yes we have no...

have just spent last three hours peeling green bananas. 3 hours! with 5 other women! imagine how many bananas that was. peeling with peeler; others had knives, but i wasn't quite as skilled with the blade so i stuck with the idiot's tool.

tomorrow = big mumu feast to farewell ex-director at work. a medium-sized pig has been bought (it cost more than my fortnight's salary) and was killed late this afternoon (I was all ready to document procedure, but pig was taken off campus, to a place with a spit to roast it on; apparently highlands' way of killing pig is to whack it on the head with a shovel or big rock; other places will spear it; will shoot it; will stab it). (pig was bought on wed and spent its last days tied up on our campus; thursday night people tried to place a ladder against the fence, climb in and steal the pig. would they have lifted the screaming thing and carried it up the ladder and over the other side? we will never know; plan was foiled by the guards. guards were scared and didn't know what to do, so just woke up people who live on campus by knocking on their doors. "Um, excuse me, it's midnight and [stage whisper] there's someone with a ladder against the fence trying to climb in! What do we do?")

as well as the pig, there'll be a ton of veg, 3 tonnes of bananas (we were peeling yellow-orange cooking ones; there are also purple cooking ones; both will be cooked in coconut cream with greens and chickens) (oh and there'll be another type of mau (ripe) savory banana, plus the sweet ones in the fruit salad. so many). soft fizzy drinks. no sdas (seventh day adventists) are coming so we won't have goat. and then we've got icecream and black forest cake for desert. the whole thing is about the food; forget the event. actually, the big deal is really the preparation. then people eat too much, laze around and maybe have a nap. sounds like christmas.

notes on anniversaries

1996 was the year of law enforcement in PNG, I learnt today. PNG’s third state of emergency relating to criminal behaviour occurred that year also; a national curfew was enforced. All over the country, people had to remain in their homes between 7pm and 4am. It seems laughable, thinking of the many many isolated rural and coastal communities. How serious was this? (Thanks Skate.) I imagine they just meant towns. I’m not sure if it was due to nation-wide problems, or Pt Moresby’s own issues. Anyway, it didn’t help. Many people suspected that criminals would lie low, and strike doubly hard when the curfew was over. Some raskols found it entertaining to run from one area to another at night, without being picked up by the police.

But – more to the point – criminals weren’t worried, for a very obvious reason: they operated within daylight hours! A surprisingly little amount of crime happens at night here, both in 1996 and today in 2006. The most dangerous time for a woman in a 24 hour period is shortly before dawn until perhaps 7.30am (few people are out in public at this time, so great chance of getting raped). The most dangerous time for a business occurs shortly before (when the tills are full) or during the shifting of cash to the bank – which must of course happen during business hours.

Tribal fights, too, continue to obey traditional time rules: start at around 8am, finish at about 4pm. This allows people time to arrive at the scene of the fight, and to leave and go home before it gets too dark, and when they are tired and not fighting well anyway. Tribal fights will also dwindle and effectively be cancelled when it rains heavily.

*

yo and i have been here for several months over a year and my second bday in png is approaching and friends had better be around for it or else (forget brisbane, ok). And yesterday i had to tell the person i love most in png that i am leaving early. And i came home afterwards and, well, i cried. What is this, getting sentimental? Only one year, but I must have been here too long. Mates will recall my anti-sentimental stance over great events like princess di's death and stupid movies. Yet i'm just such a weakling now that if i tried to argue I simply couldn't hold a serious position. i am turning sentimental! i blame png; i just wasn't like this before. People here - especially men - cry easily and openly. And ... it's important, important to show your feelings (sometimes you get into trouble if you don't; imagine); it makes sense here.

when i get back, of course, i'm going to be just as tuff as i used to be. don't get the wrong idea.

bang bang bang bang

It was hot today, mid-afternoon. We were working, photoshopping an image. We heard bangs. And then one of the dogs started barking. “What’s she barking at? Is there some trouble?” my colleague asked.

As I stared at the image we were working on, half-listening to her, three men ran past our office, down into the gardens behind our building. “They’ve got guns” someone shouted. But now they were hidden by bush; we couldn’t see them, but they could see us. They were still there; the dog kept barking at a certain point. There was a moment of clear and present danger.

Someone called the front office to get help; someone else called her home, 50m away, and told her kids to lock the door. A police car roared up and two officers – who did not appear to be armed – leapt out and ran into the garden.

