up, up and away

Tomorrow I fly out and start heading towards the home base. It’s not better or worse, but things will certainly be different there. I won’t be saying “mornin’” to everyone I pass when I walk around (and I’ll have to pay more attention to how I dress). When I stand in line at the bank, strangers won’t start up conversations with me (and there won’t be 20 people ahead of me in the line). When it gets after 5pm and I’m still walking around, I won’t be worried about safety. I will be able to buy fresh milk. To catch a train. To drink water from the tap and not worry about typhoid. I will miss the fresh, cheap fruit and veg in Goroka – but there will be such a variety of other foods available that maybe I won’t after all. People with red lips will be wearing lipstick, rather than chewing buai. There will be bookshops.

guard dog

"guard dog" is actually the name of the security company who guard the place where I live - I'm not being rude. Sohi (above) is one of the security guards at the place i've been housesitting; he doesn’t work for the firm, he's private. The bow was fixed by last night (look; it's a big 'un), and so he put on the uniform and proudly posed for a few shots.

in action

last night and tonight = farewell dinners (for people leaving permanently) and early chistmas ones too. it's fun, and great to spend the time with such good people. goodbyes are part of it all, but don't define it. yet at work and outside of it, my mind is half elsewhere: it's just 3 sleeps till i leave too (impermanently).

blips drips and strips

Tonight I asked Sohi if I could take his photo to show my family. He was very excited. “Wait Robyn wait!” he cried over his shoulder as he ran downstairs. “Yu takim piksa long mi na bow and arrow. Yu showim gutpla security!”

He came back five minutes later with a bow about 6ft tall and a bundle of spears. He carefully enacted what he would do if someone tried to climb into the garden:

“I would hide in a very dark place, and pull back the arrow like this, and he wouldn’t know I was there, and then I would shoot this spear and he wouldn’t be able to run, and I would run upstairs and knock on your door Robyn and you would call the police” (shit! I think. I have no idea what the police number is. Phone book is 5 years out of date. I don’t think there is a 000 here. must make effort to be more security conscious.)

Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my camera after all (but don’t worry; will get a photo when he’s back at work on Friday.) Or maybe that’s not so unfortunate, as the third or fourth time he pulled back the bow, it broke (“bush materials” he muttered and shook his head. He gets what looks like a long tough strip of bark from the market.). I asked him if he has ever had to shoot a person, or even an animal, but um he hasn’t. Still, it does look impressive when it works.

There’s also the weird edge added by his outfit. I’d seen it before, but assumed that it was for warmth at night. Now I learn that it is his own security uniform: it is what he wears, he tells me, when he is on guard. It’s a green and black chequered dressing gown, one of those full body types in wool that your dad or grandpa might have. Or, in Goroka, your security guard.

[As I type, I can hear someone doing some chopping. It’s one of the two security guards; he is making an axe handle. This afternoon, walking home from work, a old woman came up to me and we said “apinun” (afternoon) and we shook hands. (I didn’t know her.) She grinned broadly at this interaction, and then hugged me; and hugged me again; and finally let me go with a farewell “ah, nice”. Oh, to touch the white meri! I have no idea of what this might mean to her, but it made her smile so that was good. It's not a rule, but: some days PNG will make you smile.]

I hear it's been pretty hot in Adelaide. Up here in the land of the clouds, things don't vary so much. It's clear around noon most days, and clouds are around before and after. You need a blanket or two at night (fact: only expats have quilts), and jeans and a shirt will become your daily uniform. Now and then you remember, though, that it's beautiful.

