Went out Friday and Saturday nights, and now feeling weary and rather depressed at the thought of the gun summit. In further retaliation for this incident, last week police shot off a raskol’s leg below the knee, strapped the guy to the front of a vehicle, and drove up and down the main street in Kainantu. The guy died from blood loss. Recently a family was held up by raskols with guns; they threatened to rape the 12 year old daughter but bargained with the family, who instead got together 2000kina and gave that to the raskols. Who proceeded to rape the child anyway, in front of the whole family. And what’s the bet the gun summit will merely turn out to be another discussion on border control and gun smuggling? Despite the established fact that the majority of guns bought illegally are bought from police stocks. Policing, raskols, guns, justice, unemployment: I wonder if anyone’s going to talk seriously about them. Certainly doubt it’ll be heard at the session with the Australian Rifle Association’s rep, on shooting and hunting.
**
There is a small nunnery next door. Working and retired nuns live there; the nuns are Spanish and German. I sometimes see one or two of the younger nuns around; one teaches sex education in high schools. Some of the elderly nuns are too scared to go out much; they have lived here for over a decade and have never ventured to the local shops. (Funny, because everyone has a lot of respect for priests, fathers, brothers, sisters; I doubt they’d have trouble.)
Imagine, such a life of fear, and god, and a little room.
I have to admit that the older nuns scare me. Goroka, no; nuns, yes. I’ve never spoken to them; I’m sure they’d be pleasant enough. And yet there’s something about the idea of them, I don’t quite know what – something authoritarian, disapproving, hard in character, despite those soft plump bodies. When I see a pale blue habit and that white hat, I actually turn and avoid them. Little indeed.
**
Yesterday morning – 9am sharp – I went to the katolik wedding of a woman I work with (all in pidgin: “Mi laik maritim Mary”; “John yu laik kisim Mary, meri bilong yu?”). It was held in the chapel next door. The nuns have made the chapel their own: a lot of the seats are personalised. (The spot where I was sitting, for instance, had a pair of glasses slipped into the little book shelf, and a big fat cushion, as if for a very short person. Which is not me, so I towered over everyone.)
And although everyone from work was there at 9, the bride and groom and their wantoks weren’t: the two important people turned up at about 9.20, and the service started. There were about 12 other people; they must have decided on small and intimate, I was thinking. But people did come, more and more; they were just running on the old png time. Every 5 minutes throughout the entire ceremony another cluster of people would arrive and the priest would pause and there’d be shuffling etc etc. Some even arrived only to catch the highlight: a kid having a tantrum. The couple’s two year old son was the ring bearer. Only, when they took the last ring away from him, he wanted it back for himself and tried to climb up his mother to get it, shouting and crying. Ha ha. The priest hurriedly finished off the job and we all clapped.
**
There is a small nunnery next door. Working and retired nuns live there; the nuns are Spanish and German. I sometimes see one or two of the younger nuns around; one teaches sex education in high schools. Some of the elderly nuns are too scared to go out much; they have lived here for over a decade and have never ventured to the local shops. (Funny, because everyone has a lot of respect for priests, fathers, brothers, sisters; I doubt they’d have trouble.)
Imagine, such a life of fear, and god, and a little room.
I have to admit that the older nuns scare me. Goroka, no; nuns, yes. I’ve never spoken to them; I’m sure they’d be pleasant enough. And yet there’s something about the idea of them, I don’t quite know what – something authoritarian, disapproving, hard in character, despite those soft plump bodies. When I see a pale blue habit and that white hat, I actually turn and avoid them. Little indeed.
**
Yesterday morning – 9am sharp – I went to the katolik wedding of a woman I work with (all in pidgin: “Mi laik maritim Mary”; “John yu laik kisim Mary, meri bilong yu?”). It was held in the chapel next door. The nuns have made the chapel their own: a lot of the seats are personalised. (The spot where I was sitting, for instance, had a pair of glasses slipped into the little book shelf, and a big fat cushion, as if for a very short person. Which is not me, so I towered over everyone.)
And although everyone from work was there at 9, the bride and groom and their wantoks weren’t: the two important people turned up at about 9.20, and the service started. There were about 12 other people; they must have decided on small and intimate, I was thinking. But people did come, more and more; they were just running on the old png time. Every 5 minutes throughout the entire ceremony another cluster of people would arrive and the priest would pause and there’d be shuffling etc etc. Some even arrived only to catch the highlight: a kid having a tantrum. The couple’s two year old son was the ring bearer. Only, when they took the last ring away from him, he wanted it back for himself and tried to climb up his mother to get it, shouting and crying. Ha ha. The priest hurriedly finished off the job and we all clapped.
tantrum begins
No comments:
Post a Comment