When it’s real, you realise how out of your depth you are. I’d never been in a situation like this before. They have guns and they could shoot us. I write it and it sounds simple. But there was that moment when I realised it, and I felt frightened and outraged at the same time. How pointless it would be if I were shot, if I died here, in this office.

On the one hand, it’s cops and robbers and bang bang bang bang! It is exciting. But on the other it’s an awful kind of quiet. They have guns and they could shoot us. Out of the blue like this, one of us could be shot and die. What if it’s me, what if it’s her. On a sunny afternoon at work. For absolutely nothing.

**

They’d held up a car nearby and stolen two cash boxes (so prearranged: they knew who to watch for – when – where to wait – where to run). They’d fired four shots at people as they ran off; one box was hidden/dropped in their getaway, but they held on to the second. One man’s shoe fell off in our yard. No one stopped to get it. The police ran and chased them through our gardens, but they vanished over a fence.

on not reading kafka

benefits of the balcony. we don't get sunsets, but you can get some nice light/shade views

Prague was the first non-English speaking city I visited. I went there by myself when I was 20 and discovered - among many other things - Kafka. Well, not him exactly; I saw the memorial plaque making the place where he had lived, just around the corner from the main square, just down from a stretch of those repetitive glassware shops. And I bought a nice edition of some of his short stories (1904-1923) from a bookshop named “Shakespeare and Co” – not the same as the famous Parisian bookstore where (at that time) you could get a free night’s accommodation in exchange for a bit of re-shelving.

This bookshop was a bit more upmarket and had its own café. It was cold that day; I walked to the book store, crossing the city and the river via one of the old bridges, and bought the book and sat in the warm café which was filled with middle-class looking students. I had a hot chocolate, pretending to read my book but really content to just sit back and watch and listen.

That was my first try at reading Kafka. I tried again later, back in the hostel, but there were too many distractions. The hostel was in the upper floors of a clock tower; downstairs, the belly of the tower opened out into a main train station, and from there train lines seeped out like entrails. So I could hear the noise of the trains, the ringing of bell when the clock reached an hour, and if I kneeled on a shelf, I could peer out of the window placed high up in the wall, and watch a city.

Another girl in the hostel – a Canadian – and I went out in the evening to one of the beer halls, and drank jugs of beer for the amazing price of 40 aussie cents. Walking home I remember being a bit disorientated – the glow of light from an Italian pizzeria on the cobblestones – huddling inside my coat against the cold – stopping and buying a hot dog, which turned out to be a weiner with saukraut in a bread roll, and not half bad.

It wasn’t until I’d been back in Australia for a while that I picked up Kafka’s stories again. But I couldn’t get into the style of the writing, whether it was his or the translator’s; soon I put it down, and wandered away. This has happened several times over the years since then. I brought the book over to PNG with me, thinking that this would be the time to really discover Kafka. But I still can’t get past the first few pages. It crosses my mind to leave the book here when I go. Kafka in PNG. Maybe I will. And yet I’ve become attached to it, for the stories it reminds me of, the cobbles, the cold.

I bought a book in every major place I travelled through on that trip, a tradition I’ve stuck to until PNG, where there are none.

rats

I posted something the other day mentioning polygamy. Went out for dinner tonight and heard this one from a very reliable source. And it’s all true:

A Highlands MP – has 7 official wives – countless girlfriends (plenty young female university students; he pays their uni fees), likes to party – has AIDS. First two wives are dead (one from suicide), both had AIDS, both spoke to relatives and police in last weeks of their lives claiming he had knowingly infected them with the virus. A special committee was formed to investigate, and at this stage he is going to be charged with manslaughter, one of the first people in the country to be charged under new AIDS laws. He flies to Australia regularly for treatment. Those he has infected haven’t been as lucky.

Unbelievable.

The story came out in the papers this week, but his name has not yet been published; he hasn’t yet been charged. A friend spoke to him last week in Moresby. He was wearing boardshorts, hanging out by a pool, relaxed and having fun. He sleeps around so much that he is known in Enga for having four testicles. Ipatas is proud of this moniker.

