Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

A case of seriously mistaken familial identity

DOMINICA ARE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

ON the way home one afternoon, as I walked alone past Goroka Post Office lost in thought, I was distracted by a commotion behind me and brought back to reality.

Like any curious onlooker, I moved to where the crowd was milling around.

There, in the middle of the crowd, two women were having a boxing match and arguing. Woman in shorts and tee-shirt was accusing woman in meri blouse and laplap of having affair with her husband.

There was much swearing and fighting.

Justin Kili OL MBE - the Voice of PNG - dies in Vunapope

KEITH JACKSON

IT was in June 2007 that Justin Kili brought me the sad news that Papua New Guinea has lost eminent journalist Luke Sela. Another commanding media figure in PNG, Sam Piniau, had died just a few months before.

Now Justin - who served splendidly in television, radio and newspapers and held other senior positions in the media industry - has joined them. He would have been aged about 61.

I had recruited JK to his first job in the media at Radio Bougainville in 1972. He was a natural broadcaster who quickly mastered the technical skills which were married to his effervescent and embracing personality.

Justin showed early signs of becoming a great talent in PNG broadcasting and his career soared like an eagle. He was a wonderful presenter and a highly creative and capable manager.

The year 2008 was a mixed one for Justin, who by then was executive director of the PNG Media Council.

An eight-word note brought forth a mountain of memories

KEITH JACKSON

PUBLISHING PNG Attitude – which I have done each day for nearly 10 years from locations as unlikely as the middle of a volcanic eruption in Rabaul in 2006 and a hospital bed after spinal surgery in 2012 - has its compensations.

Which is just as well, since I’m occasionally beset by concerns about the amount of time the blog and its cousin, the Crocodile Prize, suck from a schedule that never seems to ease no matter how many years pass me by.

I have just turned seventy, and who can ignore the Psalms which tell us we are actuarially entitled to “threescore years and ten” and then warn “if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Fly-a-bloody-way….

Just a single expressed idea

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

A thought conceived in mind
Thought of creativity
A means to tame impossibility
And make it possible
It is an idea
The more I think of it
It becomes vivid
And evoke my sense for possibilities
I adopt it as a belief
It is my idea

A plastic bag and a 5 toea coin on a boulder at Yokond Nigle

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Cleland Family Award for Heritage Writing

AS they were heading for a hunting trip to Yomba Munigle in Simbu’s Yongomugl area, Kerenga and his small sister, Mondia, from Kalum Nigle village had a mysterious encounter with nature.

Kerenga and Mondia had decided to go hunting that morning as the weather was not fine but gloomy and foggy.

They two walked along the bush track while the morning dew dropped on them from where it had gathered on the leaves.

The imposing giant

JOHNSON MAKAEN

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

The imposing giant
Stands upright and tall

Superb in its splendid bearing
Through untold passing of time

He rises higher and wider
Limbs out-stretched in all directions

Lift ride

JOHNSON MAKAEN

DON glanced at his wristwatch and the Rolex told him he had worked past lunch.

He grabbed the edge of his oak desk, pushed back and heaved his body off the swivel chair.

His mobile phone beeped and illuminated. He peered at the number. It was his mum.

She had flown to the city from her village in the highlands a week earlier. He’d offered her a mobile phone when she first arrived. For emergencies.

She had initially turned it down, not knowing how to use it and convinced it would be a hassle. But Don figured having a working phone was necessary and he’d insisted that she keep it.

The buai smuggler

JOHNSON MAKAEN

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

AS the open-back utility rolled over puddles of rainwater; Ron glanced back towards the edge of road they’d just passed.

His line of sight drifted across the vegetation and grassy hills as the utility rolled across the pothole-riddled blacktop highway heading towards the nation’s capital to the east.

They were two miles out of the city and closing in by the minute. Ron turned around and wearily scanned his goods.

His were banned products concealed in food baskets and destined for the blackmarket. Taking stock of palm leaves wrapped around their illicit contents, he wondered if the camouflage would work.

A poetry analogy

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Mass of flowers on trees
Mass of words in books

Flowers bloom petals
Books bloom short phrases

Produce attractive stigmas
Produce cute meanings

Attract bees
Attract readers

Firefly

AKILINO POWESIU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

IT was a busy Saturday morning in Boroko, defined by the blinding rays of the sun that sped out of a clear blue sky.

