before Armstrong took his steps, she'd been there with friends*

My current things wish list:

A space pen.
Paul C. Fisher’s design: it’s used on US and Russian space missions (in fact, has been used on all of their missions since 1967). And it writes upside down, underwater , at extreme temps and even on a greasy surface. I really want one.

A case.
Actually a pelican protector case, medium sized. It is guaranteed forever: unbreakable, watertight, dustproof [take that!]; it is resistant to [unnamed] chemicals and is corrosion proof. Even has an “automatic purge valve for quick equalization after changes in atmospheric pressure”.

A book.
John Berger’s Here is Where We Meet.


It looks like a list for a journey into outer space: a pen to write essays on extraordinary travels (or “help me”; or “I come in peace”); a case to carry a camera and a notebook, and any specimens gathered (that will survive the rigours of space and the journey back to Earth, even if we crash land); and a book (even in space it’s Sunday afternoon sometimes).

*international colouring contest

friday on my mind

tonight's plan is to catchup with a mate who's been out playing anthropologist in the bush for 6 weeks. we're going to the (one) hotel, and tonight = ladies night. it's a new thing: the receptionists and waitresses have to wear these bilum dresses - kind of like knitted dresses - they are png designed - and they chat to you like 1920s club hostesses, while a man in the corner sings out of tune and plays a casio organ. it is actually quite entertaining and i can't wait. (but as i write this i wonder, am i starting to...go feral?) (no answers required)

and most cocktails are (well, dodgy and) K4 ($2aussie) for the ladies.
*

you could be good and have fruit or toast for breakfast...or rhuburb crumble german cake thing!

play it again, sam

friends are leaving town soon; the season of go pinis is starting. in a few months there'll be a different crew around; it is sad, but also exciting - new things with new people, feeling that kick of independence again. on your own, having to work it.
***
went to book club tongiht, for reading of 'summer of the 17th doll': bit of an ocker play (remember 'the one day of the year', yr 11 english), guessing from the '70s - yet surprisingly funny to read aloud. and fun, to play with voices.

stranger danger

In PNG there are some really bad, locally made tv adverts. Seriously bad. (The chook that talks and the person who squawks, for instance; I think it’s an ad for flour or rice; you cringe in sympathy for the [human] actors, every time: that squawk and the way they have to flap their elbows, so humiliating…The girls who “become women” by using x hair gel, and go out to…an almost deserted room to play pool. The music in the background…etc etc.)

This morning, yes when I was watching morning tv (am now back at home and without a television, so will go back to serious highbrow reading habits; tomorrow it is Henry James over breakfast), I saw an older ad which made me pause. It is for PNG tourism, and this time the quality was pretty good; it was the message that surprised. “Make visitors feel welcome!” a voice-over intoned as a mixed-race couple waited at a hotel reception desk. “Give them a smile!” I’d seen it before but today its emphasis struck me: the tourism industry’s intent here is not on selling PNG to tourists, but on selling tourists to Papua New Guineans.

Stranger-danger attitudes are common – less about whiteskins (everyone knows they’re strange, and they are) than about people from other districts and provinces. It’s not easy travelling here, but with a bit of work from both sides – tourists and locals – it is rewarding and surprising, and often unique.

(And this picture is not really related, other than that it depicts objects that might sell to tourists: beautiful green beetles threaded on to wires over a metre long. Why and what for and from where, I don’t know; but they look cool.)

house i have been housesitting comes with a haus meri. i love her. not only is she fun to watch tv with (always cries out when people are fighting or shouting), but ... she cleans everything and washes and irons all my clothes - and i don't even have to ask! maybe it's bad, but i love it.

do you see what i see?

no bars on the windows! almost everywhere else in town has bars - big or small, pretty or ugly. (this is the housesitting place again. i will now stop posting about it)

welcome to the house of fun

i am housesitting. i started last night. and it is lux: not only do i have a whole house to lounge around in, but there is a stereo (not music from the computer!) - tv (with remote!) - cable tv - (BBC WORLD!!!) - dvd player - shelves of dvds to pick from (no vcds!) - plus loads of books - and the guardian. there is so much to do.

last night i sat for an hour, channel hopping, staring at movies and books; so much choice, i was paralysed. eventually settled for 'ghost in the shell'. and then there was a blackout.

elongates - retracts - spins out again

Lido village and Vanimo town were tense. An Engan husband and wife, living in Vanimo for the mister’s job (snr public servant), were having trouble. She’d heard that he’d been having an affair with a local woman, a girl from Lido. The missus decided to pay a visit to Lido; there she had an argument with villagers for allowing a girl from their village to have an affair with her husband.