I had a chat to one of the guards tonight, So-hi (I have no idea about this spelling; this is phonetic). He is a great guy, and is turning into a bit of a mate. We chat most evenings. Lately he keeps bringing up my departure - it's only for two weeks, and I'll be back for a year. But he talks about it like he's touching a sore tooth. I said tonight that I was really looking forward to going, seeing my wantoks etc, and he almost cried (guys here can be quite senitmental; crying occurs frequently, and publicly), saying that he and the other guard have been talking about me and gosh they are really going to miss me and x y z. It was really sweet - but then I am a sucker (I have also just made them another cake). "It's only two weeks!" I say. "Ah, but, mi feeling sori tru" he sighs. Hm; I am a complete sucker. I am moved.

in da g

It was a mate's birthday during the week, and the real excuse for the party last night. I bought him a birthday cake from the supermarket. There were five to choose from, mostly with Christmas wishes. This one had a birthday message which was irresistible, given my friend is an Aussie bloke who turned 29: "I am, 2 days old, please, love me! Carry me like a honey moon and kisses me as a Baby Bird!!"

goroka. 10.12.05.

tonight we party like... it's my birthday again!

andy you're a star (in nobody's eyes, but mine)

well enough of seriousness; after considering poverty and the ills of the world, i turned on the tv and "tommy lee goes to college" was on! i am out of touch - hadn't heard of this gem before. (and it was even actually err amusing to watch him flunk out of the school band - "you said you were a muso! bigshot wanker".)

i posted about new tribes recently, a weird and secretive american mission outside of Goroka. just after I posted it, I came across their yearbook for 2002. (still can't work out how it slipped into my bag). Inside are shots of the staff (all [named] whiteskins, barring one: "maintenance" is pngian), wills of the year 12 students ("Firstly, I give my life and those in it to God. With my focus on the cross, I can walk on water..."), and shots of the crrrrrazy antics they get up to. Like mud wrestling (left) and sticking people in big pots (right). We were laughing at this but then my friend asked - wait - look closely at that second picture - is that blood in the bottom left?

comparative sociology

So png – like any other place – has it’s problems. There are many things it has going for it, however. These two are phrased negatively, but – given the poverty and lack of useful employment here – are very important:

- hardcore drugs are so minimal as to be non-significant. I have never, ever heard of any up in the EHP; I’m sure they appear (in minimal quantities) PoM, Lae, maybe somewhere coastal or along the border – but they don’t make it here. There is tons of dope, but nothing stronger. Dealers aren’t big men.
- guns are old. Yeah, I know: they still kill. But people aren’t wearing night goggles and hiding from tracer ammo.

I watched “City of God” last night, and the doco on Rio de Janeiro’s pavelas (slums/settlements/ghettos). It’s actually a relief to think of PNG in comparison; individually people here are so good (and comparatively society is positively innocent); the problems related to drugs are not entrenched, crime is not the only option, not necessarily trans-generational, not so inevitable. Nor so organised. Guns are an issue, but it must be said, a background issue – a political issue (RdeJ’s police storehouse of confiscated guns! Unbelievable. And what was it the chief of police said? “We have modern armament that even Libya doesn’t have.” This is serious. “People are used to it. They conform to it.”).

But it also reinforced what I’ve been thinking about for a while: forget cultural differences. The big obstacle that is ever-increasing is poverty, linked with class. In so many areas in the world, “gaps” between classes are widening. That is where crime – drugs – guns step in.

[Oh my god! We’re having an earthquake! Must save houseowner’s ming vases - ]

when i was down in lae i bought some of my favourtie foods - these packet meals are amazing. you don't have to do much at all: put a silver pouch in boiling water for 5mins, that's it. and what's inside the pouch actually comes out looking exactly like what's on the cover! veg and all. and yet there are no artificialities whatsoever. how do they do it? i don't know. this time i actually read the back: the food "technology" is developed by the Defence Food Research Lab in the Ministry of Defence in India. i've had space food before, but not defence food. impressed.

must be the season of the witch

When I woke up this morning I went into the kitchen to get a glass of water – and with my poor bare feet I stepped on a giant bug. Disgusting squishing crunch and then goo sensation.
***
Last week at work, we finished the production of a book we have been working on for six months. It isn’t a good one – accepted before I arrived – but it is concerned with sanguma in the Highlands. When we finally sent the book off to the printers in India, I felt relived: enough of witchcraft and sorcery! But today we had a bit of a tok save at work about it. The issue, it seems, is getting worse up here, rather than better. By which I mean more people are being accused and killed for practising sanguma.