Soon after talking about this, a big fat rat squeezed its way out of the airconditioner in the town's chinese restaurant. There is an upper skirting board running around the room, with plants and lights. The rat skuttled through, knocking plants aside, not bothering to hide its noise. At one point it slipped and teetered for a moment over the side. It was relaxed and having fun.

life and death on this island

There was a man who was a good soccer player. He was 30, and had lived in Goroka for most of his life, but his home village was in Manus. He was married to a nurse; his wife was from the same village in Manus. They had two young sons. He worked in the coffee business – not growing the beans himself, but buying them from local growers and selling them internationally. He was reasonably well-off; he had affairs with two other women, considered his second and third wives. (To have additional wives, you have to be able to financially afford additional wives.)

A month ago, out of the blue, he decided he needed to go back to his village. He hadn’t been back for a long time. He went around Goroka town to all the people he was close to, asking for money for his plane far back. He raised enough, and returned to the village. And last week he died. Suddenly; he was not overtly ill.

Everyone is talking. Because he had such a “strong cultural marriage” – he was married to women from the same village – it is said that other villagers may have used sorcery to kill him, because he had extra wives. “AIDS” is also whispered, in a malevolent way – again because he had so many wives. (It’s a funny thing: polygamy is accepted – and the wives fighting, often violently, is accepted too – yet if something terrible happens – a sudden death, for instance – polygamy always comes up as the reason why. “He got sick because…”)

The coffee company the man worked for gave 5000kina to the first wife so that she and the two boys could fly up to the village for the funeral. The family are burying him quickly. There is a lot of fear and distrust; people expect his death will be avenged, the fatal sorcerer will be found.

When a person dies, it is commonplace to hear mention of sorcery. Medical explanations for a death might be available, but they don’t address the “real reason” for the death. Sorcery accusations do: they explain why someone died in terms of their relationships with other people in the community. Perhaps the dead person was selfish and did not share wealth, or showed disrespect for a village by disrespecting his village wife by getting a second wife. Sorcery accusations are increasing in PNG – and their side effect, the killing of suspected sorcerers. It’s a profound problem that is testing, and eroding, communities. And it doesn’t go away with education, science, literacy (or Christianity for that matter) … To throw my ten cents in – I think accusations might lessen if poverty decreased, and access to services (medical care, schools, respected police) increased. But that doesn’t seem to be happening.

mad dogs and um ... americans

Read a strange article today on the history of psychiatry in Papua New Guinea. Strange because fitting psychiatry into this cultural context seems a mighty stretch. But it covered the psychotic-ness of whites as well, including this interesting fact: in WWII, “Among the Americans the evacuation of psychotics was of an order greater than among the Australians, with the psychosis exit rate much higher from war-time New Guinea than from either the Mediterranean or European theatres”.

Another interesting fact was that, after WWII, a psychiatric hospital was opened in the vicinity of Jayapura (capt. of now-West Papua), but quite close to the the border with PNG. At first it was "an exteremly poor old style mental asylum" - and it was known as "Irene" (no explanation given). I shudder to think what it must have been like. It's not hard to believe being sent to "Irene", in the freaking where, would send anyone crazy.

it's about sunshine

and it's about time! after weeks of rain and swathes of mud, today we have blue skies and sunshine and the tracks are hard and your shoes don't get filthy and the pigs have disappeared from the market and the food isn't sitting in the mud and it's a friend's birthday and all things are good.

doll parts

travelling in new delhi, 2001

Men, their behaviour and their attitudes towards women, can make life hard for a girl in PNG. And of course I’m on the lucky side with my white skin, my volunteer’s salary, my knowledge that I leave. The hassles I get are small fry. But you do have hard days, and long-term it’s not a society I want to live in - largely because of gender issues.

(One benefit is that I appreciate much more where I come from, and the times I live in. My parents were really cool when raising me – shoutouts to mum and dad! I never felt that there were things I couldn’t do because I was a girl, and consequently I did everything I wanted. At school it was the same; when I was educated there was a sound acceptance of the idea that boys and girls were equal. In my teens, at high school, this started to change: that was when there was a push to recognise differences between the sexes, and to acknowledge that there were different strengths and weaknesses. But it didn’t affect the curriculum, and just made common sense. It’s really only been through travel that I have experienced and glimpsed different, more gendered, worlds.)

I was talking with some other (male) volunteers recently, about living in PNG, and about leaving it. There are some great career opportunities here, and life can be an adventure. But we agreed that the experience for girls was significantly different from that of boys. Boys here – local or expat – have great freedoms, compared to girls; and I do wonder if, were I a boy, I might want to stay on longer. But I ain't and I don't.

