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 Phone book is 5 years out of date.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.]