Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Believe me, my nomination day was challenging...

BY JEFFREY MANE FEBI

Candidate for the Lufa Open Electorate, 2012 Papua New Guinea National Elections

SOMETHING HEAVY HAD SETTLED on my head. I thought I felt my brain inflate and deflate rapidly. I didn’t know I wasn’t thinking. Then I heard a sweet voice cut through this wall of dense confusion.

“Mane!” I turned and saw my concerned mother. The wrinkles around her eyes have grown, her hair is more grey. And, clutched firmly in her palm at the end of a frail extended arm, a kaukau. “You must eat,” her voice sounding the more alarming because of its concern.

The scene was more of a successful gathering than one of failure but I, with less than zero experience in crowd control and management, was more worried than every other person who approached to greet me.

After I nominated to officially become a candidate for the Lufa Open Electorate in the Eastern Highlands, I met the crowd. They didn’t come in hundreds; there were over a thousand people.

Men, women, boys, girls, children and babies; some had walked hundreds of miles, taking days to arrive at Lufa government station to witness this event.

Others have flown to Goroka then caught rides on PMVs (public motor vehicles) to Lufa. They are the people of remote rural Lufa; those who sing: ‘They call use camels; they call us white horses; they call us semi-trailers…’

The ensuing excitement and confusion (as I saw it) was over a thousand voices to listen to and innumerable hands to shake and many more bodies to hug. It was overwhelming.

I thought there was no order, and something was brewing. Any moment from now it would burst and someone would be hurt. A child, a man, a woman, anyone…

Just to feed such a crowd was no easy task. A group of men and women in their mid-30s made it seem less arduous. They, young and untested, worked on  - and on.

There were peaks and troughs, some of which almost derailed their efforts. But at the day’s end, not a single hungry soul was to be found.

I, on the other hand, with less village experience and knowledge, couldn’t envision a successful ending.

This, coupled with the day’s heat and smell of the crowd, almost laid the foundations for a brain explosion.

As the election days unravel along with their latent challenges, I am hoping and praying I’ll be able to cope.

Jeff Febi is an award-winning writer and poet, a regular contributor to PNG Attitude and an aspiring politician

Guns and Viagra at the Wutung border

BY KELA KAPKORA SIL BOLKIN

THE PNG INDONESIA BORDER is a long stretch of land from the tip of Sandaun Province right down through Western Province and almost to Australia. Villages can be spotted in pockets along both sides of the border. The largest and most used entry point from either Papua New Guinea or Indonesia is the border at Wutung.

The PNG side of the border at Wutung is filthy with mountains of empty plastics, cans, and containers that are sprayed with betel nut stains. A lone colourless building houses the PNG customs office. Visitors to the Wutung border find shelters under trees or huts that fry bananas, lamb flaps and sausages. Visitors must answer the call of nature in the forests nearby.

A big tall monument which stands on the Indonesian side dwarfs a short and small one on the PNG side near Bougainville Bay. The Indonesian monument proudly flies the Indonesian flag above a mountain forest which seems to remind PNG not to muddle around with Indonesia.

As you look into PNG from the Indonesian side you see the fearfully scribbled inscription “Jesus Christ is Lord over this land”. The eagle in the Indonesian sculpture, looking like Uncle Sam, stares fiercely down on the inscription.

The Indonesian side of the no man’s land is called Batas and is well polished with pavement, four lanes for cars and properly fenced. All the different Indonesian government departments like Customs and Foreign affairs, Defence, Trade, etc. are housed within well designed Asian-style buildings.

Their soldiers are well polished with smart military attire and guns, unlike the mixture of pot- bellied and betel nut stained soldiers wondering around individually showing no signs of camaraderie and preparedness on the PNG side.

A kilometre into the Indonesian side is the famous Gordon Market-type stalls called Batas. Batas is a ghetto that gives the impression of a new refugee camp. In Batas they sell all sorts of Asian made goods, clothing, electronic equipment, Harley Davidson motorbikes and even sex appetisers like Viagra, Spanish fly, King Cobra, etc.

A digital camera sold in Papua New Guinea for K999 is only K300 in Batas. A Toshiba laptop is only K800 in Batas whilst in Port Moresby it is K4,000 plus.

The official days for Papua New Guineans to go shopping in Batas are Tuesdays and Thursdays but PNG and Indonesian authorities at the border both allow Papua New Guineans to shop at any time of the week as well. People rarely shop in Vanimo.

Most forest owners, some public servants and even visitors travel to Batas or Jayapura to do their shopping for goods as well as for sex. Therefore there much fewer super markets and stores in Vanimo town and these close at around 4 pm.

The PNG government loses millions on import duty and PNG entrepreneurs in Vanimo have lost business opportunities as well with the competition from Batas and Jayapura.

Vanimo market does not have the mountains of garden crops we see in Port Moresby, Goroka or the Mt Hagen markets. The timber royalty money it seems has made people lose their gardening skills.

We went shopping on Friday and Saturday last week.  Yes, PNG kina is spent in Batas on the Indonesian side of the border and it is estimated that half a million untaxed kina is going to Indonesia via Batas per week.

We were told that Indonesian soldiers sell guns to Papua New Guineans for up-front cash payment.  Asian and West Papuan sex workers prey on innocent PNG men who cross the border to Batas or Jayapura to shop. All the goods and fees for sex are very cheap.

The distance from Batas to Jayapura is just the same as from Batas to Vanimo so Papua New Guineans can travel with locals from the border area to Jayapura without any proper visas.

Caveat! The PNG government has to overhaul the facilities at Wutung and screen people moving in and out of Wutung smuggling and escaping import duties.

Otherwise, PNG will keep losing economically and will also be filled to the brim with imported social ills that include HIV as part of the package.

Gordon’s: today’s snapshot of our bleak future

BY GARY JUFFA
THE NAMORONG REPORT

I SPENT AN HOUR at Gordon’s Market the other day, a burning hot April Saturday in Port Moresby. I parked right opposite the Gordon’s Police Station around midday and waited for a friend.

As is usual with appointments in Papua New Guinea, one must be prepared to wait anywhere between 10 minutes and an entire hour. It was an hour I spent fascinated.

The population of people walking, talking and carrying on in the humid, steaming, muddy, filthy so-called market was captivating. Teeming with energy and abuzz with all manner of activity, there were traders and vendors, hawkers and street sellers, betel nut connoisseurs and buyers.

Scam artists and con artists and petty criminals also were active and everyone was a potential victim. A boom box belted out loud noise. There was no sign of authority of any sort. The order was disorder.

Across the road, a Chinese store thrived with people streaming in and out like ants, walking in empty handed and carrying out all manner of goods or, more correctly, junk, for resale. Business is booming for the Chinese traders thanks to increased liberalisation of trade, relaxing of regulatory laws to protect consumers and the introduction of an unregulated, unpoliced informal sector.

The sector was supposedly intended to benefit Papua New Guineans involved in cottage industries selling handicraft and arts and incubating their small entrepreneurial efforts.

But the real winners are the mainland Chinese traders who import container loads of cheap household products from numerous factories proliferating throughout China to resell in developing nations like Papua New Guinea.

In PNG, the Chinese traders target settlements and rural townships stretching their tentacles throughout the length and breadth of this Pacific island economy like a giant octopus leech sucking everything and anything out and transmitting the profits offshore to fund investments in Asia, Australia and New Zealand.

Other octopi are busy throughout the region, and indeed the world, as China shifts into gear in its drive for world dominance. They are taking advantage of a weakening West which is in pivotal transition, changing from a defined set of geographic nations to becoming a globalised Corporatedom, the new manor of the rich, overseeing a global population of serfs.

Back in Gordon’s Market, raw sewage and waste streamed through the market in drains carrying dirty plastic bags, and writhing naked children happily splashed under the baking Port Moresby sun as parents wearily gambled, played cards and turned their heads occasionally to scream at their offspring or to spit streaming betelnut juice anywhere, everywhere.

A drunkard stumbled through the market, miraculously weaving his way through the human traffic, a beer bottle lovingly cradled against his bare bony chest, inch long globules of mucous and blood trailing off his moustache. He was humming Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road.

Swarms of flies and other insects formed small clouds around a dead dog recently run over by a Public Motor Vehicle in the middle of the main street, its putrid juices running off towards the drain.

A man lay in a drunken stupor, snoring under a rain tree, devoid of shoes, belt and all clothes accept dirty, ragged jeans. Bored betelnut vendors played games on their mobile phones and bickered with each other.

My appointment arrived, sweating and sucking on an iceblock. I opened the car door and he climbed in.

Analysing the rubbish of the NCDC

BY GARY JUFFA
THE NAMORONG REPORT

SINCE LEAVING THE PUBLIC SERVICE, I have found many ways to occupy my time. I read books. I paint. I sleep and I even spend more time in my home province, visiting relatives, friends and working on my land (between reading books).

I have found time to help out friends and family when they have needed it. Or they just ask me for money. Which I don’t have so I just tell them stories about NCDC (National Capital District Council) which bore them to such a state that they leave me alone.

I have also started writing letters to anyone and everyone. I like writing letters. It gives me something to do to stave off the boredom of unemployment.

Recently, I started to write letters that I have termed “literary rants”. I write with much angst and indignation about anything and everything I believe is wrong in our country (this list is near endless).

The increasing rubbish and filth, the lies and stealing, the growing crime rate, the lack of services and the lack of care from those who could and should but don’t.

These letters are written to everyone in authority and copied to all who should take note and act (but usually don’t).

Of course in a Utopian world (similar to the worlds that many of the patrons of the yacht club apparently come from if you were to spend some time on any given Friday listening to their tales of how wonderful their homes are) this would be the case: someone, somewhere, paid money by ratepayers to act, would do so!

I doubt if anyone takes much notice of these letters, but I feel satisfied that somehow, I am expressing myself and that, somehow, I represent many of my fellow countrymen and perhaps a few genuine visitors and investors even.

Surprise, surprise, I do care about investors! Yes, I may rant and rave about foreign exploitation every so often but the fact is I am keen on genuine investors, those who pay their taxes, respect our culture and people and make an effort to keep their profits in the country and contribute to its economic growth.

Apparently the economic growth in this country is tremendous! You wouldn’t tell though when you drive around over roads that look and feel as if they were mistakenly bombed by the US Navy en route to Iraq.

Nor would you think this if you were to visit any given school where classrooms of children fluctuate between 120 and 300 to a teacher, usually sitting on a ground floor and trying to stay awake because they took only five PMV buses to get to school.

Anyway, recently, I wrote a letter to the NCDC Governor, Honourable Powes Parkop, who I consider a friend of some sort, although I haven’t heard from him for some time. Perhaps he is busy preparing for the - on again, off and on – elections or happy gardening somewhere.

Now of course, if I wanted to write about what I really thought and all the issues that the NCDC could resolve (but doesn’t) I would never have gotten around to writing this letter, besides there isn’t enough paper in PNG or the South Pacific for that size of project!

Elections are on – so it’s taim bilong kaikai!

BY JEFFREY MANE FEBI

I RECKON YOU THOUGHT I’d be talking about food or a mumu or something to do with food. Nope, you’re wrong! I want to talk about something different; different in the sense that it is not food that I want to talk about here.

“…bus broke down on the highway. It would cost K3000 to fix the crack engine. Assist me with K1500, it is urgent!” The voice demanded into the phone.

“…have been in town for two weeks now and I have been going around empty stomach. Send me some money so I could find food and catch a PMV home.” A pleading tone echoed.

“…got two vehicles here in my yard. One needs to be registered and should be up and running on the road. The other needs a bit of fixing. Will you assist?” A proud owner of the two useless vehicles asked.

Do you get the picture now? It is not food but now is taim bilon kaikai.

“…we’re in town and the boys have bought themselves beer. Because we’re many what we have won’t be enough for all. Please send us K50 to get a few more bottles.” A drunk blasted into the phone.

I guess by now all know what I meant by taim blong kaikai.

All intending election candidates are bombarded by requests, mostly preposterous requests. And they will have to find ways to make their potential voters happy.

A request that is not met by a favourable answer means loss of support. And it is bad; actually worse than bad.

It is any wonder, most politicians, when voted into parliament; spend more time enriching themselves and less and less time worrying about the state of the poverty in the country.

For an intending candidate, it is not an easy road. Even after much publicity and awareness about the dangers of kisim na votim the PNG voter, especially in the highlands, are more inclined to do just that.

This is why the election time, especially for the highlands regions, is taim bilong kaikai.