Two weeks ago in a nearby village (Kamilaki) three women were killed and their bodies dumped in the Kamilaki river. One was a human rights activist; her family is educated – she has a few brothers and worked and paid for their school fees; one went on to join the provincial government, another filmed for the local news for awhile. It is rumoured that the brothers were involved in the killings.

It is alarming, to say the least. Once you have been accused of practicing, there is little you can do to clear your name; mud sticks. In Morobe I know men have been accused – usually the situation relates to power struggles – but I don’t know that many men have been victims in the Highlands; generally it’s those without a secure position in the community: single women, old men or women, maybe a young teenager, but typically a widow, who might be seen as a drain on resources when resources are scarce. It is pretty frightening that women with powerful positions are being affected; this is a patriarchal stronghold anyway, and there are so few women in public roles that this type of loss reverberates very negatively. It also indicates that things are getting worse within communities; what people value, what makes them feel secure, is shrinking.

It’s not easy to get a hold on PNG. From Australian foreign policy prats, PNG is considered either a “failing state” – or a failed one. I don’t think either are true – and anyway Australians have an excellent historical record for getting PNG wrong – like about 95% of the time. So we’ll watch and see. This is your faithful correspondent, reporting live, as it happens, from Goroka, Papua New Guinea…

Last Friday I took a trip with a friend (and fellow aust volunteer) to check out the status of the building of a footbridge in the EHP.

The site was down on the backside of Goroka, but to get there, we had to travel down the Highway to Ramu – leaving the province – and then curve back up in a V-shaped route. There is no possible direct route, so where we ended up was only perhaps two hours drive from Gka as the crow flies; about 6 hours drive by road.

Past Ramu, we kept travelling once the nice bitumen road ended. We drove along a track for an hour; the Ramu river has flooded and the going was slow and precarious at times. But with some neat driving from Silas we had no troubles.

Silas however hadn’t been down here before. We were travelling down in two cars, and ours was leading for most of the way. Finally Silas pulled over and told the other car to lead; he didn’t know where this bridge was. But – no one in the other car knew its location either! We had been driving for five hours, the road was getting less and less like a road and we were quite isolated – not passing any villages anymore. There was an added bit of tension in the air because if it rained the water would rise and we wouldn’t be able to make it out: we’d be stuck in this swamp land.

But we couldn’t just turn around; talk about losing face. So we kept driving. The foliage grew thicker and thicker – how long had it been since cars had last driven down here?. It was beautiful; but eventually Silas, who had been silent for a long while, said: “this is turning into jungle; I don’t think we can drive much further.” He was right.

we pushed our way through the grasses.

of course immediately after this pronouncement we rounded a bend and there was the bridge.

site inspection

this is the "old" footbridge.

doing the highlands highway

drove down it on friday, exploring the back of the eastern highlands province via ramu; then further down to lae; and from there we drove the stretch back to gka today. i love the highlands highway; if you ever come to png you must try and travel along it. good road, and you pass through really fantastic landscapes.

although lae has bigger shops with more stuff (foreign newspapers and mags! tru), leaving the humid morobe, it was delicious to come back to our highlands' air: fresh, cool and clean.

one thing i don't tire of is the reciprocal deal with food: i still love receiving food from people's gardens as an exchange for something i have done - or not; something i am expected to do in the future...yeah it carries it's risks (you want me to do/host/allow what???), but you can also play the game in return. and, from my background, it's something i value: bananas you grew! or peas or mangoes or ginger or peanuts or pawpaw or even the old sweet potatoes. and because i'm still foreign to this game, it often comes as an unexpected gift: "i was thinking of you and you're a gutpela meri and here are some bananas i grew; they are for you". it's a little gift, but enough for me, and moving in its gesture.