A few days later, on Thursday 1 Sept, her brother JKK is spotted in Vanimo and attacked by Lido villagers. He runs away – is chased – runs to court house for refuge – is beaten. (Controversially, three plainclothes policemen were at the court house and saw what happened, but didn’t intervene.) The beating stops, but a relative of the Lido girl hits the Engan man with a plank. The blow gets him on the side of the head, and it is fatal.

The relative soon surrenders to the police, and a type of calm settles. But it now turns into a story in the press. The following week things about the town start to appear: "armed villagers were patrolling the town freely", it is reported: Lido villagers with high powered arms (later denied by police); "not the first time Lido villagers have attacked other Papua New Guineans living and working in town", it is claimed. Police are too friendly with the Lido villagers, it is asserted. Businesses fear rioting.

A petition is presented to the provincial authorities by the town’s Highlander community. They are calling for an investigation into the event, and for the policemen involved to be fired or transferred. Also in this list is a demand for compensation for the killing of the Enga man. They want K200,000 cash, 20 pigs, 20 cassowaries, 10 cows, and an additional K25,000 for "repatriation and funeral expenses".

Lido villagers in general stay away from town. Police go to Lido, and with the help of the village leaders, they apprehend nine "suspects" and question them. They charge the relative who had surrendered (the media do not report that he surrendered, but this is what a Lido villager asserts). It is alleged that there is a ringleader amongst the nine, a former policeman. With the questioning of these nine, tension rises again.

On Tuesday 6, police publicly issue an ultimatum: they will not tolerate protests or marches about this issue. (If you want to protest, you have to get approval from police and give seven days’ notice.) Police call for Lido and Highlanders leaders to sit down and talk. (This itself is a bit of a sticky comment, because it comes from the police chief who has also just called for motorists not to stop if raskols try and hold them up, but to run them down.)

But town remains agitated and on Wednesday businesses do not open. Highlanders – ones living locally, and friends and family of JKK who have travelled up to Vanimo – march through the streets and present a compensation petition to the provincial government. This petition demands that the police chief and his entire force be removed; the other demands have increased a little:

K200,000 cash
20 pigs (K120,000 value)
Cassowaries (K20,000 value)
10 cows (K15,000 value)
K16,000 to repatriate body from V to Hagen, plus K5,000 to transport it to Wabag
K25,000 funeral expenses

The provincial governor announced that the government would not be paying the compensation - because it had not been budgeted for, and (oh yeah) it would breach the financial regulations act.

It's around this point that you realise the event has turned into story. The truth elongates - retracts - and spins out again. Maybe one one Lido villager was involved, after all; maybe JKK was attacked because earlier a Wabag man had pulled a bush knife on the Lido girl. What occurred, and why, changes according to who is talking.
**
On the way back from Indonesia, we stayed in Lido village - quite unaware of what had been going on. Here we met Frank: a friendly and exceptional conversationalist. (He is my oral source; other findings have been gleaned from archival research, most notably involving PNG’s two daily rags.) Naively, I asked him "so what was this about Engans and riots recently?", and he told us a story.

Now I know that, like the other versions, what he spoke of contained his own sympathies. As with Biak, I wish that I had been more aware of the context I was walking through, and talking about.

we arrived in lido village as innocents

Having spent the morning travelling from Indonesia, Lido was a respite. No motorbikes, no buses, no cars. No horns, no shouts. No pollution. On the coast just west of Vanimo, it is a stereotypical tropical village: coconut palms, white sandy beaches, the sea, the sea; houses on stilts built almost on the shore itself, and bunches of giggly, gangly, beautiful kids.

There is a surf club here, and they’re working to build up the name of the area as a surfing destination. (The season hadn’t quite started yet, so can’t report on the waves. But the founder of Tracks has surfed there, and commented favourably in the guest book.) It’s near the equator and it’s hot. When we arrive it’s mid-afternoon; there’s almost no one around. People rest at this time; older women go out and fish. At first glance, there is no one at home at the place we want to stay. We wait underneath the house, in the cooler shade. But we’re not alone: in a bilum hanging from a rafter, there’s a chubby baby, fast asleep.