The challenge now is this: how can we as educated people change this kind of mindset? Blogging, facebooking etc won’t work. If they do, it would only be minimal.

We must go to where it matters and spend real time - time in the years between elections - to educate people.

Bert's war: They also serve who cook for officers

BY PETER KRANZ

MY DAD IS IN HOSPITAL after a fall and shares a room with a man in a similar condition called Bert.

Bert who is 88 broke his hip. He has an old dog, who is blind and follows Bert closely. Unfortunately Bert went to the laundry and forgot the dog was behind him, tripped over him and ended up in hospital with a pin in his hip.

Bert is friendly, kind-hearted and loves to talk. He met me and my wife Rose and we got to chatting as he realised we both have a Papua New Guinea connection.

He joined the 3rd Battalion RAR in 1942 - a unit was a noble history in the New Guinea campaign. But Bert was not to see frontline service due to a strange set of circumstances.

He trained at Atherton in far north Queensland and, late in 1942, was due to embark on a troopship from Townsville to Port Moresby.

The unit marched to the harbour, boarded the ship and then the captain decided it was overloaded, so Bert was amongst 300 or so troops who were disembarked and told to wait for the next ship.

This turned out to be an old Indian steamer loaded with Indian troops also bound for New Guinea. The ship limped out of Townsville harbour at a speed of four knots (about the same as a rowing boat).

Sadly the old vessel broke down after only half a day's voyage, two Indian stokers dying of heat exhaustion trying to work up steam.

After makeshift mechanical repairs, the ship and Bert returned to Townsville.

He got sick of waiting around in camp for new orders and found out the Army was in need of cooks. So he volunteered to be transferred to a mess unit, and eventually ended up in New Guinea.

He saw no action other than, as he wryly put it, being commandeered by the officers to cook sponge cakes for their parties at headquarters.

We had to end our chat, as the nurses came in for some monitoring. Bert wasn't able to eat his dinner, as he had had a bad reaction to his operation.

He looked at me and said: "You eat it Pete, better than it going to waste." He then announced to the nurses when they asked why he hadn't eaten anything: "I sold that meal you gave me to another bloke. Got a good price for it too!"

I then saw a glimpse of the humour, companionship and wit of the old Aussie digger. Even if Bert did no fighting, he also served.

An introduction to the power of broadcasting

BY KEITH JACKSON

Yesterday I gave a talk to the Rotary Club of Mosman in Sydney. It was about public relations, but I began with this anecdote from my Papua New Guinea years….

I WANT TO TAKE YOU far north of Mosman, over the sparkling, turbulent Coral Sea and then further west through Milne Bay and across the Solomon Sea, and its atolls of love.

I want to take you to the magnificent island of Bougainville, a once peaceful place except for occasional rumblings from Bagana volcano. Bougainville - whose jet-black people find themselves - very reluctantly – citizens of Papua New Guinea.

The year was 1970, I was 25 and had just been assigned to manage my first radio station: Radio Bougainville – Voice of the sunrise or, in Pidgin, Maus bilong sanikamap.

In Bougainville, a massive copper and gold project was getting underway and a lot of Bougainvilleans were not happy about it. Their land had been seized and they believed their culture and lives had been compromised.

Later this angst would translate into a shocking civil war which, in the 1990s, cost the lives of 20% of Bougainville’s population of 100,000.

But as I arrived in the main town of Kieta -- where the radio station was situated beside a tranquil harbour -- politics was the last thing on my mind. Full of the excitement of running my own show, I organised a quick tour around my new domain.

The transmitters, the huge radio masts, the bunker-like studios, the record library, the offices - and the storeroom.

As I opened the storeroom door, I baulked. The room was full, floor to ceiling, with mouldering boxes of transistor radios. Perhaps 300 in all.

In those days, when radio listening was relatively new to the villages of PNG, we broadcasters would go on patrol: gathering news, recording music and stories, securing interviews - and handing out free radios, the only sure way to gather an audience.

In the storeroom I asked a staff member why the radios had not been handed out, and I was told this could be a very dangerous pursuit.

The village people were so unhappy with the radio station broadcasting what was seen as pro-mining propaganda, that they set the radios on fire, broke them with axes and even attacked the people trying to give them away.

And so it was, on my first day as manager of Radio Bougainville, I realised that the only radio station on the island was hated by its audience.

It's a total dystopia in PNG’s urban wilderness

BY PETER ELLA

I EMPATHISE WITH MY BROTHER Martyn Namorong's experiences in Papua New Guinea and with his writings about our lives.

I'm a University of PNG graduate who majored in graphic design and communication. I graduated in 1997 and, partly by choice and partly by circumstances influenced by culture, was out of work and homeless with my young family in 2004.

I spent six months with my uncle at 6 Mile settlement in Port Moresby. During our time there, I came face to face with the reality of life for most Papua New Guineans.

Young families, young adults, teenagers out of school.  All dragged into crime, prostitution and drug dealing.

As a creative artist I improvised, used my creative talent, and dug my way out of what was almost my grave.

I worked hard and things have changed for me and my young family. I have a heart for helping out other people but, once you get down, you can't reach out.

I have encountered a lot of young people with latent talent and potential. I don't have the resources and capacity to assist them, but I've encouraged them to seek assistance from government institutions.

How far they have gone, or if the institution has assisted them with the same passion I have, I can't tell.

All the best to brother Martyn!

The story for which the world is not prepared

BY PETER KRANZ

PENIS ENVY IS A FREUDIAN CONCEPT, decidedly suspect as a theory and the butt of endless jokes.

The koteka, horim or penis gourd is a phallocrypt or phallocarp traditionally worn by native male inhabitants of some ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea to cover their genitals.

Quite right too - can't have those things waving around in public and frightening the pigs.

Which brings me to the disturbing tale of my Dad's cousin and the two peeping Tomasinas – my aunts.

Dad grew up near Quorn in South Australia.

Every month, two of his cousins took the horse and dray to travel into town to collect supplies - a trip of around 20 kms.

On their journey they had to pass by the house of two old spinster aunts who were reclusive and known as eccentrics.

And every time they passed they would see the curtains drawn aside and two wrinkled faces peering at them as they plodded the old horse past the house.

This happened time and time again. Always when they went past the house, the curtains were drawn and two wizened faces peered out at them - watching beady eyed until they passed out of view.

Well after a few months of this, my cousin Dave got sick of it.

"We'll teach 'em a lesson!" he said with a burst of inspiration.

So the next month they stopped before reaching the house. Dave stripped off completely naked and stood up in the cart facing the house, proudly exposing his wedding vegetables to all and sundry.

The curtains were drawn back as usual and the peering faces peeped out at the horse and cart.

Then they saw cousin Dave standing upright and proud!

Never were curtains closed so quickly.

(A true story from the memories from my dad.)

3 types of cousins in the land of the unexpected

BY PETER KRANZ

I HOPE I AM NOT BEING RACIST or guilty of stereotyping (after all, these same things could be said of many Australians), but I seem to remember meeting three categories of our US cousins in Papua New Guinea.

1.  The redneck tourists: "Hey Mabelline, come and look at these natives wearing feathers!"

2.  The  patronising religious nuts: "We have come to bring the true word of God to these poor people.  Help us translate the word of God into this language so we can perform miracles for the Lord.  Donations welcome."

3.  The genuine US volunteer, scholar or diplomat: "This is an amazing country and our eyes have been opened by seeing how we can build relationships between our countries and yet still celebrate the differences between our cultures."

All words I have had spoken to me.

I remember one rainy February afternoon when I had a knock on the door of my office. 

In walked a barefoot white man with a ragged tee shirt and shorts, legs covered by mossie bites and shivering with malaria. 

He was a lawyer from New York who had undertaken a year's volunteering with a village community in Central.

His money had been stolen and he was asking for help to return home.  The US Embassy had not been too forthcoming.

He had had something of an epiphany whilst living in the village.  He said, "I never knew much about other countries until I came here. I will never criticise 'foreigners' again.

“I've seen babies dying, families giving their last toea to help a friend and families living day-to-day with no running water.  If I get back to New York I will do my best to raise awareness of this great country."

I helped him as much as I could (I was a bit suspicious) but believe he eventually got back to the US OK.

Land of the unexpected indeed.

The way of peace: The Kakin Tribe Model

BY GANJIKI D WAYNE

THE KAKIN TRIBE OF WESTERN HIGHLANDS PROVINCE display a unique peace-making attitude that seems to evade many tribes in highlands Papua New Guinea.

A colleague of mine told me how her tribe had suffered a massive loss when an upcoming professional man had his life cut down by members of an enemy tribe.

It's an all too familiar scene: men of an enemy tribe ambush the enemy, and kill in cold blood. But the aftermath was not familiar as far as this story is concerned.

It's a breath of fresh air. It's a flicker of hope—hope that PNG Highlands people are being endowed with wisdom that can eventually bring an end to the constant tribal wars that plague many parts of that region. This is their story.

Several years ago, at the height of local level government elections and rivalry between the Kakin tribe and an enemy tribe, a young man was brutally attacked.

His "enemies", by virtue of simply being from another tribe, attacked him mercilessly and left him for dead in the gutters of a street in Lae. Yes, this did not happen on home ground.

He had no weapon but he so was tall and strong that the only way his attackers could cut him down was to attack his legs and cripple him at the knees. Then they ruthlessly beat him to a pulp and left him for dead in a drain.

It was a sheer miracle that he survived the night; albeit unconscious. Two early town workers discovered him in a heap of drainage rubble and took him to the hospital.

Word soon got out and relatives poured in to the hospital to check on him. Julias Nentepa Nii was paralysed from the neck down. Relatives had him transferred to Port Moresby for better medical care. He couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't feed himself. Couldn't even go to the bathroom. Couldn't turn himself on his bed.

Julius was a promising mechanical engineer. A graduate from Unitech destined to serve not only his tribe but his country—including the enemy tribe—with distinction.

He had scored a job with OTML and was on his way up. He had gone to Lae for a break. He had no idea how fatal that break would be.

The Kakin tribe loved this young man. His star shone brightly and they would beam with pride just thinking of him. And now they were filled with sorrow and anger and intense hatred for their enemies.

For one whole year his tribesmen and family constantly served him at POM General Hospital. They fed him, cleaned him, turned him, kept him company, prayed for him, prayed with him.

Julius had not had to dream of walking, running, sitting up, reading, writing, talking with his family. He didn't have to dream of going to the bathroom on his own, or feeding himself or changing his own clothes. No. They were all trivial matters. His dreams had been bigger than that. But after the attack, he could only wish for those little things which the world took for granted...and the world still does.

After fighting for a year in a hospital bed, this young man left. His people mourned their loss. They mourned his empty bed.

The young men of Kakin wanted blood. The insatiable thirst for vengeance bubbled on their lips and their hands shook with sweat. "We must avenge our brother!" they cried to their elders.

Using MegaVoice to round up those lost sheep

FROM ANGLICANS ABLAZE
WYCLIFFE BIBLE TRANSLATORS

LUKE 15 TELLS US that God delights in going after the one lost sheep. In many respects the Pinai-Hagahai of Papua New Guinea are like the one lost sheep.

They are a small, very isolated people group of only 1,000; and although they border two of the largest groups in Papua New Guinea, they remained undiscovered by the outside world until the 1950’s.

But God was seeking them all along. Years before the Bible translation team arrived in the language area, He sent evangelists from a neighbouring group who started small churches in various villages. Over time some of the people became Christians.

In May 2008, those Pinai-Hagahai believers received four Gospels and the book of Acts, printed in their own language.

Because of the high illiteracy rate among the people, the translation team also made use of a new technology that had just become known in Papua New Guinea: a small, portable, solar-powered player called ‘MegaVoice’ used for audio recordings.

Within two years 300 players had been distributed in local villages. The testimonies of the people continue to show God at work—a revival among the Pinai-Hagahai.

An older man, named Kandama, said, “I used it often…When the pastors speak in Tok Pisin or Enga, I did not believe. Now I’ve heard it in my own language and I believed.”

A young married man, named Kodap, said, “I didn’t go to church. I never had a MegaVoice player. I listened to one of others. I listened to it, and last month, I got converted… I remember that Jesus is the Word of God.”

A young mother, named Sagalia, said, “I heard Matthew 7:7 about asking and receiving, seeking and finding. My faith went to this verse. It’s my memory verse. Now when I have a problem, I pray.”