People from all walks of life wandered between shopping malls, alleyways, bus stops, and footpaths – some together as families or friends, others opting for solo, while vehicles of different makes struggled past each other.

Under a row of trees lining the edges of Boroko police station’s parking lot, sat Euryth puffing on his spia and observing the general public while David Evertius and uncle Mea had gone into one of the adjacent shops to buy soft drinks.

Letting go

DOMINICA ARE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

It is time she go her own way
It is time to walk away
From all these pain and misery
It’s been a long hard journey
Indescribable pain you inflicted on her
You don’t know how much you’ve hurt her

Yes, she’s innocent and blameless
Yes, you have cared less

Some winning writing tactics for the Crocodile Prize

KEITH JACKSON

AS early entries in this year’s Crocodile Prize soar way past the century mark (can we achieve 1,000 contributions this year), it is timely to look at how you – the writer or potential writer – can maximise your chances of winning an award.

A Crocodile Prize award is a great award to win, both in terms of the honour and the benefits.

In addition to the K5,000 cash prize and pride of place in the Crocodile Prize Anthology 2015, you’ll be flown to Kundiawa and accommodated there to attend the two-day award event organised by the Simbu Writers Association.

The wisdom of grumpy old men and women

PHIL FITZPATRICK

FOR many people the process of aging seems to involve a gradual transition from youthful optimism through middle-aged despair and on to aged cynicism and a sense of inevitability and hopelessness about almost everything, including world affairs.

When we reach a venerable age, we also tend to look at the past through rose-coloured glasses.  We remember the good stuff and forget the bad stuff.  We also forget how some of that good stuff eventually turned bad.

I grew up in the 1960s, an era of immense social and political upheaval, a kind of latter day enlightenment full of bubbly optimism that has long fizzled away.

There were a lot of positives attached to that era which, had they endured, could have made the world a better place.

What’s on the agenda for Papua New Guinea business in 2015?

Business Advantage PNG

IN his comments about the September 2014 Quarterly Economic Bulletin last week, Loi M Banaki, Governor of Papua New Guinea’s central bank, warned of inflationary pressures due to a depreciating kina (which has depreciated by 20.4% pt from its high of US$0.4845 in 2012).

The Bank of PNG stepped in to support the weakening kina in June 2014, and impose trading band limits.

While increased revenues from LNG exports is expected to reduce the need for such intervention this year, lower global commodity prices suggest that mineral exports may deliver lower revenues to PNG than expected in 2015.

It remains to be seen if these lower prices translate into lower tax revenues for the PNG Government. If they do, the Government may need to choose between cutting back on its expenditure plans or wearing a higher budget deficit.

Captain Bede Tongs, hero of Kokoda, dies aged 94

PATRICK LINDSAY

CAPTAIN Bede Tongs OAM MM, who passed away peacefully yesterday morning aged 94, was one of the heroes of the World War II Kokoda campaign in 1942.

In recent years, as an ambassador for the Kokoda Track Foundation, Bede worked ceaselessly to keep the Kokoda story alive and to improve the lives and futures of the descendants of his beloved Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, his comrades during the Kokoda campaign.

Bede spoke at schools, clubs and functions around Australia – always accompanied by his beloved and devoted son Garry – and visited PNG many times, taking a keen interest in the work of the Foundation and delighting in meeting Papua New Guineans of all ages.

In 2013, at the age of 93, Bede brilliantly delivered the Ralph Honner Leadership Oration in front of a 350-strong capacity dinner in Sydney.

Bede was a wise and compassionate man with a remarkably active and nimble mind right to his final days.

Clan warfare: Peace and reconciliation the Yuri way

BOMAI D WITNE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Cleland Family Award for Heritage Writing

YURI Alaiku Kuikane Association (YAKA) is a registered entity with members from all walks of life, whether those dwelling in the hamlets along the gorges and valleys of Kubor Range to those in the ghettos, towns and cities of modern Papua New Guinea.

I volunteered to assist communicate the work of this dedicated community. We are struggling to raise our voice to the world and are thankful to Keith Jackson for assisting us to publish these articles.

We have heard of peace and reconciliation ceremonies many times in Papua New Guinea. Before the advent of expatriates on our shores, we developed and practiced various ways of making peace and reconciling.

