in the 1970s and first half of the 80s, journals flourished in png. and not just in terms of numbers or content - but covers! exciting and vibrant work was going on.

both oral history and this one are now defunct.

(i love these covers for the statement they make about png at the time: a bright, important new nation, confidently merging traditional and modern. every cover is stamped with "History": "these people are visiting us; we hold our own.")

strange one, much more northern-asian; but 1982 what would you expect but strange

another one from oral history.

today no journals are published that are quite like these. from a field of about 12-15, say, it's down to...3? and no cover art work. but the waigani seminars - held at upng - are starting up again, which is a good sign. they used to publish the talks as occasional papers, and important and at times punchy social science-political work was done.

i've been reading some graham greene lately; it's actually quite depressing, such a bleak world view. might be time to change - but i've got to make it to the end first.

smokin'

found out one of my mates has managed to sneak in through a side door and get a bit of work writing for our hometown tabloid. i am wildly jealous! how fantastic to see it all in action. (i wonder if she'll spot samela...) i am doing my own bit of reportage, on the gun control summit held here next week. i had low expectations, but i know some people who've done some work towards it and it might, afterall, be more than a boring talk fest. we'll see. i'll be there in an official work capacity: i need to take photos of big wigs and write a report for one of our publications. almost want to ask for a press pass - but that's being cheeky. must take new role as intelligent, tough and pretty girl reporter in wild and dangerous country more seriously.

mmm pork belly

Not some strange highlander dish, but from a german friend. I teased him when he mentioned he was making it – pork belly?! Who would eat such a thing. It was on par with the pig’s ear we used to give our dog as a treat. Or the lamb flaps they sell here; he’d been in png too long. And then he spent a while in the kitchen and some of this belly was actually delivered to my door, and looking at it I was even more unimpressed – just look at those crunchy bits of fatty gristly stuff. Uh uh. But I had to try it; and they were covered in salt and so damn good that I ate my words along with all the pork belly and was left speechless, licking my lips.

**

Two weeks ago the local govt fired a number of staff. By sending a letter to everyone who hadn’t been fired.

This creates uncertainty. Not everyone works in town during the week, so not everyone checks their mail. Not everyone has a mail box; maybe they use a wantok’s PO number, maybe the wantok has the letter…The speed of the post is also erratic; maybe a letter will come tomorrow…

All continue to be paid, anyway, so checking your bank balance to find out if you’re employed doesn’t help. The govt can’t afford the redundancy payments, so they just keep on paying salaries.

Some people, not knowing if they have a job or not, continue to turn up to work. Some continue to turn up to work, refusing to be fired. The letters go out at the start of the week. Everything ambiguous: a few people know they still have their jobs, but no one really knows who hasn’t. By Friday, fearing retaliation, the office of the provincial governor is swarming with security and police for protection.

‘It’s absolutely gutless,’ a friend exclaims. ‘They should at least have the courage to tell people to their faces.’ But maybe there’s a bit of logic to it: maybe the ambiguity buys you a bit of time, a few days at least, where you can act tough and as if you don’t fear reprisals – and it divides the troops, too, no one knows what anyone else knows, you’re not going to get a gang knocking at your door or a group of clans putting their feet down in some way; you can haul in your protection towards the end of the week when they’re beginning to get restless – and then you can get out of town for a few days…

I don't know; it'd involve a bit of scheming. But it's not impossible.

fig tree in winter sun

from someone, somewhere, in australia. i don't know the mobile number, but it has been a fun puzzle working out who it's from (i'm down to two...or three...). send me more photos! i like this game.

When you first arrived, you noticed everything as if a novelty. It was all so different and fascinating. Now, after a few months, something's shifted: what you note is similarity. We're more alike than you'd thought. What you hear in stories are the broad strokes of human nature, played out again and again.



Last night was dinner with some friends and a bunch of medicos from Australia who’ve been here 3 weeks and are leaving tomorrow. The food was excellent, but the company a bit boring: the majority of four hours of conversation was limited to medical aspects of life in PNG. And when it was allowed to swerve, it actually moved from boring to irritating.

“What I can’t understand,” said one, “is the expats here. Some have been here for 15 years or more, and never been to a village mumu. Now, if they’d just ask the people they work with to take them to one, they’d [nationals] be overjoyed, and they’d [expats] learn something about the life of people here.” I couldn’t stop myself from interjecting something here (may have been related to feeling hungover and being forced – forced I say – to sip more red wine); these instant experts are annoying, and they do not allow for a complex context shadowing what they fleetingly observe. Or have a sense of that contrary relationship: the more you learn, the more you are aware of how little you know.

