Getting excited about this Central Province village trip. We are going to have an excellent time! I spoke to the participants tonight on a teleconference call; it was less strained than I imagined, and everyone sounds pretty good. It is a small group (only 6 others), which will be much easier to manage than a larger one. It was fun explaining to the kids what village life is like, and what things they might encounter. It reminded me that it is actually quite hard to imagine the lifestyles here, without experiencing them first hand.

Village 1 is about 100 people. Access is via a river, using a swing bridge. Wash in the river. Village 2 is bigger, but more remote, up a heavily forested mountain. Language is Hotu - not Motu; I hadn't even heard of this one before. Wash in a waterfall 100m away, or swim in river 1 hour's walk away. Fly in to nearby airstrip, hike for a few hours to get there. Needless to say, neither have electricity. Most people are SDA - there are twice daily services! And both are currently building us pitpit toilets.

Bring it on.

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Yet saying that: today at work I felt that familiar twinge you get when you leave a place you have known, where you are known, where you have made a home and friends. I need to travel, I'm not good when everything's stable and the same - but it's not easy, dragging yourself out again into the unknown.

Still, it's what being alive is all about. And I'll do it again and again.

Lots to do before leaving, but at the same time there's that funny stillness which comes when you're busy and have a departure coming up quick. I sit down and don't do anything, just look at stuff. Everything's about to change and I'm not yet sure how.

Not related in anyway: jellybaby sculptures, in Cairns. You want to touch them, but they're hard plastic, not soft and squishy. Still, they raise a smile everytime. Jellybaby sculptures. Aha.

would you? could you? should you? did you?

Yes. I am changing roles and taking up something different. Throwing in the editor-gig and becoming a team leader/coordinator, for a group of 6 volunteers from Australia (aged 19-26) who are coming to png for 9 weeks to live in a couple of villages along the kokoda track (2-3 weeks in one place, then we move on. One village is a bit above 2000m - 500m more than where I currently live). We live the village life, work in the gardens and school and wherever needed with local people and maybe do a bit of community development work (this is something under negotiation. Locals can nominate a project they’d like us to help with, or we can come up with one.)

It’s going to be demanding and exacting, and I will have to be switched on at all times - and I can't wait. I wouldn’t have been prepared for it a year and half ago, but now I’m ready, and a bit tougher, and a bit more practical; mi save nau. Goroka was great last year, but coming back this year the challenge has gone, work has wound up and I’ve been bored and feeling flat. I'm waiting to leave, really; to hook up with people back in Australia when this is done. But I don’t want to sit here waiting, wasting time as life drifts by. I want to be out there creating my own stories, saying yes to things. And just as I was thinking along these lines, this opportunity came along. Something more challenging. Something promising a bit of adventure. Something I haven’t done before, that will push me to stretch that bit further.

So anyway – along came this opportunity and I took it (it’s still with the same volunteer org I came over with). Bonus part – I am coming back to Australia for a tiny bit before it all begins [grins]! Have a briefing and have loads of gear to organise and have to go out woopwoop (trans.: Wodonga) to do a 4-day wilderness first aid course – but I’ll be back in my ples.

At the end of it all, we will walk the kokoda track back into Moresby. It will only be about half the track, so will have to come back another time and do the whole thing. Still, it’s something.

all sweetness and light

in bali i saw the prettiest garbage trucks i've ever seen.

timor: baucau - com - los palos

From Baucau it was back on a mikrolet and further east to Lautem, then to Com.

Fish on sticks. Popular road-side snack.

Com was hard to get to, and hard to leave. To get there took a 20k walk. Thought we walk until could hitch a ride, but there was NO traffic at all, so … ended up walking the whole way.
buffalo being used to plough a rice paddy field, something we passed on the walk

It was worth it though. We stayed in a beautiful balinese-style guesthouse that was one metre from the high-tide mark of the beach. We were the only tourists in the village - but the downside was that we were almost chased by women hawking their thais (a traditional type of weaving, made into long skirts or bags).

goats are everywhere all over Timor. this one was in com.

We stayed two nights. To leave, we needed to catch a passenger truck out – but the town’s sole truck had broken down. Would we have to walk to get out? Not so fun the second time around...Luckily someone with a mobile called for a mikrolet from Los Palos, and before dawn we were on our way. This was the 20th of May, the anniversary of independence. We got off the mikrolet at the main markets of Los Palos.

kuskus (type of possum) for sale at markets

From there we caught a local bus into town, and wandered around trying to find some accommodation. Feeling a bit despondent (one horrible room right full of mosquitoes and with a roaring generator parked outside; another nicer place closed), we walked around – and met the only other Aussies in town, who also happened to be volunteers. Excellent people and even offered us a bed for the night.

