looking damn fine

I went to the coffee festival today. I went last year as well; and overall last year was a bit better – it hadn’t been raining as much, so it wasn’t so muddy; there were a few less stalls but better organised (rather than this year: few more stalls, but no organisation at all, just, say, a sign). But also last year I knew less – so who had a stall and who didn’t was something I didn’t understand – and last year the stalls themselves were interesting, whereas this year I could just walk on by … (only I didn’t; I was sucked in by the prisoner rehab program and bought prisoners’ peanut butter, and even prisoners’ peanut biscuits – not just for me, but enough to give away. I always fall for the prisoners! At Christmas I remember buying really crappy bookmarks made by local prisoners. Why? Why? It’s partly a joke, but…not entirely. And what was that pencil portrait of Osama bin Laden, hanging proudly in the local grammar school’s exhibit? And this must be one of the last places American British Tobacco can sponsor events and have their logo proudly displayed everywhere.)

And yet there’s something about the coffee festival that’s better than the bigger, more famous Goroka Show later in the year. It’s smaller, and fewer white tourists come. Somehow – despite its commercial underpinnings – there’s a good feel about it.

The singsings and bilas are fantastic. What is captivating are the elements of innovation each time people get dressed up and prepare their dances; it might be a new thing for them, or it could simply be something that I myself haven’t seen before. But it’s those details that keep me fascinated. And it’s also simply a lot of fun, being around people – and knowing a few – who are dressing up in their cultural finery, and feeling proud and beautiful. They show it off and each region is competitive and they’re looking damn fine and … it’s a feeling, too. (Also you ARE in amongst it: you can move amongst the dancers, get any pics you want, people are happy to pose, or not; no one has to stand behind a rope, and there’s no antagonism; it’s pretty good.)

This year too I saw a Tolai whipping dance: a man would hold out his bare arm, or offer his back, and another would, simply, whip it. It sounds barbaric, but there was a fair amount of performance in the offering of body parts, and the emphasis was on the stamina. A friend whispered that they rubbed something on their bodies beforehand to limit the pain; I’m not sure if it was true or not, but I have to confess that I was captivated by the whole thing. And it certainly attracted one of the biggest crowds.