The Kamoro People From South Coast Irian Jaya...

I feel like it is an absolute duty as an expatriate to immerse and educate oneself on the community and culture of the place being lived in. We have learned a lot living here but just this week we got a very special treat, a visit from the Kamoro (Papuan) people.

Kal Muller is a missionary who has dedicated years of his life supporting and saving the tribe's dying woodcarving tradition (http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/11/16/kal-muller-savior-kamoro.html). And he brought them up to Tembagapura to share their woodcarving and gastronomy traditions.  

From long before historical records reached the south coast of Irian Jaya, the Kamoro occupied their ancestral lands stretching along some 300 kilometers of the Arafura Sea, from Etna Bay to Asmat-land. Their population of about 15,000 souls are divided among some 40 villages and several transmigration sites in the vicinity of Timika (Muller, 2000).

The linguistic diversity is absolutely amazing: the five million Papuans speak some 1000 languages (not dialects) which represents some 15 per cent of the world’s languages in an area less than 0.15 per cent of the planet’s area. The island was one of the last places to be explored and there are still occasional completely untouched tribes coming out of the jungle (Muller, 2000).

 

The Kamoro people spent most of the week at the international school where they taught the students how to carve, dance, drum and weave. The tribespeople were absolutely welcoming and sweet. It was fun to hear of Hannah and Mason's adventures when they got home from school.

 

On Sunday during brunch, at the restaurant, the Kamoro people shared their gastronomy delicacies consisting of fresh fish, (mangrove) crabs, oysters but especially tambelo and grubs. 

 

From his website, Kal describes Tambelo: is long, slimy tambelo ‘worms’, related to boring ships worms, pulled out of fallen mangrove trees. Not nearly as bad as they look: the animals are really bivalve mollusks, tasting like a sweet, delicious oyster. If you like raw oysters, you’ll love tambelo. While I’ve eaten them cooked just once, the standard procedure is to consume them raw, fresh on the day they were gathered. The local Kamoro people consider this a health food, a tonic for vigour of all sorts. If the shape is just too gross for your mind, there’s always the omapoko, a normal looking bivalve. It is eaten either raw, cooked in the shell or mixed with sago, wrapped in leaves and baked (Muller, 2000).

 

Again, from his website, he describes grubs: And the ultimate in exotic fare: fat, wiggly sago grubs with hard, biting heads. These chaps are the larval stage of a species of beetle which feeds on sago tree pitch. Eating technique as follows: hold it by the front end and bite off the head; flick head away and nonchalantly chew slowly, then swallow. If you chewed enough, the body stopped squirming to protest outrageous fate. Voilà: grub down the gullet. There is not much taste, but the texture is fat and buttery. The grub only eats the pure-starch pith, thus efficiently converting carbohydrate to protein. If all this is just a bit beyond your gastronomic level of competence, the grubs can be cooked with sago. The generally dry sago absorbs the fat from the grubs and adds a slightly grainy texture (Muller, 2000).  

Surprisingly there were a lot of brave souls lining up to try the snot-like worms and the wriggly grubs! It was an experience for sure but we weren't brave enough (that bravery would require massive amounts of monetary encouragement). The brunch ended with the drum ceremony: 

In the Kamoro culture, as in many other traditional societies, drum are used to call the spirits, ancestral and others. Mythical heroes were also brought back to life by drums.  In today’s ceremonies, drums are used to call ancestral spirits during the initiation rituals (Muller, 2000). 

The Kamoro make their hourglass-shaped drums by burning out the insides of a tree trunk. This is a delicate process which requires skill in order to make the sides just thin enough for light weight and good vibrations but without burning through. The open top part or head of the drum is covered with a stretch of reptile skin (from the mangrove monitor lizard, Varanus salvador) bound to the wood by a mixture of chalk from burned shells and human blood from the husband of either a sister or a daughter (formerly: exclusively) - but today, anyone’s blood will do. Dabs of black damar pitch on the  lizard-skin drumhead are held close to a fire in order to tighten the skin for the desired pitch (Muller, 2000). So at brunch the maker of the drum sliced his arm and rubbed his blood on the drum.

  

We enjoyed our culturally soaked week, especially Hannah and Mason. We purchased some intricate carvings and said goodbye the beautiful Kamoro people. Another great week in the jungle.

 

It is now count down time to our much anticipated trip to Europe where we get to visit Italy, Spain and France. So blessed! As always, to be continued...

 

Reference

 

Muller, K. (2004). Articles and Notes by Kal Muller. Retrived from: http://papuaweb.org/dlib/tema/kamoro/muller/ 

 

Grubs on a stick...

This guy carved the drum we bought...

 Mangrove crabs...

 The bucket is full of live grubs...

 Kal Muller speaking to the children...

 The Kamoro men and women dancing for the students...

 Weaving...

Brisbane: a beautiful place of balance...

We have been blessed to see some places of Australia and it is a beautiful country. Australia is a large land mass of 2.97 million square miles, compared to the US at 3.06 million square miles but its population is only 22.7 million people (2012) compared to the US at 320 million people. Pretty interesting stats, well at least to me. This last trip out we got to see Brisbane. Now, we have been to Brisbane once before but it was only for a few hours.

Brisbane is the Capital of Queensland. And I love Brisbane! Brisbane is the third most populous city in Australia. But what I love about Brisbane is that, despite being a bustling city of fast-paced business people, is its incredible life/health/fashion/arts/food/nature/environmental/patriotic balance (reminded me a lot of Denver, Colorado). For example, one corporate building housed an on-site daycare, another building provided fresh fruit to every person on every floor daily and there is a park with hammock chairs where one can sit and relax and enjoy the fresh air and beautiful sunshine.

