Chapter 53

I will give some background facts to the following story. In 1985 David was 16 years old. As stated in Chapter 45, "An additional home," the family Goransson was in the end of 1985 spending three months in Sweden. They spent the whole of 1986 in Australia. In 1987, the family returned to Papua New Guinea, but David, remained in Australia for studies.

Sven speaks: In September 1985, we were preparing to go to Sweden. After the last Sunday morning service, we were invited home to one of the pastors for lunch. This pastor and his family had been our neighbors for a long time, and their children had been playing with our children as they were all growing up together. Now when our son, David, and their oldest daughter were in their teens, they were very good friends and both were very active in the church.

When we came to the pastor's place, we discovered that they had killed a whole pig and cooked it. We were even more surprised when we realized that we were the only ones who were invited to the lunch. Normally you would have invited many people, but not this time. I thought no more about this and we all ate with a good appetite until we were completely satisfied.

After the meal, the pastor handed me a hind leg from the pig. Again, I was surprised because the day after we were going to Sweden and thus would not have a chance to eat this big piece of meat before our departure. But since it would have been an insult not to accept the gift I thanked him so much and accepted the hind leg. In spite of the fact that I after having spent many years in Papua New Guinea, had a good understanding of the Papua New Guinean culture, and knew well the process which we just had experienced, I did not understand what the pastor just had done. I thought he just wanted to bless me with a piece of meat.

In Papuan culture and tradition, what it is described above would be an engagement ritual, but that this was the motive for the pastor’s action, I was totally unaware of. When he handed me the hind leg, it meant in fact that he suggested that his daughter and David should get married. When I took the hind leg and thanked him, it meant that I accepted his proposal. From that moment his daughter was engaged to David, but neither David, nor Marianne and I understood this. Had we been observing this process between two Papuan families, I would have immediately understood what it was about, but now it was our own family which was involved, and therefore I did not make the connection. However, for the pastor´s family, it was clear that his daughter and David were engaged, but of this we were completely ignorant.

In order to avoid misunderstanding, I would just like to say that Marianne and I certainly would not mind a marriage between the pastor´s daughter and David. At this time Marianne and I intended to live the rest of our lives in Papua New Guinea and regarded ourselves as Papuans at heart, even if we were white-skinned. Or as Papuans said about me: "Sven may be white-skinned, but his soul is black."

The next day, the pastor and his family came to the airport to say goodbye, and for us it was nothing special about that. There were many other Papuan friends who were there to say goodbye to us. When we returned to Papua New Guinea in 1987, we were a little surprised that the pastor´s daughter repeatedly came to our home to help Marianne with chores. It was common for young women who had been engaged to show that she would make a good wife. But we still did not understand the reason for her visits; we simply thought she was being nice to us.

At Christmas 1987, David came to visit us. When we were going to the airport to pick him up, the pastor´s daughter asked if she could come with us. We were a little surprised that she wanted to come with us alone to meet David but thought it was because they had been friends throughout their childhood. We should have realized the simple fact that in Papua New Guinea, no young girl would do this without being engaged or married to the man we were going to pick up. But we were somehow blind. During the Christmas and New Year holidays, the pastor´s daughter spent a lot of time with us. She did everything to show David that she was good at cooking and running a home, but neither David nor we realized the reason for it.

This pattern repeated itself a few times when David came to visit us. Eventually, when David was a little older, he stopped coming to Papua New Guinea during the Christmas holidays. The years went by and it was now already 1992. The pastor´s daughter had become a young, beautiful woman of 23 and a popular youth leader in the church of Mount Hagen. According to tradition, in Papua New Guinea, she should have been married several years ago. One day a delegation of pastors came to see me at home. They asked me to call David in Australia and ask him if he wanted to marry the pastor´s daughter. I kept a straight face and did as they asked me. When I asked David if he wanted to marry the pastor´s daughter, he laughed and said that he did not. Not an evil laugh, but a surprised laugh. When I hung up, I told the pastors that David said no. They stared at me with great surprise and left me then without saying anything.

53. To get engaged