Árdís - 01.01.1956, Síða 53

Ársrit Bandalags lúterskra kvenna
51
one closer together and even the most isolated of our people had the
satisfaction of knowing that, if anything went wrong during the
day, they would hear the familiar “Mission House calling” at 7.00
o’clock the next morning.
Chapel is held for the natives every morning. This was con-
ducted by my husband until the time that radio contact coincided
with the time for holding Chapel services. As it was necessary for
him to be at the radio the conducting of Chapel was taken over by
Miss Price, our very capable missionary bookkeeper, who worked
and lived with us at Mission House. Often one of the boys, who had
been taught by the Mission to read in his own language, would
read the Gospel or a translated Bible story. We are sure that they
understood and enjoyed Chapel much more when they had the
service in a language they understood perfectly.
The other part of Mr. Polson’s work, that of being Treasurer of
the Mission and the Church, gave us both a very close insight into
just how much money is needed to run a Mission field and to estab-
lish a National Church.
My major assignment on the field was Hostess at Mission House,
with a minor assignment as Archivist.
As Hostess I was responsible for the running of the hostel part
of Mission House. This meant the supervision of four or five stew-
ard boys, two, and at times three, cooks and from four to six boys
in the laundry. Just to keep everyone and everything working
smoothly was very time consuming and at times quite a job.
I will never forget a “palaver” between a steward and a laundry
man. The preliminaries took the larger parts of three days and the
final settling took most of the next two days.
A “palaver” of this type is very serious, as the laundry man
was said to have insulted the steward’s wife, who also worked for
me. The steward, to keep his prestige with his wife and the other
natives, was to sue the laundry man. The whole palaver came about
when the woman took some of the laundry fire to burn rubbish for
me. In native custom the women are to make the fires, so the
laundry man was vexed with her for taking some of the fire he had
made. The main reason that I entered into the palaver was that
they were both doing duties that I had ordered, when the disagree-