Hi. My name is Evangeline, and I am a missionary kid. I like to play soccer and volleyball with my friends. My chores include dishes and laundry. Like many other children, I have homeschool studies to do as well.
I have a little Gogodala sister who is about four years old. I have known her since she was born, so she feels like part of our family. I do not like being in big crowds, but I feel more comfortable at large social events when my little Gogodala sister and I are together. My dad likes to give her crackers. He has been doing it for so long that she now calls him “Jason Daddy.” It is common for children to call several adults their “Daddy” and “Mommy.” It is also common for older kids like me to help take care of the younger children in our village.
I don’t mind visiting villages where everybody knows us. But it can sometimes be awkward when we visit a new village, and people gather together to sing songs and welcome us into their village. It can also feel awkward when people are talking to me, but I don’t understand what they are saying, or when I make a mistake, and people start laughing. I am learning their language, but there are still many words I don’t know yet.
I live in a place surrounded by water, coconut trees and gardens. Our house is on a little hill, so when I look out the window, I can see for miles. Right now I’m looking at banana trees, tropical flowers and bamboo. Way off in the distance is a small town. But between here and there is a massive lagoon with lots of floating grass. When the water level is low, all the canoes have to use the main river. When it is high, people paddle down little water trails among the
floating grass where they catch fish. When the water level is really high, the bamboo by our house is underwater.
One really cool thing is that everybody here depends on canoes for transportation. A canoe in lagoon-based communities is like cars and bicycles in the United States. Adults use them, teenagers use them, and so do children. I think it’s funny how in the U.S., people are told to sit down in a canoe. Here, most people stand up while they paddle. It is common to see a canoe go past our house, which is full of adults who are standing and paddling as they head down the river.
In the morning, we often see canoes go by with an adult standing up and paddling in the back. Way up in the front of the canoe, we can see a tiny head poking up above the sides of the canoe. It is usually a parent taking their child out with them to check fishing nets, get food from their gardens, or go to the sago swamps to make sago, a food they eat.
Men and boys make canoes. They start by going out to the forest and cutting down a tree. Then they cut it to the length they want and start shaping it into a canoe. Our family has a paddle canoe around 18 feet long. Some family canoes are much bigger, maybe as long as 60 feet or more.
After they finish carving out a huge family canoe, they have to get lots of people to help them drag it out of the forest and into the nearest creek or lagoon. The biggest canoes are pretty impressive. You can fit so many people in them, maybe as many as can fit in a school bus. It takes a lot of people to drag a canoe like that out of the forest!
That’s all for now. I hope you enjoyed this short story from a quiet missionary kid.