What this means varies according to where you are – coast vs highlands, town vs village, matriarchy vs patriarchy – and on your class, education, and employment. Here in Gka we’re in a patriarchal stronghold. There are very few women in public roles; you’ve gotta be one tough susa to work productively – to get others to work for you – to cope personally – etc. When I first arrived last year, the Assistant Director at my work was a female from Bougainville (Bougainvillians have a reputation for being very strong, especially the women; they’re different from mainlanders, because of their recent history – Sandline crisis etc). So anyway this woman was no nonsense, savvy, fierce and with a wonderful sense of humour. Sadly, she left soon after I arrived; I enjoyed hanging out with her, she had some serious stories to tell. But more sad was her conclusion, after living and working in the highlands for ten years, that could she do her time over again she would never accept employment in a powerful position here, as a female.

(You like to think that if a woman takes up a position in a previously male-dominated area, that it is some type of break through, some type of significant change. It’s hard to learn that that is sometimes not the case: that change hasn’t occurred, that taking on challenges sometimes isn’t worth it.)
**
Leaving is on my mind at the moment. According to a set publication schedule, we finish our major work on 1 Aug this year. I hadn’t been aware of this until recently; my visa goes until the start of Feb next year. So we’re currently re-negotiating a finish date (me, my boss here, and the bosses in Aussie – the volunteer agency), I’m guessing towards the end of September.

People at work don’t know yet. We were doing some future planning during the week, and a woman I work closely with, who I have formed a strong friendship with, turned and said: “And of course you will go, too.” And she looked at me, and her eyes filled with tears. And I could write a book on the pause that followed – on the working relationships involving pngians and whiteskins and the many and varied tensions and influences that occurs within them; on their social relationships, on their lived experiences; on whiteskins dropping out of the sky into peoples lives, making huge changes felt, and then almost always leaving again; on the impact that that has on both pngians and whites; on the impact of the history of the last fifty years on the present; on these particular women, herself and myself, and all that has gone before for us and all that has shaped us and all that has happened to us for she and I to reach this particular point in time, this particular pause –

And although I could write a book on that pause, when it occurred there was nothing I could say. I really enjoy my job, and I know I won’t find anything like it back in Aussie. In terms of lifestyle here, well, whilst I've loved the adventure, I’m ready to leave it; the restrictions are too much and it’s not the place for me. But there are certain key people it is going to be very hard to leave. I had thought that they would, but “leavings” don’t get any easier with experience. They’re always particular, and particularly hard.

can't talk -

editing. major, big fat book (on catholic church; sigh). content = unreadable. but man just read it for the editing! ahahahaha. yes starting to feel a bit crazed; last six weeks have been our busiest time of year, lots of publications going to printers, keep thinking just push through to next week and things will be sweet and next week comes and i keep thinking just push through ... and so it goes on. but me staff are great and it is really rewarding to see the changes in their work, and the work place itself, after a year. and anyway seriously after march it will be smooth sailing. you hear that world?
will talk more then

Malaysian woman shot dead*

This was the title of an article in one of the (two) dailies a month ago. Some friends highlighted it (there was a story to the case itself) and I remember joking about its emphasis – forget the death; according to the paper’s emphasis, that’s less important than where she was from. (That emphasis isn’t isolated to the media, but it’s easier to make fun of there.)

But since then I’ve followed the story. It has grown to uncomfortable proportions.

On Friday Jan 28, the manager – “a Malaysian” (named) – of “Tropicana Rabaul” went to a local restaurant, the Unicorn, “with two Taiwanese men and two women”. They were drinking, and he fired a bullet from a 9mm glock pistol into the air; it hit the roof. The incident was not reported straight away.

Mystery over death of Malaysian

The following Tuesday, at 7am, the husband was having a shower when he heard a gunshot. He (30) was married to a woman (named; 28) who also worked at the “Tropicana”, and they lived there.

His wife was in the bedroom. She was dead; she had a 9mm pistol (a glock 17) in her hand and a gunshot wound to her head.

He called the police two hours later.

Two police officers attended the scene. Searching the house, they found a total of six firearms (including two 2.22 rifles, a glock 26 pistol and a pump action shotgun). They confiscated them, believing that they were unregistered. They were considering arresting the husband and charging him for this offence. In the meantime they were interviewing him about his wife’s death, which was being treated as a “suspicious murder”.

The provincial police commander chief superintendent (yes that is a real title) admitted that the investigation proved difficult. Murder or suicide? In the meantime, police were interviewing the husband about the unregistered firearms. The woman’s body was flown to Port Moresby to be cremated, and the ashes sent to Malaysia. In the meantime, police were trying to confirm whether the firearms found were registered.