But soon I simply surrendered and listened to these and other insights. What they were trying to do was simply make some sense of things they’d seen. And who hasn’t felt that flush of excitement at the new, and that desire to share it – in all its naiveté or wisdom – with others? Who could say that they were different?

friday night starts harmlessly enough, but after a visit to the aero club - strange place will describe later - it veers towards trouble when vodka comes out of the freezer...

i feel 19 again

we are discussing satre at book club tonight

something happened to me...I'm not the same anymore...*

nearest thing to a sunset from the backyard. (it drops too quick.) with a mate and an sp in hand, it's pretty. (i can't believe i am starting to find this pseudo-beer normal; disappointed in self.)

*this is a classic song all should know, in case you can't hear me singing it

weak become heroes (well...)

once i asked a neighbour if i could borrow her hammer, and she looked at me, puzzled: 'Don't you have a stone?' Oh, right, of course. Now i've got a reasonable one, and between that, a bush knife and a little swiss army knife, you've got my png "tool box". (Though i could still do with some pliers.)

this morning i was moving some furniture around and bumped the phone cord. i paused, picked up the phone and - argh - there was no dial tone. i stopped work and looked at the socket closely; it was hanging haphazardly from the skirting board, as normal, but there was something funny about the cords - tho what i couldn't quite tell; i hadn't peered at them closely before. there seemed to be a number of wires fingering the air instead of their box.

ignoring my lack of experience here, i pried off the box's cover and unscrewed the lot, and - i know this isn't a very tricky job, but there were 8 holes and four wires, and no instructions - and anyway with the little swiss tools and half an hour, i had a dial tone again.

this is the view of my backyard. (as you can see it's not really 'my' backyard, more an open space skirted by my neighbour's driveway, which is also the main thoroughfare to the back gate - which is the shortcut to town and the markets, and used by people constantly. the building you see on the right is where my office is; yep, just a hop, skip and a jump away; set the alarm back to snooze, honey; we ain't no need for hurry.)

i managed to get a quiet shot one afternoon after work recently - after i had made the marathon trip home. we've hit the dry up here; haven't had rain for a week, which is nothing like when i first arrived (hours; daily). look at that freshly mown grass (just look at it! ah); raked, too. It's an avocado tree parked right in the middle. The tree sheds quite a few leaves (and some avocadoes, but they're not the best). When there's more than a week's worth of leaves, as I lie in bed at night i can hear the security guards crunch by.

The beeps of their little walkie talkies as base checks in is a motif I know I'll never forget; it's like the sound of the alarm clock, it's become so ingrained I don't quite hear it anymore, it's not separate but part of. i'll always regret not having something to record the sounds of India when I was there; there aren't as many here, but that is itself one of the things i enjoy: the quiet of this strange little mountain home.

(kite festival, semaphore, sa, 200...2?)

we have lingered in the chambers of the sea // By seagirls wreathed with seaweed red and brown // Till human voices wake us, and we drown

(funabashi this is a bit battered, but it's come with me. & thanks for the postcard! it's not a letter a week, but a nice collection's forming on my wall)

(as i write this crowds are gasping and screaming and ahhhing at every move in the state of origin game. i can hear each dramatic moment of play, as it ripples through the neighbourhood. i watched the last game, and it was fun, you can't help but be swept up in the excitement; people dress in blue and maroon and have their faces painted - stays on for days, not so nice - you sit down with 2 others and 20 turn up, you become part of a crowd, in that way you can with sport)
(anyway, whenever i watch the team i go for loses.)

but i skipped sport tonight to watch 'ripley's game'. i've seen some good dvds lately; 8 1/2 (beautiful, whatever else); the thin red line (which makes it how many times..and i could watch it again); and ripley's game. i wasn't actually too keen on seeing the film - dying man faced with moral challenge? reeks of sentimentality - but the movie is excellent, clever, unexpectedly complex, and obsessed with ripley: everything really only happens to draw out another feature of his character, every event revolves around him; and you become sucked in, amused and fascinated and obsessed. and that beautiful, stylised world. monday i wanted to return to the czech republic (amadeus); today i wanted to haunt italy.

but in goroka? it's been warm here lately; nudging 26 degrees at the peak of the day, even.

nets

Plans for going away this weekend fell through and I am at home. Which, as it turns out, is a good thing: the end of the week coincided with something I knew was coming: culture shock. You know the theory and have seen friends’ experience it. But being a traveller, not someone who has really lived in another culture, you didn’t know how it would go for yourself. And it’s taken 4 months but in this past week, kid, it’s been a textbook case: insomnia; irritation; dissatisfaction; lack of self-awareness. It’s nothing to do with PNG itself – or with a desire to be back in Australia; it’s just feeling tired of being different, of having to explain things you would normally assume, all the time, every day. Grrr…(The other annoying thing is that you can’t take it seriously; it’s not a drama, it’s you behaving like an idiot.)