I’m just tired

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I’m tired of being in the same place; hoping you will come around someday
You were my somebody; my only ticket to happiness
You were my definition; my pride for nothing, humility for everything
But I’m tired of being in the same place; hoping you will come around someday

I’m tired of sitting on that rusty old fridge; hoping you’d drive by
Drive by in that grey Nissan; headlights off, windows rolled up
Scruffy dreads on shoulder, Sepik bilum around neck
But I’m tired of sitting on that rusty old fridge, hoping you’d drive by

The blue shorts

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

EVERYTHING happens for a reason. Life has its bad twists and good turns. Ask Doctor Klaus and he will tell you.

Blank! He stood! The on and off signal at the back of his mind numbed him. The signal said, ‘Don’t move.’

He looked to the left and then to the right.

People! Queues of vehicles! He was rooted to the spot.

His skinny legs were shaking, his uncombed fuzzy hair couldn’t keep the early mornings scorching sun off him, his tattered singlet sway in the breeze and his empty stomach rumbled with hunger.

The Okuk Highway

PHILIP KAUPA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

My birth was a thought
In Okuk’s breath I sprouted
for one quest, to connect

I begin up west
and descend to the east
for one quest, to connect

I shatter the language barrier
I gather the culture bearer
for one quest, to connect

Where planes rarely fly
through rugged terrain I lie
for one quest, to connect

Celebrating 20 years with the Blessed Peter Torot

BISHOP ROCHUS TATAMAI

I have fond memories of the first pastoral visit by Pope John Paul II to Papua New Guinea in May 1984.

I sang with the seminarians who formed the papal choir along with students of other institutions in Port Moresby and members of the lay faithful, all proudly dressed in the papal colours of white tops and yellow-gold laplaps.

The visit was on the occasion of the centenary celebrations of the foundation of the Catholic Church in PNG. The first Missionaries of the Sacred Heart had arrived in Rabaul on 29 September 1882 and at Yule Island on 4 July 1885.

But that successful pastoral visit was just a spiritual preparation for an even more significant one eleven years later, this time for the beatification of catechist and martyr Blessed Peter ToRot at the Sir John Guise Stadium, Port Moresby.

Moresby’s settlements: Protect the voiceless not the reckless

BUSA JEREMIAH WENOGO

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

FOR some time now I’ve been closely following developments regarding members of parliament promising to issue land titles and provide water to settlements in Port Moresby.

From the outset, I treated these announcements with caution and suspicion although, as someone deprived of such services, I earnestly hope to have access to them.

Regardless, I was concerned that these announcements lacked substance in the sense that they seemed to bypass normal processes involved in granting titles as well as access to water.

A cry not heard

CAROLINE EVARI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Deeper and deeper the hole in her heart was pierced With sadness, pain and hopelessness
Nor did she laugh or smile
Tears rolled down her face day and night

She would speak but could not be heard Reach out but no one touched her Walk but could not be noticed
A volcano had been preparing to erupt within her And no one knew for she kept it a secret

West Papua: Juffa will need to convince the powerful nations

CHRIS OVERLAND

RIGHT now, it seems that Gary Juffa is almost the only politician in Papua New Guinea who has realised the potential of social media to reach his own and the wider electorate.

His fears about government regulation of social media are rational but current evidence suggests that achieving 100% control is neither technologically nor socially feasible, even for governments with massive resources.

His analysis of events in Paris is, to my mind at least, entirely correct. Appalling as the incident was, it was just one and not the most grievous of similar events in the world over the last week or so.

The human mind seems to be programmed to compartmentalise the world into "them" and "us".

When bad things happen to "them", it is unfortunate; but if bad things happen to "us", it is an outrage. The scale of events is seemingly irrelevant.

A breath of an alien charism

RAYMOND KOMIS GIRANA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

If the aliens had a communist wish list
The past 30 years would have
Crossed all the boxes
Warm dry days would follow
From warm dry nights

If they had a democracy wish list
The last 10 years would have
Numbered all the boxes
Cool wet days would follow
From cool wet nights

BCL joins planning committee for Bougainville reconciliation

KEITH JACKSON

BOUGAINVILLE Copper Limited has accepted an invitation to join the province’s belkol (reconciliation) events committee.

The committee will organise a forthcoming belkol ceremony, an adaptation of a traditional practice in which parties begin a process of negotiations to restore relationships.

