Kalolaine Fainu
A Sago story as told by the women of Poroi 2
How the humble sago palm has brought happiness to the women of a remote Papua New Guinea province .
The lands of the Pawaian are abundant with sago but their gardens lack nutritional variety, their literacy rates are extremely low, particularly amongst girls and women, there are no modern communication networks, and access to townships is virtually impossible due to the dangers associated with travel by dinghy or canoe.
It has always been women and girls in this region who have had to clear the jungle to cut, scrape, pound, wash, squeeze and otherwise extract the sago into its edible form. Jomu outlines a typical work day for village women.
“Mothers that have babies have no choice but to take their babies with them; they hang them in bilums while they work. The babies are bitten by all types of insects, sometimes they get sick. She gets an axe, removes the bark, then splits the log. She gets ready a sheet of plastic or a bag then starts to scrape the sago the way our ancestors have taught us, then she takes the scrapings to the river to wash. She will work one whole day with no food. If they get very hungry they’ll eat the dry pith of the sago. Once they are done with the processing, they have to find bamboo, cut the bamboo for cooking the sago, and carry everything back home.”
Full story can be found on my blog site: achildofoceania.com