Now smiling, we went with them to watch the independence celebrations: marching by groups of school kids and local government admin staff. With our new connections, we were able to get seats in the VIP tent – which was good because the sun was hot and the event dragged on for 2 hours. There was a bit more marching late afternoon, but that was it for the celebrations. A French warship that happened to be in the area decided to pull into Dili that afternoon, thinking that there’d be a huge party worth crashing. But there was nothing going on.

Dawn bus back into Dili the next day – a few incidents here – taxi from bus station to our accommodation took some short cut which meant driving along a dry river bed – farewell beer with the volunteers we’d met – dinner at an excellent and cheap Chinese place. Food in Timor much better than PNG: there is range and variety, and spices and flavour to the food.

Next morning there was time for a last wander around the dusty streets before airport + exit.

dili cafe

And the next day, Dili exploded.

tourist in dili - baucau

The past few weeks I’ve been out and about. First it was to East Timor (via Cairns and Darwin), for an excellent week of travel. Tip for any future volunteer-travellers: find out if there are other volunteers from your organisation in your country of choice, and arrange to hook up with them whilst you’re there. It is always great to have a friendly face to talk to in a strange place, but they’re invaluable in terms of information – you get the shortcut to best places to eat – markets – things must see and do – places to avoid – local habits to watch out for – language-culture-custom advice – lp guide book – maps – accommodation tips (or maybe even a free bed if you’re lucky) – it’s a fantastic resource. And the bonus was that they were cool and smart and now I’ve got some new friends. Australia Volunteers International seems to have a pretty good screening device – don’t know if anyone’s very good at capacity building or whatever they’re hired for, but they’re certainly great people.

Stayed in Dili for a few days. UN Toyotas everywhere – and this was the reduced presence; can’t imagine what it must have been like 5 years ago. Lunch on first day was a reminder of what it’s like being a traveller – that is, a naïve idiot. Not knowing where to buy food, or any of the local languages, we ended up in a strange empty bakery buying ice cream and a sweet roll, apparently stuffed with peanut butter. Didn’t quite leave me sated, but the sugar gave us energy to climb the stairs up to the huge (20m) statue of Jesus that overlooks the bay Dili sits on. As we climbed up we were overtaken by Portuguese joggers. Climbed back down and rewarded selves with beers at a beach-side café, sitting back as the sun set. Holidays! Volunteering in PNG began to look rather dingy.

As it grew dark we walked up to another beach-side restaurant. Slowly little round bobbling lights appeared above the shallow water, as locals began fishing along the coral reefs at low-tide.

Did a bit of exploring the next day, but a few hours were eaten up booking our tickets to Bali the following week (there are only 2 international flights from Dili – Darwin or Denpasar). Had forgotten this type of admin/planning stuff also takes up a fair bit of time when travelling. Wandered around some markets. Had coffee in the famous Hotel Timor, with a few Portuguese ladies and some NZ police, and lunch with a volunteer mate.

from the markets

The place was pretty quiet, she explained; maybe one third of the locals had fled the city to their villages when there had been riots at the Cormo markets a few weeks previous, when a few people died. Still, if the place was a bit tense it was certainly more relaxed, and safer, than PNG, I thought. On the way back to accommodation for an afternoon nap (it’s hot and everyone siestas, ok), explored some of the shops; entering one computer store, we turned to leave: the cabinets were all empty and the shelves had nothing on them. It looked like it hadn’t yet opened. But the manager called out and told us to wait; he had plenty of stock, it was just “out the back”. He had removed it from display since “the troubles”, he said. It’ll be back to normal next week, he assured us.

Had a Portuguese beer – a Bock – at the UN hangout City Café, which was exciting for me, having read about this place in The Floozy’s Guide to Dili, or something like that, a crappy book by an embarrassing aussie girl I will not give publicity to here.

Next day caught a bus and headed east, along to Baucau. Baucau is the largest town outside of Dili, but it is a pretty sleepy one at that. There was a beautiful old market place in the centre of town. It was built as a crescent shape, overlooking gardens, but the building itself was an empty pink shell. It had been burnt out around the Indonesian withdrawal in 1999, and had been abandoned ever since.

One remarkable feature of Timor’s landscape is the burnt out building. They’re everywhere: ever-present in the streets of Dili, spotted throughout the countryside, and visible at most turns in rural towns and villages. Someone said that 2/3 of buildings are ruins, though I’m not sure that it’s that high. Still, there is an incredible amount of ruins. Rough scars left as part of the environment, not knocked down, not fixed up, not inhabited by the homeless. Just left there.

