down and ate our delicious meal. Ok, so we didn’t care for all of it, but much of it was good.
By the time we were done eating it was getting dark and so we said goodbyes and headed home. Tom and Ben guided us and even carried Cole piggy-back style for a while. We were wiped out by the time we got home but we had thoroughly enjoyed our evening out.
Praise the Lord, our pidgin is improving and our vocabulary growing! We’re all healthy too! 