The coup through the eyes of a buai seller

BY MARTYN NAMORONG
The Namorong Report

A POLICE VEHICLE DRIVES PAST Murray Barracks late in the afternoon. The situation is eerily calm like the atmosphere at a graveyard.

As I walk along the Murray Barracks fence I come across a street vendor. Jenny, from Wabag, sells buai outside Murray Barracks near the main gate and bus stop.

Business is good today…. yep mutineers are good customers. She’s looking forward to staying tonight if the mutiny continues.

On the other side of the road soldiers eye the mutineers.  Jenny watches the eyeing-off contest as it progresses all day.

As I chat with Jenny, one of the mutineers comes over to buy buai. He warns us not to venture from our homes tomorrow.

Even if the coup is over, recent history has shown how soldiers from Taurama can go on a rampage. The owners of a service station at Manu have memories of that experience.

As I walk home I see a convey of the mutineers driving back in civilian vehicles, all Toyota Hilux 5th elements with guns mounted on top.

A day in the life of an expat in Bougainville

BY ALICE BANFIELD *
Matador Abroad

I can hear the sound of sweeping; I can always hear it at this time of morning. The women do it every day, sweeping clean the sandy ground that surrounds our houses in the village. I can feel a dampness on my pillow. It rained heavily during the night, and there’s a small gap in the sago-palm roofing, just above my head.

Rising, I step outside and walk across our yard to the well, to haul water for my shower. Then I hear someone calling out to me. “Wara i stap, Alice!” It’s Sandy, my host mum, letting me know that today she has beat me to it.

Sandy is from a village about an hour north, and married to a man from the clan here. The two of them became good friends with my mom when she worked here with the recently-formed government of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville–a region which was part of Papua New Guinea, and gained its autonomous status after a civil war which lasted around a decade and ended in 2001.

Through connections I made when I once went to visit my mom, I’ve ended up back here, working as an intern with a development agency in the regional capital, and living in the village with Sandy, her husband, and their teenage son. Sandy tells me they consider me their daughter. I believe her: I’m twenty-three years old and they won’t let me go out past nine on a Friday night.

The water in the buckets which Sandy has filled is brackish, since the well is only a short distance from the sea, so I take a small bottle to our rainwater tank and fill that too, for rinsing my hair. Only a little though–our tank once ran dry after a long period without rain, leaving us with no source of drinkable water except the jerry cans which Sandy had filled in advance.

I shower on a raised platform outside, gazing at the sky overhead, my privacy ensured by three walls of tarpaulin and a shower curtain.

After a quick breakfast of fresh fruits and coffee, I take my umbrella and leave the house. It doesn’t often rain at this time of morning, but the sun is now intense and I need the umbrella for shade.

I bump into Margaret, a middle-aged woman who lives on the other side of the hibiscus hedge from us. I think she’s the cousin of Sandy’s husband, Frank, but I’m not sure–relationships are complex here, and I don’t know exactly how they all fit together.

Margaret’s also on her way to work, so together we turn onto the main road, a short strip of tar-seal which leads into town in one direction, and abruptly turns into a pot-holed dirt highway in the other. As we walk, we stori — one of my favourite Pidgin words (both to say and to do), and which more or less means “chat.”

Tales of old Rabaul: Dubbo the human chock

BY HENRY BODMAN

‘DUBBO’ DAVE KESBY WAS OUT Nordup way doing a spot of cuscus shooting when, to his great surprise, he spotted one.

Dubbo bounded out of his car, took a shot and glanced back just in time to see his vehicle starting to move gently off the mark.

As it began to gather momentum, the physical and resourceful Dubbo positioned himself on the downhill side, braced, slipped on the pumice road and, from the prone position by using his body length, managed to chock one of the front wheels.

Despite this Herculean effort, the vehicle retained enough inertia to push an unyielding Dubbo some distance down the road, leaving behind more than the regulation amount of skin.

Stabilising this crisis situation, Dubbo headed for Nonga Base Hospital for a patch up.

With the wide-eyed stare of a man in shock, Dubbo staggered into the haus sik - clothes shredded, body blackened by pumice, oozing crimson fluid and still bearing his trusty firearm.

It was an unannounced arrival that caused a reaction somewhere at the terrified end of the panic spectrum.

People opted spontaneously and unanimously for scattering and hiding.

One gutsy nurse took the apparition gently by the elbow and guided it into Emergency where Dubbo was settled until the polismasta duly arrived.

From 1963-66, Dave Kesby was a teacher at Cape Hoskins and Rabaul.  Photos: Top - Young Dave, 1964.  Lower - Dave today with his wife Elissa

The darkness of neon lights in Port Moresby

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

THE RECENT DEMOLITION of the street stalls at 5 Mile is blow to those of us who believe it is better to make our own money than to beg for handouts.

To me the 5 Mile markets were fast becoming a cultural icon as they were redefining the city nightscape. They were a means of people from various parts of the city connecting with each other.

The street vendors in various parts of the city are respected by the youth in those suburbs because they help them out when these young people don’t have enough koin long baim buai na smuk.

Indeed, one of the reasons I feel safe walking the streets of Port Moresby is the luksave I get from the street vendors. As a buai kastoma I feel protected by the influence of the street vendors over the youth in the suburbs. Ol i save lukautim kastoma blong ol.

The fact that he 5 Mile buai market operated 24/7 also indicated that the area had a low crime risk. Indeed, that’s exactly the case at 3 Mile area around Port Moresby General Hospital. Spots like the 5 Mile buai market and the 3 Mile bus stop canteens are an oasis where city residents feel safe to venture out at night.

If Governor Parkop is genuine about residents of Port Moresby reclaiming the nights, it will come from community initiatives like the 5 Mile buai markets as opposed to the tokenism of NCD’s Jack Pidik Park garage sales.

It is a fallacy to think that night markets fuel crime. Let’s face it; if crime was prevalent, customers would be deterred and no vending could occur.

There is also an important consideration of the economic empowerment of so called unskilled Papua New Guineans who for various reasons are unable to participate in the formal economy.

The informal economy allows them to participate in the prosperity of Papua New Guinea. The unchecked population growth and burgeoning urban youth demography pose serious threats to stability and security of our nation.

To prevent this vulnerable demography from participating in the informal economy is to fuel the growing sense of disenfranchisement amongst the youth.

Indeed, the recent Lae riots highlight the disenfranchisement felt by Morobean youth. The Morobeans felt their opportunities to participate in the informal economy were being undermined by the deals made between Chinese shop owners and nonMorobean street vendors.

This growing sense of disenfranchisement coupled with a growing crime rate and the lack of political will to address these issues, fuelled the rioting in Lae.

With current inflationary pressures being created by the LNG Project, many urban families need to participate in the informal economy; in order to make ends meet. No doubt, the families at 5 Mile did so via their street stalls. It was therefore an economic injustice to have their stalls destroyed and thousands of kina worth of goods lost.

I’m sure the police who did the damage would relate to the plight of these 5 Mile families. I recently bought fried lamb flaps and banana from the folks at Gordons Police Barracks opposite Wardstrip Primary School.

The spice of life leads to a brute of a ride

BY PAUL OATES

NEARLY 50 YEARS AGO Evan Green published his book Journeys with Gelignite Jack.

‘Gelignite’ Jack Murray (1907-83) [pictured], was a larrikin rev head who drove in what were the then famous Redex car ‘reliability’ trials.  Redex was a common brand of motor oil in those days.

These trials were popular cross country car rallies in the fifties and the media loved the theatre of many often garishly decorated cars travelling in a race through the outback to raise money for charities.

In his early days, Murray had used a couple of sticks of gelignite to blast away a pile of rocks that had become dislodged and rolled onto the road, blocking his path. This earned Jack his nickname.

He quickly became notorious for his habit of roaring through a sleepy village during his many long endurance drives around the country, and waking up the population by throwing a stick of gelignite in their midst, or blowing up outback dunnies just for the fun of it.

In the trials Evan Green wrote about, he and Jack were conducting some field testing around Australia using a Morris Mini and a new Austin 1800. During the trip, Jack had been co-opted to promote a new after shave lotion called Old Spice.

After a long, dusty drive and a warm shower, Jack floated into the local bar in a cloud of Old Spice. The patrons turned and gave the newcomer the once over.

“Cor..” said the barmaid, “What’s that smell?”

“It’s Old Spice,” said Jack. “Do you like it?”

“What are ya, some kinda poofta?” was the response.

My first posting as a junior patrol officer, was in a landlocked sub-district.  The assistant district commissioner kindly offered me a lift into work each morning on the back of the station’s Honda 175 motorbike.

Now for those who have not ridden pillion on a motorbike, it is essential that both rider and passenger react as one in order to maintain their balance going around corners and over rough terrain.

To do this, the passenger has to sit directly behind and hold on firmly to the rider.

My girlfriend had recently presented me with a bottle of her favourite men’s after shave.  The particular lotion was popular in Australia at the time and was dispensed from a tall, green bottle with a silver label. I was quite unused as to how much to put on and gave myself a liberal slather after my morning shave.

Away we went, with the slipstream of the motorbike effectively dispersing the aftershave like pheromones in the wind. That is until we hit the first hairpin bend. Slowing down, a sudden waft of perfume enveloped the ADC. He stiffened and I noticed a slight redness ascend his neck.

“It’s Brut,” I said in his ear and over the roar of the motorbike. “My girlfriend gave it to me.”

The rest of the ride occurred in silence.

Christmas story: The beautiful one & the box people

BY PETER KRANZ

I AM A WHITE AUSTRALIAN MAN.

My birth mother died in 1995.

Since then I have gained three new mothers - thanks to living and loving in Papau New Guinea.

There is Mana Dau, Mana Drei, and Mana Kuman (mana is ‘mother’ in Kuman).

They are my wife's mothers - but also now my own.

Mana Dau was the first wife of Rose's father. But she couldn't have kids, so she agreed that Papa could take a second wife. That was Mana Drei (this means 'beautiful one' in Kuman).

She gave birth to three girls and two boys - including my wife Rose.

But the family adopted her out to relatives in Kundiawa - that's Mana Kuman and her family.

The two wives (Manas Dau and Drei) had not spoken to each other, or seen each other since that decision 20 years ago - until we came to Kundiawa in 2006.

Then Mana Dau walked down from her village near Gembogl to Kundiawa - which took 12 hours - just to meet us.

Then she met her rival Mana Drei. They had a reconciliation and took part in our betrothal ceremony.

It was beautiful.

Mana Drei had never been in an aeroplane.

We brought her down to Mosbi to spend Christmas with us. She didn't really know what Christmas was all about and spent hours staring at the Christmas tree I had bought. Then I gave her a present on Christmas morning - a radio.

She cried and cried - as no one had ever done this for her - and then spent the morning talking back to the radio - as she thought they were talking to her.

I love my PNG mums.

___________

Peter shares the $100 award for the best Christmas story with Paul Oates - KJ

Christmas story: The worm catchers of Sialum

BY PAUL OATES

SIALUM PATROL POST WAS SITUATED on the north-eastern tip of the Huon Peninsular about 60 miles north of Finschhafen, the sub district headquarters. I say ‘about 60 miles’ because the Lutheran Missionary at Kalasa (Rudi) and the Lutheran Agricultural Extension Officer (Hans) always argued about how far it was.

Hans reckoned it was 58 miles and Rudi reckoned it was 60. “Definitely 58 miles,” Hans maintained. “Yes,” said Rudi, “but you don’t go in and out of the ruts in the road, you just skim over the top of them!”

Hans’ penchant for being a ‘leadfoot’ in his old blue Land Rover was well known and a little too fast for sedate Rudi and his wife Martha. Sadly, I heard recently that when Hans retired to Germany in 1974, he took a job as a security officer and was murdered on the job not long afterwards.

One day, during a police investigation in the Sialum station office, I asked the village ‘Komiti’ for his Village Book. When first contacted, all villages were presented with a grey-blue covered Village Book. By the end of World War 2, most villages in ‘Controlled Territories’ had been issued one of these books.

A Village Book contained a running commentary of each government visit and notes by government officers on any important points to be noted or followed up by subsequent patrols. Whenever some government activity occurred, an entry was supposed to be made in that particular Village Book.

The Village Book for Gitua (a coastal village north of Sialum) contained comments going back to 1944, when the Japanese had been withdrawing towards Madang. An Assistant District Officer had written about his conduct of the first village census after the Japanese had been forced out and had signed his entry ‘Captain/Assistant District Officer’.

Kiaps in those days had a military rank equivalent (either Army or, in the case of some Coastwatchers, Naval), and it was thought this might help if they were captured, that they might be treated as a Prisoner of War rather than shot as a spy for operating behind enemy lines.

