Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

The Gordon Steege story 1 – Flying boats in Papua

AIR COMMODORE GORDON STEEGE DSO DFC
As told to Bill Brown

IN SEPTEMBER 1939, HAVING GRADUATED from Point Cook in Victoria in June 1938, I was a Flying Officer in No 3 (Army Cooperation) Squadron at Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Station Richmond NSW, doing my tour as Adjutant.

I was in the officer's mess with other colleagues when the mess president came in. He was a Wing Commander, perhaps in his early forties. The RAAF was more formal in those days and we all stood for him.

It turned out the occasion was to hear Australian prime minister Robert Menzies “melancholy duty” announcement on the wireless that Australia was at war with Germany.

Next morning I was told to go to Station Headquarters and report to a Flight Lieutenant Alexander, then on the staff of the station commander, Group Captain Hipolyte Ferdinand de la Rue.

Nauru: A dog barked but was not heard. It barks yet

JOHN FOWKE

IT IS MY CONVICTION that although Australia was an exceptionally good and generous foster-parent to both territories, Papua and New Guinea, it cared for until 1975, it committed two major sins of omission.

These were sins of short-sightedness which led to continuing and far-reaching consequences.

I have written about the first of my concerns here on PNG Attitude, and fellow PNG-pundits of the aged, expat sort have either shot it down or patted it on the head with faint praise.

This plan for the reversal of the first major sin of Australia has been humbly (yes, humbly for once) lodged with people who may take it seriously and even use some strands to weave their own tapestry for tomorrow. Or not, of course.

But Harry Topham’s well-put article on Nauru prompts me to propound my second concern.

Our sacred land and the lies, suffering & death

LEONARD FONG ROKA

ON 14 SEPTEMBER 2012, the blog New Dawn on Bougainville reported a story entitled Situation tense in Bana after a person was killed in the Jaba area of Panguna as a result of a conflict that started some three months earlier.

The conflict was a land related issue at the former Bougainville Copper Limited’s farm site at Mananau, purchased and settled by the Nagovis mountain people of Damane in the hinterland of the Bana district.

The crisis and death of the late Kakaleu was over a piece of land that over time had passed through a number of hands. Thus, as we know of oral history, it had been subjected to ‘addition and subtraction’ over time.

In my observation, both the killers and the killed were victims of an issue that went wrong somewhere down history lane, affecting a generation that adopted wrong stories and wrong land boundaries.

The publisher is overseas....

PNG Attitude is travelling for the next 6 weeks, occasionally beyond reach of internet access.  Comments may take some time to post. Tweets will experience delays. But we will be on the air and our great contributors should continue to email us at the usual benelong address. KJ looks forward to sharing his boring travel experiences with our 4,000 readers....

I had a dream last night: A vision for my country

DANNY GONNOL

I WAS MY MOTHER’S ONLY CHILD when Papua New Guinea became an independent nation. The PNG flag was raised for the first time and the Australian flag was lowered for the last time. That was 16 September 1975.

As the years passed, I enrolled to commence my primary education. That was in the 1980s at the Alkena Lutheran Primary School.

Every morning we would assemble, sing the national anthem, raise the flag and shout the national pledge.

“We the people of PNG pledge ourselves, united in one nation, we pledge to build a democratic society based on justice, equality, respect and prosperity for our people, and we pledge to stand together as one people, one nation, and one country.”

I did not understand why we had to do that.

Rowena – a successful lawyer doing her Christian duty

PAUL DOBBYN | The Catholic Leader

ROWENA MCNALLY WAS MOVING on from a successful career as a lawyer, including a term as Queensland Sugar Industry Commissioner, when she asked God in prayer if He had any work for her.

The answer was not long in coming. Starting 2005, her roles within Church organisations would soon include director of Professional Standards for the Catholic Church in Queensland as well as trustee of Mary Aikenhead Ministries.

In the former role, she confronted the dark side of Church history meeting with victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. By 2012, she was also chair of Catholic Health Australia.

As a young girl in Papua New Guinea, Rowena's initial response to Church life gave little indication of the intense engagement to come.

