3 month mark

 

And just like that it is November!

As I said last blog, we don't often get out of the office.  The week before last, the Australian High Commission Consul-General for Lae invited us to go with him to the handover of school furniture, water tanks and a rain collecting structure at a government primary school a few kilometres further down the road from us.  Just a short ceremony and lots of fun.

We were part of the official party so we were 'marched in' by the elementary school (preschool) children. Most of the primary school's children had the day off because the rooms were needed for the Grade 8 exams that were being held on the day.

The head of the elementary school, the head of the primary school and all the parent committee were there as well as representatives from the Province and the District who were partners along with the Australian government in the funding of the project.  Here we all are in front of an Australian High Commission gazebo which was welcome shade!  The leis presented to the official party were frangipani and smelled wonderful.

Ribbons were cut, plaques presented, photos taken and short speeches made.  The school previously had just one small tank.  Now they have four 9,000L tanks and a building with guttering which will be the catchment.  Rain here is plentiful so the tanks should stay full and provide the children with clean drinking water.

Most of the time I am sitting at my desk looking at a computer screen, looking for useful documents and writing training manuals, podcast scripts and long lists of things to do.  The current list is of people to be invited to our International Volunteers Day event on December 5 and their proper titles and email addresses.  Protocol is so important!  

It can be quite tedious but I often find things that amuse me.  Two examples follow.  I don't remember the source of the first but the second was from a style guide for writing journal articles in the South Pacific. 

Some days the most exciting thing that happens is lunch!

The pattern of the week includes the Saturday afternoon job of finishing off the bananas bought the Saturday before (and now quite ripe!) in a cake - this weeks is banana, carrot, ginger and sugar fruit ( a close relative of passionfruit)

Last weekend we finally made it to the Lae Main Market.  We find it easiest to get our fruit and veg at the local market so hadn't bothered with Main Market despite everyone telling us how much better and cheaper and fresher the produce there is.   Steve took this picture of me doing some Christmas shopping - who needs a bilum?

And lastly, I have a new hobby!  Today we went in to the Lae equivalent of Officeworks.  I was looking to see what bunting and balloons they have.  In our budget for the International Volunteers Day event at NARI in December there is a line for decorations and I was looking at the options.  What I found was oil pastels and an art diary.  Can you spot the African Jacana?  I like putting birds in my pictures.  The little watercolour from a few weeks ago has a Palm Cockatoo.

Three weeks until we go to New Britain for an extra long weekend.  No blog until then, unless something exciting happens!  Jenny

Unwanted excitement

 

We had our first earthquake here in the first month.  We were sitting on the couch.  We felt the shudder.  It didn't last long.  Nothing moved much.  Our driver said it was a medium one when we asked him about it the next day.  Easy peasy! Earthquakes are no problem!  It was 5.1 on the Richter scale so small and fairly typical of what we could expect.

Then came Tuesday last week.  We were just in bed and not yet asleep.  The bed began to shake, the window started rattling and then it felt like we were being picked up and shaken violently.  The whole event was probably less than a minute but it was so intense.  Bottles fell over and things fell off shelves.  The fridge and stove both moved, doors swung on their hinges and drawers opened.  It was quite scary.  We were lying in bed through the worst of it debating whether we should run outside, or maybe climb under the bed, and then it was all over.  The adrenaline hit meant it was awhile before I got to sleep.

The quake measured 6.7 on the Richter Magnitude Scale so was quite a big one, in the 'strong' category - no-one at work had felt one that big before in Lae.  In the event the house was undamaged, and we were only shaken up.  I wouldn't want to be in a moving car if it happened again, or walking, but if that's the worst we can expect we'll survive.  There was no damage reported in town.

It has made me conscious though of every shudder.  There have been a few after shocks, but sometimes it's just the neighbours downstairs jumping around.  I've become a bit paranoid but I think that will ease.

One dismal thing about the earthquake that was discovered a few days later is that it damaged the overflow pipes from the swimming pool and now the pool is closed for the foreseeable future - not high on the priority list for fixing it seems.  Sad, as now I'll have to use the gym for exercise instead - the exercise bike has a very uncomfortable seat!  The pic is from a few weeks ago when I was swimming every day.

We don't get out of the office often but this week we wangled an invite to go with some visiting CSIRO soil scientists and the review team from ACIAR on a day trip up the Markham Valley.  It was a bit 'last minute' and permission from AVI was only granted the day before - we breathed a sigh of relief.  One of the CSIRO team was able to point out the discontinuity in tectonic plates where a slippage of around 8 cm had resulted in last week's earthquake.  We could see the line through the rock strata in the side of the Markham River valley (in the pic below).