The Captain/ADO’s report noted an increase in the population and recorded various misdemeanors that he had investigated. The entry also reported that the village was actively preparing for a special feast, celebrating the village collecting its share of the annual appearance of sea worms.

Noting the date of the ADO’s entry was near the current date (November), I asked the old village Komiti if the feast was still celebrated (in 1974) and he assured me it was.

Later that day, I buttonholed the village Komiti from Kwamkwam, just to the south of Sialum. Would I be able to witness this feast when it was due in roughly a week’s time. After some discussion, it was decided it was possible for me to attend, given that, as a white man, any taboos associated with the celebration would not apply.

The villagers all along the coast were keeping a close watch on the rising of the moon, the timing of which apparently triggered the appearance of the worms. When the moon rose late over the sea, not until about half past seven, the worms would be caught from the time the sun went down to the time the moon appeared.

Bluff Inn’s nailed shoes are awaiting collection

BY ILYA GRIDNEFF

ABOUT 30 MINUTES DRIVE outside Port Moresby you can find the remnants of an unusual political statement. It was a balmy August night in 2009 and the Bluff Inn was in an uproar.

About 20 opposition MPs had gathered, intent on finding a way to topple the Somare government. It is highly likely that plenty of the award-winning south Pacific lager had been consumed.

The MPs were so frustrated by the Somare government that they each took off a shoe and nailed it to a wooden pole in the hotel bar.

Two years on, they have their wish. This week Peter O'Neill, 46, asserted himself as Prime Minister, toppling Sir Michael, 75, who can rely on a only Supreme Court ruling for legitimacy in the top job.

The shoes at Bluff Inn remain nailed to the pole as the nails in Sir Michael's political coffin increase. But Sam Basil, one of the 75 MPs supporting Mr O'Neill, is ready to prise his shoe back, having accomplished the declaration's goal.

''It is a dream come true,'' he said. ''One Sunday soon, I will drive up, pay the guard 100 kina [$40], show him the other shoe, he will go and identify it and bring it back,'' he said.

Mr Basil was particularly fond of the black loafer as he bought it in Washington when attending the inauguration of Barack Obama as US President in 2009.

''It was really a nice one but I don't regret nailing it,'' he said. ''A few people were upset because they were wearing RM Williams boots and they were trying to hide that night so they didn't nail their expensive shoe. Those wearing thongs or sandals were lucky people.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/shoes-do-the-talking-when-png-politicians-vote-with-their-feet-20111222-1p77t.html#ixzz1hI3Z47VB

Great myths of PNG: witch hunts are on the rise

From time to time PNG Attitude publishes without comment articles – such as this one by CHRISTIANE OELRICH – that appear in the overseas press.  Many rely more on fiction than fact and it’s probably time PNG’s diplomats began to take more action to monitor the mythology and set the record to rights…

AFTER THEY HAD STRUNG HER UP on a tree to die, her only hope was faith in God. 'I prayed a lot,' says Lisbeth Bulheg, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

The horror of that day, Easter Sunday 2011, remains etched in a face scarred by the deep notches carved out by her nephew. Her husband's family had accused her of witchcraft. And in Papua New Guinea, an impoverished South Pacific island nation north of Australia, witches are tortured and killed.

'Three suspected sorcerers are dead after being held hostage and tortured,' the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier reported in October. Similar incidents occur every couple of days, and police say they are increasing.

Human rights groups estimate that several dozen alleged witches or sorcerers are murdered in PNG each year. Police are powerless, and the church is halfheartedly fighting a hopeless battle against the crimes.

The Post-Courier recently quoted Chief Superintendent Teddy Tei, provincial police commander of the Southern Highlands, as saying that investigations into sorcery-related crimes were very difficult because police lacked physical evidence to convict someone for practising sorcery.

'If you feel that you are possessed by evil spirits, then you better go to church so that the living God Almighty will cleanse you and purify you,' Tei remarked.

'Of course sorcery exists,' the head of a Lutheran church board says near Goroka. Even pastors accuse each other of sorcery.

The PNG Sorcery Act of 1971 distinguishes between 'evil sorcery,' which is punishable by up to two years in jail, and 'innocent sorcery,' which is allowed. In the words of Paul Gamen, a Sepic [sic] River tour guide, the former 'kills' while the latter 'heals.'

People go to practitioners of black magic when they have a bone to pick with someone, and to practitioners of white magic when they want to free themselves from a curse, are unhappy in love or ill.

In the village of Lirako in the Tari area of the Southern Highlands, a woman named Amy demonstrated 'good' sorcery. 'This is how you keep your husband in line,' she said with a grin.

She rolled some tree bark, powder, paste and a hair from her spouse into a leaf, then suddenly began hacking at it with a knife. 'I'm cutting into his brain, his belly, his arms so that he'll follow me forever like a lap dog,' explained Amy, who said the mixture would be smeared on the door frames and was sure to work.

In a bamboo hut in the village of Tokua, near Mount Hagen, the 'kurmunw' - which in the local language means 'the man who conjures spirits' - displayed his craft. He was sitting in front of a pot filled with 'holy' stones.

'Each one represents a different spirit,' the interpreter whispered. The kurmunw began to chant, and moved his hands over the pot. 'Reveal yourselves!' the kurmunw cried. 'Which spirit is responsible for our brother's illness?' He touched a stone. 'What! You want a pig as a sacrificial offering again? You come too often!'

From the shadows a song of hope

BY CATHERINE RIVARD.

EVEN WITH THE KEROSENE LAMP, it was getting too dark to see. My team mate, Jessica, and I were singing through our English hymnbook, but now the words shifted and blurred in the shadows.

As I set it beside me on our village house’s veranda, I heard the last notes of The Old Rugged Cross. I turned to see my wasmama (host mother) Margaret humming with a small smile.

“I used to know that song in the Tok Pisin language,” she sighed, “but I haven’t been to church in so long that I’ve forgotten.”

I nodded silently. One of the few believers in the village, she had a strong witness in the community, despite persecution and opposition.

Two years ago, her pre-teen son had died suddenly. The wound was still fresh, and without the support of family, she hadn’t gone back to church, wondering how God could allow his death.

Suddenly she stood up. “You should hear those songs. On Sunday, we’ll go to my old church.”

So the following Sunday, Jessica and I followed our wasmama and her two nieces for an hour’s walk up the mountain to the local Baptist church.

There, as we worshipped in English, Tok Pisin, and Bagram (the local language), I twisted back on the bench to see a smile again spread across my wasmama’s face as she praised her Lord with her beloved hymns.

Several weeks later, when it was time for us to leave, we thanked our wasmama—and gave her a songbook. She reached for it gingerly, tracing the Tok Pisin words on the cover, then held it to her chest, caressing it like a child.

She looked up at us, her voice full and cracking. “I hadn’t been to church in years,” she said, “but then you came and sang those songs. So we went, and my heart was glad, but I didn’t have a songbook to help me remember. But now... ” she gripped the book tightly. “Thank you. Now I see it is good for me to go back to church.”

She opened the book and began to hum softly. I recognised the tune: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me...”

Source: Wycliffe Bible Translators USA, 5 December

‘Ell plates: Learning to drive in New Guinea

BY PHIL FITZPATRICK

UNTIL JUST RECENTLY I spent many enjoyable years thundering around outback Australia in great big Toyota Landcruisers; most often off the beaten track and accompanied by wizened old wati tjilpi or Aboriginal lawmen.

These days I potter carefully along the esplanade in Hervey Bay in a miniscule red Suzuki Jimny, which, incidentally, will go places a Landcruiser can’t.  I reckon the little bugger would climb a tree if I pointed it in the right direction.

However I learnt to drive in New Guinea.

‘Learnt’ is probably not the best description.  I have never actually been taught to drive.  I sort of picked it up as I went along.

I arrived in Mount Hagen as a Cadet Patrol Officer in 1967 as a very green 19 year old who had never before sat behind the wheel of a moving car.

At ASOPA a fellow cadet, Gordon Findlay, who was a dedicated petrol head, showed us a photograph he had personally taken of the speedo of the car that he had been driving which read something like 250 miles per hour; perhaps it wasn’t that high but I was very impressed and made to feel inadequate in a strange male way.

My first driving experience was on two wheels, rather than four.  I was at the Hagen Park Motel and one of the Patrol Officers, Rob Kelvin, tossed me the keys of the Sub-District Office Honda 90 and said, ‘Can you take that back to the office please?’  ‘Sure’, I said and wandered outside to look at the magnificent red beast.

Everything was going well until I turned out of the driveway.  I had been secretly watching the machinations related to the beast and was relatively pleased to have made it that far.

Then, for some reason, an unexpected bump in the road perhaps, terror took hold.  For some inexplicable reason I turned the accelerator up while trying to jam on the brakes.  I was lucky that the bike was wide enough to straddle the barat that I landed in or it would have been on top of me.

Later, when I was beginning to get cocky, I ran into a patch of river gravel on the Kagamuga Road and went sailing over the handlebars.  An outstretched hand collected a big cobble.

A concerned old man in arse gras who had been walking along the road came over to see if I was all right and to offer technical advice.  Have you ever badly bruised the palm of your hand?  It’s not pleasant.

Prying and spying: the Great Game of spookery

BY AGENT 008 [AKA PETER KRANZ]

THE TERM ‘GREAT GAME’ was made famous by Rudyard Kipling in his celebrated novel Kim. Well worth reading - but you will have to forgive the 19th century preconceptions and language.

It is the game played by national intelligence agencies across borders, allegiances and countries.

And it is being played in Papua New Guinea right now by PNG, Australia, Indonesia, China, the USA and others.

They will of course all deny this.

But the spooks are active.  If you are careful, you can check them out - watching PNG ministers and officials, prominent expats and foreign dignitaries in private conversations around the clubs, pubs and hotels of Moresby.

They usually sit in the background - trying to overhear conversations. They observe who meets whom, and note their time spent together.

I suspected one once, and approached him after I had been talking quite innocently to a PNG minister.

I said "Hello, I'm from Australia, where are you from?"  He was a white man and it was clear where he was from.

He refused to answer me, and promptly disappeared.  At the same time three other people quickly left the club.

Spooks are alive and well and still doing business in PNG.

But I wonder what information they are gathering?  The price of Copra in Rabaul?  What does Minister X think about Minister Y?  Are buai sales buoyant in Mosbi?  Where is the Bishop of Kainantu off to tonight?

ASIO and NIO and the rest, I think you have better things to do.

And don't talk about the CIA and MI5, they're not interested.

Up the Sepik with the Jeremy & the ball cutters

BY PETER KRANZ

JEREMY WADE IS A BIOLOGIST, travel writer and TV presenter with something of an obsession with giant freshwater fish.

He has travelled the world in search of river monsters as the eponymous name of his TV series suggests.  The ABC has just aired the second episode of the third series which features Papua New Guinea, specifically the Sepik river system.

Here, Jeremy was in search of a monster fish known locally as the ball cutter (dispela pis i kaikai bol bilon yu).

The episode starts off rather unpromisingly to set the scene with more of the "lone white man braves primitive unexplored jungle" genre so beloved of Western documentary makers in PNG.

It has some great photography of a small plane taking Wade over the mountains, jungles and down to the Sepik.  But this is spoiled by various references to cannibalism, superstition, river spirits etc painting PNG as 'the most primitive unexplored place left on earth'.

(Jeremy, European exploration of the Sepik began in 1885!)

I'm not convinced that Wade was responsible for this angle as he is generally unpatronising and sincere towards the local people he meets - and relies on them extensively for local knowledge of his target species.

It seems the producers wanted to add some 'colour' for western audiences.

The program is needlessly melodramatic - just check the list of episode titles for an example - The Mutilator, Flesh Ripper, Silent Assassin, Chainsaw Executioner, Jungle Killer etc.

But Wade is a scientist and does quite extensive research to discover the truth behind the river monster legends he explores.  The conclusion of the Sepik episode offers an environmental lesson for all.

The culprit is the Amazonian Pacu fish.  It was introduced into the Sepik system 15 years ago by fisheries authorities, hoping to replenish fish stocks.  But like most well-meaning biological interventions, it has gone horribly wrong.

The Pacu - normally a vegetarian - was outside its normal biological checks and balances and has turned into a carnivore resembling a Piranha - but frighteningly much bigger.

It has evolved into a rapacious omnivore, decimating local fish stocks, destroying vegetation and natural habitats, and even diminishing crocodile numbers due to its taste for young hatchlings.