It recently completed a phase of internal negotiations between landowners in central Bougainville, where BCL’s former copper mine at Panguna is located.

Paitim garamut tede long lukautim taim behain

GARY JUFFA | Sharp Talk

I am encouraged by the vast improvement in the use of social media by Papua New Guineans who have realised the power of this medium for communication, education, awareness and coordination of actions for the greater good.

Our people are actively using social media in a more responsible manner. It has saved lives, found lost children, reported crime and highlighted issues of concern and I predict will influence the next elections in 2017 significantly.

Many elected leaders do not like social media. That's why they are not on it. Or at least as themselves. Some do read it. Many want to regulate it. I am of the opinion that, as leaders, we placed ourselves in positions where we will attract critical attention and that comes with the territory.

Free education

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Free education, you say?
Political stunt much, I say!
Entice the shallow-minded idiots, they say

Free education, you say?
A drive for change, they say
Promotes lazy-mindedness, I say

Free education you say?
Quality education guaranteed, they say
Lopsided teacher-student ratio, I say

Free education, you say?
Salim kokonas na kisim skul fee, I say!

Tsutsu: the Buka foot washing ritual of welcome & respect

RAYMOND KOMIS GIRANA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Cleland Family Award for Heritage Writing

TSUTSU, which means cleansing by water in the Buka languages, is one of the traditional practices common to the people of Bougainville.

In the past, tsutsu was only applied to born chiefs to show the value and the respect of the people towards chiefs.

In the Catholic Church, of course, foot washing is incorporated into the Mass, especially on Holy Thursday, and parishes choose to dramatise it as a powerful symbol.

It has its scriptural roots in the thirteenth chapter of John’s Gospel which tells the story of how Jesus washes his disciples’ feet.

As I come from a culture that practices tsutsu, I am always struck by that Mass on Holy Thursdays with its Christian meaning of humble service and its traditional Buka meaning of welcome, respect and humility.

How civilisation came to Papua New Guinea

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I used to hear the stories of old
The dictated versions of our long history
The narrators instructed me to hold in my heart
And ink them on paper when opportunity unfold
A true inheritance in me I treasured
The stories of how civilisation reached Papua New Guinea

When God’s clock ticked on the right time
Missionaries invaded our mother land
The word of God was held in right hand
And sugar and salt in their left hand
They brought new light to our world
Confrontation of two different parties began

To preserve our languages & culture we must be bold

CORNEY KOROKAN ALONE

THE threat of the world's languages fading away and dying is an age-old reality. It is not unique to the 21st century.

This fate will befall hundreds of Papua New Guinea’s languages. History tells us of the deliberate methods crafted to destroy many indigenous languages and cultures – leading to the domination of nations. Perhaps the conditions and attitudes of those times could not prevent that.

Today, however, we have the assistance of institutions like the Wycliffe Global Alliance (founded in 1942 and with a footprint in 60 countries), whose desire is to see the Bible translated for every language group that needs it.

When Kari sang

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

Sabina’s theory was that modern day churches were a scam. She believed preachers made money from naive churchgoers and became wealthy, using church as a smokescreen to cover up for their immoral lives. They sent their children overseas to learn study at Tsinghua University, which cost K60,000 a year.  She disliked everyone who attended church but, even so, kept attending services every Sunday.

ATTENDING church bored the daylights out of Sabina. But she remained faithful, mainly to see what each Sunday dragged to the pews. Arrogant rich people looking for peace and buying their way out of hell.

She couldn’t stand the unconverted loudmouths who sang like they were at the opera and jumped up and down, pointing their hands and fingers everywhere.

She also couldn’t bear the overdressed widows, who carried fancy bilums and fluttered their eyelashes at the preachers.

We are who we are

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Who are we but the result of an incomplete evolution?
That group that drew back from the rising sea rather than step forward
The ones who find danger in everything
The creatures incapable of coexistence

Angels stuck in this forsaken land finding our way back home
The intended judges between two parties
The targets of the great cast out of the realms of the most high
Innocent children who simply grew to forget happiness

Ningiraga & Yuahahu & the pain of unfaithfulness

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Cleland Family Award for Heritage Writing

IN precolonial times, before the contact of western civilisation on Papua New Guinea, there was a village called Pima in the Kubalia area of East Sepik.

