What a Great Place to Work!

Last week the Oral Survey team went to Erakor and Pango for two days each, two villages on the outskirts of Vila.

Erakor School is right on the edge of the lagoon. That's Maddie on the left, one of the volunteer team from Australia, some here for 2 weeks, some for 1 week.

 Here are dentists David Goldsmith and Rudy Jansen, high and dry.

 Once we finished at the school it was up the steps zigzagging all the way up the hill to the village clinic at the top, where we left the equipment for the next day.

 The next day was also picture perfect, what a fantastic spot to work at for the day. It was a shame that we didn't get enough people coming to take part in the survey as expected though.

The next 2 days at Pango were also lovley - for those from Knox, this is Samuel and Cindy's village. Cindy Katipa was our first participant there.

 We worked in the church hall, which was great but we had to be careful not to trip on mats or rocks on the floor.

 While we were there, a young woman from Pango got married at another village. The custom is that the bride's family (most of the village) give food gifts to the groom's family and his family give food gifts back to them. These are the groom's family's gifts being divided up to share around the village. It is mostly yams laid out in rows, but you may be able to see there is also a small dead cow/steer near the doorway of the house.

 During downtime while we waited for participants, Charlotte, David Goldsmith's granddaughter, had fun painting fingernails with some of the little girls.