We had a lovely day out networking with stakeholders in various agricultural industries.  The last thing on the agenda was a meeting with the farmers at Oriori village near Mutzing, held under a huge old mango tree.  Lydia, one of the spokespeople was quite inspiring.  She spoke only in Tok Pisin but we could understand her clearly and she was so passionate.  In the pic below she is sitting on the rug, in front of the wheelbarrow.  The village had provided fresh fruit to have with our lunch - watermelon, pineapple, cucumber and sugar fruit.  And the wheelbarrow had arrived full of coconuts.  We were each handed one with the top cut off to drink the very refreshing juice inside.

It was a picture postcard village.  The residents made us very welcome.

Next week it'll be back to 8 - 5 in the office.  I'm hoping for some progress on my project at a meeting scheduled for Monday and there's always plenty to do.  

I'll report back in a fortnight, Jenny.

Labu Beach

Here are some pictures from our expedition to Labu Beach last weekend.

On Sunday we travelled from Lae Yacht Club to Labu Lake which is behind a strip of beach on the other side of the Markham River from Lae town.  We travelled in a 'banana boat' with another AusVol and two of her mates, the tour operator and her daughter and three crew.  It was a 15 minute trip and we'd gone from busy Lae wharf to a freshwater lake where the only signs of humanity were some derelict pontoons from a WW2 Australian naval base.  This is Labu Lake fed by several rivers and creeks flowing in from mountain ranges all around.  It is placid and the water is cool and clear.  It is fringed by mangroves, palms and thick tropical vegetation.  We travelled up several of the creeks to get a good look at the vegetation, unfortunately the birds were all hiding. 

Emma from Lae About Tours, Steve and me standing on the sandy floor of the lake.  There are  shell fish living in the sand that are harvested by the locals as well as fish in the lake caught in nets.

Local boats taken out on the lake for fishing and also to get to gardens in the bush away from the coastal village.  There are sago palms both local species and other more productive types the villagers have planted.  Sago processing requires quite a bit of fresh water and is done close to where the palm was growing.  There are tracks through the bush to get to the sago.

This is the village school.  It goes to Grade 8.  The children don't see many whitefellas so wanted to get a close look.

A drum to summon villagers to meetings or to warn of danger.  There are 5 churches along this small stretch of beach - one Lutheran, one Baptist and three evangelicals.  PNG is an exclusively Christian country.  The cemetery was all crosses.

A beautiful beach for a swim.  Clear water as warm as a bath, shady trees and a cool breeze.

 Then home to contemplate going back to work on Monday!

and now, about work

 

In the last 40 years it is only when I've been an AVI/VSO that I have worked full time.  So here I am, 12 months short of retirement age, working an 8 hour day, 5 days a week.  I sit behind a desk all day looking at a screen but it's exhausting!  Thank goodness for Wama, our hausmeri, who does all our washing and cleaning.  We only go in to town to go shopping once a week so have to be organised or do without.  We can get some veggies  from stalls (tarps on the ground actually!) along our road and a few essentials at the kiosk at work.  Today, probably because of yesterday's snap public holiday, there was no bread at the supermarket, and no plain flour.  Luckily we had a little flour left  so I've made some bread this afternoon for tomorrow's picnic.  (My next blog post will be about the long anticipated boating expedition to Labu Beach)

I promised news on work - that's why we are here!  The top picture is the view from my desk when Steve isn't in his chair.  And the other is of flowers on my desk - the cleaner thought I needed flowers!  I think I'm making progress on my "Grand Plan" but it's always one step forward, two steps back.  I'm excited about its potential, the IT tech is excited too.  We'll have a meeting next week with my supervisor, the librarian, the IT tech and me to sort out the way forward.  What I'm working towards is an online library of learning resources for farmers and extension workers with emphasis on small files - posters, fact sheets, podcasts and training manuals - that can be easily downloaded.  The remoteness of many communities and the unreliability of internet means finding what you want on line quickly and easily is important, and only needing to download small files - hundreds of kilobytes rather than megabytes - is the way to go.  Once we get all NARI's resources available I'm going to badger and bully other organisations - commodity boards and universities - to get with the program!  I'll let you know how it goes.

I reported in my last blog that the Governor of Morobe Province had died on the weekend of the Morobe Show.  It cast a bit of a shadow over the show celebrations and the 50th Anniversary celebrations a few days later.  