Assistance for dying languages in PNG & beyond

SCIENCE BLOG

MANY OF THE WORLD'S LANGUAGES, including a number in Papua New Guinea, are disappearing and David Chiang wants to do something about it.

Chiang is an assistant professor at the University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute and he is worried that the loss of these languages will lead to a diminution of scientific knowledge and cultural understanding.

That’s why he spent two weeks in May last year leading a language preservation workshop to save endangered languages in PNG, which has a rich cultural and linguistic diversity.

PNG has arguably the highest language density and diversity on earth — over 800 different languages, or a new language for every 215 square miles.

Disastrous upshots: wantokism & business in PNG

FRANCIS NII | Supported by the South Pacific Strategic Solutions Writing Fellowship

THERE ARE MANY FACTORS that contribute to the failure or lack of development of small to medium sized businesses by Papua New Guineans and wantokism is one of them.

Wantokism or the wantok system is a phenomenon that impacts upon every sphere of life in Papua New Guinean society, including business.

In traditional PNG society, wantokism operated as a welfare buffer and underpinned social security. It ensured no one went hungry or was naked or homeless.

Everyone made sure that all other people, including those who were vulnerable and disadvantaged, had food to eat, clothes to wear and shelter or a place to live.

Don Bosgard, aristocratic president of the Angoram Club

DAVID WALL

ACCORDING TO CARDINAL NEWMAN “it is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain.” If this is so, Don Bosgard more than fitted the bill.

It was my privilege to have known Donald Gordon Bosgard over a number of years in the Sepik District and after he retired to Sydney.

To say that he was of the old school would be an understatement. A dignified and refined man, always impeccably dressed and softly spoken in a clipped Anglo-Australian accent.

Fast, cheap vaccine: Nanopatch trials to begin in PNG

MURRAY VALLEY STANDARD

A BRISBANE SCIENTIST is preparing to begin field trials in Papua New Guinea of an invention expected to get life-saving vaccines to children around the world immeasurably cheaper and years faster than is currently possible.

And it's all without the use of needles.

Professor Mark Kendall is the inventor of the Nanopatch, a strip smaller than a postage stamp that has thousands of microscopic points which can inject disease-busting vaccines into the skin.

For nine years, Professor Kendall and a team of international researchers have been working on the "needle-less" vaccination in the laboratory.

Friendship – two peoples joined by mutual experience

BARBARA SHORT

TIM COSTELLO, CEO of World Vision, is calling for more young Australians to visit Papua New Guinea and become friends with the Melanesian people, to take time to get to know them and for an effort to be made to understand each other’s culture, dreams and aspirations.

One young Aussie who did just this back in 1952 was Bill Wilson (pictured) from Perth, Western Australia, then aged 24.

Bill ended up teaching at Keravat High School in the Gazelle peninsula for a couple of years. Here is his story.

After Bill Wilson’s arrival at Keravat in 1952 he had his 24th birthday and on looking back he can see that he was ‘green’ and very inexperienced. He remembers there was no common Territory wide school syllabus and we “tended to cobble our own.”

Heart of wisdom & recognition of a true reality

GANJIKI D WAYNE

"Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" - a psalm of Moses (90:12)

I TURNED ANOTHER YEAR OLD the other day. But I really stopped celebrating birthdays after 16. I wanted to stay there forever. Sometimes I think I still am.

Anyway, birthdays are a time where I'm reminded of how precious life is (not that I forget on ordinary days): to know and be known by the Maker of the Universe; to love and be loved by an incredible woman; to belong to an awesome family; and to dwell in the sweetest country. Such is my lot.

What does it mean to be Papua New Guinean? We were deliberately placed here by God. He didn't randomly chuck us here. Or throw us into the air and see where we'd land on Earth. He deliberately decided I'd be Papua New Guinean.

The ulungasi’s border of injustice on Solomon

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

DURING THE HEIGHT of the Bougainville conflict, when Bougainvillean boats reached shore safely in Western or Choiseul in Solomon Islands, villagers rushed to welcome our people with food, tears and request for stories of the latest happenings on their big island.

I wrote this piece to reflect some of these moments and their chit-chats.