Asian on gun charge. Asian guilty of gunfire.

A week later, someone reported the Unicorn incident to the police. The event had not been considered worthy of reporting, until after the wife’s death.

Two police officers went to the husband’s premises to investigate the claims (of discharging a firearm in a public place). He gave the officers a plastic bag with two pairs of shorts and K30,000 in cash. The police officers didn’t see the money at first, and asked for his gun license. He went into the bedroom and came out with two envelopes containing K6000 in K100 notes and K1000 in K50 notes. He told the officers that “all the documents they needed” were in two envelopes and the plastic bag.

The police officers opened the envelopes and the bag. They then went to the police station and “lodged a complaint”.

Asian pleads guilty

When in court over firing a gun in a public place, the husband pleaded guilty. He was arrested on the same day for attempting to bribe the police. He was still being investigated about the death of his wife. Bail was refused; he was remanded in the cells at Kokopo.

Malaysian goes berserk in police cell

Two days later, there were incidents in the cells.

In the early hours of the morning the husband went to the toilet, with two guards as escorts. Leaving the toilets, he grabbed a fluro light tube and smashed it against one guard’s head. “He then tried to use the remaining sharp part of the tube to stab another… However, quick recovery by the officers coupled with shouting from other prisoners brought early morning joggers and police officers from the nearby barracks who helped to throw him back in the cell.”

Near noon, the husband stabbed a fellow male prisoner (named) with a kitchen knife. The police had no idea how he came to have access to a knife. The husband pushed the knife in under the man’s abdomen; the victim was taken to hospital and underwent surgery.

There was a female prisoner in the cell adjacent to the husband’s. Between them was a fence. The husband put his hands through the fence and pulled the woman by her neck against the fence, attempting to strangle her. Another female prisoner hit the man in order to release his hold, and hollered for help.

After these events, the husband was hit by other prisoners. His face was punched and cut “before police could intervene”, though they said that they were “keeping a close watch” on him now. He was put in solitary confinement due to “the security of other inmates”. He was charged with two new counts of assault and one count of grevious bodily harm (in addition to the charges of discharging of firearm in public and attempted bribery; he was still under investigation over the death of his wife).

Malaysian in hospital

Due to injuries sustained from fellow prisoners, the husband was taken to hospital. He had a headache and was later given pain killers.

Malaysian to know fate today

The sentencing for the discharging-of-firearm charge was delayed; the husband was “too drowsy” to appear in court after receiving medical treatment – the painkillers – at hospital. They were initially withheld from him because of his “state of mind”.

Now if it were 1959-1960, and we were in America, well I would just fold up my newspaper and grab a pencil and a pad of paper and jump on the next train to Kokopo and go write myself a story of true crime. As it’s not, I wait for the another installment in the next day’s papers.

*Note: all headings and quotations are from The National and the Post Courier. Most of the events are alleged; the court trials are yet to commence.

carry on nurse: state of health care in png

Health services in Papua New Guinea have declined in number, quality and funding since Independence (1975, when the Australian administration officially withdrew). This includes the training of medical staff, the number of points at which you can access health care (whether it be in the form of a visiting midwife; an aid post; a doctor; a hospital) and the availability and cost of medicine.

Between 80-85% of the population lives in rural areas, and survives on subsistence farming: they grow what they eat. For a villager, a hospital might be several days’ walk away – or a boat ride and walk away, etc etc. To combat this, each province has numerous aid posts: places where there is supposed to be someone with some form of medical training (i.e. nurse), hopefully radio access to someone with more training for advice (i.e. a doctor) and some basic medicines. But the aid posts have been closing down. Funding was not provided for the upkeep of buildings. Staff had inadequate medical training, occasional visits from trained doctors or nurses ceased, medicine was limited and old. Some – fortunately – still operate, and operate well. But overall this is not the case.

There aren’t many hospitals, and some have closed due to lack of funding and staff, and/or security. Hospitals don’t always have doctors, and they aren’t always open. If without doctors, nurses did have radio access to a doctor for advice – but this has stopped (in the cases I know of). Hospitals aren’t always safe places; there can be tension relating to treatment of certain patients when there is a local tribal war, for instance; in an area where critical infrastructure is weak, staff can be at risk of physical attack and abuse. Staff morale in many hospitals is low. All hospitals have trouble stocking medicines. (Case in point: a nearby hospital: open only from 8am-4pm; without a doctor; staffed only by nurses; several nurses reported being raped; medicine cabinet often consists of little stronger than aspirin.)