Plus, even you – with your good protestant ethic – have been forced to admit that you have been working too hard. And going out a bit too much (who would have thought, but you go out more here than you did in Adelaide). So yesterday I had my first Saturday at home base in about 6 weeks, maybe longer; it felt strange and new. And good. And finally I have time to get round to writing two papers I’ve been thinking about, playing with different ideas about history and what they’re used to do. One is based on a place near Orokolo in PNG; this is a shot of women fishing there with keve. When schools come through, women run past the shore with their nets and scoop out the fish. It’s not so different from what we do with stories about the past: events occur, we knot together stories to scoop them up, to keep them from slipping away.

a hard day's work

i have blisters on my hands from gardening.

but yes that is because i have been down there twice in four or five weeks (and that's an improvement; i confess that i paid someone to clear my plot...it's actually really hard work and you know, having a full time job, i just couldn't get down there as much as i wanted to...hm and the desire to go down there peaked earlier than expected. i hadn't realised gardening is actually (a) something i never do; i've lived in places with opportunities to garden and frankly i have not; and (b) not fun at all.) anyway, it's now cleared and i've gone through and pulled out all of the roots - and let me tell you, compared to my neighbours' plots, mine is the best. it's ready for planting. (being competitive has advantages; i was horrified when i ventured down and, unlike others, mine hadn't advanced at all. but now = two afternoons of hard work and blisters, and i'm smirking.)

Quick story i heard today:
A while ago there was a fire at a local car dealership. The fire truck was called. It turned up – a surprising event in itself; normally they say “sorry, no petrol can’t come” (police too; although someone told me last week that the police have upped the ante: now they simply don’t answer the phone). And so the firemen ran about and put hoses where they needed to go and then – no water. The truck wasn’t wheeled out often, and they weren’t prepared. They tried a water pump in the yard of the dealership, but to no avail, it was too late, everything was aflame. And so the dealership turned to ashes.

The poor fire fighters. This is a valiant effort on their behalf: manned, petrol, attending the fire on time, having hoses – these things don’t always come together. (Of course, water remains a necessary element…). The angry dealership owner clamed compensation – for two things: one, it was the role of the fire fighters to put out the fire. They failed, and thus needed to compensate him. (Not to mention he hadn’t kept up with insurance payments.) And two: unfortunately, after they had used it, the water pump stopped working. So there needed to be compensation for the broken pump. ah, the costs of a hard day's work.

lethal weapons/wives

my rusty old bush knife

See this fellow? Can be lethal. There was a bit of a commotion in my neighbourhood last Friday. A friend was walking home, saw the crowd, went up to see what was going on and – too late, action over – there was a lot of blood and underneath that a dead woman. I heard the story at work on Monday; it goes something like this:

X has two wives. Friday he learns the father of his second wife – a Chimbu woman – has died; he joins her male relatives, they’re raising money for a coffin, planning the trip up to Chimbu etc. First wife – a Lufa lady – hears about this on Friday afternoon. She’s on the main road out in the town’s west (an area which has a little bit of a reputation, but isn’t too bad); she sees wife number two and whether or not there are words is unclear. But wife number one’s upset that her husband’s forgotten her in all the commotion. She goes into a store and buys a bushknife (newer and sharper than mine), comes straight back out and stabs the Chimbu woman several times. It’s quick, and the latter is soon dead.

But at work I laughed when someone made a quip about jealous wives. And that it’s lucky we’re not on a connecting road between Lufa and Chimbu, because there’s bound to be payback. And when I found out that within minutes people were trying to hail a pmv to take the body to the morgue (that’s a public bus). (I wonder if one stopped, who’d want a bloody carcass on board? And wouldn’t that suck: dead, shoved onto a pmv: going out with no style at all.)

Only writing this down I realise I’ve lost my sensitivity to these things. Should I be alarmed? Where is my empathy? Is this lack of…response, good or bad?