The ulungasi’s border of injustice on Solomon

Once I stood on the fine beaches of Choiseul Bay
Out there, before me, on Monahe, a landmass so imposing on me
I saw garden smoke belching out into the azure sky
I heard guns rumbling and gunships brawling

Juffa accuses UN of lying about gender ‘thuggery’

MICHAEL SERGEL & FINIAN SCOTT | Pacific Scoop:

PAPUA NEW GUINEA’s staunchly anti-colonial Oro Province governor has accused the United Nations of lying about the extent of gender inequality in the Pacific region.

Gary Juffa made the statements during the Pacific Parliamentary and Political Leaders Forum, happening this weekend in Wellington.

“The academic brigades from the UN who are coming forward, are consistently and constantly telling us we’re all thugs, living in caves, beating our women, forcing them to cook and do the laundry,” Juffa told delegates in a passionate speech.

The Telefomin murders revisited: the gritty detail

Arguably 6 November 1953 was the blackest moment in the history of Kiaps in Papua New Guinea. BILL BROWN recounts the details of the day when two patrol officers and two policemen were murdered, and its controversial aftermath….

PHIL FITZPATRICK’S RECENT PNG Attitude article Days of the Kiap – The Savage Murders of Telefomin is heady stuff and a splendid narrative of those terrible events, but some of the assertions wander away from the facts. 

Road to militancy: PNGDF roasted me on tar

LEONARD FONG ROKA | Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

IN 1989 WHEN THE GOVERNMENT TROOPS began raiding the Tumpusiong Valley; torching and looting homes, Noel Monoung, then a teenager, fled with his family to be with their relatives in Siae village, inland from the provincial capital of North Solomons, Arawa.

They lived in Siae as ordinary villagers, concealing the fact that they were refugees from Panguna.

For the young man, Siae village was freedom. He was everywhere doing whatever the locals did, but missing his home in Panguna which was the subject of PNG military frisking and destruction. Always he was eager for news from home.

The idea of the informal economy: a work in progress

JOHN CONROY | Open Anthropology Cooperative

I'M WORKING ON A SERIES of studies concerned with the intellectual history of the 'informal economy', and its relevance to current concerns in Papua New Guinea. I hope, eventually, to 'join up' these studies in an extended monograph.

The first study in the series dealt with Keith Hart's introduction of the idea of an urban informal economy and considered earlier writers who had described what may be seen (in retrospect) as informal economic activity.

I contended they could be seen as precursors of Hart and his ideas. These writers were concerned with mid-Victorian London (Henry Mayhew), late-colonial British West Africa (Peter Bauer) and late-colonial PNG (Richard Salisbury).

These precursor works opened the possibility of considering informality in market exchange across a broader compass than that of Hart, one embracing countryside as well as town.

Vale Monica - an unremarked & kind woman is dead

PETER KRANZ

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IS SAID to have galloped across a battlefield after one of his victories and, upon seeing a young enemy soldier dead with his arm across his chest and a peaceful look on his face, pointed at the body and said to his generals, "That is a good death."

But in truth there is no 'good death'. Death is painful and sad and bitter and regretful. Maybe Dylan Thomas had it right. "Do not go gentle into that good night."

Auntie Monica died at Port Moresby General Hospital yesterday. Auntie Monica was not famous, or particularly noteworthy in bikman terms.

She was just a good ordinary PNG woman and mother who was bereft of proper health care in her last days after struggling hard for many years to eke out a living at the ATS settlement.

Quentin Bryce program is announced for PNG visit

AUSTRALIAN HIGH COMMISSION

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNOR-GENERAL, Ms Quentin Bryce, will arrive in Papua New Guinea on Monday for a four-day visit.

Ms Bryce will mark Anzac Day on the Kokoda Track and undertake other engagements that recognise the historic defence links and highlight the strong bilateral relationship between both nations.

The Governor-General will also focus on violence against women, the promotion of health initiatives to combat HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis, and the advancement of educational opportunities in Papua New Guinea.

On Anzac Day, Thursday 25 April, Ms Bryce will honour the service and sacrifices of Australian Defence Force personnel in World War II at the Dawn Service at Bomana War Cemetery in Port Moresby.