After about twenty minutes, the baby’s mother returns and we organise the accommodation. Then it’s time for a paddle down at the beach, and a bunch of kids take us on a guided tour of the village: we meet a man carving a boat, a group of men playing canasta (keeping score in a thick, neatly ruled book), see the kids’ school, the teachers’ accommodation, the cemetery, the surfing beach, the church. We explain who we’re staying with to people we meet along the way, so that they can place us; although they are used to visiting surfers, strangers are rare in this strong community. Life is simple, and gains its strength through relationships and traditions. If you wanted to build a house, marry, fish, make gardens and love, raise a few pikaninnies, know your neighbours, swim and watch the sun set and rise every day, well this could be the place to do it.

But things aren’t always as they seem. Back soon with a tale of true crime.

we're hungry, beware of our appetite

Addictions. I have a few.

1. sudoko! i am even buying the local rag every day to do it. and when there is no paper, well, err, you can kind of, find some online, if you're so inclinded...

2. Change. I get bored easily; bit too easily, need to mature a bit and settle. I felt a bit disconnected from my life in Goroka this past week. Boredom has set in – this is no longer a crazy adventure, but normal, life. I was crotchety; I wanted adventures. But last night, having dinner with friends, suddenly what had made me cross earlier – normal, life – was touching and good. I felt connected to where I was and what I was doing again. (It’s odd that feelings like that are out of your control; sometimes you just have to ride them out, they go when they are ready, not under your orders.) Given the chance, I would have my bags packed within an hour (maybe less) and head off travelling for a few years. But actually I have over a year to pack them, and it wouldn’t be much fun to spend so long preparing for the pack.

3. Cigars; those little thin cigarette-style ones (if you can't smoke cigarettes then you've gotta get your fix from somewhere). British newspapers (Guardian has sudoko too). Meandering around online. Talking along with tricky and martine when listening to maxinquaye.

one fish , two fish

it was on a late afternoon wander on the first day in biak, that we stumbled across the fish markets.

it was perfect timing, with the day's catch just coming in.

the haul included some big ones.


look! piles of those little flashes of silver you swim with

if you go down to the woods today...

well, if you cheat and go to the markets, there are not only strawberries but blackberries! for only 1kina (50c) a punnet! to celebrate i have bought cheap bubbles, and sent german girl out for ice cream. love the friday.

smooth operators

skanky hotel, Jayapura

Vanimo, PNG: “Do you sell any rupiah?” we ask at the hotel reception desk. “No” is the reply, one we’re used to by now. We had intended to buy some rupiah before crossing the border – to pay for a taxi to Jayapura on the other side (and the LazyPerson’s travel guide warns a bribe at the Indo border office is required, and when reporting to Immigrasi in Jayapura. However, turns out that at neither point are under-the-table, back-of-the-passport, nudge-nudge-wink-wink deals necessary.).

We asked at the bank, but they don’t sell it. We asked at the moneychanger named in the travel guide – down back of X Trading, a supermarket, we walk up flight of stairs, knock on door, door opens a crack and we get peered at. But they’ve sold out. We go one to ask at every supermarket in town. And even ask at the car dealership. Nowhere has any rp.

On the morning of border-crossing, before going to the Indonesian consulate to collect visas, we ask at the hotel. It’s pretty much the last place in town to try. But again ‘no’. We walk on to the consulate. Car drives up, beeps and pulls over. Driver looks Philippino; no one I know. But he says something to us; I don’t catch it, but I can see two fat bundles of rupiah next to him on the passenger seat.

Half on, half off the road, he whips out a calculator (brand new, price tag still stuck on) and as other cars pass we make a deal. 3000rp for 1kina. Doesn’t vary if we buy more/less; this is a fixed rate, “good price”. We swap cash and he counts it all out, carefully and visibly.

“Are you from X Trading?” J asks. How did he find us? “No – X Forest Products” he replies. I stifle horrified laughter. XFP are well-known for screwing over local communities and raping the environment. Under various business names, they own most of the town. Including our hotel (…join the dots). Here we are, doing roadside deals with the devil.

With pretty visas and wads of rp, we’re set to go, and wait for the pmv we’d arranged earlier to take us up to the border (it’s a 45min drive away; a red pmv makes the trip every day). Unfortunately, we’ve been stood up, and so instead of a 10kina trip in a bus we hire an old, decrepit yellow taxi for the bargain price of 100kina. Still, it gets us there and the drive is good; I love the tropics.