The village was near the edge of the Sepik plain and the people loved the environment and lived a peaceful life.

One morning the wind blew with unusual calm, making its way through the trees as the leaves swayed to its rhythm.

The air was fresh and birds glided from branch to branch making the beautiful sounds loved by the village people.

Under one of the trees sat Ningiraga, rubbing her hands on a necklace.

The wisdom of the elders – a diminishing & discounted resource

PHIL FITZPATRICK

ON several occasions in the mid-1970s I trekked on foot into the Petermann Ranges in Central Australia with a group of elderly Pitjantjatjara men.

We left our Land Rover at the foot of the range and followed the rugged valleys into the high country.  The old men left their clothes in the Land Rover and only took their spears and woomeras with them.

What they showed me and what I learned in those stark mountains has remained with me since. 

I came away with my own tjukurpa (dreaming) and totem and yet, if you asked me to describe what those visions and lessons were and what is the meaning of having the waiuta or possum as my personal totem, I’d be taxed to articulate it.

Exchanging the bilums: wedding symbolises national unity

BOMAI D WITNE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

THE idea of nation building can be promoted and realised in different ways in Papua New Guinea.

One that captured my attention recently was a church wedding I attended in which a Simbu man tied the knot with a woman from Western Highlands Province.

The couple also arranged for their two sons to be baptised at the same time.

Baptism and marriage - two of the seven sacraments that strengthen the Catholic faith.

When the cock crowed

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

THE gun in my hand was smoking; the body at my feet was warm.

‘You will not get out of this,’ said Inspector Ruiz.

‘I’m not guilty,’ I said.

‘Oh, we’ll see about that!’ Inspector Ruiz replied in hard tones.

I looked at my watch. It was one in the morning.

Yuri country: a far away government & a perplexed people

BOMAI D WITNE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

THE Yuri tribe of Simbu’s Gumine District inherited from their ancestor, Alai’mbia, vast areas of virgin forests, mountains and the rivers Mon and Maril in the gorges and galleys of Kubor range.

The people remember the building of the road linking Gumine headquarters to Yuri tribal territory in the 1960s. Since then, the road has have deteriorated and become no better than a bush track.

The people do not know whether the responsibility of maintaining the road lies with national, provincial or local level government. They have never seen any of these governments make an attempt to maintain or upgrade their road.

The people know there is a budget somewhere to do this and they wonder how the money has been used.

Brothers in arms

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

From the day I first met you, I felt the connection
Through the love, laughter, concern and affection
Best friends we were soon to become
Sharing tears, secrets – and gossips, just being dumb
A friend like you is still so hard to find
Someone so alike, we almost shared the same mind

As polygamy became misery, a mother took bitter revenge

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

AROUND late 2000, there lived a successful family along the gorge of Anji village in Enga Province.

The geography of the place is unique as the river Wara Minamb creeps through the villages there like a brown python. And life is very challenging because of the harsh environment.

Father was a businessman, who was on his way to becoming a millionaire and was not always with the family. Most times he was out on business matters.

During his absences, he courted a young girl from Tambul village. Most businessmen do this to improve their social status as well as for pleasure.

Votes exchanged for cheap baubles compromise our democracy

DAVID EPHRAIM

IN democratic societies, the right to vote is an important right that cannot be traded.

It is seen as an important human right to decide who will lead a society at political, social and economic levels of governance.

But here in Papua New Guinea, an eligible voter’s right is as cheap as it gets – it might be as little as the price of a 500ml bottle of Coca-Cola to vote for a candidate who supplied the highly desired beverage.

The Nautilus story: The reboot of seafloor mining in PNG

KIP KEEN | Mineweb

BACK in 2012 Nautilus Minerals was in the thick of developing a seafloor mining project in Papua New Guinea with the brief blessing of the state.

The PNG government had come aboard as a partner with Nautilus to help fund the construction of an underwater mine – a novel concept – targeting seafloor massive sulfide (SMS) deposits in early 2012.

But by the middle of that year the project foundered when the PNG government started a fight over contractual obligations with Nautilus including the rights to intellectual property, among other things.

Nautilus’ stock crumbled. It cancelled expensive ship and equipment building contracts. It halted intense exploration for additional SMS deposits. For the next two years Nautilus Minerals was in shackles, unable to meaningfully advance its aim to become the first real miner of metals from the seafloor.

