My house girls screamed that the horse was running away…

I have used this photo before highlighting the Bula teachers that would visit Malalo. But the background is what to pay attention to. This is taken on the Malalo station on the south side of the station house the veranda side. The chicken coop can be seen in the background. The path continues down the mountain side ( away from the coast) of the Malalo hill where some of the station workers live like Metegemeng and family, Gideon’s family (Malalo’s secretary), Abolie who takes care of the horse, cows and general station caretaker. There is the big mango tree that Paula is sitting in front of.

View of Malalo hill from the ‘back’ from a mountain. Alvin would have taken this photo when coming back from the bush trip from the Hote Mountains. Ina often describes this bushtrip as Al is on a trip to the mountains right behind Malalo. You can see the buildings where Malalo staff and and where the cows and horse were kept.

Malalo yard cleanup. This a view from in front of the chicken coop as seen in above photo. you can see the path on the right which continues to the where the staff of Malalo live. The station house on the left where the front steps are where alot of people gathered and photos taken. Alvins office building in the center background. Paula in the foreground.

1962, August, 2 to  Estelle

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

I bet you’ve been busy with all kinds of company as usual this summer. We surely hope you both have been fine. I’ve been trying to figure out from Beryl’s letters if Willa and Martin have moved up to Alexandria. She said the kids went earlier and that they took a load up for vacation? or for keeps?
We sent a package about two weeks ago. An under developed role of slides and a used roll of tape. The big brown and white triton shell with a hole near the base is for you and dad. The school uses these for musical instruments and for bands. Each person having one at a distance it sounds like a deep pipe organ. The coconut bowl and a woven basket are also for you. A round hot pad each for Willa, Beryl and Bette. The net bag and duster for Beryl. The big white and red shell for Willa and Martin. The grass skirt for Willa‘s kids and you can divide the rest of the shells any way you like or give them to any one you like.

These were the house girls that were here when the Japanese landed. They are the not house girls to Ina. The missionaries were German and were interned in Australia just days before the Japanese landed near Malalo at Salamaua. The German missionaries spent 7 years in prison camp in Australia.

The slit in the dress on the second woman is because she is nursing a baby then she doesn’t have to lift the dress.

They are ready for communion, the only reason for wearing white.

Last weekend Al went to Lae. We had our horse picketed[1] out in our backyard. I had told Beryl about it. My house girls screamed that the horse was running away so I went dashing after him. Some little boy was running behind with the rope. The horse had managed to slip the rope off his head. It is about half a mile down the hill to our church. There is a flat ridge with grass where some of our cows were grazing. The horse stopped to join them. So I caught up to him. I talked and talk to him and managed to get the rope around his neck again. About 50 school boys had followed me and the strip of flat land is only about 25 feet wide with the church taken out, so there wasn’t an awful lot of room left. Well anyway I struggled and pulled trying to get him on his way up the hill again. He came back as far as the Bath [2] and then started to rear up on his hind legs and kick so I just let him go again. I was afraid someone would get hurt. One of our teachers caught the rope as he went by but he acted the same way for the teacher so he let go of the horse. That was about 5:30. About eight brave school boys came leading him back on a 50 foot rope. I got him tied up again and fed and watered him, then went into the house. I could hear the horse after about an hour, so I looked to see what happened. He had broken the rope and disappeared again. So I thought –‘ oh shoot!  Let him go’. The next day when I was up here, he was in our wash house getting out of the rain. Then everywhere I went, he followed me even up eight steps to the back door. I tied him up again. Will have to take him to Lae and some lucky person can ride him around on the beach to Lae. It’s an eight hour ride back to the plantation he came from.