Old man, young wife, sorcery: the power of gerontocracy

JEFF FEBI

Gerontocracy - A form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population [Wikipedia]

ONE ADVANTAGE OF WORKING for ambitious oil and gas explorers is you’re taken to some quite remote places, where the slow pace of change keeps time-worn traditions alive.

In these places, you just might witness the tail-end of some weird and unpleasant practices and get a glimpse into an ugly world of old.

After the latest four weeks on a job and a good time breathing real fresh air and observing gloriously unrivalled flora and fauna, my five-year term was up.

The short helicopter ride to remote Wabo airstrip in the Gulf Province gave me another chance to observe the Purari from above.

This river did a majestic job - painting its meandering path a murky brown. In this seemingly endless evergreen jungle, it made its way into the belly of the Coral Sea.

Asian century: Realigning policy with the opportunities

FRANCIS HUALUPMOMI

THE AIM OF THIS ARTICLE is to look at the significance of Asia in this 21st century and survey how PNG, as an emerging economic power in Pacific region, should realign her foreign policy.

This implies reorganising political, economic and strategic thoughts and resources to navigate through an uncertain environment with the strategic aim to gain the most optimal outcome.

The Asia-Pacific region is dynamic and becoming the geo-political, geo-economic and geo-strategic heartland of academic debate. The rise of China followed by India has structurally shaped States’ foreign policy behaviour.

Most analysts are questioning whether the current liberal order constructed by America would be replaced by rising China. If assumptions hold true, a ‘Sino-centric order’ with new rules of game, the ‘Beijing consensus’, will replace the ‘Washington consensus’.

Paradise lost - a tale of greed, excess and disaster

HARRY TOPHAM

ONCE UPON A TIME there was a tiny eight square mile speck of land located in a most beautiful spot along the meridian of the equator in the vast and lonely reaches of the Pacific halfway between Hawaii and Australia.

There was nothing really special about this place, it was nothing but a tiny coral atoll uplifted by previous tectonic forces, however the surrounding waters were teeming with fish, which attracted the attention of wandering birds.

Offering protection from the dangers of the world, it became a favourite transit point for the wanderers of the sea, the frigate bird.

For thousands of years this tiny speck of land remained unspoiled apart from the nomadic visitors leaving behind their tiny blobs of faeces as peppercorn rental. The only other immigrants were botanical, arriving on the sea and wind and finding the rich soils fertile enough to flourish abundantly.

Epigram at a Canon printer in the postgraduate office

MICHAEL DOM

The postgraduate office printer is a battle zone.

Here brave environomists* defend the rights of trees to grow a little bit taller.

This is important in a society where people race to make every single dollar.

I lived among those trees; my ancestors left them alone.

* Environmentalists with a penchant for economics - MD

Kawandah – more than just another youth on the street

EMMA WAKPI | Supported by the Rob & Meg Parer Writing Fellowship

HE WAS NOT SOMEONE you would notice right away. Just an average teenager doing average teenage things.

You know - the one side of his jeans rolled up to the knee the other pulled down, a hint of facial hair that he takes so much pride in stroking every now and then, riding his bike in lazy loops up and down the street whilst engaging in hip Pidgin talk with his mates from across the street and getting his weekend rugby fixes all the while trying to get through high school.

It was a Saturday morning and I was at home fiddling around when I heard rapid footsteps ascending to my flat. A short sharp knock and the door opened to reveal an emotional teenager.

Angoram: colonial playground of the famous & notorious

DAVID WALL

IN 1969, A GROUP OF JAPANESE academics from Kyoto City University visited the Sepik to conduct linguistic and anthropological studies in the area.

They stayed a number of weeks in Angoram collecting artefacts and even some human skulls - a Sepik art form.

The leader of the group was a professor of English and a veteran of the Japanese campaign in China during World War II – a charming and distinguished gentleman.

There were two other young men, associate professors, and a beautiful young female anthropologist.

Barata Andrew, sumatin wantem gan

LEONARD FONG ROKA

THIS A STORY OF MY FRIEND, who, after a PNGDF soldier beat him up, along with another student stole a gun and escaped, then returned to hunt his foe back in Arawa in 1996.