And free of any predators itself, it is growing to enormous sizes - two metres or more in length - and weighs up to 50 kilos.

It is capable of attacking a human and goes for a man's most vulnerable parts – thus its ‘ball cutter’ appelation.

Best not to go skinny-dipping in the Sepik.

The program is worth watching.  You can forgive it's melodrama for the information it uncovers about the impact of the introduced Pacu species on the local environment.

But when will documentary producers learn to be a bit more truthful and up-to-date when describing Papua New Guinean history, culture and lifestyles?

You can catch the documentary on ABC iView here - http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/851037

SABL papa welcomed home by Taskforce Sweep

BY MARTYN NAMORONG 

I USED TO BE a high-rolling chef in the kitchen cabinet before I got tossed like a salad into the garbage can outside Vulupindi Haus.

And as I opened the garbage can lid, I heard Task Force Sweep sirens heading up from the Prime Minister’s Department at Waigani.

With Task Force Sweep heading to the traffic lights, the good Lord blessed me by turning them red.  I crept out of the rubbish bin and I could see the new chef busy sniffing out the new kitchen cabinet.  I got a cab and told the driver to take me to the airport.

Thanks to free texts available on my mobile phone, my exit was arranged.  Some poor bastards later got sacked for helping me escape.

I hesitantly left the country that I really love with all my heart and soul; just ask the people who got screwed by those SABL projects. I’m the father of SABLs, that’s what I told those NGO’s.

Look at the success of the Pomio SABL that the NGOs want to shut.  RH is bringing development in chartered aircraft to provide awareness so anyone who opposes development can be more peaceful.

Screw the NGOs, do they bring development?  I mean have you seen the development Ok Tedi has brought to the Fly River. We got a new island real estate developing at the mouth of the Fly, thanks to the mine tailings.

Look at Panguna, it was developing the Jaba river until the Bougainvilleans decided to stop development.

I hear you don’t need to throw a line in at Misima: the fish just float up and you take them home fresh. That development was brought by new fishing technology called Deep Sea Tailings Disposal (DSTP). We also allowed the Chinese to develop this same new fishing technology at Basamuk.

When I was in the kitchen cabinet we amended the Environment Act to stop you good for nothing kanakas from complaining.  I mean, what’s the point of having a kitchen cabinet when you can’t get some DSTP fish to cook.

Oops!  I just got carried away by those NGOs.  By the way, you know the Australians are really here to develop PNG.  As part of our Enhanced Cooperation Program (ECP), they gave me a visa to stay in Australia when I ran away from Task Force Sweep.

After being dumped in the garbage you really gotta love a fair dinkum Aussie mate who gives you a fair go.

Even our Law and Justice Sector funded by AusAID is the best.  Crime rates have improved, Lae is peaceful and there are no Honda CRV hold-ups in Port Moresby.

Compare me to, what’s his name, that Attorney General, and Namah, who surrendered to the police and were released on bail.

I escaped Task Force Sweep and even when I returned, I had no intention of being welcomed by them.  Task Force Sweep swept me into the garbage bin but thanks to the AusAID funded Law and Justice Sector, I got released on K5,000 bail ... for real ... like what on earth were they thinking.

These losers must be blind.  Did I just get bailed?  Like bail!  I’m the guy who escaped from PNG.  I could leave tomorrow under the ECP’s new Entertain Concerned PNGeans (ECP) visa for patriotic Papua New Guineans who show that they give a damn about their country by supporting the Queensland Tourism Industry.

Source: The Namorong Report, 15 November

Double play – how I didn't corner Mosbi's ad market

BY PETER KRANZ

I WAS NAÏVE AND LONELY and drowning my sorrows one night at Lamana.  A friendly man came up to me, started talking nicely and offered to buy me a drink.

He also had a sure-fire business proposition for me.  If I would invest a mere K2,000, he knew how to corner the market in paper, printing and advertisements in Mosbi.

I was not so naïve, lonely and relaxed to set aside my suspicion.

Within a short time an attractive woman joined us.  She was obviously 'playing the main chance' and claimed to know the contacts needed to make the business proposition a solid-gold certainly.

She also said she was a cousin-sister of my new acquaintance and seemed to know him very well.  They exchanged eye contact and a few discreet words.

Then it came to a head.

She said to me: "Darling, I would like to go to your room and discuss this further. We have a great deal for you."

The man reassured me: "Go on, she knows what the business is.  She will give you a good deal."

Then my fiancée Rose marched in.  She had been delayed by taxi problems.  She saw what they were doing, and knew them from old.

She strode up and said in a loud voice: "Maski yupela raisim nau.  Mi savi lon yu.  Yupela pekpek het.  Yupela man na meri yu rausim! Maski mi kilim yu!"

The other Simbus in the place rallied to her assistance.

A mild fight ensued.  But Simbu beats Motu every time.

We retired as gracefully as could be managed.

I learnt a lesson.

On the rats of PNG – animaline and humanoid

BY PETER KRANZ

WHEN I FIRST arrived in Papua New Guinea, I was subject to a bit of culture shock - as many Euros are. You get used to that - it broadens the mind and teaches you to be humble.

Kids with runny noses and next to no clothes running down the street and flogging blackmarket porno DVDs, buai spittle everywhere, twenty people crammed in the back of a ute, suspected raskols getting beaten up at bus stops, cars swerving to try and run over a stray dog, Port Moresby General Hospital.

Within a few months I had experienced the best and the worst of the Australian colonial legacy.

It may be a dim memory now, but some vestiges remain. Like the 'whites only' clubs from which local people were excluded - now blessedly but a distant memory of the past. But it was reality once.

I had a PNG friend and took him once to the Aviat club for dinner. After a beer or two he looked at me and said, "You know, in my father’s time he wasn't allowed in places like this."

I met an old Aussie expat in Lae. He was an engineer and all-round mechanical fixer. He had a PNG wife and kids and had lived in Lae for 30 years.

We had a meal at the old bowling club, and he told me, "You might think I have been here for too long - but I have a PNG wife and kids and this is now my country and I love it. I know there are some bad problems, but there are good people here who can help make things better. My job is to help this happen in whatever small way I can." 

He had much respect amongst his many local friends and family.

I met another in Moresby - with a similar background to my friend in Lae, but a very different attitude.

He managed a marine engineering company and treated local people including his employees in the most degrading and offensive manner possible. In fact I could not believe the way he talked to them.

He kept a pistol on his desk and was fond of waving it at employees who had met with disfavour. "You do what I say now, you pig! Do you want me to have to use this?" (waving his pistol in the general direction of the local employee who was scared out of his wits).

I asked him how he thought the problem of corruption could be tackled.  He said "with a .22 bullet in the back of their heads."

So the good the bad and the ugly of our colonial heritage can still be found in corners of PNG.

Luckily the good vastly outweighs the bad. But we Australians must bear responsibility for some of that dark side.

___________

More on the Lae Bowling Club. There is a competition called 'Beer-Bottle Rats'.

The club bar is unfortunately infested with rats. Big buggers almost the size of a cat, with red eyes.

If you see one while drinking an SP, you can enter the competition and throw an empty bottle at the rat.  A direct hit scores 50 points, an incapacitating injury 20 (as long as you put him out his of his misery). And a near miss is 10.

I was enjoying a dinner and a few beers with my friend when he suddenly shouted 'Rat!' and threw a beer bottle at the wall.

It was only a 20 pointer.

I scored 50 that night with a direct hit on a red-eyed monster peering at me from behind the Johnny Walker. Unfortunately I broke the bottle too and had to pay another 150 kina.

The conquering white man and the black Cinderella

BY PETER KRANZ

AN AUNT of my wife Rose grew up in Simbu in the 1940's and 50's.  In her seventies and living in north Queensland, she is still hale and hearty.

Auntie remembers highlands pioneer Jim Taylor riding into her village on a horse in the course of one of his patrols.  Aunt, an attractive young ambai, caught his eye. Infatuated, he started a discreet courtship.

Her family had little contact with white men, so she was frightened but also flattered to have been the subject of his attention.

Well one thing led to another and, after seeing her a few times, Taylor asked her to attend the local Chimbu Ball as his guest.  This was a taboo for white society at the time but big Jim was never one to be beholden to western mores.

Auntie complained she didn't have any waitman bilas to wear, and that she could hardly go to a ball in her Simbu clothes.  Taylor promised to fix this and, after taking a few crude measurements, declared he'd get her a suitable gown to wear.

He must have scoured the trade stores and Western importers because, a day before the ball, he returned with a beautiful white evening gown which fitted Auntie perfectly. He said, "I'll come back to take you - don't try walking to Kundiawa in that dress!"

On the evening of the ball he rode into the village on his horse, swept her onto the saddle and they proceeded in style to Kundiawa.  Auntie was wearing her beautiful white gown and must have caused quite a stir when he strode into the hotel with her on his arm.

But it did not have a happy ending.  At the venue, Auntie was met with disdain, hostile stares and barely concealed whispers of disgust by the assembled colonial dignitaries.

She couldn't take it and ran out of the hotel and down the steps ripping off her precious gown on the way, and ran all the back to her village weeping with humiliation.

She never saw Jim Taylor again.

But the story does have something of a happy ending.

Auntie met another white man, married him, settled in north Queensland and had three lovely children.

She still makes a living selling PNG fruit and vegies at the local markets.  Now she's a bubu and loves her four grandkids very much.

Auntie is fluent in Kuman and the Tok Pisin of the 1960's, as she never went back to PNG.

Amazing scenes: My big bold raskol tambu meri

BY PETER KRANZ

SHE WAS BUILT like a brick out haus. Arms like rain tree trunks, legs like mangrove stumps.  She could have easily played forward for the Simbu Warriors. But she was our tambu and friend.

She attached herself to us one hard night at the Junction.  As it turned out she was a Simbu relative.  Blood being thicker than water, she promised to look after us.  

She was a sweetie and gave me a kiss. She said, "Angra - no one will hurt you when I am here".  Tru as I found out, bless her.

We got kicked out of the Junction at about 1 am (don't remember why - it takes a bit of doing) and mama raskol meri insisted on coming with us

We were standing on the road, hoping forlornly for a taxi, when we found ourselves surrounded by a dozen young men - not with good intentions. They demanded our bilums.

Raskol meri jumped into action. "What yu want? Rausim nau, pek-peks!" and she weighed into the first one. Bang, biff and he was a gonner.  Then the second one.  By the time she got on to the third they had lost their bottle and run away.

She saw us home safely, and I gave her a full breakfast of a giant steak, four eggs, toast and sausages to keep her strength up.

God she was lovely! I'm sure she could win the Olympics for PNG single-handed.

Lucky she was my tambu.

John Nenou remembers the Kuveria massacre

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA

AS THE MINING PIT of Panguna grew day-by-day, so the waste rock and gravel multiplied in tonnage and thus dump after dump of gravel sprouted, changing the familiar landscape that John Nenou (commonly known as Tampamai throughout Kieta district) grew up with.

To control the build-up of gravel in the village of Pirurari and the rest of the Kavarong valley, Bougainville Copper diverted the Kavarong River through a ‘V’-shaped concrete system towards Nenou’s Sinare hamlet causing the most enormous continuous landslips he had ever seen.

Like many of the young local landowners, he was a-nobody to Bougainville Copper, who only employed men in white-collars, polished office boots and a piece of useless degree paper.  Most of those, by far, were non-Bougainvilleans.

As a youth, Nenou, without an opportunity to gain a formal education, watched as the mining expanded towards his home. He was a bystander as his land was exploited by persons he didn’t know.

These people, for no good reason, scolded and terrorised him as he walked through Panguna township. He and other young men faced near-death from the Papua New Guineans from outside. In the Panguna cinemas and night clubs, a black man entered at his own risk.  The redskins ruled the streets.

Nenou, from the 1970s on, became the champion of break-and-enter in the residential camps like Kusito. The small camp canteens were intruded at will by him and his followers from Dapera village and the Onove villages, to the west of the mine and Nenou’s home.

At weekends he and his gang would drink beer and stone BCL vehicles.  Or they would drive around in the heavy trucks, front-end loaders and graders, hijacking them from where they were left to rest at night along the tailings areas.

Because of such, he became an icon in the police cells of Panguna, Arawa and Kuveria.

Prison did not help the youth, who saw this as just a redskin’s slap in the face for the poor Bougainvilleans.