Baucau: Following advice from the vols, we stayed in Bruno’s guesthouse. Wandered around town, met some other Australian visitors, went to a community centre, wandered past school children being given marching instruction by soldiers; dinner with the other Australians and some vols …

Following day went for a wander down the road we were staying on. Passed fields of rice paddies, and the abandoned Portuguese hospital (oddly, though it hadn’t been used for years the window panes were still intact, doors in place etc. A little graffiti but that was it). My travel buddy had out his big camera and was snapping away. Rounding a bend in the road, someone passed us on a motorbike. We saw a plainclothes guy fiddling with the strap of an M-16. As you do. He was leaning against a police vehicle. He looked up and cheerfully wished us good morning. I wanted a photo of this, but we weren’t sure if it was the right thing to do. We walked a bit further, and then turned and began to head back. The motorbike came up from behind us, and slowed down. “Are you looking for something?” we were asked. As the naïve tourist, I couldn’t pick the tone: was it one of warning? Was it threatening? Or was it just helpful? Had we seen too much? Was the big camera too overt, did we look like we were from the media, was this a problem? Who knows. We just smiled and said no thanks, and walked on.

It was hot in Baucau, and a swim was needed. There was a good looking pool in town, with sunbeds and a well-tended garden; the guidebook said it was filled with the help of natural springs, and it was usually packed out with locals. But today the pool was empty; not a drop inside. So we hiked down to the beach, about 5km down a sometimes steeply twisting road, passing through the usual tropical vegetation dotted with ruins here and there. I love the tropics. Growing up in the driest state of Australia, with eucalypts and dry, tough foliage as “bush”, the stuff in the tropics is more exciting and mysterious, more movie-like.

The beach at the bottom was a bit average, but had a quick swim anyway, watched by about 12 kids who lined themselves up, as if for a show. As we began the walk back up the huge, looming hill, a mikrolet (public bus) cunningly purred along beside us and offered us a ride to the top. We ceded and hopped in.

Had a beer in the late afternoon at the town’s biggest hotel – the Pausada, pink and outlandish. They had 3 monkeys in a small cage; one was held to the ground by a 40cm chain attached to a rock. Not sure what custom this is: local? Indonesian? Portuguese?

couple of PNG snapshots

The Rainforest Habitat (Unitech, Lae) is worth a visit if you ever head down that way. I’ve visited Lae before, but hadn’t been to this spot until I went on Monday. There are a lot of tree kangaroos (the largest collection of the species in the world; a lot are in medium-sized cages out the back), lots of eagles and birds in general (including cassowaries and birds of paradise). The best times to go are when it opens (10am) and just before closing (say 3ish; closes at 4); these are feeding times and everyone’s waking up and having a stretch (it gets very hot during the day and the best spot is somewhere dark and shady; not good for two-legged visitors who want to peer at wildlife).

There’s currently a volunteer down there (“Since his arrival three weeks ago a new computer was bought…”), a bloke from my home town’s zoo: Gert Skipper. (Or that’s the name he goes by. Sounds a bit like something you might make up if you were on the run, pretending to be a zoo keeper…Sorry Skipper. Just kidding.) It’s cheap – only 7kina – and there’s even a café in the first big aviary-enclosure you visit. Recommended.
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We’re in our dry period in Goroka. Beautiful sunny days, cold nights. Bit dusty. And the ground is cracking.
**
It’s pay fortnight today in the Eastern Highlands Province (pay fortnight = government and main business payday). Goroka town was busy; people from surrounding villages and more remote areas had made the trip in to hit the shops. There were trucks in from Bena and Lufa and community schools, parked on the main street whilst everyone lucky enough to score a lift went and shopped. There were crowds around all of the supermarkets. People coming out were carrying bags bursting with rice, oil, tinned fish (mackerel or tuna), 2-minute noodles. Most of it will be eaten this weekend (probably with beer), before people go back to waiting for the next pay fortnight, returning to kaukau (sweet potato), a few greens (like pumpkin leaves, called pumpkin tips here), spring onions + rice or white bread rolls if you’re lucky (bread’s sweet here, with a lot of sugar).

The images of those bags of store goods are on my mind. In a few weeks they’ll be a fond memory: I’m moving out of GKA central, and heading down to some villages Kokoda way. Where there are no trade stores. Where there is no electricity. Where I’ll wash in a stream, or a waterfall. And where I’ll be collecting a few more stories for the memoirs.