My brother Andrew, student with a gun

Olgeta de taim san i go daun, mi save tingim yu.

Every day at sunset, I think about you.

Mi save tingim desk bilong yumi long kona; ples mitupla bin save laikim tumas lo hait na pilai longlong lo ol meri lo klas.

I think about our desk in the corner, where we loved to play pranks on the girls.

Na nau yu lusim mi pinis na stap we, em mi no save.

And now you are gone; to where, I am not sure.

My Story – From arse tanget to corporate sales executive

15 - CORNEY KOROKAN ALONE

IF THERE WAS A COMPETITION for the best arse tanget, I would have taken the prize year after year.

My arse tanget always had the best leaves, shined to perfection, with small pieces of cloth in front. That was the way it was until I received my first pair of shorts in grade 7. The shoes followed in grade 9.

You can be forgiven into thinking that this is a story set in the 1950s or 1960s. But it was between the years 1975 and 1989 when I became old enough to wear tanget just like my father and older brothers.

Tribal squabbles: How law & order breakdown began

BOB CLELAND

IN 1955 I WAS A PATROL OFFICER working in the Eastern Highlands District of the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea.

My field staff colleagues and I – kiaps – were members of the Department of District Services and Native Affairs in the Administration.

The lowest level of court in PNG was the Court for Native Affairs. It was a court of summary jurisdiction presided over by magistrates who were usually kiaps.

Appointments of junior officers as magistrates were recommended by a District Commissioner only after a minimum period of field duties, attendance as observers of actual cases and a demonstrated knowledge of the controlling ordinance and regulations.

I was appointed after a year of service to the position ‘Magistrate in the Court for Native Affairs’.

Concerns about fair distribution of PNG’s boom

OXFORD BUSINESS GROUP

AS PAPUA NEW GUINEA’S TOP BANKS and financial services firms record healthy profits, citing overall strength of the economy, the government has pledged a broad and ambitious infrastructure development program in hopes of further boosting growth.

However, concerns about the future distribution of an expected resource-driven boom continue to dampen long-term expectations.

In March, Bank South Pacific, the country’s largest bank, posted an operating profit before tax of K545.3m, up 14.8% from the previous year PNG’s first listed investment company, Kina Asset Management, also announced in March that it had recorded a net profit of K4.73m in 2012, a significant improvement over the net loss of K9.43m in 2011.

Kokoda foundation appoints Ian Kemish as patron

THE KOKODA TRACK FOUNDATION has announced that its new patron is Ian Kemish, until recently the highly respected Australian High Commissioner to Papua New Guinea.

“[Ian] is a passionate advocate for the continual flourishing of the relationship between PNG and Australia,” the Foundation said in a statement. “Both he and his wife, Ms Roxanne Martens, are long-time supporters of the Foundation.”

Mr Kemish is replacing outgoing patron Major General Michael Jeffrey.

The Foundation has also appointed Kokoda veteran Captain Bede Tongs, 92, as its third ambassador, joining Will Genia and Charles Lepani.

“Bede is already planning his next trip to Kokoda to meet the descendants of the people of Papua New Guinea who helped him and other Australian soldiers in 1942,” the Foundation said.

Long-time PNG supporter to be awarded Logohu medal

KEITH JACKSON

PNG ATTITUDE READER and occasional contributor, Trevor Shelley (Snr), is flying to Papua New Guinea today, his 66th birthday, on what he says is “my shortest visit”. But it seems certain to be one of his most pleasant.

The purpose of the three-day excursion is to attend Government House to receive PNG’s national honour, the Logohu Medal, for his services to rural development over many years.

Brisbane-based Trevor says he’s spent “years trying to help those dedicated, under-resourced people all over PNG who are always struggling to provide some services in the bush or just being a conduit for them to the outside world.

“This award is the icing on the cake for me and I will wear it with pride,” Trevor says.

Verbal sparring resumes over Ok Tedi mine future

ROWAN CALLICK | The Australian | Extracts

THE EXTRAORDINARY BATTLE for control of the vast copper-gold mine at Ok Tedi and of its revenues, including the $1.4 billion long-term fund reserved for future generations, has heated up in Papua New Guinea.

