Episode 32: The Art of Relationship

Right from the very beginning of being here, it has been very clear to me that the sense of community and friendship here in Papua New Guinea is very different to that back in England. I have often watched in awe as two Papua New Guineans relate to each other in ways that two Brits never would, or as someone cares for someone else in a way that would never naturally occur to me. It can be very heart-warming to watch, but when it happens to me, it can be as confusing as it is touching – which it is greatly on both counts, even when it’s just little things. This week two Papua New Guinean friends of mine who don’t know each other and both of whom I hadn’t seen me for a while, sent me a text message completely independently of each other. The resultant text conversation was almost exactly the same. It began by them saying “gutnait lo yu brata” (literally translates to; “goodnight to you brother”). So I replied goodnight in return and asked how they were. They told me that they were fine and asked me how I was, and so I replied that I was well. Now to my British brain, this was the polite conversation that served as the platform on which to present the purpose of the conversation, after all, I do come from a country where “how are you?” is a greeting not a question, and where no-one says what they actually mean.

One of my Bratas and I

And so I waited with baited breath to see what would come next, but to my surprise, nothing came. After this happened with the first friend I was a little worried that I might have said something to upset him or forgotten something that I was supposed to do, but after the second conversation I started to realise there was something more to what was happening. So the next day I asked my friend in work; “what’s going on? Did I do something wrong?” He gently laughed and reassured me that all was well and that this was quite a normal interaction. I needed a little more convincing, so he explained to me that it was; “tok halo tasol”; just saying hello. To my mind, at first, this seemed crazy! To say hello, just to say hello! It seemed to have no reason, to have no purpose. But it seems that many Papua New Guineans naturally understand about relationships things that I don’t seem to easily get. You see saying hello was the purpose. In my culture it is very easy to be task driven to always be busy doing things, trying to get something done. But here it seems that it should be obvious that people are what really matter, and furthermore there seems to be a much greater understanding of how to relate to each other well than I have ever experienced before. It was just simply understood by my friends that just saying hello is a key part to maintaining a good friendship. It didn’t matter what was said, what mattered was that I knew that they were thinking of me, and in turn, that I was thinking of them. That is how a friendship is kept from dying and it’s a beautiful thing to have someone do that for you.