I suspect it’s nothing to do with either. It’s more like adaptation, getting accustomed to the rhythms of lives here, adjusting to their own cultural logic, rather than expecting to find your own. and no jokes about strange mutations. though they're possible too. least i won't have any trouble on the lethal wives front.

people often use shipping containers for storage here. you just park it where ever there's space, and load it up. this one looks like it's been sitting in the tropics for a while.

damn that radio song

One thing that’s annoying here = all forms of media. The radio is often on at work, and the music programming initially drove me crazy: there’s a bit of local stuff, but on high rotation is anything by Beyonce and that girl group; Gwen Stefani; Britany – girl pop is big here. Let alone that stupid mike and the mechanics song about father dying not saying goodbye…ugh. Again and again! i now see how jjj is revolutionary; the changes such a station would bring here...

But I've learned to tune out. Papers I usually enjoy, though once in a while you do get sick of tabloid craziness, pics of freaks, dead bodies, and people in traditional dress; what gets covered – and what doesn’t – and how, all involve huge conflicts of interest, but they’re so normal that you don’t blink (I think a malaysian mining company owns one of the dailys, and Murdoch the other.)

But tv is bugging me today. where i live has a satellite dish, so we get emtv (png), 7 (nt/rural qld) and sbs. I have mates who take 60 minutes and a current affair very seriously. I told them about john safran’s attack on martin (they were shocked; "but i thought ray was such a nice man..."), and for a while things calmed down, but I have noticed “on 60 minutes last night…” is creeping back into conversation.

It’s not the shows themselves that bother me, it’s that my friends have grown up with a different kind of media (“not independent” at best) and are not media savvy, plus have never been to Australia – suffice to say that they don’t critically evaluate what the shows peddle, nor how they work, that they ARE peddling. (one has a degree in journalism but it makes no dfference. though the uni attended was "divine word"...that's a bit unfair; tho i poke fun it has a good rep in png.)

The number of 4wds in Australia is approaching epidemic proportions, I was told today; so many accidents! People are driving over kids simply because they can’t see them. I try and explain the situation that the show’s exaggerating, and that it’s not actually that dangerous – but no one believes me. (In contrast, “PNG 7th most dangerous country in the world” said a headline here last week; “that’s SURELY not right! Those papers!” someone laughed.)(“Only 7th?” I laughed.)

ah, we're battling out those cultural differences. (you're worse. no, you are.)

Friday night i hung out with friends and had drinks and pretended to be a card shark (failed); I stayed there that night and was lucky enough to have a kickass scrambled eggs + tomato goulash thing for breakfast. Last night went to a farewell party for a swiss friend. (There were even some earth tremors; up here there are hints of quakes now and then.) There was great live music by two local guys, who are blind (pictured; sounds very volunteerish doesn’t it; but they are really really good, have played down in Moresby with Ocean, a local muso). And later on, dancing. I stayed and today has been spent on a lazy brunch and talk.

detail from m's dress

When I first arrived, meeting the other volunteers and expats felt like a bit of a social experiment; being in png throws very diverse people together. Now that I’ve been here for a bit longer, I’m starting to get to know people more personally; listening to their stories, making new ones. They’re friendships that are different to ones I’ve had before; the situation changes things: some increase in intensity (discussions about life, past experiences, attitudes), other things fade away, less important (the future).

We’re scattered here, briefly. In dots and loops, we overlap and link.

settlements

Around the major towns in PNG are settlements. The ones around Goroka are of reasonable size, but not as large as the ones around Lae and Moresby. When I first arrived I assumed that they were temporary – maybe slum areas – and that the people who lived in them were something like squatters, but I was way off track.

Two days before I came to Goroka, people from the settlement which borders my work came and stole the new fence that work had just erected. The fence was between the front road and work (not along the border between work/settlement). At night, whilst it was pouring with rain, they took all 32 corrugated iron sheets, and the welding machine. (The security guards were asleep – which, it’s assumed here, means they knew what was going on and who was doing it, and decided it was wise not to get involved. They were fired.)

Popular opinion associates settlements with unemployment, crime, guns, prostitution – anything bad. People – nationals and others – are generally uncomfortable about the existence of settlements and are usually unwilling to talk about them (I have noticed how quickly the topic changes when I ask about them). Expats don’t go into them, and not many volunteers do either – unless work takes them there; neither group would want to drive through them at night.

In that first week, when I learned about the missing fence, I also discovered a town map in the white pages. It surprised me to find that there were clearly defined areas of the town marked “settlements” (see above; I have oh so helpfully circled them in red; and see the green dot? That’s where I live). So they were officially recognised; permanent enough to be mapped; and they were big. I was also surprised to learn that one of my workmates – a nice, middle class girl! – used to live in a settlement, down in Lae. The assumptions I’d made weren’t quite right.

