Profiles in Life: Mama Mundaive
A series of Profiles from our farmers in Papua New Guinea.
Meet Mundaive one of our farmers, who is a widow who not only lost three young daughters consecutively then her husband. Yet she is one of the happiest people ive met here. Even in all her loss she adopted two children who help her with her gardening.
Every time she comes over she brings me a bilum full of corn, taro and sweet potatoes. Shes always shows up with food every time she visits people.
'“Coffee has taken the place of my husband, it has provided for me in place of my husband so i tend to it as much as i should”
In most places, women like Mundaive are discarded in society, if she is a widow and has no male heir to inherit late husband's land. Often the women are told to return to their family but because Mundaive adapted well into her in-laws family, the land was not returned back to her in-laws, but retained to her.
I guess that's why she's always happy, she has land, more importantly land that is uncontested.