In Goroka, we do have a hospital – and last year its first maternity ward opened (this was because of an Australian team of nurses who “adopted” the hospital; they fundraise for it here and back in Aussie; they come up once a year and do 2 weeks volunteer work there).

But there has been a move away from hospitals in the last 2 decades. They remain out of reach for a lot of people. If you’re seriously sick (imagine a breach birth), you don’t want to/are unable to walk for hours, for a day, or for days to get there. The boat or PMV (public motor vehicle) ride might also not be an option – perhaps the sea is too rough for a pregnant woman, maybe roads are impassable at that time (mud slide, broken bridge etc), maybe you’ve been cut by a bushknife and are bleeding and there simply isn’t time for the long journey. Maybe the discomfort of travel makes it impossible, and/or because it costs money.

Plus, getting to hospital, waiting to be seen by a staff member, being seen and told what medicine is needed – you might then be told that you have to buy the medicine yourself because the hospital can’t afford to buy it. This has been happening in Goroka (in a case reported on in the media, to a child with leukaemia). This is medicine that is not subsidised, and costs over one hundred kina – something few can afford. This means that patients usually just have to begin the trip back home, without any medicine. Their illness gets worse, and maybe they die.

And so we arrive at another issue: the reputation of hospitals, or peoples’ attitudes towards them. Given the lack of staff, lack of medicines, lack of proper training – well, people die in hospital. And so the hospital is known as a place you go to and die. Hence, a significant number of people will avoid going to hospital for treatment – or simply won’t consider it as an option. It’s not hard to understand: if someone you know is seriously ill, has a painful journey to and from hospital, comes back and takes a few aspirin* and then dies anyway – well why bother going? Maybe if you simply rest at home and avoid the hospital you will be ok.

This is coupled with a growth in use of traditional medicines – which is partly a positive change (accessible and affordable), but given that the market for trad medicine is totally unregulated, has also resulted in a lot of scams (“miracle water” from a spring somewhere in PNG is marketed seriously as a cure for cancer and AIDS).

The rate of infant mortality has risen significantly in the past twenty years, and is amongst the highest in the region. Life expectancy remains amongst the lowest in the region (a little above 50 years). HIV/AIDS remains a disaster area – but that’s a story all of its own.

I present to you a dire picture of a state in crisis. And yet – it’s just life. Heath care is vitally important, and some situations here are so bad that they are unacceptable and need to be fought about. But: Living here for over a year now has subtly but profoundly changed my understanding of life, and of the world, and how to conceptualise it. People are lively and active and hard working. And they love and have families and dreams, and they learn and strive and try. It’s the best we can do.


(*Aspirin: common cure-all; buy individual tablets at the market; a workmate who had typhoid trusted that a few aspirin would make it go away)

daydreaming

let's imagine i was given unlimited funds to be used solely for travel for say one year. Today, this is where I would go (just in order of current interest):

-Rio de Janeiro (and I'd pop over to Chile whilst there)
-Burma (crossing at the Chinese border)

From there, I'd go to Calcutta by sea OR to Bhutan - which ever was possible.

And somehow find my way back to Mumbai again, and explore more of southern India than last time. And New Delhi would be revisited.

And oh Berlin. Berlin is always on the list.

...so much to answer for

Lae is in a bit of trouble at the moment. “Disaster Looms” screamed one of the front pages yesterday – but they were just talking about the potential damage of a potential earthquake, info gleaned from a power-point presentation at a conference; nothing new.

More like disaster was the news that, yesterday, hundreds of Ahi villagers had planned to strike, cut off the supply of water and electricity to Morobe’s capital (Lae), and close down the provincial headquarters if the governor Luther Wenge didn’t agree to meet with them. On Monday a hundred-ish crowd of angry people gathered outside the provincial hq. A youth leader of Ahi wanted to take 5 provincial govt vehicles as ransom, to ensure that Wenge would indeed meet with them. But the presence of the police task force prevented him. The crowd were reportedly shouting out insults to Wenge, including this one which made me laugh: “you’re a highlander only adopted into Morobe”. (Honestly, why are highlanders always blamed? I secretly suspect they’re going to take over png in the next decade or so.)