The conflict emerged in November, when prime minister Peter O'Neill told parliament: "I want to put it on record that (the then chairman of Ok Tedi Mining, Ross Garnaut) will be no longer welcome in this country until BHP surrenders control of PNG Sustainable Development Program to the government and people of PNG."

Mr O'Neill wants BHP to give up any residual say in matters relating to the revenues, via the constitution under which PNGSDP operates.

Gold Coast businessman killed in Mt Hagen

ROBYN WUTH | GoldCoast.com.au

COLOURFUL Gold Coast, Queensland, businessman Bob Purdy - known as 'Cobra Bob' - was shot dead in Mt Hagen at the weekend.

The businessman, who famously repossessed everything from cruise ships to skyscrapers, was shot in what was believed to be a botched robbery in the dangerous town.

It is understood Mr Purdy died instantly.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs confirmed the death of a 62-year-old man in Papua New Guinea.

Elizabeth Dapore & the Sipuru forestry project

LEONARD FONG ROKA |  Supported by the Jeff Febi Writing Fellowship

ELIZABETH DAPORE, who I photographed among her trees, is from the Tumpusiong Valley of the Panguna District.

A Buin secondary school leaver of 2011 who did not secure a place in a tertiary institution, she is now engaged with Sipuru Forestry, an initiative of the Deumori Parish in the mountains of Paruparu, Central Bougainville.

“One of the fundamental reasons of the Bougainville conflict was the environment carnage the Bougainville Copper Limited (BCL) was doing on our island for the benefit of not us,” Elizabeth Dapore told me.

“Our project is now working to uphold that mission of protecting and promoting the preservation of our environment.”

Simbu author Sil Bolkin releases the Galkope CD

PHIL FITZPATRICK

LAST YEAR SIMBU WRITER Sil Bolkin published a stunning history of his people called The Flight of Galkope. 

The book was the culmination of several years’ work trekking through his rugged Simbu homeland visiting men’s houses and talking to and recording the memories of venerable elders.

The book wove a magical path from the mythical origins of the Galkope right through to the diaspora that has seen many of them leave their homelands. 

I had the privilege of helping Sil with the editing and came away feeling that I had experienced something truly special.  I’m not a great fan of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings but this Simbu version had me really hooked.

Pacific is beset by gender violence, but why?

NICOLE GEORGE | Women’s Agenda

ALLEGATIONS OF SORCERY-RELATED ABUSE in Papua New Guinea have had increased prominence recently.

They involve the alleged torture of six women and one man with hot irons as part of an Easter “sacrifice” in the Southern Highlands, as well as reports of the public beheading of a woman accused of sorcery in Bougainville.

These come in the wake of the violent death of a young Mt Hagen woman in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, which became the subject of international media attention in early February.

Kepari Leniata, a 20 year old mother of an eight month old baby, was tortured and eventually burnt alive before a crowd of onlookers. The Australian’s Rowan Callick described Leniata’s murder as a product of PNG’s failed education system and its programs of economic development.

Extensively drug-resistant TB hovers at Australia’s door

TONY KIRBY | Medical Journal of Australia

IT WAS HOPED that extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR-TB) might never arrive on Australia’s shores. But new cases raise the spectre of death for patients, transmission to others and large costs for Australian taxpayers.

Papua New Guinea national Catherina Abraham, aged 20 years, “made it” to Australia and hit the headlines in October 2012 because she had been diagnosed with XDR-TB.

After almost a year in an isolation ward at Cairns Base Hospital, she died on 8 March 2013. Her treatment cost Queensland Health about $500,000 and would have cost $1 million had she lived to complete it.

Now another PNG national has been diagnosed with XDR-TB in Australia. In the preceding 8 years, only two other XDR-TB cases were recorded in Australia.

Young Australians urged to make friends in PNG

JEMIMA GARRETT | Radio Australia

WORLD VISION CEO Tim Costello is calling for more young Australians to visit Papua New Guinea to improve relations between the two countries.

