2. tracks from the bridge

This bridge was probably a bit of self-protection for the locals, a way of stopping certain people from getting onto their land. So there we were – teetering on the edge of the abyss…

We got out and moved away from the car and the bridge. Oh, sorry – that was me. Men gathered on the bridge at the front of the car and pushed, and the driver accelerated in reverse and after a few tense moments where nothing happened but wheels spun and whined, the pmv lurched backwards and all four wheels were on land. The planks were spread out on the bridge’s frame once again – and with most people out watching – the pmv made another attempt and made it across, breaking a few logs along the way, but it was over and we were through. We scampered across ourselves, re-boarded and continued the ride.

Further up, an hour and a half or two hours later, we were breaking as we turned a corner and the engine stopped. People got out and pushed the car – one forwards, but everyone else backwards – until it jumpstarted. This happened a couple of times. Unfortunately, when we were nearly up at the end of the track (our destination), this magic trick failed: the car rolled further and further backwards and … nothing ticked over. People opened the bonnet and were talking about the battery; no one mentioned fuel, but the fuel tank’s indicator had been going deeper into empty for the last 40 mins...

Luckily there was another pmv heading up; we got out of our defunct one and into the back tray of this one. Standing up behind the cabin in the back of a ute, gripping onto a rail as it drove along heavily pitted, muddy, slippery roads, the whole vehicle ducking and weaving and dipping and jumping – in amongst PNG mountains – I was having an EXCELLENT time! I loved it.

It started to pour with rain, and our ride came to a stop outside the local shop. It was pelting down, so we huddled under the eaves for a while. We met one of Martin’s relatives, Thomas, who could be our guide up Mt Wilhelm (75 kina together; yes); found out Betty’s guesthouse was just up the road (95 kina each per night; no); Martin said we could stay at his place (free; yes).

When the rain had stopped we continued walking up the track for another 20 mins. Past the local high school on the right, the airstrip on the left (small track in a small field; add the shop and that’s the village). At the end of the road was Martin’s place. We kept climbing, up through his gardens, then up some dirt steps.

‘Here,’ Martin said, pointing to the right at a level rectangular plot with spring onions and greens growing in it, ‘was where we killed 20 pigs to appease the local leaders’ – for Martin and his relatives had big plans for Mt Wilhelm tours, and had initially run into some problems when other locals learned of their ambitions. Now, however, with the big feast, rough edges were smoother. ‘After that when my wife came up here she planed these onions there’, he said, and laughed (his laugh went “t-he-he”. At first it startled me – he’s quite a big man and that’s a little laugh; but soon I just had to laugh every time he did. T-he-he. Ahahahaha.)

then we got to the house.

Looking out from the house, the gardens fall away below and to the sides and above are ranges. These sticks with orchids on them are signs that this is a men's house. They're on top of the house too. The foliage on the ranges reminded me a lot of a Glover paining, but you can't see it in detail here.

(Thomas, our guide) Inside is one main room with a fireplace in the middle; a smaller room is off to one side. The walls are made of woven bamboo and there's a flattened dirt floor. There's no chimney; it gets a little smoky.


We put down our bags and were given a coffee (I remember Martin's t-he-he when someone wanted only half a spoon of sugar). We sat on a wooden bench seat inside and rested after our journey. More of Martin’s wantok came, but Thomas didn't hang around long; his brother had died two weeks ago and he had spent the week at the haus krai; I think he might have gone back there. Later they cooked for us - rice, cabbage, spring onion; everyone was (male and) very friendly. They made sure we were fed and didn’t eat themselves until much later; and Martin had given us the one other room to sleep in. (There was a big bed - you could fit probably four grown adults on it - made out of woven cane. And there was a fantastic leopard skin print blanket; it looked hideous but it was very toasty). We talked around the fire for a while; and then I went to bed; it was a men's house, and I didn't want to cramp their style too much. They stayed up until 2 telling stories. I went to sleep listening to the roar of the mountain stream outside.

making tracks

Mt Wilhelm, mum told me, is 4,509m. Take sufficient food; warm clothing; hat and sunscreen; some people get altitude sickness. Best to take a guide. Start of the track is muddy in the wet.

