the Door
a man named Oompiwi approached me the other day asking if I happen to have a spare door from my preschool project. This is the project where I'm supervising the remodel of an old preschool into a new programmers building.
I in fact had 2 doors. His house had recently been damaged by a tree and his front door was smashed in. Since I had doors and since he has worked loyally for us for years, my instinct was to "give" him the door.
But, that would cause several problems (aka 'hevis'). First would be that several people may come to me asking for free scrap, or even feel free to take. Second would be a gift to him would create "dinau" or a debt for him.
So, I said that the door would cost him 5 Kina. That is about two hours of work for him. He agreed. I felt odd about it.
A friend said "I'd like to buy the door for him" and paid me the 5 kina which I never truly wanted.
Now, I have no idea what culturally this means. So I tell this man an anonymous donor has purchased the door for him as a gift.
The response I got was not gratitude, it was confusion. What I was telling the man was "a man, I don't know what man, has paid for this door, you can have it now." He seemed confused, but glad to have the door.
In the back of mind I'm wondering... if this man is going to come back to me with a lot of questions, or bananas or something in the near future.
This is jsut another example of how living here is like a puzzle. If it were you or me, I'd say "sure take the door, don't tell anyone where you got it, I don't wany any problems".
Here I had to put a whole lot more thought into my actions, so that I didn't turn a gift into a burden for this man in his culture.
