Author: Joanna K Jansma

I’m not sure even a cup of sugar would be enough to make malaria medicines taste good! It’s hard when we get kids spitting out medicines and kicking and screaming to try to avoid the torture of yukky pills. WE know they have to take the meds if they are gonna recover from sicknesses like […]

One of the fun things about teaching Literacy is seeing the students get excited about the meaning of words! One of their favorites is reading the names of rivers. Rivers are owned by family clans and they think it is pretty amazing that you can write it’s name. They also find it quite humorous when […]

What is neither bread nor a fruit? Breadfruit! After being roasted on a fire…the seeds are then eaten. I guess I’d say they taste like something in the potato family. The best part is to open a cooked breadfruit the favorite approach is to flatten it with your feet so the seeds pop out. Ya […]

Even in the jungle we have meetings. Sometimes they are village meetings where they are settling disputes regarding wife stealing or such drama. Other times they are team meetings. Times to get together and make decisions regarding key terms in translation, spelling issues for literacy, discuss how to handle medical issues or coordinate flight schedules […]

The traditional Nagi flashlights are bamboo torches where one end of a stick of bamboo is started on fire. This then provides light until the bamboo is gone or the fire goes out. I’m pretty sure that I could never pull off a jungle bathroom run with such a “flashlight” without some type of undesired […]

“Give me your eyes for just one second. Give me your eyes so I can see everything that I keep missing. Give me your love…” – Brandon Heath

The Nagi love their “musik”. It is the name for the little home-made guitars. The one or two strings are strummed incessantly to create ‘wonderful’ music. 🙂 While it is a little painful to the ears of those who have some musical skills…the rest of us manage to enjoy the sound of musik being played. […]

Can you guess who in the village doesn’t have the green thumbs? 🙂 It is pineapple season here and I’m glad that people share their pineapples…since the ones we have grown are the ‘bite size’ variety. 🙂 I much prefer the gargantuan variety. Ha!