The Honourable Luther Wenge was the MP for Lae and an influential member of the local community.  He was a strong supporter and defender of my workplace, the National Agricultural Research Institute.  So yesterday, when his body was returned to the province from Port Moresby, tens of thousands of Morobians lined the road in his honour.  It had been declared a public holiday, just in Morobe Province, only the day before but we went to work so we could pay our respects along with the rest of the NARI staff.

As so often happens with events here in PNG the published schedule was aspirational when it came to times!  We had been told to expect the cortège to pass NARI Headquarters at 11 am so we were down by the gate well before then, along with all the NARI staff, both HQ and research centre, the children from the local primary school and many local residents.  We were getting updates from a colleague who was in the official NARI car in the procession.  The car carrying the casket didn't leave the airport until after 11 - the fire trucks there had first to give it a watery blessing with their hoses - and then proceeded at walking pace it seemed for the next 25 kilometres.  At around 1 pm there was disbelief, and some mirth, at an update that the convey still wasn't at Yalu Bridge, about half way to us, and then finally some hope that it might eventually get to us when we heard a report around 2:30 that it was at 11 mile - we are at 9 mile.  We initially were waiting standing near a coconut tree in its sparse shade - not under it as that can have deadly consequences.  One coconut did fall while we were waiting and the person sitting closest - less than a metre away! - claimed the prize.  Our friend Lee, who has an office in the NARI grounds close to the gate, fetched some plastic chairs so we could sit and the waiting wasn't too bad.  It was interesting to watch the school children drifting back and forth from the road over the course of 4 hours as all the false alarms came with each lot of flashing lights and sirens.  There was an entrepreneurial soul selling betel nut and another selling cold fruit drinks. 

Just before 3 o'clock the procession finally arrived! All along the Highlands Highway where our building is, and which runs from the airport in to town, there were palm fronds tied to lamp posts and power poles, and strewn over the tarmac road.  People threw flowers over the vehicle carrying his casket as it slowly drove past.   The convoy was several kilometres long and included trucks and buses overflowing with people.  There were people sitting on the front bumper bars of trucks as they drove along the road as well as filling the trays and sitting on top of the canopies.  Buses too were overflowing, with people hanging out of doors and windows and standing on the back bumper bar hanging on tight!  There was Land Cruiser after Land Cruiser  filled with military and police top brass - goodness knows who was protecting the rest of the country! - and most vehicles were daubed with muddy handprints and graffiti praising the late Governor and wishing him well in the afterlife.

After the main part of cortège had finally passed we returned to the office as the crowd dispersed.  It was another 15 minutes before all the vehicles had gone and we were able to go home.

The Big Day has arrived

 We've had a busy few days and now the official day is here we are happy to watch it all unfold on the television!  I'm too tired to do anything else.  In town there will be crowds which we've been advised to avoid and traffic chaos.  We could hear the jets flying over and the 21 gun salute from here at 11 Mile.  Goodness knows how loud it was at the Stadium.  Yesterday there was a Float Parade - we saw a few of them heading down the Highlands Highway in to town - and the regatta.  Individual organisations have had their own celebrations.  Overall it has been huge!

On Sunday we went to the Morobe Show.  It is normally held on the weekend closest to the full moon in October but this year it was moved to be held alongside the 50th Anniversary Celebrations.  It is a two day event and we went on the second day as that's when the Singsing happens.  Good thing too as Saturday it rained all day. It was a 'buggerup' our guard told us.  Sunday we just had to deal with the resultant mud.  I don't know if the Sunday crowd was bigger because of Saturday's rain but it was certainly crowded.  We have been told that it used to be worse but the price of admission has gone up and numbers have gone down - I think that's a bit of a shame. 

There were all the traditional stands and sideshows of an Australian country show.  Face painting and showbags were very popular with children and adults alike.  We spent a bit of time in the Australian Pavilion - there is so much that happens here that Australia has a hand in.  I was doing 'networking' and was able to connect with a few people who have an interest in agriculture extension and want to be involved in my project.  We also spent time in the NARI stand which was very impressive.  The largest  amount of time was spent watching the singing parade.  Around 50 groups sang and danced their way around the arena in traditional dress.  There was so much variety even within a province.  There were feathers, leaves and shells and fantastical head dresses.  There was body paint, drums and weapons - spears and bows and arrows.  Some groups were warlike in their attitude, some were telling a story, some just looked like they were having a party.  

We were close to the gate when the groups started coming in so could see them parading (and dancing!) through the mud. 