Laundry or washhouse at Malalo

It’s winter here in full force. The sea has been extremely rough. So bad, in fact that it has washed several houses from the village below us into the sea. Huge waves come up on top of the tide, and with the force they have now, they really come barreling in. Then it goes out again carrying the sand out. The houses are built on posts so when the sand is washed away, the posts fall down and the houses are swept away in the next wave. About half a dozen coconut palms were washed away too. Two houses are sitting with their porches hanging over the ocean, so tonight when the tide comes in I think they will be gone also. They are so foolish to build as close to the water as they do. The same thing happens year after year. It reminds me of the song ‘The foolish man built his house upon the sand’.

House built on Stilts

Yesterday night we had a six-year-old boy come up to the house. He was so cold, almost like shock. He was vomiting and so drowsy his mother couldn’t keep him awake. He claimed nothing had hit him on the head, like a coconut and he hadn’t been bitten by a snake. I couldn’t find any evidence of any of that either. I sure didn’t know what could be the matter. I gave him a glass of sugar water in case he was diabetic, rare here, but I was in a loss to explain what the matter with him was. We put blankets around him and laid him down with his head below his feet. Both his pulse and respirations were rapid, 140 and 40. We gave him some anti-malarial and prayed to God that he would guide us. I still didn’t know what was wrong but he soon warmed up, felt good, so they took him down to the dispensary and I told him to call me if he wasn’t all right. In the morning, he was all right and has been good ever since.
Al made Tommy  a high chair and a potty chair. He has no use for the potty chair. But finally doesn’t have to sit on my lap at meal time, and grab everything in sight. Al says he feels obligated to eat everything he’s offered, plus any other thing that might be in sight, no matter how much he has eaten before. That child can hold more food than  any child I’ve ever seen. Anytime a chair is pulled  to a little ways from the table, he’s up on it and up on the table as quick as a wink and runs back and forth.
He swings his short fat leg over the top of the crib and lands on his head. He was in a regular bed now which is pushed against the wall with Paula‘s bed tight against it and the crib pushed against the open end. He can swing his whole fat body over the top of the bathtub then landing on his head and then runs away all the time. If he gets through childhood alive or without a broken head or limb, it certainly will be no fault of his own.

Phyllis Engebretsen. Teacher/Education.  Bula girls School and Malalo elementary school. 1962-1979. She lived and taught at Malalo for 2 years starting in 1962 and came back to Bula School after her furlough. Although very shy, having her around was good for Ina and the kids for companionship. She was greatly missed by us when she left Malalo.

We have a young teacher staying with us now from Black River Falls, Wisconsin. She is a very quiet girl, about 27. Both of the kids like her real well. Paula called her grandma. We’ve been showing Paula pictures of you and dad and Al’s folks and saying grandma and grandpa, but she hasn’t found a person to associate grandma with. So now Phyllis is grandma. Not too embarrassing.
Paula is talking quite a bit of Jabem. When Tommy is crying she says Tommy ‘Ketaeong’ or Tommy ‘gebec’ when Tommy is sleeping or ‘obic’-you look- whenever she wants me to see something.
The pump that pumps water into our bathroom has been broken for about two weeks so we’ve been carrying water in buckets. Yesterday Al got it fixed again. Oh how wonderful to have running water again.
The boat will soon be leaving so I must close the letter. The sea doesn’t look too rough today so I hope the Victor can make it today to Lae.
God‘s blessings to our wonderful parents. Thank you so much for your continued prayers, letters and etc. One thing we really need to pray about in New Guinea is Christian fellowship. That each may encourage the other to help keep them all from falling too far away. Sorcery is creeping up again amongst our Christians. Do you pray for the needed work.

 Love Al, Ina and the kids

Footnotes

[1] A picket line is a horizontal rope along which horses are tied at intervals. The rope can be on the ground, at chest height (above the knees, below the neck) or overhead. The overhead form is usually called a high line. A variant of a high line, used to tie a single horse, is a horizontal pole attached high on the side of a horse trailer. The attachment is designed so that the pole can be removed or folded against the trailer when not in use

[2] I could not make out this word and it looked like bath.