Deeper is Darker
Participating is an all-night singsing, a house opening, and doing some garden fencing is all part of the weekly schedule here in Pal.
Bad Bad Men…
How do you tell a girl she is pretty? Or how would you communicate to a guy that he is really at the top of his bling ‘n’ dance form? Take a minute to think about it.
If you came up with chucking sticks, sugar cane peelings, nut shells, and even dirt clods at them in the dark, then you might just find that you were raised in the jungle (or are a 3rd grade male). Turns out, here in the jungle, that you have to be careful when you actually chuck the things in question (make sure there is a singsing in progress and that sunrise hasn’t happened yet) and you might want to go easy on the dirt clods if it is before 1 am. In other contexts tossing a nut shell is the equivalent to a proposition… in the context of a singsing it is a bawdy but acceptable way to approve of the looks or singing effort of the performers.
As for the title of this section, it was one of the older widows who confided in our ladies that the effusive appreciation of the audience at last Friday night’s performance scared them. I guess even at a singsing there is a thing as too much praise (dirt clods can really leave an impression). The male performers had to do a special song about charging the audience money for the privilege of lauding the ladies in their group…after the song, the clods stopped throwing so much dirt*.
Truly the guys had some really stunning decorations (including a few possibly endangered species), too bad they had to have it all on in the dark.
Dark
The singsing that is pictured above encapsulates much of the Pal thinking on the origins of man and the world. Watching it happen and then asking questions related to the things that we have seen has pushed us into new areas in the Pal culture. It is exciting to ask a question and get a “we are hoping you will tell us” response. Our friend’s stories are full of war, deceit, treachery, theft, and secrecy. Of particular interest in their culture is a story in which the first man to have a bodily form set a trap for a serpent (not in bodily form) that was about to eat him and steal his body. The man was warned by a bird who heard it from some frogs that they were going to feast on the man… after that I was confused and I was told that they would tell me more later…
We will be doing lots more investigating over the next months as we try to get a handle on the motivations and core beliefs of our friends. Please pray for us for wisdom in how to probe these topics with them.
Thanks again for praying,
Nate for us 5
*Elizabeth groaned at that one too – you are not alone.
Posted via email from PNG Time
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