The ceremonies on the main arena started with lots of marching - school groups and armed forces - then the arrival of the Governor General (he'll be having a busy time just now) and lots of speeches, then more marching.  There was the presentation of the awards for Miss Morobe Show and a performance by an Australian Army brass group who were very good!  There was also a tinge of sadness because the Governor of Morobe Province, who is also a local member of parliament, died on Saturday.

Then came the highlight.  The parade of all the singing groups twice around the oval. So much colour, sound and movement.  So many shells and feathers and hours of preparation.  Some of the little ones seemed a bit bewildered but it was an extraordinary show.  Here are just a few of the hundreds of photos I took with my phone.  Steve's blog will have proper camera photos so make sure you look at those too.

Yesterday NARI held a 50th Anniversary celebration.  The program had the event beginning with a flag raising at 8 am so our driver had us there in plenty of time.  As it happened the  start time was quite a bit later but that was fine.  There was plenty of talk, mostly in Tok Pisin but we could get the drift.  The sense of joy and pride in PNG  shines through all the celebrations.  There was a quiz for the children and a parade of the little ones in traditional dress.  

And of course there was birthday cake.

I'm there in 'seasonal wear'

In the afternoon there were games - a treasure hunt, then volleyball for the girls and women and soccer for the boys and men.  The staff and families are divided between four 'houses'.  We were assigned to Red Haus. I put on a red shirt but stuck with a barracking role.  Good thing too as the volleyball players were very skilled!

The treasure hunters are searching for a 20 Kina note wrapped in plastic.  It wasn't found.

Blue Haus were no match for Red Haus in the volleyball.

Last night we went on a sunset cruise courtesy of the Lae City Authority.  It was part of the Lae Yacht Club Regatta.  The Australian Consulate -General in Lae kindly asked that we be invited.  The Chair of the Lae City Authority was an excellent host.  It was a lot of fun.  We were welcomed on board in style.  The MV Ialibu is run by Lutheran Shipping and runs a service between Lae and Rabaul calling at several other island ports.  The deck, where usually cars are parked on this roll on roll off ferry,  was a fine place for a party.  The band was excellent as was the food and drink.  The guests were a real mix - local and visitor.

The Deputy Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Hon. John Rosso, was on board.  He is also the member for Lae.  He was very relaxed and chatty.  The Mayor of Cairns was on board.  She and some of her staff are visiting for the Golden Jubilee celebrations as Cairns has a sister city relationship with Lae.  There were many local business people.  There were some visitors from Germany who had grown up in PNG where their father was a Lutheran missionary.  Their jiving skills were amazing considering the fake grass dance floor and the rocking of the boat!

There were many other boats forming the regatta, covered of course in PNG flags.  The mood was very happy.  

A highlight of the night was a performance by a troupe of Melanesian Knife dancers from Bougainville.  (I admit to being slightly concerned when a group of youths with machetes came on board.)  They were so skilled!  Sparks literally flew when they clashed knives.  They spun the machetes around their heads and legs and then caught them again by the handle.  I didn't see any fingers lost.

The night ended with a wonderful fireworks display.

It has been a hectic couple of days but a lot of fun.  We have today and tomorrow off then back to work on Thursday.  Now everything (I hope) should settle down and I can get seriously into my Grand Plan for agricultural extension in PNG.  More on that next time.

Leave a comment if you can, Jenny

50th Anniversary of Independence

 

We've noticed the excitement has been building over the past few weeks as we head towards September 16th.  Everywhere you look people are dressed in red, black and yellow.  Cars buses and trucks are flying flags of all sizes and there are hats, bags and scarves with the Bird of Paradise and Southern Cross motifs every where you look.  The receptionist at NARI has been wearing the colours proudly.  She says it is her 'seasonal wear' for September and that she buys one new Independence dress each year.  At the moment she is wearing a little flag tucked into her hair for extra impact. 

The office is decked out with flags as well and each day something new is added.  Yesterday it was the 'independence tree' swathed in flags near the front door and blow up golden number 50.

Today we noticed all the school children were in flag and independence themed garb.  All the schools were having a special cultural day with an independence theme.  The children at the school 

next to NARI had the choice of flagwear or traditional dress.  These two youngsters chose to come in the dress of their family tribes - there are almost a thousand separate tribal groups in PNG so in the mixing pot of Lae there would have been many different variations adorned with feathers and shells. 

Along with the excitement of the anniversary has come a darker side to the occasion.  Quite often Excitement + Alcohol = Trouble.  The Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary is warning of unrest and plans for violence from disaffected and unemployed youth and other disadvantaged and marginalised groups that are feeling they've missed out on the prosperity that others have.  We've been warned to stay away from crowds as they can turn without warning.  We are still hoping to get to the Morobe Show but won't be at the official Independence celebration which is a disappointment.

