First baptism at the Malalo church, Hotec bush trip returning the tract grip.

Yamap area - no one living in this area. Separating the Buangs from the Hotec area.

1964, March 2. Letter written by Ina Erickson from the Malalo Mission station to Durward and Estelle Titus Box 224 Route1, Carlos MN USA 

Dear Mom and dad,

Al is just back from one of his mountain trips. (Hotec area) This area is so rugged, that road building is impossible. Fred Scherle was trying to talk the people to move up a mountain, so that they would be only one mountain behind us instead of the present, two mountains. Now it is impossible to see any future economical development from there. The people were pretty well convinced and then about the time we came, a government official, for some reason unknown to us told them it wasn’t a good idea. So they have just stayed put. Now Al has been trying to encourage them to move again. He decided to go at it a little backhanded and build a big school there and have several teachers and a dispensary. Some of the people would have to move there to look after the school children. Water is a problem as the streams are very small. They could possibly get enough water off of the roofs if they had a big water tank like ours.

He had an interesting case. A young fellow, just returning from the compound had two wives. It had been a common custom before the missionaries time, but has completely disappeared until now. He strutted about as if to say, try and do something about it. And believe me, they sure will. They will take it through the bishop of the New Guinea church if they have to. The elders are afraid that they are losing their authority specially over the young people, and they are. Some of it is good, but if you have youth, with no discipline, and no one who has any authority while you know what chaos there is. Authority is already breaking down, and it will get much worse before it gets better.

The children and I went over to the girls school, Bula, on Thursday to do physicals on all 50 of the schoolgirls. None of them seem too bad off, but a couple of them I suspect may have TB. They will have to be checked further. On Sunday we had Kristi baptized. There were about 50 other babies, as it was the first baptism in the new church. Al let the two native pastors baptize her. I would have liked to have him do it, but it did set a little better precedence, I guess to have them do it. We took a picture of pastors Kakengnea, and Onesimus, the latter holding Kristi. The first one is only an intern, so he went down the line, blessing them, and then Onesimus poured the water over them, and I do mean poured it over them. The poor kids spit and sputtered.

Photos above:  Pastor Onesimus with red on the bible- Samsega Lae District. Pastor Kekengae without a beard from Hotec. Bearded man is a Hotec elder from area where John and Amy Lindstrom did their translation work. Pastor Kekengae recently died (now 2020)

Bula girls school, June Prange (to the right nearer to the steps) and unknown teacher. Mr Boehner that caretaker at the Bula School.  Waterfall on the way to the Bulu school from Busameng

Our generator absolutely gave up the ghost. Tuesday the day Al left, the lights went out after only having them on for three days. Our work boy tried fixing it, which he doesn’t really understand, but tried anyway, and then the pulley flew off. He tried again, and the generator started spitting fire and smoke, so I finally persuaded him to turn the thing off.

On Wednesday, I went into Lae to have the kids checked for hookworm. Tommy was positive so after the horrible medicine I had to force down him, there was a hard campaign going to keep shoes on. Kristi cried all of Wednesday night and had a fever on Thursday that didn’t respond to anti-malaria, so I was a bit hesitant to go back to Malalo as I had planned by Thursday evening she was OK again. I think that she had had too much sun. Found out that our track grip is still sitting in Lae after we had gotten that urgent call on a radio on May to please send it to the station that the conference had given it to. They found building a road for it wasn’t as easy as they had thought. So I talked or rather Al had talked them into sending it back to Malalo so that we could haul the generator up the hill. The man at the workshop told me that he would have someone drive it down the 5 miles to the wharf from the guesthouse and workshop. Thursday it wasn’t down there.