I’m not sure exactly where the start of that track is. The track I was on started in Goroka. On Friday I met up with the boy from Lae in a red pmv (public motor vehicle; like a minibus) at the markets. The pmv was going to Mt Hagen, but we were getting off before that, up at Kundiawa. This track was sealed (bitumen aaaaallllll the way, Muecke would say); no mud.

It took about 45 mins to get going. First the pmv’s caller had to shout ‘hagenhagenhagenhagenhagen’ (one word) out the door, then the driver would do a big u turn and on the other side of the – rather narrow – road, the caller would holler again, ‘hagenhagenhagenhagen’. This had to be repeated again and again in the (slightly hysterical, it seemed) hope that someone (just, incredibly, might not have heard and) might get on. So we circled for a while and he hollered for a while; we did a loop around town to pick up a big sack of something, which two men heaved and pushed and squeezed and eventually squashed into the back of the pmv; then we circled some more and eventually it was decided that there were enough people on board to make tracks.

We drove out through North Goroka. I hadn’t been out of this side of town before, and certainly not this far; (kindly) having been given the window seat, with big eyes I watched the country we went through. Past some dusty market (with the obligatory red-green-blue-yellow panelled golf-sized umbrellas sheltering sitting people and sellable goods from the sun; no one seems to like plain umbrellas here), through some villages, past a couple of tin shed shops with their SP or Milo signs. The road climbed and skirted hills which grew bigger and steeper and revealed themselves as mountain ranges; slopes covered in rich, fresh greenery – grasses and tress, and here and there, neatly sliced out, market gardens; and then we’d round a corner and the foliage would be dominated by tree ferns.

(The soundtrack was bad 80s tunes c/o fm radio. at least it wasn’t enya.)

We made a stop midway. The sun was shining; people got out and stretched their legs and drank water from a natural spring leaking out of the hillside. Later, after we’d been driving for a while again, we paused by the side of the road and the caller collected fares; we started driving again then paused to let someone off, then started again then paused again to pick up another passenger, then started again then slowed down as a man on the side of the road approached. The passenger who was the latest addition to the pmv shouted out from the back seat not to stop, to drive on, drive faster; this roadside man, he said, had killed someone (maybe even two). Everyone on the bus had big eyes now. The driver was hesitant, but he didn’t stop, and after that the speed increased and we continued driving upwards. The next pause – sweet contrast – was for a Good Friday procession, as a big crowd of people walked along the road, someone up the front carrying a cross.

And soon after that we reached Kundiawa – dusty and glary. There were lots of people around, but not a lot actually live in the town; it’s the centre point for many surrounding villages. It looked like a frontier town, but I was in and out within half and hour and wouldn’t really know. And what’s a frontier town in PNG?

This was the start of another kind of track. We needed to get on another pmv here, one taking us as near as possible to Mt Wilhelm. The pmvs we were looking for left from the markets, but when we arrived there were none in sight. We hovered there for about 20 seconds, and a guy started talking to the boy from Lae; within a few minutes it was established that this man was returning to his village for the long weekend, and happened to be going exactly where we wanted to be. He told us a pmv would be along in about 10 mins, and sure enough, it was. This was Martin; he is a secondary school teacher and, may I say, friendly, generous and very hospitable. Thumbs up.

Another kind of track, another kind of pmv. This time we got into a 4WD twin cab thing (ok ok, I don’t really know cars either) – ready to sit in the tray with everyone else, but ushered by Martin into the back seat. The back tray filled up; I turned and through the back window I could see legs and bags. Some people stand right behind the cabin, others sit down squished in amongst legs and arms and market goods. A mother with a new looking baby and a quiet child sat in the front passenger seat; and off we went, down an unsealed road that curved left behind the markets and headed into serious 4WD territory. The track wasn’t too muddy at first; mostly one lane wide, and initially on either side were grasses about 2.5 or 3m high. Soon they fell away and there was tropical forest, or pine trees, or solid rock. I stared at it all; whereas before we had skirted the mountains, now we were up close.

So the time passed pleasantly and we drove along the twisting track, getting higher. We crossed a few bridges, maybe two, with solid frames and some type of metal plates as a base to drive over. No problems. The next bridge, though, this one up ahead, wasn’t so promising: it had the solid frame, but no metal plates. Instead there were halved tree trunks, secured to the frame horizontally – well, for about two-thirds of the bridge’s length. The first third of the bridge – the section the pmv was now approaching – had a few skinny trunks chucked on the frame, totally haphazardly. And not secured at all.