Resentment grew further in Nenou’s heart when he was chased angrily out of the BCL employment office in the early 1980s by a non-Bougainvillean. Defeated, he walked home and, in broad day light, executed a non-Bougainvillean man who was sightseeing, and dumped him unnoticed into the ‘V’-shaped waterway. This was his first blood.

Naval aviation anecdotes from old PNG

On a recent visit to Queensland, I asked former naval aviator BRYAN MATTHEWS, who lives on the Sunshine Coast, to recall for PNG Attitude readers some stories from his experiences in PNG waters

IN 1956 I was one of two helicopter pilots aboard HMAS Melbourne operating in Papua New Guinea waters. At this time there were no helicopters at all operating in PNG.

The helicopters were used to transport personnel and mail to ports in PNG. At each landing place there was always a circle of police personnel (if I recall correctly, they were known as polisbois but were men) dressed in their standard uniforms of laplaps.

As the helicopter approached it was obvious that the police were scared stiff as one could see their knees and laplaps shaking, but they did not run away.

After the helicopter had landed and the rotors came to a stop, the police, a few at a time, were allowed to come up to the helicopter to get a close look and touch these weird machines.

The choppers were 'poked and stroked' by the police amid much chatter and laughter. When we were ready to leave, the police formed into a full circle again and, once the rotors started turning, the knees and laplaps resumed shaking.

***************

A decade later, in 1966-67, I was serving on board the fleet tanker HMAS Supply. On one occasion, the ship called in at Port Moresby to refill the naval fuel oil tanks there.

Whilst alongside the wharf, I saw a 25-foot container being lifted by hand by labourers. They surrounded the container and placed their fingers under the lower edge. Then at the command of one of them, they lifted this huge container off the ground and marched it down the wharf. I had never seen anything like that before in my life.

***************

It had been some years since the fuel oil pipes had been used, so they were all visually checked prior to pumping the oil from the ship to the tanks on shore.

Notwithstanding the checks, after about 40 minutes pumping one of the joints parted and oil fuel spilled into the water. Pumping was stopped immediately and clean-up operations begun using oil dispersant and large floating sponge-like hoses to contain the fuel.

The ship was unaware that a representative of the oil dispersant manufacturer was in Port Moresby at that time, attempting to sell the product to the Port Authority.

These negotiations were getting nowhere until the Port Authority personnel saw a wonderful display of the effectiveness of the dispersant provided by HMAS Supply.

An order for a large amount of dispersant was placed and several of the ship's officers were shouted dinner that night by the representative of the manufacturer.

Bryan Matthews was an aviator with the Royal Australian Navy for which he flew both fixed wing aircraft and helicopters

One people, one country, one god

BY BASIL B PEUTALO

ON THE OCCASION of the 36th Independence anniversary of our country, I would like to pay tribute to some people who are not my relations, not even wantoks, but who helped me and my family not only appreciate but share in their generosity and basic human fellowship, the true meaning of “One People, One Country, One God”.

Pursuing a life as a self-employed consultant in the social and community development sector has its ups and downs.

In my historical graph as a freelance consultant, the latter has mostly very long bars. The year 2008 was an annus horibilus for me and my family of six: the peak of my selfish self-employment idealism.

I lost the tenancy on our accommodation due to prolonged non-payment of rental. I was faced with a very long delay in securing any contracts during the first quarter of 2008. No contract or job ever came for me until June 2009.

My family and I were evicted after incurring massive rentals that are still haunting me to this date. My social responsibilities to my family remained high with four dependants still going to school.

One, who was attending a technical college, decided to start a family under cover of his schooling. Well, he brought about a beautiful little girl in this year. This little angel created a milestone for me and my wife as grandparents. But the joy of welcoming this little beauty was overshadowed by our predicament.

It is difficult to say it, but I began indefinite and numerous rounds of begging from friends, contacts and people who were friends of our friends and even acquaintances.

And this was when I came upon one of these acquaintances. His name - Wai Havoame from Olunguti, Lufa District, Eastern Highlands Province.

He and his family lived in a settlement up on the ridges that run above the National Broadcasting Commission premises towards Port Moresby International School.

Wai and his family have a very close family friend, John Khalalale, an accountant by profession, from Simbu Province. Wai informed John Khalalale of our predicament.

John and his family owned a big two story house at Boroko. They occupied the top floor with the ground floor vacant. They generously allowed us to move with all our household items and boxes of my work records into this vacant ground floor. At least there was a roof over our head and safe place to hide. We stayed at John’s house for the whole of 2008.

We did not even given much consideration as to how we were going to eat and survive even under the roof and safety of John Khalalale’s house.

This was where and how these two families, unknown to us and from other provinces, conscientiously demonstrated in all the remaining days of 2008 what is meant to be Papua New Guinean.

They fed us. They protected us. Wai worked as a chef with a catering company in Port Moresby. He would bring leftovers from his kitchen to us every evening. John Khalalale would give some money to us regularly.

These two families are from the Highlands region and they are Seventh Day Adventist Church members. My family and I are from the New Guinea Islands Region. We are Catholics.

Wai Havoame and his family and John Khalalale and his family did not consider any of these tags. We are all Papua New Guineans under One Flag and One God.

Thank you Wai and John with your respective loving families for sharing with us your meaning and spirit of true Papua New Guineans.

Papua or bust … the Boianai UFO sightings

BY PETER KRANZ

 
I DON'T KNOW what you think of unidentified flying objects – UFOs - but in 1959, Papua was the location of one of the best observed and witnessed UFO encounters on record.

The veracity of Father Gill's testimony has never been questioned and to this day the Boianai sightings are one of the strangest episodes in the annals of UFOlogy.

On 5 April 1959, at the Anglican mission village at Boianai, Papua, one of the most well-documented cases of alien visitation began. The Anglican Church had sent Father William Booth Gill to lead the mission. He would be the main subject of an amazing series of UFO sightings with alien beings.

During the summer of 1959, Gill's assistant Stephen Moi reported to him that he had observed an "inverted saucer-shaped object" which was hovering above the mission. Gill thought nothing of it at the time.

On 26 June, Father Gill again saw a bright light to his northwest. Evidently, rumours of the previous sighting by Moi had spread among the villagers, and soon they were beside Gill, watching the light above.

Sworn statements of this event listed 38 individual witnesses who saw a disc-shaped UFO the size of 5 full moons strung together. The UFO had four legs, like landing gear, but was high in the sky.

An enormous object was hovering over the mission. Soon, four beings, similar to humans, emerged from the object. They appeared to be working on something on their ship. The beings would go inside the object, and then soon return, as if fetching tools. At regular intervals, a blue light shone up above the UFO. This craft was visible for 45 minutes, vanishing at 7:30 pm.

Forty-five minutes later, many of the witnesses remained, still pondering the sight they had seen. Soon, several objects smaller than the previous UFO appeared in the sky.

About 20 minutes afterward, the first UFO was back in view. The sighting of the larger UFO would last four hours, as witnesses would come and go. Twenty-five witnesses signed their testimony to the sighting. A heavy cloud cover ended the event.

Incredibly, the next night the giant disc-shaped UFO returned at 6 pm. Two of the smaller objects flanked it. Father Gill, with many of the witnesses from the night before, watched the unbelievable sight.

 

Orthodox priest survives tropical hell of PNG

BY KEITH JACKSON

WHEN YOU SPEND as much time reading about Papua New Guinea as I do (I should get a life), certain trends become clear.  One is the propensity of some mission folk to somewhat embellish their experiences in PNG.

In recent times, PNG Attitude has offered stunners from American missionaries; and this morning we take a look at the musings of a Russian priest who had wondrous adventures from which he was relieved to return in one piece to his homeland.

As it says in Psalms 144:7 - “Stretch out your hand from above, rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters, out of the hands of foreigners.”

Archpriest Nikolai Nesprava [pictured] is known as "extreme father." In the summer of this year, he travelled to the jungle of Papua New Guinea. The priest wanted to get acquainted with the life of aboriginal people, who live under the laws of the Stone Age and practice cannibalism. Pravda reporter ARTUR PRIYMAK interviewed the priest upon his return home.

Artur Priymak - How were you welcomed by the tribes of Papua New Guinea?

Archpriest Nesprava - The communication with the Papuans was an amazing experience of communication with the people, whose language we don't know. There is a gap of thousands of years between us, because they still live in the Stone Age.

But the people could understand me. There is a language that is understandable to all humans. This is the language of sincerity, mercy and love. Those people could understand this language very well.

Warriors are always armed there. When we were trying to approach them we could see the muscles of their arms and chests pulsating. They are very cautious, and they are ready to respond to attacks any moment.

Then we started communicating with them, and they put down their bows and arrows. I can't say that I was happy with everything. On the one hand, I returned alive and practically healthy.

On the other hand, when I was looking at the photos that we had taken, I realised that I had not photographed many remarkable moments. I had to throw myself on the ground to take amazing photos.

You can read all of this stupendous account here.  You will learn things that you never knew. Indeed, that no-one ever knew….

Source: Pravda, 5 September
http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/05-09-2011/118957-papua_new_guinea-0/

The saga of the naïve American missionary

BY TREVOR FREESTONE

 
ONE DAY IN 1964, when the Piaggio landed at Ambunti on the Sepik River where I was posted as a teacher, out of the cabin sauntered a young American with a rather small suitcase.  He was directed to the administration office where he met the Assistant District Commissioner.

He explained he wanted to start a mission in the May River area. The ADC explained it was a restricted area and he could not allow just anyone to go there. He tried to explain what life would be like there but the American was determined to establish his mission.

I just happened to go to the office at the wrong moment and the ADC asked me if I could put the missionary up for a few days during which time I might be able to convince him to choose another location.

Earlier, I had been fortunate enough to go to May River when the ADC wanted to resupply the patrol post.  He’d asked me to take some supplies to the Patrol Officer who was stationed there. I was given a police escort as protection and told to keep out of trouble as there would be no immediate rescue if we got into strife in that very remote part of New Guinea.

Anyway, once the young missionary had settled in to my place, I asked him where he intended to get his food and supplies. He explained he had some money and would buy what he wanted from the local store.

He was a bit surprised when I explained there were no stores at May River. Then he said he would get the local people to give him food. I explained that they would be struggling as they found it difficult to even feed themselves. Their main diet was sago supplemented with insects, frogs and the occasional crocodile.

The missionary then said he would buy a loaf of bread and a fish and do what Christ had done and multiply them as required. I wished him luck but had little faith in Christ being able to keep him supplied. While he was with me he ate nearly a month’s supply of my food. Although at the time Christ was doing an excellent job of finding him food. My food.

 

Baking cakes to cope with LNG disruptions

A ‘LIVELIHOOD ADVISOR’ with Esso Highlands Ltd in Papua New Guinea says the company is retraining local people whose traditional means of getting food have been disrupted by the LNG Project.

Esso, which is a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, has defended its efforts to mitigate negative impacts from its LNG operations particularly in the Southern Highlands where the gas project is centred.

The Hela Community Care organisation claims the construction of the LNG project has left many local families without homes or crop gardens.

But food processing specialist, Mary Maima, says she has been equipping local people with skills to adapt.

She has just finished training over 500 women from the Komo and Hides area.

“What is going strong now is the women and people are more interested in baking,” Ms Maima said.

“Because baking is something new, women are more interested when they think that they can do it as a business and they can buy the drum oven and do it for themselves. Already some of them are selling scones and cakes.”

Source: Radio New Zealand International

Weaver ants – a natural traditional medicine

BY PETER KRANZ

IN MY GARDEN in Waigani I noticed a strange ball – a bit like a football - hanging from a tree in the front garden.

The leaves on the tree looked deformed. They were bound together into ball-shapes, a bit like birds nests. Then the leaves died and it looked unsightly.

A week or so later the leaf-balls had grown much larger and spread further. On closer investigation, I found there were thousands of small reddish-yellow ants inside each one.

Another week passed and the balls had grown larger still, and there were more of them appearing on nearby trees.

Bemused I took a closer look and poked one of the leaf balls with a stick. Some ants fell on my face and started to bite me enthusiastically: quite painful - worse than a mosquito but not as bad as a wasp (refer to the Schmidt Sting Pain Index.).

One managed to get into my mouth and I inadvertently crunched on it. It tasted of lemon juice.

This is a species of weaver ant that lives in PNG and which is both very annoying and has a painful bite.  But it has some interesting properties. Colonies can be extremely large, consisting of more than a hundred nests spanning numerous trees and containing more than half a million workers.