Friday evening it still wasn’t down there, so on Saturday I got all of my things together and went over to see the man again about getting it down there. He wasn’t there but two of his work boys were. They helped roll a jeep out of the way and we push the track grip out of the garage and I found the gas tank was empty. We filled it up and I took off, the top speed being 2 miles an hour. I went only about a quarter of a mile when I reached the office and there were quite a few people around. They said I could not possibly do that. Someone offered one of his work boys to drive it down and then we got a ride in a Land Rover. The mission had a small Volks bus called a Kombi that does errands and takes people into Lae, which is about 6 or 7 miles from the guesthouse where we stay and all of the mission personnel live. The fellow driving the track grip only got a little ways and he couldn’t make it work anymore. The native driver of the Kombi said he knew the tract grips idiosyncrasies so he drove it and one of his passengers drove the Kombi and we came in the Land Rover, which was quite a procession -rapidly speeding down the road at 2 miles an hour.

When we got to the wharf, Metegemeng was parked four boats away from the dock. So I hopped over the decks and asked him what he was doing as he told me that he’d be over at a point a half a mile from the wharf where the boat can get real close to the beach. I would have to drive the truck over there. So he moved the Victor and I went to see if I could find something for two thirsty kids to drink. When I got back, everyone was standing around, but’ Misi’, we don’t have any planks. So I went to find some planks. When I had gotten some from the people who run the wharf, he decided, Metegemeng that is, to try and load it from the wharf after all, and would I please drive it over to the wharf. So back to my track grip, the road is longer than the beach, so some of the people carried the kids along the beach, rather than taking them on the dusty road. The wharf is built from leftover materials from the war- I believe. It has so many holes in it. I’m a bit reluctant to drive out on it, but I was determined to get the thing loaded, so we got it right next to the boat. They took it apart and got it on the Victor.

On the Victor, things are a bit crowded with the market people, and the tractor and all our things from the supply boat, but we made it.

When we got to Malalo, it had to be unloaded by canoe and up one of the beaches. And believe me if one of the other stations want to borrow the tract grip again, they will have to come and get it. We won’t deliver it again.
The road has been too wet with a lot of rain, so we still didn’t have the generator up the hill, two weeks later. We do, however, have the stove up the hill, put together and sitting in the kitchen. On Saturday, Mr. Boehner will come to help us fit a chimney to it. Chimneys don’t come ready-made, one has to make their own.

We are sending some negatives to the Erickson’s. Then they can send them to the Titus’s and mom-- if you would, we would like them back as we’d like to get several copies of them. They are black-and-white prints. We are pleased at how clear they turned out.
1.  The dispensary and three nurses, it is a bit blurred.
2.  On the road to Vince’s house.
3. The three children sitting in front of the Kainantu airport. We are trying to get a plane out of Kainantu after we had left Ponapa.
4. Paula and Tommy
5 Carrying a pig to market from the mountains. They’d walk about five hours with that on their backs.
6. Typical day at the dispensary, patient sitting around waiting.
7. Tommy is in his carriage, or out of his carriage at Ponapa.
8.  Paula and her carriage and carriers and a garden fence in the background. Some bananas, growing
9. Crossing a stream
10.  Crossing a stream
11. The outside of the church, the inside of the church, and Mr.Boerner, the fellow that made the altar, the pulpit, and the lectern, and put the glass in around the cross.
12. Our vegetable basket, and some other items been carried up the hill
13. The road gang fixing the road where one of the bridges was washed out. The sawmill is in the foreground of one of them directing the proceedings. Two photos of this.
14. People watching me change and feed Kristi. Two photos of this.
15. Front of the church
16. Kristi on our way to church
17. Our work boy.
18. Metegemeng, and family with Kristi

Handwritten on the back:
Seriously, I would never encourage anyone to come out here. It is much too frustrating. I’d hate to take the blame for getting someone out here now after two years we’re getting used to it and can live with the frustration a bit better sometimes. It really isn’t so bad. I don’t know just what that gets one.

It will take persuasions to get me to come back for a second term, but I’m afraid Al will find living in the US too tame to be happy, after this. I just wrote you about the tract grip because it is such a typical frustrating account. We love you all. Thanks for your letters and prayers. We got the second tower down today. They sawed three legs and the vine they were going to pull it down with came untied. No one could climb back up to tie it back on with the legs sawed so they hammered and pushed and finally it went down. They all ran when it started to go and won. Poor man landed in a tree of thorns. Now to disassemble it.

Love Ina.

Photos below from the list above in the same order.