And so the pmv paused, and we all stared at the bridge, at the driver, at the skinny planks, at the drop beneath the skinny, unsecured planks. The wheels might miss the planks; the weight and force of the vehicle might cause the planks to scatter, or break; would the pmv get stuck or fall through? Now, these reflections occur in hindsight; there wasn’t time to think about what might happen. We looked, then the driver went for it. And the leap of faith failed; the pmv leapt forward and the logs slipped and the front of the vehicle went down.

this is where i spent part of my weekend; it's a men's haus (being white gets you in some places...) near mt wilhelm (excuse crap montage; not much time). (the tin roofing is where solar panels lean during the day; this was taken just after dawn.)

Masalai i Tokaut

essential reading

development politics corruption money - they are all live and kicking issues here. i admit at first the level of it i found shocking; but now fascinated, and angry, and reading and talking and learning about it. these issues are minefields, and there are so many implicated, from those of the cloth to the govt to tribes to asian triads (ok that one is definately rumour only) to landowners (of course) and to the aussie mining companies...and there aren't nice or easy answers. i've been lucky enough to be able to edit some current work into this stuff - one on a major tuna cannery in png (sex given for tuna; dead bodies in freezer, alongside tuna - not kidding) and another on a nickel mine that's just been given the go ahead, despite the required environmental damage reports coming up red alert. it's fascinating and depressing and bloody important.

(this did not belong to TH)

"I have a faculty for burying an emotion in my heart or brain for forty years, and exhuming it at the end of that time as fresh as when interred", Thomas Hardy wrote; but he was also an almost-obsessed notebook keeper, and I'd wager those notes had something to do with that faculty. If you haven't heard the tale, Hardy had many many notebooks, different ones to record different things. He ordered that they be burnt on his death, and they were - barring a handful, including the Architectural Notebook, Studies, Specimens, etc, Trumpet-Major Notebook, some others - and the Facts Notebook.

Court - murder trial - doctor takes packet from pocket - unwraps: with calm
deliberation he held up to view what appeared to be a dirty piece of chamois
leather. This he explained, as a shudder passed through the Court, is the lung
of the deceased through which the knife went.

Dead - Woman comes on a visit to a friend - finds her dead and buried.

Coach hit by lightning - female passenger - bonnet, cap, gown etc burnt - umbrella shivered to atoms.

Boy and little brother in bed - parents entertaining a friend downstairs- father comes and sleeps besides boys - Friend and mother remain below some
time. Friend comes up, cuts the father's throat quietly as he sleeps. The children are afraid.

On Friday in PNG there was a classic; to report it in Hardy-fact-style: Newborn - unusually small head - mother rejects, but comes to accept - rumours spread -news headline "Baby born with snake head"

Remember great ones from India too, and going out to buy the papers especially

"The accident comes from the direction one least expects, from inside, from the heart." (Proust). horrid to get bad news and be so far from your crew and your creature comforts. i know smarter people than me have argued that illness is not a metaphor, but to learn that someone i love has cancer growing in her aorta...is very distressing. for obvious reasons of course. and because as well as that literal illness, there are those metaphorics that shadow it. heartbreaking.

(this was the view from my first, temporary, accommodation; a field of flowers)(then they mowed it down and it became only lawn; then i moved) a hangover is a hangover is a hangover, no matter where you are. last night i thought i would test this theory. it's no longer a theory - it's been practiced, it's being experienced, today is for red cordial and sleep

i've got one of these now - a bush knife, to clear out a garden with. over a foot long and sharp; even the shoulder-high weeds tremble before me.

In the yeere 1545 Rui de villa lobos sent from the island of Tidore another ship towards New Spaine by the south side of the line, wherein was captaine one Inigo Ortez de Rotha, and for pilot one Jaspar Rico…They sailed to the coast of the Papuans, and ranged all along the same, and because they knew not that Saavedra had been there before, they challenged the honor and fame of that discoverie. And they named it Nueva Guinea. For the memorie of Saavedra as then was almost lost, as all things else do fall into oblivion which are not recorded, and illustrated by writing.

