Rivo family

Papa Lawrence is mashing tapiok (like mashed potatoes but sticky and not as good tasting) in a special wooden bowl, that was a pretty expensive purchase for the family years before. It was a special thing for him to do, not a normal occurence. The kids wanted to just sit and watch him work.

Lucy was very proud of her garden. Land and gardens are pretty much all the people have, it's life to them. The land passes on to their children and is necessary for their survival. Here Lucy is standing amongst her yams (the vines that are wound up on poles). They work so hard for so little, their whole livlihood is so tedious and time consuming. They taught us to appreciate the small things in life, family and friends are what is everything to them. The wantok system prevents anyone from getting ahead...they are all kept pretty much on the same level. If your family member gets "ahead" then you can ask them for favors and they have to give it and vice versa. Yet the system has it's positives as well, if they needed something it was there...it seemed to come out of the woodwork.

Lucy is trying to show me the different things in her garden...when I was first there, everything looked the same to me. After a while, I could pick out alot of the different things they had planted and tell the difference between the crops and the bush. :)

This is Francis (he is married to Ada), he lived next door to Lawrence and Lucy. A cool guy with a good sense of humor! Here he is scraping coconut out of the shell into the bowl for a meal they were preparing. It is SO stinking good!!

One day we were over visiting in Rivo, and Chloe seemed to get really sick maybe with malaria, we weren't sure. But the kids were so used to them that when Lucy gathered Chloe up in her arms, she went right to her and let her hold her. Which is something, cause Chloe doesn't go to everyone. It was an endearing sight.