On the Indo side, our taxi is a new Toyota kiang. On comfy (plastic-covered) seats we zoom down and around to Jayapura, listening to Boney M of all things, loud (in my brand new guide book bhasa I’d asked driver to play some music, and this is what we got).

An hour and a half later, we’re in a city! An Asian city! Motorbikes and cars; traffic again! Music. Mixes of different people. KFC. Mosques. Dirty. Busy.

Perhaps a bit stunned by it all, we make idiot travel faux pas: booking into the first room we see. (It looks like the Chunking Mansions in Chunking Express: too many men squeezed into single rooms, scheming.)

In the middle of the night I sit up in terror as I hear rats scuttling in the wall behind my head.

it's a rant, a rave

The facing island, a mortal blue, beckons, intensifies, vanishes.
- Peter Rose

I was cross yesterday. (Today's been much better and I am able to grin at it all again. Even though our power's out this arvo. What a lark!) If I had been able to whinge online, this is what it might have sounded like:

Nothing works – no net access, no water; not just for an afternoon, but for 36 hours. Everything is grating: work, length of the day, and town. Went into town for lunch and got grabbed by some idiot as I was buying a paper. Well “grabbed” is a bit nice: my arm was encircled by an iron claw. That refused to open. The owner of the claw wasn’t after my bag or anything, just out roaming with the intention to harm. He wouldn’t let go of me. I wasn’t in the mood, but he was stronger, and the bastard left a bruise. Also read (in said paper) that a politician wants Australians out of the country, claiming that they/we are making PNG a terrorist target.

It’s all little stuff that I’d usually laugh about, but still, some days it gets you down. My defences relaxed in Indonesia – which is one of the best things about being on holidays; that and laughing so much. Coming back is just a pain. Ah, holidays. When other worlds beckon, intensify, vanish.
**
update: went to a dinner party tonight, where 4 out of 6 white females have been robbed/hassled in the past two weeks; whiteskins are thin on the ground really, so that's actually a pretty telling stat. What to make of it though, depends on who you talk to. Princess Anne visited Moresby last week/week before, and the local mobile squad went down as reinforcement; they are still not back because they have not yet been paid for doing so; this is oneof the reasons given for the crime stuff. it'll pass; must simply act safe and lay low.

Biak Story # 7

Humour me and read on as I tell you a little story, with a little history, set in Biak.

Gua Japeng / Gua Biseng

Japanese Caves / Grandmother’s Cave; one guide book gave us the former, the other gave a more folky version, citing a rumour about an old woman who lived in the caves prior to WWII.

It is hot when we arrive at the caves. They’re open now for tourists. We got a quick ride up on ojeks (hired motorbikes); it’s sometime approaching midday, in that hot, bright, so-close-to-the-equator sun. Once we’ve paid our entrance fees and given our mark to another guest book, it’s a relief to start walking along the pathway, into the shade.

The path leads into a tropical forest. We move through a soft green light; trees soar upwards, while vines, ferns and plants grow thickly at a more pedestrian level. The path we walk on is about a metre wide, old cement covered with lichen; we pad gently along.

Gua Japeng is just outside of Biak Kota (the island’s biggest town). The caves were of strategic importance in WWII: up at this entrance, they overlook Biak’s airstrip (built during the war); they also tunnel down south-eastwards to the coast, coming out near Bosnik.

On 27 May 1944, American forces landed on the beaches near Bosnik. Japanese soldiers were hidden in the nearby hills and caves, and although the Americans landed easily, they had a weak position and initially had trouble advancing beyond the beach area. It wasn’t until 22 July that they could claim that Japanese resistance had been overcome.

When defeat was perceived, thousands of the Japanese soldiers withdrew and/or hid in the caves. They refused to surrender. Allies threw drums of petrol and hand grenades down the caves’ entrances. The Japanese – maybe six thousand – were incinerated.

(thanks to JCD for pics)

Sometime in the past fifty years, the Japanese government built a memorial at the cave area. Priests cremated the bones that had been gathered.

Today, the memorial is now behind a sunny blue picket fence. The Japanese had installed stone seats so that people could sit and gaze in at the caves’ entrance, but I couldn’t see them and I think they’ve moved. There is, however, a big box that the guide will open for you; inside are bones.

They looked freshly unearthed to me, and whose they are – well, it’s more fun not knowing.