I have taken this poem from the Facebook page of the Papua New Guinea Association of Australia.  It is by a PNG journalist named Malum Nalu.  It is quite beautiful and very moving.

PNG AT 50 | We Are the Children of the 1960s – A Bridge Between Worlds

By Malum Nalu

We were born in the late 1960s — into a world still under the shadow of colonialism, but stirring with the promise of freedom.

The Queen was on our coins. English had just arrived in our classrooms. Roads were few, yet our imaginations ran wild.

Papua New Guinea was not yet a nation — but we were already its sons and daughters.

We grew up in the 1970s, as the flag of black, red, and gold was raised to the skies.

We were children during independence — wide-eyed, barefoot, and full of wonder.

We remember the kundu drums beating, the school choirs singing, the joy in our parents’ voices as the nation found its name.

We drank Fanta from glass bottles, bought twisties at trade stores, and danced to music played on vinyl records, cassette tapes, and later, CDs.

Life was raw, real, and full of hope.

We studied in the 70s and 80s, when education meant chalkboards, school uniforms, and strict teachers.

We memorised multiplication tables and sang hymns during assembly.

We passed notes in class, walked miles to school, and came home to gardens, laughter, and storytelling around the fire.

We came of age in the 80s and 90s, a time of nation-building.

We fell in love, got married (or didn’t), raised families, found jobs in a growing PNG.

We saved for box cameras, took photos which were developed at the pharmacy, and sent letters through Post PNG.

We queued at public phones, dropped in 20 toea coins, and remembered numbers by heart.

Some of us became teachers, nurses, carpenters, soldiers, police officers, journalists, or small business owners.

We helped carry the weight of a new nation on our shoulders — with pride.

We entered the 2000s a little older, a little wiser.

We watched our children embrace mobile phones, computers, Facebook, and the world beyond.

We didn’t always understand it — but we adapted. We endured.

We continued to give — from our wisdom, our work, our hearts.

By the 2010s, we had become “elders.”

Our children began asking:

“Did you really grow up without TV?”

“Did you walk to school every day?”

“Did you use those big black phones on the wall?”

And now, in the 2020s, we stand as the living memory of a young nation turning 50.

We have lived through:

• Seven decades

• Two centuries

• Two millennia

From slates to smartphones, typewriters to AI — we have witnessed it all.

We’ve gone from:

• Letter-writing to WhatsApp

• Shortwave radios to YouTube livestreams

• PMVs and Land Rovers to sealed highways and Air Niugini jets

• We’ve travelled by canoe, dinghy, PMV, LandCruiser — and sometimes, just on foot 

• From vinyl and cassettes to streaming music

• From marbles and slingshots to mobile games

We remember when rugby league lived on the radio.

We cheered for John Wagambie in 1977 as he led the PNG Kumuls to a 37–6 victory over France.

We cried when John Aba fought valiantly but lost to Eusebio Pedroza in the 1979 World Featherweight Boxing Title.

We roared as Marcus Bai hoisted the NRL Premiership trophy with the Melbourne Storm in 1999, and again in 2004, as he lifted the English Super League title with Leeds Rhinos.

We waved flags and sang together during the Pacific Games — in 1969, 1991, and 2015, right here on home soil.

And we sang “Islands and Mountains” — not just with our voices, but with our hearts.

We’ve lived through:

• The Bougainville Crisis

• The Rabaul volcanic eruption of 1994

• The global panic of Y2K in 1999

• Cyclones, volcanic eruptions, fuel shortages

• The pain and silence of COVID-19 lockdowns

And yet — we are still here.

Still standing.

Still believing.

Still proud to call this land — this blessed land of a thousand tribes — home.

We are the generation born in the 1960s —

We are the bridge between the old world and the new.

We are the last of the handwritten letters and the first to hold a mobile phone.

We are the keepers of PNG’s stories — the eyewitnesses to its birth, its struggles, its triumphs.

We are rare.

We are resilient.

We are Papua New Guinea.

I thought Malum Nalu really captured what every one is feeling - the pride, the hope, and the joy.  In other works he has written he also addresses the challenges this nation faces.

On a separate topic, the PR officer at NARI has been very busy making sure the world knows we are in Lae.  We've been on the front page of the website and on the Facebook page.  Last week we were in the national papers!  There are big expectations of our presence that we'll work hard to meet.

Next time I hope I'll be able to bring you a report from the Morobe Show.

Jenny