A week later my cousin-brother came to visit.  He had a very bad cold - maybe the flu - and I offered to get him some medicine from the chemist.  But he looked through the window and said ‘no need, my medicine is in your trees’.

He stood underneath one of the leaf-ball nests and whacked it with a stick - whereupon thousands of furious weaver ants dropped on his head and started biting him.  He bravely stayed the course and let them do their work for some minutes, then washed his face.

He said, "That's out traditional PNG medicine for colds and flu".

Apparently you can also put them in boiling water and breath in the vapour, or drink the juice.

Sure enough he got better in a day or two.

It is known in medicine that weaver ants can fight infection and people who live near them do sometimes use them as a medicine. The ants have a strong chemical, formic acid, in their bodies which they use to protect their nests.  In humans it can help to fight infections.

Tales of the unexpected: A spidery story

BY PETER KRANZ

I ADMIT TO a great respect for spiders. And there are many living in Papua New Guinea that deserve respect. There are funnel webs, orb spiders, huntsmen, trapdoors and even bird and mouse eating tarantulas.

You may remember the Car From Hell (CFH) from my earlier excursions on PNG Attitude. Despite it being an old Nissan it had the modern arrangement of wing mirrors - at least on the driver’s side – the static plastic cover enclosing a mirror controlled by a button inside the car.

I used to drive the CFH with all windows open - as the aircon didn't work and Moresby was usually pretty warm.

One night I took the car to the shops and checked the wing mirror before turning into Boroko drive.

I noticed a shadow moving across the mirror. It grew larger. It had legs.

Intrigued, I pulled up next to a lamp-post and was surprised to see a giant huntsman spider about the size of my hand crawling out of the space between the cover and the wing mirror, and looking at me through the mirror.

It stayed on the mirror refusing to move.

I quickly wound up the window and decided to shake it off. I drove along the Poreporena Freeway as fast as I could go, but Shelob hung on tenaciously and was still there looking at me.

I was sweating. Dare I open the window? I had visions of this giant arachnid leaping on my face and devouring me with poison bites.

I managed to get to Boroko Food World, stopped and gingerly got out of the car. The spider had gone. But where?

I bought my dinner and drove home - free of fear. Shelob must have dropped off and decided to feed elsewhere.

But when I pulled up at my apartment, I looked in the wing mirror again and saw two giant spidery legs slowly emerging. I've never parked and exited a car so quickly.

The next day CFH got a thorough washing with a high-pressure hose. But I still have memories of seeing those spindly legs creeping out of the mirror next to my face.

Is it still there?

Teaching black kids in London in the ’70s

BY PETER KRANZ

I STARTED TEACHING after Enoch Powell’s divisive speech, during the rise of the skinheads and at a time of still blatant and overt racism.

I was a new graduate from teachers’ school and accepted the only job offer I had – to teach at a multi-ethnic high school in London.

It wasn’t a particularly bad area and had a fair mix of students. But the school did segregate by performance: three grades for each form – A, B and C – the A’s being the best, the C’s the worst.

I was given the job of teaching English to form 4C (the worst performing 14-15 year olds).  The class was 90% kids of black Caribbean origin, who had of course grown up in England.

I met many of their folks on ‘parent evening’ and understood they wanted the best for their kids, but knew they were up against the odds. They were sympathetic and helpful and hopeful that I could make a difference for their kids.

I quickly realised I was in for a hiding, and the only way was to try and get through to the kids. So I did a quick immersion course in black culture and tried to make my classes as relevant as possible.

We had to study some Shakespeare, so I chose Othello – and took my class to see a performance at Stratford. I illustrated it with comments from their experiences of prejudice against black people – and we found a contemporary-English version to read side-by-side with the original so we could talk about how language had changed.

For literature I chose amongst other books To Kill a Mockingbird and managed to hire the Gregory Peck film to show. We discussed it at length in class.

Then I thought we’d explore black music lyrics, and we had some lessons on Stevie Wonder, James Brown, Jimi Hendrix etc. This brought the ire of the school authorities down on me – as the music was too loud.

The school received a complaint from a white boy’s parents that I was teaching “too much black-stuff” but too their credit the school supported me.

Then came the social events. We had an annual cricket match – school versus parents. I happened to know that a father of one of my black students has tested for the West Indies team as a fast bowler, so encouraged him to join. The parents thrashed the teachers – largely because my ringer bowled out seven of them!

Then came the end-of-school picnic day out. I realised at the last minute that no-one had made an outing affordable or interesting to my students, so none was going. So I hired a mini-bus and said we’ll have a day at Clacton – it’ll only cost five pounds – ask your parents! You can do what you like! Fun-fairs, peep-shows, parades, circus etc – like a day at the Show.

They all came and we had a great time.

That was my last year there. On leaving, my 4C kids saved up between them and gave me a present. It was a lovely silver pen inscribed with the words “To Sir With Love”.

I still have it.

Ten years later I was walking though Wembley when I heard a cry from a construction site. It was a 25-year old black building labourer yelling out, “Sir!, Sir!”. He ran up to me and said – “Hey I’m Ivan – I was one of your students in 4C at high school, remember me?” Yes I did. He was one of the worst. But he had remembered.

He said “I’ll never forget what you did for us kids. Thank you”

That one small moment crystallised all that can be good about teaching.

Young Ivan wanted to learn to drive, but his family didn’t have a car, so I taught him after school in mine (an old Anglia). He managed to crash it into a lamp post and felt so sorry he saved up and gave me 10 pounds for the repairs.

His parents invited me around for dinner to say sorry.

The other teachers called him “Ivan the Terrible”, but I liked him.

When I left that school I asked the Head for a reference. He wrote “one of his faults as a teacher is that he feels too sympathetic for his students.”

I was rather proud of that.

Closest I’ve got to that feeling is teaching in PNG – but that’s another story.

Corporal Kasari & the stolen wheely wheel

BY PHIL FITZPATRICK

WHEN I came back from leave in 1972 I was posted to Balimo in the Western District. 

Prior to that, I had been a solo kiap at Olsobip patrolling the rugged Star Mountains followed by a long stint at Nomad River as part of a team trying to rein in the depredations of the irascible Biami cannibals.

Balimo was a long established sub-district headquarters with peaceful and tractable people so I felt a bit like a fish out of water. 

When I got there I found an old friend, Corporal Kasari, who I’m sure a lot of kiaps will attest was one of the best bush policeman around.  Kasari was feeling the same way and we commiserated.

At the time there was a fiery little Goilala nurse at the mission hospital.  Her pride and joy was a bright red bicycle which she rode along the road to the government station everyday to collect the mail.

One day she woke up and discovered that her beloved wheely wheel had been stolen.  She stomped up to the station to report the matter and to lay out the dire consequences for the offenders if they didn’t return said wheely wheel promptly.

I immediately put Corporal Kasari on the case.

Sure enough, that afternoon he marched two hangdog individuals into the office together with a wheely wheel with a distinctly buckled front wheel.

I congratulated the corporal and scheduled a session of the local court the next day.

With an appreciative audience, which included the nurse, I read the charges to the two nervous defendants; took their not guilty pleas and asked Corporal Kasari to present his case.

Kasari then proceeded to tell the court that his maternal grandmother had come to him in a dream and told him the names of the two culprits. 

When I asked him whether it was possible to call his grandma he explained that this would be difficult because she had been dead for the last twenty years.

I quickly adjourned the court.

We then had a quiet individual word with the defendants.  On the promise of lesser sentences they both turned state’s evidence and dobbed each other in. 

Turns out they had imbibed a few too many SPs and had nicked the bike on a dare.  Charging down the station road in the early hours of the morning, one pedalling and one sitting on the luggage rack, they had inexplicably crashed into the bank and buckled the front wheel of the bike.

I gave them a month each and then suspended the sentences on the understanding that they would buy the nurse a new front wheel and refit it to her satisfaction.  I also suggested that some monetary compensation might also be in order.

Shortly afterwards I managed to engineer a transfer for Kasari back to the bush.

As for myself, I got a job in Port Moresby as publications officer with the Lands Department. 

I figured by that stage the writing was on the wall.

Con men, scamsters & the genuine articles

BY PETER KRANZ

BEWARE THE FORMIDABLE con men of Papua New Guinea.  White expats particularly vulnerable.

I do not mean this as a criticism of Papua New Guineans generally - quite the opposite.  There are guys on the make in every city, and my PNG friends have helped save many people – including me - from scamsters and tricksters.

But be warned.  There are more plausible rogues about than Noah Misingu and the great investment opportunities offered by the Bank of Mekamui (in permanent liquidation).

When you live in PNG, you get used to people asking for money.  It is not outright begging - I saw very little of this – so much as a much more subtle play on your sympathy and gullibility, interspersed with the occasional genuine pleas for help.

One man, a gifted wood-carver, sold me several lovely pieces, then came to me one day crying and saying his grandfather had died and he was the closest blood relative.

He need just K1,000 to go back to the village, bury him properly and raise a gravestone.

Luckily I had a brilliant secretary with my interests at heart who took me aside and whispered 'don't listen to him - he is a con man!'

Then there was the man who claimed to be working on behalf of the local people poisoned by the residue of the Tolekuma gold mine.  He just needed a few hundred kina to finalise the legal paper work and would return thousands to me in compensation.

After a few inquiries my friends told me he was from the southern highlands and had no connection with Tolekuma landowners whatsoever.

Then there was the fellow who claimed to represent Simbu landowners whose land was being confiscated by the government to extend the Highlands Highway.  They wanted help in applying for compensation.  

I found out after a few discreet inquiries that his friends had rushed to the side of the highway when the announcement was made and rapidly planted gardens to ensure that they were 'impacted' by any development.

There was also my 'cousin-brother' who claimed to have land rights to a massive limestone-mining development by the Chinese in the Highlands. He needed help with the licence fees - just a few hundred kina.

And the ex-Minister relative who needed a few hundred to help start an airline - a sure-fire business opportunity which could make me millions. Apparently he had an operational licence, but no planes. My reply to him - no plane, no gain.

But you must put these cases against this the many genuine requests for help with medical procedures, school fees and basic needs. You quickly learn to separate the con-men from the reality if you live in PNG.

Sad but true.

The escape hatch and other security tips

BY PETER KRANZ

I HAD A LOVELY house at Waigaini and lived there for over three years on the university estate. 

The house had a great garden - we grew pawpaws, bananas, kaukau, gene, abika and chillis; the fence was fringed with bougainvillea and frangipani; there were huge raintrees, poinciana and candle trees; orchids grew.

It was a garden-lovers paradise. I'm sure many expats will reminisce.

Sadly I found I could not grow drei dragii (denrobium habbennsae) even though we had brought cuttings from Simbu - it was too hot.

But the house had some interesting idiosyncrasies in its construction. There was a big square hole cut in the in the kitchen floor opening to the space beneath the house.  I put the fridge over it, but later learned its usefulness.

There was also an 'escape window' in the main bedroom. Even though the rest of the entrances were barred and bolted, you could open this window with a flick of the wrist and escape out the back should you need to.

You would find yourself landing at the back of Fort Banner, but believe me this was a lot better than being confronted by gun-wielding raskols in your lounge room.

I never had occasion to use the escape hatches, but was very tempted once when attacked by giant mud crabs in the kitchen.

It is sad that PNG houses have to have these things.  Plus two bloody great brackets either side of the front door where you can wedge a big iron bar.

Unfortunately I got broken into because the raskols did a deal with the maintenance staff and got a spare key. So they just walked in when I was at work.

Mea culpa!

After 68 years, a brother returns home

BY NICK MALAWSKEY

LESS THAN A MONTH after they were married, Frank Wise kissed his young bride goodbye and headed off to war. His 15-year-old brother, Louis, would never figure out what drove his brother to enlist in the Army.

One year later, Staff Sgt was in PNG, an Army Air Corps crew chief. He never returned home. On 12 September 1943, his family in Hershey US received a telegram.
It said that the third-oldest of 12 children, was dead, killed in a C-47 airplane crash on 27 August.

The years rolled by. Frank’s mother died in 1948, his father in 1962. His 11 brothers and sisters moved around, married and had children of their own. Over the years, Frank’s death always remained a family mystery.

One by one, the siblings, too, died. By 2009, there were only two left: Louis Wise and his older sister, Helen Verdelli.

In December that year, Helen received a letter from the Army. As a living relative of a missing soldier, would she mind submitting a DNA sample for the Army’s database? She did, but a few months later, Helen also died, leaving Louis as the lone living sibling.

