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.