Settlers typically have some type of understanding with landowners or the government (depending on who owns it): they usually pay some form of rent (cash; produce etc), and they garden or build or live in some form of accommodation, ranging from a rough shelter made of scrap corrugated iron and timber, to normal permanent houses. There are a lot of settlement areas that have been there for decades. And there are new ones; they continue to expand. At election time, politicians visit to woo potential voters. People from the same provincial area (ie. Chimbus) often live in the same settlement area. And it’s not “homeless” people who live in the settlements: there are poor people but there are also those with well-paying government jobs; it’s cheaper to live in a settlement than in town.

Access to water and electricity in settlements varies from good to poor to non-existent. (In Goroka, the town’s controllers refused to admit to the existence of the settlements when planning the water supply, so there are daily problems with water pressure and supply; at work, every afternoon from 2pm until about 5 or 6, there is no water.)

Now and then there are evictions. The police task force (known to be…tough) come in and basically turf people out, destroying their homes in the process. “Their homes” might be little shelters or well-established houses. Either way, they’re gone: destroyed, either by hand or even with a bulldozer. The people are now known as “illegal squatters”, and are effectively made homeless. In evictions, the settlers seem to be victims; they have no say in what happens. Some evictions occur because of a landowner’s dispute with someone else; some are made in the name of development (though that development might not eventuate). No one gives a clear reason for them publicly.

But what’s interesting – to me – is that settlements are organised; there are leaders within settlements who organise and govern. After the fence was stolen, my boss went to the settlement with a few kilos of rice and cans of tinned fish, and sat down with one of the big men there, P. My boss told his story, and P told his, and after discussing the issue they came to some agreement. Later, P talked to certain key people and shared out the rice and tinned fish between them. And my boss made a small payment, which was again shared out.

The day that I arrived in Goroka, the welding machine and all 32 sheets of iron were returned. There hasn’t been any trouble since (though I note that the fence has not been re-erected).

from the files

she's in fashion

these shirts are the business here. i don't notice them much anymore, but i remember initially being amazed at how many highlanders - male and female - wore them. felt a bit odd, actually, not having even one in my wardrobe. this is a shot taken down at the back of the markets; away from the food there's this secondhand section. you see every label imaginable (see red and green - and "tv week"? i was thinking about this photo today at lunch when a guy strutted by wearing one. god knows when it was made - i bet they couldn't even give it away in australia. hence a truckload came here. someone asked me a few weeks ago if it was ok to get a shirt with "coles" embroidered on the front. i couldn't lie. and the thing wasn't even cheap!)

(i did buy a shirt at some stage. plain, red. wore it twice but ... didn't really work as a disguise. now i just wear what i want. which means: no meri blouse.)

kids you're our only hope

on saturday a tall canadian man i know was in one of the local supermarkets. it was busy, crowded; there was a small child in the aisle; to get past, he stretched his long legs and stepped over it. and then...

major calamity in supermarket. People were shouting, instant crowd, some peering some offering commentary, child begings screaming. those white legs had committed a serious offence: stepping over a child, you see, stunts its future growth. the child was doomed.

and in an instant compensation was being discussed. how much is a child's future worth? how much could the whiteskin pay? who would even want the child - to educate, to marrry, to employ? $$$...

someone - some form of security - stepped in and told the parents off for trying to score money from the canadian, who was thankful and fled the store. But come monday, this rescuer turned up at his office, himself asking for payment for having stepped in on saturday. the canadian said he'd think about it. i'm guessing he'll have to pay him something.

and the child? time will tell.

Early yesterday morning, the uncle of a guy I worked with died. (Relationships are closer here; he calls him father.) He was in his 50s, the average age for a PNG adult to die (someone "elderly" is 50 an above). I saw A; he had been bawling. Everyone connected weeps and grieves openly - and extensively - when someone dies. Death and mourning are big parts of life. A had come into work to finalise something and then was off to organise the burial and attend the haus kri (where relatives, friends, associates gather at the village and mourn and perform mourning ceremonies; part of it is eating; the family kill pigs and cook and feed the mourners, in between bouts of wailing); he won't be back for 2 weeks, at least. I spoke to him briefly; he was on the verge of tears, and muted.

Outside an older man - another relative - waited for him. They were going to buy the coffin. (This is a pratical detail that is a big part of death and funerals here: finding the money and buying and transporting the coffin. Makes me realise no one in Australia talks about this aspect; it's hushed.)

He smelt of fire, and at first I thought he'd been burnt: there was something wrong with his face, his skin. But he was in mourning: covered in ash. Not grey ash though but smeared with the black of char. A had looked upset, but this man looked so terrible you could feel it in your gut. Only one word came close: devastation.