One day last year, the couple’s phone rang. A retired soldier from Fort Knox was on the telephone line. He wanted to know if he could stop by the Wises’ house in Palmyra and talk to them about Frank.

If war is hell, then in 1943 New Guinea was the devil’s front porch. The island nation’s jungles were hot, humid and full of men trying to kill each other.

Trained as part of a bomber crew, Frank instead found himself serving as the crew chief for C-47 aircraft, the ubiquitous twin-engine transport plane of World War II. The squadron was stationed outside Port Moresby.

On 27 August, Wise’s plane was part of a routine flight that landed supplies in Wau. A few minutes after the squadron settled into formation for the flight back to Port Moresby, the engines on Frank’s C-47 stopped.

A night to remember

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

Dedicated to my former colleagues from Med School who are graduating today ... especially to Alois, Wilma, Oliver and Erikson. Congratulations!

THE LABOUR WARD at Port Moresby General Hospital was busy as usual that night. Women arrived, women waited and women delivered.

The pungent odour of amniotic fluid mixed with the cold air-conditioned air sending a chill through the infants born that night. There was the usual sound tract of mothers and babies crying. The white walls and floor tiles glowed in the brightly lit room.

The medical student dressed in a white coat with a stethoscope hanging from his neck, paused as he looked at the women sitting on a single bench in the cold labour ward. Many held their backs and abdomen, their faces expressing the distressful events that were occurring internally.

Each woman looked at him pleadingly, wanting to be admitted into the ward. “Ol mama, sampela, wara buruk o nogat?” he asked in Pidgin. They all shook their heads. He couldn’t admit them. All the beds were occupied. Only women about to deliver or presenting with complications were given priority.

He turned and walked to bed thirty-six. The young mother there kept screaming, “Dokta plis helpim mi! Ayo, baby bai kamaut nau! Helpim me...” He examined her and noted his findings on her chart. She was primigravid – a first time mum, and the baby wasn’t coming anytime soon. He reassured her and left the cubicle.

As he walked past bed thirty-five, the nurse called him in to examine the mother. The nurse looked distressed and informed him of the mother’s condition. She was grand-multi-parous; she had five children and was in labour for the sixth.

Her blood pressure had shot through the roof and her consciousness was altered. She seemed stable according to his assessment, but they both decided they should consult the Resident Medical Officer on duty.

As he was chatting with the nurse, another voice wailed from the other end of the ward. “Dokta! Plis helpim mi, het b’lo baby kamaut nau!” He rushed over to the other end and arrived just in time.

He delivered the head, shoulders and the rest of this beautiful baby girl. He placed the crying neonate on her mum’s abdomen, clipped the umbilical cord and cut it. “Welcome to the cruel world, baby” he smiled as he spoke to her. He wrapped her in some clean cloth and handed her to her mum.

A couple of minutes later the placenta was delivered.

He then took the baby to the examination room. It was warm compared to the rest of the labour ward. It did not have the typical odour of aromatic compounds that was prevalent outside. The baby weighed 2.9 kg. He administered a shot of Hepatitis B vaccine followed by Vitamin K. “I told you it was a harsh world,” he laughed as she shrieked in his arms.

He took her to her mum, who seemed remarkably well composed compared to the past half an hour. This was what impressed him about all the women who came to deliver.

They would progress from the extreme of pain during labour to total calmness after delivery. If there ever was a symbol for the power of the human spirit, it was the face of a woman during and after labour.

He looked at the clock on the wall, it was 12 am. He decided it was time to go back and have some rest at the student dormitory. He recorded the details of the delivery in the register and collected all his gear. He packed his stethoscope, pregnancy wheel, tape measure, thermometer and blood pressure cuff into his bag.

He removed his white coat and washed his hands in the basin. As he began walking out the back door he could see mothers in agony, looking at him from the bench in front. There by the corridor to the back door lay women with their babies on the cold white floor, waiting to be discharged the next morning.

He smiled and said goodnight to the night duty nurses. It was to be his last night at the labour ward.

PNG at war: Great courage of a great people

BY TREVOR FREESTONE

THERE ARE MANY stories of how Papua New Guineans helped Australia all over the country, from the Sepik to the Highlands to Kokoda to Milne Bay.

Kokoda is writ large on the Australian consciousness – but the contribution of Papua New Guineans to the war effort was far more than this.

You'd think that this alone might stir the Australian government and our media to be more involved in encouraging PNG, discussing its affairs, refelcting on our relationship and communicating far more news about the good things happening in this wonderful country.  Here are two such stories.

On the Sepik River is a village called Timbunki. It had informed a small Australian force about a garrison of Japanese stationed nearby. Shortly after receiving this information the Australians destroyed the enemy outpost.

This greatly upset the main Japanese force in the Sepik and, when the Australians moved on, the Japanese went to Timbunki and killed 97 men and kidnapped 82 young women. When I visited Timbunki in 1965 this small village was still grieving this loss. Lest we forget.

Further up the Sepik River is a village called Avatip. I was invited to the village to open some new classrooms the people had built. They told me this story.

A large group of Japanese camped in their village was treating everyone terribly and raping the women. So the villagers devised a plan to get rid of them.

They went to the commanding officer and told him they wanted to organise a big feast for them. He gave them permission. Villagers came from nearby and soon a huge amount of food was prepared.

Once the food was cooked they invited the Japanese to sit in a circle where they would be served. At a given signal the villagers attacked the Japanese and killed them all.

The feast went ahead but without the Japanese. Lest we forget.

Photo: Australian light machine gun in action against Japanese positions near Wewak, June 1945

Easter story: 20 gallons of avgas saves 2 lives

ON GOOD FRIDAY two years ago, Samaritan Aviation’s crew received a desperate call from a remote Sepik village to help a pregnant mother who was bleeding to death.

Antonia was having complications during birth, had lost a lot of blood, and would not live to make the two day trip by canoe and overland to the only hospital in the province.

Samaritan’s pilots took off in the amphibious Cessna 206, Spirit of Paradise, and headed for Timbunke, a remote health station close to the village.

Because infant mortality rates are so high in the Sepik, babies are often not named until they are two years old. 500,000 people live in this region and there is one hospital at Wewak, just a few minutes away from the airport.

In the air, pilots Bruce Johnson and Mark Palm retracted the wheels and prepared the plane for landing in the Sepik River. After a 25-minute flight the plane was overhead Timbunke where a large crowd of people had gathered on the river bank, motioning for the plane to land.

In a matter of minutes Antonia, close to death, was loaded into the stretcher. The mother of four was unresponsive as Spirit of Paradise took off from the river and headed for Wewak.

When the plane landed at Wewak, an ambulance took Antonia to hospital where she received emergency surgery. Doctors said she would have lived another thirty minutes without intervention.

Today Antonia and her baby boy are doing fine and a village that would have been mourning the death of one of their members has celebrated a new life.

Source: Samaritan Aviation

Copying a PNG icon: a case of French bilumia

BY PETER KRANZ

 

YOU MAY HAVE heard about the French company that has trademarked the word bilum. We mentioned it on PNG Attitude last year.

It makes a classy range of shoulder bags from recycled material which is sold in Europe.

On its website the company says:

All rights of trademarks, designs, texts and all other products are under Bilum sole copyright. Modifications, reproductions or any imitation or copy is forbidden. However, links towards the website are allowed without any specific authorisation.

I emailed them and explained that bilum was a generic word for a traditional hand-woven bag in PNG and had been in common usage for at least 100 years.

The French company Bilum had the courtesy to reply to my query about trademarking the word bilum – see below (spelling as received).

Hello, Yes, I know and I mentioned it on the web site (unfortunatly only in french). I have a lot of respect for the traidtionnel papua new guinea hand made bag, and explained that. Thank’s for your mail. Hélène”

I don’t think the company intends to affect anyone making or selling bilums in PNG. However if a PNG business started selling bilums in France and used the word bilum it might be a different story.

The street vendor (a short story)

BY MARTYN NAMORONG

JOHN HAD COMPLETED year 12 at De La Salle Secondary School. He did not receive an offer for further tertiary or technical education and was living at 9 mile squatter settlement with his parents and five siblings.

The family had no access to running water or electricity. They shared a pit toilet with three other families. The family earned its income by raising chickens which they sold at Gordons Market.

John had built a hut for himself while his family shared the family shack with his two uncles and three cousins. His flimsy hut was built of pieces of timber, scrap metal and cardboard he had scavenged from the City of Port Moresby.

The earth floor was lined with plastic sheets and an old discarded carpet. It was a colourful work of art. Like a bower bird’s nest, it reflected the bits and pieces that he had collected to create this shelter.

John woke one morning after having spent the previous evening drinking home brew. He peered through a gap in the wall of the hut and he could see the fog covered Owen Stanley Range in the distance. In the valley below, the terraced hillside contained plots of cabbages, peanuts, beans and corn.

He could see some men and women collecting water from the swamp to water their vegetable plots. Others harvested and packed their crops into their bilums. These crops were destined for sale at the markets in the city.

He picked up his mobile phone from the floor. There was a message and three missed calls from Agnes. “Kaikai curry rice!” he exclaimed. Agnes was his phone pal from Rabaul. Like most phone pals in Papua New Guinea their relationship started when John just decided one day to dial a random number on his phone. Agnes answered and one thing led to another.

It was 6 am and John had to leave for the bus stop to catch bus number 16 to Gordons. John collected his cigarette packets, mustard, phone cards, betel nuts, and lime. He placed them into his bilum and walked to the bus stop at 9 mile market. There he met up with a crowd of workers, drug dealers, vegetable sellers, pickpockets and students all headed for the big smoke.

Everyone was rushing for the buses as they arrived at the bus stop. People were climbing in through the bus windows as commuters made their way out through the door. By the time the last passenger had hopped off a bus, the bus was full. For women and children, completing against acrobatic guys was an impossible task.

John wasn’t in a hurry; he was doing a roaring trade at the bus stop while frustrated passengers and bus crew traded insults. Many passengers who wanted to change their money came and bought his betel nuts, cigarettes and phone cards.

Amongst the choir of chaos John the soloist sang to the crowd, “5 lus! 5 lus! K1 buai! Flex stap! Wanbel stap!”

___________________

Translation of Tok Pisin to English

Kaikai curry rice – eat curried rice; an expression of frustration
5 lus – 5 loose; means 50 toea (cents) for a single cigarette
K1 buai – K1 betel nut; means 1 Kina (dollar) for a betel nut includes free mustard (betel nuts are also known as areca nuts – they contain arecholine which acts as a stimulant drug)
Flex stap – Phone cards on sale
Wanbel stap – Peace
Bilum – a string bag

Martyn’s blog is at http://www.medicmangi.blogspot.com

Kondrage – the Inspector Rex of PNG

BY PETER KRANZ

INSPECTOR REX is a dog who stars in a popular TV program. He’s a lovely dog - pure and simple. But I will not say he is a simple dog.

He has a very intelligent feeling for humans, along with a wet nose hairy flanks, a waggy tail, and a super-intelligent brain. In the world of dogs he is Einstein - or maybe Sherlock Holmes.

And this liklik sitori is about when Rex went to Papua New Guinea.

It's a long story - so I'll try to cut it short.

My lovely wife Rose loves dogs. She talks to them when walking down the street; she rescues them; she adopts them. God bless her.

One day, a raggedy old German Shepherd came to our door - thin, mangy and disheveled.  He seemed to be asking for help.  He had intelligent eyes and just wanted a pat.

I called Rose and asked, "What is this poor old dog saying?" He was limping, skinny as a rake, harmless as a dove.

She said, "He wants help" - and named him Kondrage, after the mountain where her grandfather used to live in Simbu.

He got used to this name. "Na Kondrage wakai kaninga!"

So we took him in, fed him some good kakaruk, abika greens and kaukau, patted and loved him and made him feel at home.

Soon he became fit as a fiddle and part of the family. I couldn't stop him from jumping on my bed in the evening and putting his head over my leg at night, as if in protection.

I should say we were living in Port Moresby - in an area which could be a bit dangerous at times.

Kondrage elected himself to be our security guard. Several times some raskols came round to our house. Kondrage lept to our defence - barked, growled, ran around the house, and frightened them off.

Once I tried to go out the front door, but he barked at me aggressively as if to say 'go back into the house!"

Seconds later shots were fired from the street at my neighbours house. Maybe he saved my life. Once he even bit an intruder in our defence - but he was always a kind and generous friend to us.

We left him with family at Morauta when we left PNG. By all accounts he is the local policeman, and brooks no intrusions by rascals.

He was a hero.