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Wamena: in local language
there is no name for this place.
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'Wam' means 'pig'.
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'Ena' is 'tame'.
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From the feast where we roast the pig.
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From the mountain springs to the
mouth of the river,
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Smoke trails, making the heart long
to be there,
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in Wamena, around the fire we celebrate.
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When the Dutch first arrived here,
they saw Father Enda's wife in a field.
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She was carrying a piglet in her hands.
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Then the Dutch asked, "What is it?"
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People here replied,
"Oh that's Wamena".
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The Dutch then proclaimed
"This area is called Wamena".
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We can't separate the pig
from human activities.
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It's not that pigs are equal to humans.
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No, 'Wam' is still 'Wam'. They are pigs.
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But the role of pigs and humans
is tied together,
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they are related to one another.
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Humans have used pigs in almost
every ritual they have.
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During the human life cycle,
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from when they are still inside
the womb as a foetus
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until their death, they'll use pigs.
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In times of marriage, death,
adat (indigenous ceremony) and illness
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When people were sick, they would kill a pig.
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They were important for everything.
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Many pigs began to die from 1995.
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That's when many pigs started dying.
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I had 27 pigs.
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Twenty died and I have only
seven left now.
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When we found out the pigs had
Kondoyu disease, we felt hopeless.
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All in all, 40 pigs died.
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See that long house? It’s all empty
– all dead.
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I have only one pig left.
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We tried to nurture it until it gave
birth to many other pigs.
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We shared its kids with other neighbors,
so now we have got plenty.
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They are just piglets and newly born.
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A virus is the cause of this disease.
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When the virus infects the pigs,
it multiplies itself through the faeces.
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From faeces and every secretion,
from saliva,
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the virus infects other animals.
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The transmission period is fast.
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I tried really hard to save my animals.
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I willed and prayed.
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I went to get some medicine
from the government.
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They gave me this tiny bottle
for injection.
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But I gave an injection to all the animals,
including the piglets.
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Usually we don't do this.
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The first step to handle this virus
is to vaccinate your pigs
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The second step is to gather all
your animals in one stall,
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so you can contain this disease.
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So, even if one gets infected, it does
not spread to the other pigs.
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Thirdly, if animals in one stall are
infected with this disease,
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we can reduce the effect by spraying disinfectant.
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I bought a syringe. I bought it myself at the drug store
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Whenever we took our animals
to the government clinic,
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they gave our animals an injection,
but we had to pay.
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We thought that the government
would help us for free.
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After doing that several times, we
finally started doing it ourselves.
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But still the pigs died.
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So, we tried other options.
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We bought penicillin and other
drugs at the drug store
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and we injected the animals.
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After that the pigs were fine.
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So, we thought maybe this
government help
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didn’t suit our animals.
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If many members of society do the vaccination,
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I'm confident that we can control
this disease.
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The government never comes to the
villages to conduct surveys
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about who owns animals.
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They have never done that.
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So, they don’t have any information
about this.
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If they start consulting, maybe they can help us.
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They have never done that in my village,
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so they don't really know, actually.
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When their animals get sick,
people often look to adat ways.
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They don’t look for modern medicine.
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The most that they will do is give tetra
(an antibiotic for human) to their pigs.
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Is that helping? It creates more disease.
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So, I think the government pays very
little attention to us.