John Momis rejects claim of instability & impropriety

KEITH JACKSON

BOUGAINVILLE President John Momis has rebuffed a claim that his government is causing instability within the autonomous province.

The claim was raised by former Bougainville Revolutionary Army strongman, Ishmael Toroama, who expressed scorn for what he said was the regressing state of Bougainville.

In a letter to Dr Momis, Mr Toroama questioned recent events such as the replacement of Bougainville’s acting chief secretary Chris Siriosi, the Torokina oil palm project, and arrangements surrounding the purchase of the Bougainville flagship MV Chebu.

Made for one

JEFFREY MANE FEBI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

There's a getaway ride
Where do you hide?
Come! Come out now
You! For you I will bow

But here's your father
Without your mother
And he's got one seat in hand
It must have been planned

The future of PNG’s tuna stocks – towards unsustainability

PAUL OATES

A sustainable resource is used or harvested at no greater level than it can be naturally replenished and replaced.

To be able to manage a resource, it must be able to be measured, for without measurement there can be no effective management.

Therein lies the first dilemma for Papua New Guinea in managing its tuna stock. Tuna is a pelagic or ocean-going fish that knows no national boundaries.

The only method of effective management available is the recorded statistics for harvesting and processing submitted by tuna fishing fleets and canneries.

Yet is this not putting cart before horse? Only when the records of each annual catch show serious diminution will there be an acceptance that current catches are unsustainable.

The value of books

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I’ve found the key
To where my imaginations will forever grow

I travel in a super sports car
To a place far beyond that furthest star

I go China, London, Vegas and back
And that’s pretty much all in a day’s work

Vatican says 26 Catholic pastoral care workers killed in 2014

Official Vatican News Network

DURING 2014, 26 Catholic pastoral care workers were killed worldwide, three more than in 2013.

For the sixth consecutive year, the place most affected, with an extremely elevated number of pastoral care workers killed, was the United States.

The pastoral care workers who died violently in 2014 included 17 priests, one religious man, six religious sisters, one seminarian and one lay person.

In May Fr Jerry Inau and communion minister Benedict were murdered in the remote Goilala mountains of Kamulai as the result of inter-tribal tension. The killers have not been caught.

Tick, tick, tick … tick, tick, tock – Papuan time, don’t fiddle with it

PHIL FITZPATRICK

WHEN I wrote my memoir about working in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s and 1970s, Bamahuta: Leaving Papua, I had an argument with the publishers about the title.

They wanted to include New Guinea.

Apart from making it sound clunky and the fact that bamahuta is a Papuan word, I felt that it would detract from the atmosphere that I wanted to convey.

Although I spent time in New Guinea most of those early years were spent in what is now the Western and Central provinces.

For me Papua conjures up hot, languorous days in a slightly run down, damp and well-worn rustiness of a place. Something like a skinny village dog snoozing in the shade that occasionally makes an effort to scratch itself.

Sonnet 16: 1975 to 2015

MICHAEL DOM

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

September 16, Independence Day
And forty years it has been in between
Far down this road, how much closer today,
Are we to that Melanesian dream?
What may we toast this Independence Day?
Which-where have we been, what-when have we seen?
Why may we boast of ‘much better’ today?
How much bolder and brighter do children dream?
Have we won the war, so that they may play
Safe from those whose hearts and minds are obscene?
Then maybe one day our children will say
What wonderful people we must have been?
God save us all this Independence Day,
Keep us just as or better than the Queen.

Mirror, mirror on the wall….

MARLENE DEE GRAY POTOURA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

ON Saturday night at 11:30, Sergeant Dave Moiku drove into a dark street in his blue police vehicle. There had been a call from a woman saying an intruder was trying to break into her house.

Dave was new to this town but he was a police officer and a call meant somebody needed help.  

Parking the car on the road, he walked up the driveway of house number 15.

As he knocked on the door it was flung open and a sweet old woman stood in the flood of light flowing from inside.

Pictures in my sleep

JOHN KAUPA KAMASUA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I had a dream a while ago.
Dreams can appear too real sometimes

Pictures
Memories
Coming back to me,
In my sleep
Is this a dream?

A pipe
The pipe
Yes, the pipe!
What of the pipe?
Ah, I see that smoking pipe