Mr Costello, who is in PNG for Australia Week, told a gathering of diplomats, politicians, and business leaders that friendships are the glue that hold the two countries together.

"Deep relationships, not governed as important as government is; not directed just because there is a profit to be made, as important as business is," he said.

"People to people relationships, who actually take the time to understand each other's culture and story and dreams and aspirations, and dream of the possibilities that can be."

My Story: Resting in God; committed to a life of service

14 – EMMA WAKPI

Emma Wakpi is one of Papua New Guinea's most talented young writers. She won the 2012 Crocodile Prize for her essay, 'The Haunting'....

I WAS BORN ON 19 APRIL 1979 at Angau Hospital in Lae where my father was a civil engineering student at the University of Technology. My mother worked for the Evangelical Brotherhood Church in its small print shop.

Having waited with suppressed hopefulness that his first born would be a boychild, dad was keenly disappointed to hear that a healthy baby girl was to be his.

However as soon as he saw me (so he tells me now), he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

My name is Panguna mine

ISHMAEL PALIPAL

THE PANGUNA MINING PIT is now a large scar on the heart of North Solomon or Bougainville Island. The company dug out a large amount of copper but beneath it was with gold and no good was done to the island and the people there.

Yet they are still fighting to get more out of it. My question to them is: “Where did that money go out from that large pit?”

North Solomonians tinting gut na yumi go (think properly and we move).

Jack Doonar – Rabaul’s wild colonial headmaster

BARBARA SHORT

JOHN CHARLES (JACK) DOONAR was born in Ipswich in 1913 and trained as a teacher at Brisbane Teachers’ College, where GT Roscoe, a future Director of Education in the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea, was on the staff.

Jack taught in Queensland from 1932-36 and in March 1937 was loaned to TPNG by Queensland and made head teacher of the European school in Rabaul until December 1938.

His students had outstanding success in the Queensland Scholarship Examination. He was teaching in Rabaul during the eruption of Tavurvur volcano in 1937.

In 1939 he was transferred to the European School in Wau, and was there when, on 22 January 1940, he enlisted for the war effort. He joined an Anti-Tank Regiment and embarked for the Middle East in May 1940, serving in Crete and North Africa. He returned in August 1942.

Olgeta mas sanap lo abrusim bagarap blo rot

JOE WASIA | Supported by the Bob Cleland Writing Fellowship

I’M NOT SURE ABOUT THE EFFECTIVENESS of those TV advertisements on driving safety by the Road Safety Council of Papua New Guinea.

That terrible accident in the Western Highlands revealed the driver had not slept well. He had driven all the way from Lae and arrived in Mt Hagen in the morning tulight bus.

Upon his arrival in Hagen he was asked to transport the relatives of a person who had died in Port Moresby.

He picked them up on the roadside and was driving towards Mt Hagen when the tragic accident happened. Twenty-five people dead.

For the last four years I have been travelling the Highlands Highway between Mt Hagen, Lae and Madang. From my experience on this road, I know there are many threats created by drivers.

Back then we carried forward the fight against malaria

DAVID WALL

THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS TAKEN BY my wife Deborah in 1973 while we were on patrol in the Pora Pora census division of the Angoram sub-district.

It shows John Pandum and me taking a blood sample in one of the half-yearly anti-malaria visits to the area.

The people of Pora Pora were prone to a lot of sickness: malaria, pneumonia, tropical ulcers, TB, influenza and many minor complaints.

It was amazing what could be done with penicillin, chloroquine and a few other simple remedies.

Fighting for a forgotten cause in West Papua

DEUTSCHE WELLE

WEST PAPUA'S 50-YEAR STRUGGLE for independence from Indonesia is one of the world's longest-running conflicts. Exiled activist Benny Wenda is trying to draw attention to it, this time with a peaceful message.

Wearing his Papuan patterned shirt, Benny Wenda cuts an unmistakable figure on the streets of Melbourne. He's currently halfway through his latest global tour, trying to raise awareness of the issue of West Papua.

There is both a sense of peaceful resilience and some exasperation when he explains what the situation is like for West Papuans.

