“No Worries”

When I was about twenty one I went up to Papua New Guinea as a lay missionary as a nurse in the West Sepic district.
This was an area that not many women visited as it was fairly primitive .My job was to go out to the villages, to immunize the children, and to collect records of the number of children in the village and surrounding places,also to treat any medical emergencies .
I lived on a station with two other people,a teacher and a priest and myself,but we lived in the village with the local people.Life was pretty primitive really as we had a very basic house,and less then basic bathroom facilities,which consisted of a bucket on the end of a rope.having a shower consisted of heating a bit of water over the fire then adding extra ,carrying it out and hooking it up on the rope.the trick was to get in the shower soap yourself up and get it washed off before the water finished,now they talk about a four minute shower ,learnt to get it in two minutes.
All these out stations were supplied by plane ,as you could only get there by walking or plane .so when the plane come into the station it was a big thing ,everyone would go running down to the strip.some of those strips were really very hair raising places.most were just grass strips that you kept the grass reasonably short,no mowers just kids with their Long knives .
I learnt lots of thing while there ,but the most frustrating thing was ” no worry miss”” and this I learnt when I was given the job of looking after the banking of the natives.Now me I had no experience of banking , this didn’t worry the Priest ,you will pick it up,everything is there in the room just have a look.So ok I can do this ,opened up the door ,don’t know where everyone was hiding when I walked in,but they just appeared with bank books in hand,now I had been there about a week at this time,of course I could understand a little pidgin English .This is good why would it be hard to put a little money in the bank or take it out,any fool could do it.
. Right now first man “” mepella want to Kissem money belong mepella” yes he wants his money .
!”you want all your money ”
Yes misses ”
“All ,you sure”
“yes”. Ok I can do that count out his small amount of a few dollars ,give it to him check his mark,as they can’t write ,ok close his account ,now have to fill out all the forms to close the account.He goes off happy as a lark.oh well that wasn’t too hard next man.
“Mepella want to Kissem money belong mepella”
“you want all your money too ”
Yes misses”
“You sure”
“yes” So after six of them all take out their money ,I was wondering why the run on the bank,maybe they had heard that I didn’t know what I was doing,they could have been right too.but finished all the banking,and went off to do a clinic down the village,
When I came back the men I had delt with in the morning were all sitting waiting for me .I asked them what they wanted,it seemed they wanted to do banking again.I explained that I couldn’t do it now as I was going to go bush to do another clinic “No worry miss we Waite.” no I won’t be back for two days I told them “We Waite ” I felt guilty so I opened up the door ,thinking it would only be a few minutes.Ok what is it you want .
“Mepella puttim mone in bank”
“what you want to put it in again”
“Yes misses”
“but you just took it out this morning”
“Yes misses you putim in now”
” you sure”
“Yes” so filled out all the forms again ,put the money away ,all six put their money back in again,and all those forms I had to fill in again as new accounts.
I learnt that the first part of banking was to learn the ways of the people of New Guinea,they used the bank as a place for their money,but they also liked to check that it was still there.this was one of the things I learnt from them “No Worrie miss ”