Antonio Galvano, The Discoveries of the World from their First Original until the year of Our Lord, 1555, Bethune, ed., London, 1862.


The romance of those first contacts. Of course there’s no single ‘first’ meeting between Papuans and Europeans; you can read things involving the coastal people from the ye olde 1500s, and then turn to say the 1930s and descriptions of the first meetings between an Australian gold hunter and Highlanders. Every part of this place is so different, and there are so many stories.

Still, it’s these initial meetings that I like reading about, and what happens next - whether people settle or split, struggle or stop; how they negotiate and survive. Differences in these accounts are so dramatic: they’re black and white, they’re life writ large, and written with theatre.

It bears no resemblance to what it is like for me to come here; none. But it is somehow comforting, and definitely fascinating, to read about these encounters between strangers.

but this place is starting to feel like a home. you know, it makes you wonder; being adaptable is ... survival, in some senses; but in others, it's pathetic; ridiculous; laughable; a little bit heartbreaking. new attachments and old. overall, it's ... pretty good, actually. here, anyway. i hope so for those who have been left; that one's always harder.

i miss my girls

morrisey's getting 1.5m pounds for a memoir?

i've finally got my own little plot of land. last night i went down and began weeding - or really that should read 'clearing'. my only weapons are gloves and a bush knife. i sweated it out for an hour, to make the tiniest little clearing. but dammit it i'll be back this afternoon, and tomorrow afternoon, and as long as it takes! (or, until i get bored). but for now it is now a battle of wills. me vs stupid weeds. i want to see clear, leveled earth. it's ambitious.

saguma

(Sorcery.) I haven't thought about this since … taking first year anthro. Vague recollections of 17th c. Europe; of south Americas. Ritual and magic. Victor Turner maybe? But it’s alive and well in PNG; so prevalent I’m surprised I haven’t read mention of it outside of the country.

On my second day in Goroka I met a woman whose child had died 3 weeks ago (aged 12). The daughter had been away, and when she arrived back here she’d been sick for a while – vomiting, fever etc. They took her straight home, she was still sick, dehydrated, went to bed and 6 hours later had died. It is said that a spell was put upon her; a spell specifically timed: she would not die travelling, but when she arrived at home. On the day I met her mother, several people (I was told later) had been named as sorcerers, named for putting a curse on the dead girl.

In a nextdoor province from here, around 150 people died last year as a result of being fingered as sorcerers. There were a lot of burnings; a few were tied and dragged behind a car; horrible deaths; generally not recorded officially as anything but accidents or ‘cause unknown’.

And those dead – ‘they were mostly innocent’, I was told. Note the ‘mostly’ – it’s not just suspicions and accusations: the practice of sorcery is not in question. It’s not a weird thing. (This was what was most strange for me initially – the lack of strangeness to it all.) And nor is it doubted. Locals know who to go and see for what problem or issue. And they know the levels of seriousness. Whether they go themselves or not, and whether they would call themselves believers or not, well, you come up against a serious curse and almost everyone will shake their head and admit how strong that one is – even though 5 minutes ago they were laughing about such ‘primitive’ ideas.

There are the usual theories that it’s mainly widows and children. But I’ve been editing an article that gives the history of sorcery in a particular village for the past 5 or so years, and those who have been named are all men, men in positions of power and with land. (Land ownership is heavily contested in this area.) Perhaps each place gives rise to specific accusations, I don’t know.

Recently another white expat argued it was all about fear – which is true in obvious ways, but…well I find that word is a bit of a carry-all nowadays. (put fear in a grant application and i'd bet you'd be successful.) Can’t we be more specific? Australians voted for Howard out of fear – fear is why modern democracies are so sucessful - fear is a marketing tool and why obesity is prevalent in the west…yeah yeah. Fear can be made to answer a lot. It's disappointing, but i think that we'd get a lot of different answers than those we get now if the word itself were banned for a little while. I want to argue for a bit more complexity; situations in the world aren’t simple, they’re complex things and require complex explanations. Like sorcery here. Life, situations, events - they're rich and strange. and not necessarily bad.