Our hotel was in the epicenter of large corporate buildings, well preserved historic buildings, monuments, coffee shops, restaurants, parks, shopping and of course, the backpackers motel. It was so impressive how the effort and collaborative support of the community and government oozed throughout the city. Brisbane is healthy, clean and friendly – a wonderful treat. Even though we were there to address some medical needs, we were still able to enjoy this beautiful city and indulged on the many things it has to offer -- including visiting the St. John's Cathedral (where Mason said he saw bubbles floating that followed us out, interesting) and we looked into the Freemason lodge (Hannah is very intrigued by Freemason history).     

Our trip was very quick and we enjoyed heading back to the airport on the Brisbane Airtrain. A highly organized and environmentally friendly transportation option that serves all of Brisbane. Way-to-go, Brisbane!

We are back again on the mountain in the jungle and looking forward to spending time with a local tribe and anxiously awaiting our upcoming trip to Europe.

As always, to be continued…

The ordinary extraordinary and the keepers of the rocks...

It is now May and I am in shock at how fast time has flown (definitely a recurring theme). However, since my last post things have been the usual ordinary life here on the mountain but always with a dash of extraordinary.

Life's daily ritual's of school, grocery shopping (or attempt thereof) and being a family have been uneventful and seamless -- this is part of now being somewhat acclimated to small-jungle-town-living as these rituals and what they bring with are now a part of my "normal" -- which is has taken almost two years' acclimation time and are not my once-known normal (spoiled, untraveled, "world was a bubble" girl speaking). However, in these last month's we have celebrated Easter and once again traveled Cairns, Australia.

We celebrated Easter early as we were going to be traveling to Cairns and feared the Easter Bunny would lose us. The kiddos decorated eggs with homemade dye from vinegar and food coloring with our dear friends. They also received a surprise Easter basket after school the day before we left.

A few days later we were off on a plane to Cairns with our friends who have yet to visit Australia. This is the BEST FLIGHT EVER!!!! Now I say that because there may not be t.v. screens or business class or anything fancy and you still have to either catch a chopper or take a 2 hour bus ride just to get to the airport but this flight is never full, filled with all the people you know, the kiddos make forts with blankets and the parents can stretch out in an entire row and this flight is ONLY 2 HOURS LONG!! It flies during the day and the view of the Australian north coast is breathtaking!! Seriously, best flight ever!!

Our Cairns adventure was stupendous. One day we visited an aboriginal center where we learned of the aboriginal way of life including the how to play a didgeridoo, foods and natural medicines of the jungle, how to throw boomerangs and throw a spear. From the center we loaded a gondola that took us high over the jungle ceiling into a small town. After ice cream and a little shopping we boarded the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

I love trains (and I may be the only one) but this railway was built in the late 1880's and most, if not all, the train cars are original with beautiful detail. However, this is no ordinary railway, this railway curves, winds and treks through steep cliffs, dense jungle and glides over gloriously high bridges. And as the cars take you through this gorgeous scenery the story of the railway is told over speakers throughout. One of my favorites of the trip. http://www.ksr.com.au/History/Pages/Overview.aspx

After an adventurous day in the jungle sightseeing it was time to hit the Great Barrier Reef. But we did it in style! It was our friend's 50th birthday and Mike's birthday as well so we chartered a private yacht to take us fishing and for an intimate journey to the reef. Now all glammed up for our yachting experience we were met with rain, clouds and rough seas. Once we got to the reef point the waters calmed and the clouds parted. We were able to snorkel the amazing reef and even dance with a few hungry and overly-friendly Great Trevally fish, saw a reef shark and a very shy turtle. The ride back to the dock was pretty rough and freezing but the kiddos prevailed and the beer was cold.

Our yachting experience was unique but our adventure was about to deepen. One of our last days we rented a car and drove to one of Cairns' biggest and best kept secrets, Behana Gorge. This secret was shared by a dear Aussie friend and so thankful she did. The drive to the gorge is unmarked and a little difficult to find. We found the parking area after watching a 5 foot snake quietly cross the road (holy hell it was huge) and we began the "walk" to the gorge.

This "walk" was again not your ordinary jaunt. The path is paved but seems like it's never going to end as the hills only get steeper and steeper and the heat hotter and hotter. After an hour and much whining from Mason we made it to the gorge. Yet again this isn't just an ordinary gorge. It is probably one of the most spectacular waterfalls I have ever seen (a contender to Hanging Lake in Glenwood Springs, Colorado and the Potholes of Delta, Colorado). There are endless waterfalls that careen through large, round boulders creating pools perfect for cooling off after the long and hot hike.

We set down our stuff and got our bathers on (good Aussie word there) and just as I was about to walk over to the pool where our friend was sitting, he screamed like a frightened little girl (love that guy) and he jumped out of the water claiming that something had slithered up around his thigh. "Oh no a snake!!!". That's the first thing that jumped into my head especially after the one we saw just an hour before, but no, it wasn't a snake it was a crawdad (crawfish) and there wasn't just one. They were like little soldiers protecting their rocks and didn't care much for us being there.

Despite the keepers of the rocks we enjoyed the cold refreshing water and we each jumped off the rocks into the deep dark lagoon that pooled within the giant boulders. It was perfect. Now, one would imagine that the walk back would be much easier but nature decided differently. As we were packing up it began to rain. And living in the rain forest jungle that we do, we aren't much afraid of a little rain but this was no ordinary rain it was a downpour. It poured so heavily that my eyelashes were constantly swept into my eyes making it difficult to see. We made it back to the car drenched and cold. We all stripped down to as little as we could and our dear friend and I were laughing about not having any pants on (yes, we still had our togs on -- ha another Aussie term there).

Our trip to Cairns was much needed and enjoyed. We ate much and drank well but most importantly it was extraordinary.

As always, to be continued...