“Gua Japeng”, of course, refers to the Japanese soldiers who lived and died in the caves. It is the term the locals all use, and the sign at the caves’ site. Forget this grandmother business; history is less mediocre, and people are not so weak. Listen to the stories they tell you; there’s mettle in there. Let me tell you another one.


Biak Story # 12 Biak Bloody Biak


On 1 July 1971, a declaration of independence was made by Papuans – independence from Indonesian rule (I’m referring here to West Papuans; not sure what the correct term is). The date remains an unofficial anniversary, marked each year by Papuans; usually marked with caution, for fear of arrest.

In Biak, in 1998, it was different: there was a big public demonstration.* Hundreds of the OPM – Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free West Papua Movement) – gathered at Biak Kota’s water tower and raised an independence flag. They were public. They were armed, with knives and spears. Local church leaders convinced them to disarm, but the crowd refused to disperse. People stayed there for days.

On 3 July, police and the ABRI – Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (Inodnesian Armed Forces) – came down with batons and charged the crowd, who resisted and fought back. 13 soldiers were injured; I’m not sure about the Papuans. The OPM stayed.

Two days later, the police set down a deadline: people had to disperse by 5pm. The crowd didn’t budge; people set in for another night. Additional armed forces were flown in, and marines assembled (Biak Kota is a port town, and two navy frigates were in). At 5:30am on 6 July the crowd was attached. Many people were still asleep.

The official forces open fire, killing 20 Papuans and injuring 141. People were shot in their legs, a “prearranged strategy to inflict maximum terror. The shooting was indiscriminate” (Elmslie 241). Houses in the area were searched and suspected OPM sympathisers were shot on sight.

The people caught were assembled at the water tower. They were forced to lie down; once down, they were rifle-whipped and kicked. They were forced to crawl down to the wharf, and lie back again, now in the fierce sun. For two hours they had to lie as soldiers marched on their faces and stomachs, and beat them. Then they were ordered to crawl to the town jail.

Another 139 people were loaded onto the two naval frigates. This included women and children. The frigates went out to sea. Women were stripped and raped. People were slaughtered. Bodies were chopped into pieces and put in bags; others were thrown overboard.

A few kids jumped and swam, saving their lives. One man hid in a barrel and survived. No one else was seen again, alive.

In the following days, bodies washed up on Biak’s shores, or were snarled in fishing nets.

The Indonesian military later reported that one person was killed and two were missing. They explained the bodies that were turning up as being those of victims of a tsunami, which occurred at least a week later (I’m not sure if it was even that same year).


I only read about this later, after I’d left Biak, so I didn’t pay attention to a water tower, if I passed it. In fact, I hardly saw any Papuans in Biak Kota. It was different outside of the town; there were Papuans in the inner parts of the island. On the coastal areas we moved through, though, most people were mixed race; more lighter shades of brown than black. And the kids everywhere were mixed. I’d never read a scrap of information about Bloody Biak. It was someone JCD spoke to who gave the clue; I’m sure that story will appear over here some time soon; will link properly when it does.


*IRIAN JAYA UNDER THE GUN: Jim Elmslie. 2002. Uni of Hawai’i Press.

personal best

Got to one degree (and maybe one minute) south of the equator! So close, you cast almost no shadow.

bagus (= good)

What I saw of Indonesia was busy and tropically hot and friendly and alive; I plan to go back. I had a great holiday. Tired now, but more descriptive posts will follow.

The one negative? Turning around. I wanted to keep moving, west. The travel bug is back.

(me and mei goreng)

saturday, indonesia

hire motorbike (aussie$7 per day! don't even need licence, or your name). ride east, along coastal road, hiding under the overhang of a roadside stall when heavy shower of rain comes through. later head north, making it across island. ride through tropical forests, tiny villages. we're so close to the equator (a little over 1 degree away) that at midday we cast almost no shadow. it's hot and my knees get sunburnt. stop at one of world's most beautiful beaches. people are friendly and welcoming. it's an isolated spot, but they bring out a guest book for us to sign. others have been here before and we add our own traces to theirs, to this record.

riding back, in last five minutes before reaching town we get thoroughly drenched in a sudden downpour. come back to hotel, dry off and snooze for a while, before having a few bintangs (local beers) and buying some food from the small stall around the corner. then bed.

and today i read about bombings. mi no save. seems like a world away.