and this is another room - it's actually 1/3 study and 2/3 lounge (but the lounge and 2 armchairs fall infront of the desk, and are invisible here); the room's too big for my little camera. what i really want to show you is the floor - these floor boards are from local wood and are beautiful; will try and take something that is a bit more revealing (oh and this was taken when i first moved in; it is a lot neater and homey and complete-looking now; trust me; and i even mopped the floor today; it's really looking good)

my kitchen. not only is it massive (shots just don't do it justice) but it is the definition of '60s chic (guess story is: that design and those fittings were unsellable elsewhere by 1980; hence affordable for png; i don't care - i am in love with those glass cupboards)

what was that click? someone's there? don't post that last picture; this is what a guard dog looks like in png...anyway it's saturday...

security, simba-style.

oh yeah - another thing that hasn't quite worn off yet -

also in the backyard: a shipping container; cheap storage. i wanted to take this while they still surprise me; they're everywhere. i think the guard at the hotel in moresby slept inside one; and in goroka i'm pretty sure it's the local council who have about 4 stacked upon each other in their front yard. this one's full of publications, and is a nice new one; generally they're the old red and rusty type

this is the type of thing in the backyard...friends call it 'bush', but it's more like a tarzan jungle to me. i am getting a little plot out there to play with. someone else has gone wild with bananas, but i think i'll start with some green veg, maybe even carrots, definately chillis...i don't know what else. guava and avocados are already here, and ripe for the picking. sometimes i just pinch myself

There are a couple of Western women sitting in the lobby in khaki shorts and T-shirts with slogans on them I do not bother to read. Aid workers. (Grant, The Cast Iron Shore)

Words are my business; my work and my interest, my income and my passion. In PNG, books and printing are very expensive. There are no bookstores in Goroka (I think a might be a few shops that sell books in Moresby; maybe Lae, less likely Medang). The national library has had no funding for purchasing new books since 1997; it relies on donations – of which there aren’t many; there is a public library in Qld that sends books they don’t want anymore; think of those little tables of sale books inside some public libraries – you can imagine how bad the ‘new’ items are then at the national l.

[Up the road from me, the University of Goroka has a big nice new library, and no books inside it. I haven’t heard why; if the building was built through sponsorship/donation, this could be a reason; could also be a result of idiot decision making, which is likely. Studying at uni and not having reference books as a resource…hm. I think I will leave that one alone, not knowing any more about the situation. Because christ…]

In Goroka, you buy your clothes from secondhand stores, and they are amazingly cheap. A lacoste-style t-shirt, for instance, will be, say, two to four kina (aus$1-$2). Well, it depends on what you like; I find that locals have different tastes to expats – so stuff I’m interested in doesn’t sell too well, and is cheaper. Today I bought two women’s long sleeved shirts priced at 30 toya (15 cents) each. And one is even Country Road! I am going to leave here with a better wardrobe; no more tshirts with slogans…ha ha. (ok I don’t actually have any; and I’m not exactly an aid worker; it just sounded good.)

Anyway, my point was that these shops are the only ones I’ve found where you see books for sale. Obviously it’s a mishmash, but that’s what makes it so interesting. God knows where these come from – whether Australia (this is where most of the clothes come from; they’re donated by special interest groups) or expats in PNG. Mills and boons; national geographics; dumb books you’d see in a beach house in Victor Harbor. But that’s what makes the occasional “literary” sighting interesting: I’ve seen Sebastian Faulks’ Charlotte Gray (didn’t like it first time round so didn’t bother); Miss Simila’s Feeling for Snow (remember reading a few chapters and loathing it, so again didn’t bother); Intro to Freud (that raised a smile); a memoir of a Chinese poet (too earnest; decided it would be unbearable); and today, Linda Grant’s The Cast Iron Shore. I almost didn’t buy it because I remember Bean reading Grant’s History of Modern Times and being disappointed. But, it was 30 cents, so I bought it with my shirts. I had a little read over lunch and already on page 6 I want to argue a point, but I’m interested and will continue.