"Every single day you cannot go hunting or gardening, everywhere you go there is a military post, everywhere," he says. "Everywhere you go, intelligence is watching and intelligence monitor what you do."

It’s the end of the journey that matters

DAVID GONOL

I WROTE THIS POEM with deep conviction that how we start our journey doesn’t really matter but how we end it does.

History will judge your life on the basis of the end of your journey. You can start your journey as a criminal but you can finish as a saint. Or one can be born in a manger but still become King of Glory.

I captured these thoughts in this poem. Read and meditate on it and see what I mean. God bless you.

It’s the end of the journey that matters

Life is a journey with no reverse gears;
Life is a journey with forward gears only.
Many people have already taken this journey
And many will do the same in the future.

Aitape tsunami changed the face of bible translation

NICOLA MENZIE | The Christian Post

A MASSIVE TSUNAMI triggered by a magnitude seven earthquake wiped out thousands of villages, claimed hundreds of lives and forever changed the way Bible translations previously had been done in Papua New Guinea.

Two Wycliffe Bible translators credited with pioneering the movement, and who lost many of their friends in the storm, recently shared with The Christian Post how they believe God created a miracle out of tragedy.

John and Bonnie Nystrom, linguists for Wycliffe Bible Translators, recount in their recently published book, Sleeping Coconuts, how the devastating 17 July 1998 earthquake that shook the northern coast of Papua New Guinea claimed 800 lives from Arop village where they had moved 10 years prior to assist local pastors translate the Bible into their own language.

Ben’s PNG Diary – Day 8: A smile impossible to erase

BEN JACKSON

EVEN AS A NEWCOMER to Port Moresby I seem to find myself running into people I know.

I ended the day in the wildly imaginative company of Emmanuel Narokobi and Martyn Namorong (you can see them being moderately imaginative here).

And last night I came across the lovely and energetic Dr Genevieve Nelson-Hill, executive director of the Kokoda Track Foundation.

Gen was staying at the same hotel as me before heading to Kokoda today to certify land for the development of a Kokoda Track Foundation-funded college. The college, when operational, will provide high quality elementary school training (one year) and health services training (two years).

As luck would have it, the Foundation’s charter flight had a spare seat, so this morning I went out to Jackson’s Airport for a series of aviation firsts in my life: first internal PNG flight, first light aircraft flight, and first grass strip landing (and take-off, now you mention it).

NOTICE TO CONTRIBUTORS

It's the usual practice of PNG Attitude to publish contributions within a few days of receipt.  However, as the editor is soon to skive off on an extensive trip to the other side of the globe, it will not always be possible to adhere to a uniform publishing schedule.  Hence contributions deemed to be 'timeless' in content may be held over for a little longer than usual to cover gaps caused by long flights, poor internet access, scurvy and malaise.  That said, we do not want to dissuade writers from submitting articles or poetry for publication; on the contrary, the current substantial flow of quality material is driving a sustained surge in readership that we want to see continue....

Meninga begins training PNG's rugby league team

AUSTRALIA NETWORK NEWS

AUSTRALIAN RUGBY LEAGUE LEGEND Mal Meninga has begun training Papua New Guinea's national rugby league team.

Meninga signed on last month to become the Kumuls' high performance director for the next five years.

He says his first priority is to get the side ready for the 14th Rugby League World Cup to be held in England and Wales this October.

"My short term goal is to make sure the players understand what is necessary to get to the next level," he said.

"That's what we're doing at the moment, trying to build a culture, a set of values, a philosophy for the players to understand what they need to do individually and as a group."

Bush doctor: Behind the Dr Barry Kirby story

JO CHANDLER

IT WAS MY LABOUR OF LOVE, two years of dreaming and plotting to track down Dr Barry Kirby, and pretty nail-biting in the end, for me as a new freelancer, as to whether his story would ever actually find a publisher.

I’d like to pick up a couple of important themes identified in the feedback from PNG Attitude readers.

First, the issue of village birth attendants is a really interesting and live debate in the medical/development sphere.

The question is this: Do you recognise the reality that many isolated and poor communities will never get a functional health service, therefore invest in educating and equipping village birth attendants on the basis that something is better than nothing?