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“YOU catch it for me, I don’t want to get bit!” my little buddy says. Not exactly “music to my ears” but I didn’t want to see her lose out on a scrumptious spider snack just because I couldn’t take on the little arachnid. Thankfully, the ending was very happily ever after… except for poor […]

Counting things with the Nagi means starting with your right pinky finger and counting up including your neck, ears, eyes, nose and then working your way back down to your other pinky finger. The Nagi usually just say “lots” before they even get to their second eye though. 🙂 Which means that most numbers in […]

For Nagi friends living in the jungle…the machete is often their “best friend” and most prized possession. But it is also often the source of many injuries and scars. We learn to dread those sort of machete moments! Our little friend slipped on a log out in the garden and fell on her machete. It […]

Last night things got exciting in school when a bat came flying in. All the students jumped to their feet and suddenly found a FAR more useful purpose for their writing boards. That of bat swatting! 🙂 Their efforts (not necessarily of the studious variety) were rewarded in getting their bat. These were the final […]

Seems like such a “normal” question. And yet not for the Nagi. They believe the spirits can use people’s names to cause sickness. Which explains that look on someone’s face when we forget and ask a new-comer for their name. Or why little babies go by the name “baby” until they are older. The “fun” […]

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 […]