I read Kidnapped last week, which was total pleasure! (Before that I wasted my time on Malinowski’s journals – tedious and lacking insight, the man and his writing; one [only] interesting point: he lived in Adelaide for a few months and thought it like paradise. Unfortunately he had an affair with a lady there which turned sour – as in he carried on the affair at the same time as proposing and marrying another woman – so end result was that he could never return to Adelaide; ah, paradise lost, he wrote…). I have a soft spot for RLS. (I brought over some of his pacific writings (he ended up living in Samoa), which will be interesting to look at; surprising how many writers have had pacific sojourns; Klaus Neumann, bean! And some other interesting discoveries). It was fun to read about someone else trying to get by in a land where he didn’t know the custom or culture; and who wouldn’t secretly love Alan Stewart? But it’s the telling of the tale that gets me; it’s a rollicking yarn:

I do not know if I was what you call afraid; but my heard beat like a bird’s, both quick and little; and there was a dimness came before my eyes which I continually rubbed away, and which continually returned. As for hope, I had none; but only a darkness of despair and a sort of anger against all the world that made me long to sell my life as dear as I was able. (Kidnapped, RLS)

See? Irresistable.

In Moresby after chewing betel nut. had to try it.

After chewing this small-apricot-sized fleshy nut, you add lime powder to the chew inside your mouth (very corrosive; was told an American poured it onto the sides of his mouth - ow - blood etc; he didn’t complain, thinking local custom…) and mustard seeds (from a mustard seed stick; hadn’t seen these before). The mix makes a bright red paste. Locals chew it all the time - you can tell because their gums and teeth are red. It ain’t the most attractive, but they seem to get a buzz from it. I was warned not to try it on an empty stomach - only after lunch - because white people can find it very strong…I don’t know if I’m doing it wrong, but there was little excitement.

to market to market

is it wrong to gorge yourself on pineapples? kind of...every day? they are so sweet and cheap ... no, not people i have known, pineapples. yum; i have decided i will stop if i get ulcers. the markets here are fantastic - in terms of food and price (did a big shop on sunday and with ibaika (spinach type thing), spring onions, ginger, loads of bananas, pumpkin tips (unexpected but ok sauted with butter and ginger, even a bit of chilli; locals laugh in disbelief when i tell them in australia we throw them away; each to their own...) and this was all 1 kina 30 - about 70 AUS cents!! chuck in a pineapple - better throw in 2 actually - for 50cents and i am smiling ear to ear.

- but some of the conditions at the local markets are not ideal. when i say local i don't mean that they are small - there are literally hundreds of buyers in there at any one time; imagine a royal show, it's that type of crowd. there are two or three aisles with cement floors, where people sit and put out a mat and display their goods; but the majority of the sellers put out their mats on the muddy ground - i don't mean dirty, i mean muddy! rain's pretty frequent, and there are a lot of people walking through here. the sellers are squished in, and you walk down aisles 1.5 people wide, tracking your grub with you - so there you and they are and you push and squish and pause and are pushed and you try and get a good pineapple (you can get it skinned - someone skillfully wields a machete and leaves the top on which you use as a handle; great snack on a hot afternoon) - and as this goes on now and then the crowd parts, for two things:

1. if there's a fight or sometype of trouble, EVERYONE leaves whatever they were doing and runs to go and stare. the highlanders are a staring type of people. never anywhere else i've been have i come across such starers! not just me-as-whitey, but at anyone at all who is different (ie. not a highlander) - and they're pretty keen lookers so they can tell instantly. they fall silent usually, and stare if you're blacker or whiter or your nose is a little longer than a local's would be or your hairstyle is different etc etc. anyway, that's just day to day staring - when there's some type of action, you can taste their dust as they race to see...

2. if the pig is around. the market area is split in half and has two owners. one of the owners has a big pig which is allowed to roam freely, snuffling through the mud and around the food. it is funny, but people who have been here for more than ahem 1.5 weeks find it outrageous. and it is. grotty pigs and mud and food don't go. but you can't touch the pig because the owner is a big man and i've heard he went into a fit of rage when someone tried to push the pig away from their stock. so, people just part and try and keep out of the pig's way.

getting to the markets can be a bit of an ordeal too - if there are hundreds inside the markets, there are double that amount hanging around outside. they chew betel (few people here smoke), talk, listen to radios, stare...i don't know what else. oh yes i do: they also play darts. there are about 20 dart boards set up right alongside the road (this road is also the national highway; i don't know if this is typical or just this town; here too the airport is in the heart of town; think carrington st as your airstrip to pultney or king william as your main st), and people crouch down and chuck the darts in the general direction of the board. haven't seen a championship player emerge from the huddles there yet, but you never can tell...