a sunburn only now remains (and maybe post-trip malaria)
Hello everyone,
The week is over an, and after four days it feels as if the previous seventeen didn't exist. No more bus rides through the smoky, trash-ridden streets of Moresby, no children following me along the Ok Tedi riverbed. None of that exists anymore, but the stories do.
If you don't have time or want to read the letter, there is a link at the bottom to t he pictures, which are quite nice.
I left a few weeks ago to go to Papua New Guinea to do fieldwork for my senior project, and the visit had a dramatic impact on my life. Everyday I was pushing my ability to cope with situations, in a foreign land with nobody to help me. This was one of my first engagements with the real world, where I had nothing to catch me. I had a few dates scheduled, but nothing that would save me should I fall. This was, more than anything, a real adventure.
I arrived in Moresby and wasn't particularly surprised with the place. It definitely takes some adjusting to, since it is dirty and being the only white blonde young person in the entire city it seemed, a lot of attention is directed toward youi. The crime makes you suspicious of most who help you.
I put my bags in the hotel and had the shuttle drop me off at the botanic gardens. I saw some peculiar looking birds, tribal dancers going at it in an open area, and lots of faces staring back at me with their eyes bugged out. Little children coming up and saying "hallo". This was quite relieving since I found that they did speak english, alleviating some of the dependence on my not so perfect pidgin english. Everyone is curious about white people in general, and they like Americans a lot because Australians are viewed as exploiting PNG while America is openly embraced. They trust Americans very much.
A young man approached me while I sat in the garden, a law student at University of PNG. We talked a fair bit about Ok Tedi and PNG politics, then he invited me back to the university, where we ate a simple plate of rice and meat in the mess hall with his friends. We had to bring our own utensils and cups. The university there was just like any other, just warmer at night and therefore everyone hangs out chewing betelnut (a natural stimulant that stains your teeth red when you chew it) and talking late into the night.
I wandered around the coast a bit the next day, ending up at a local cafe. Linda, the 21 yr old manager, took an interest in talking to me, and so we sat around playing pool and discussing PNG and US. Everyone is absolutely brainwashed by the television here about the US, but I suppose that's pretty universal throughout the world.
In my hotel, you got every channel you could have wanted: National Geographic, FoxNews, CNN, you name it. It was like never leaving home, except the mosquitos and cockroaches the size of your tongue running around the room.
Linda showed my around after her work, and I got acquainted with the public bus system. This was one of my best experiences in PNG. I feel stories are much better than a broad scope recap, so here is my take on the bus system.
Each bus is a 22 passenger bus, usually with broken front windows plastered over in an red glue that gives the appearance of a recent bloody incident. The seats are crowded and I often stood in the open doorway, watching the concrete go on below me. A man near the door makes a clicking sound with his tongue to people to hand back their bus fare (about 16 cents) and when the bus needs to stop, we click with our tongues to t he driver and then he stops. Despite its ratty appearance and exhaust pipes that deliver thick black clouds of fumes by the truckloads as it comes along, Public buses (PMV's) are great. They have the distinctive papua new guinean smell, which is an overpowering smell of sweat and body odor. The intense heat makes it that way, but its not particularly that bad. Little children sitting next to me would often stealthily put their fingers out and touch me, making sure that the paint didn't wash off my skin. You don't see white people in the city really, except in the yacht club or the expensive hotels. Nowhere else.
People are wonderful there. I had only two bad encounters out of a few hundred, one kid who tried to pickpocket me and a mining company employee. I even got to interview two Provincial Governors. I was hanging out at an upper class hotel in moresby with a kiwi I met from my lower class hotel, and all of a sudden the provincial governor sat down nearby. After learning that mining was soon to come in his province, I went up and talked to him, arranging a lunch meeting the next day after parliament was out for lunch. Coincidences like this happened often, and they usually gave me unbelievable opportunities. For example, I missed my bus at the mine, forcing me to stay another night. In that day, I talked to the community affairs office, who have since invited me to return (most expenses paid) over Christmas break for a few weeks, doing community consultations about the environmental effects of the mine in the very most remote parts of the Province. All because of a missed bus.
Another thing:
Waiting. Waiting is a part of life. I waited hours and hours for things to happen. It took my hotel hours to pick me up from the airport, only a five minute drive away. Things are horribly unreliable, but if you just forget about Western standards or expectations, then it becomes a paradise. It's a beautiful place. Even the dirt, crime, and poverty of Port Moresby.
But, I digress.
I flew into Tabubil (the town next to the mine), and when I saw the Ok Tedi river for first time, my heart shot up into my throat, and I choked back tears and anguish for what I saw. A dirty dark brown stream of water in a channel ten times wider than the river. sediments choking the river, on the order of 80,000 tons every day for twenty years. Here was everything I'd studied, I knew so much about this river, and here were the real effects, the real feelings, and the real people (little dots below me as we approached the airstrip) affected everyday by this.
I took a path down to the riverbed, was approached by some drunk locals, then descended into the river bed itself. Almost a kilometer wide in some places, but really a tiny river, gray with silt, running through it. The sediment is 70 meters deep here.
I walked along the riverbed, my mind unable to think of anything, unable to speak (for me, quite an event) as I picked through the rocks and thick mud that coated the channel.
I heard a scream, and three little children timidly approaching me. One had a walkman with little headphones over his ears, the other wearing a blue shirt for pants, I waved to them and smiled.
They screamed over to other children, and instantly, as if coming up out from the trenches, kids poured off the hill and ran across the riverbed towards us. I was obviously the weekend entertainment, and no children would miss it. teenage girls running down from their hillsope gardens carrying their little naked sister, boys in brightly colored shirts, everyone running down to see this new species with yellow hair.
I began to speak a blend of pidgin and english to an older boy, who had very good english and a beautiful smile. He walked next to me as if he was my guide, and we made simple conversation while the rest followed, giggled and played among themselves. We walked for a few kilometers, picking up more children to join the group. He later told me that the children were frightened to see me because they had never see a white person walking the river bed next to the river, and they did not know what to do. So he (Abraham) was sent out to investigate and report back.
This simple statement broke a little piece of my heart off and deposited it in the Ok Tedi. Most of the mine executive staff are Australian expats, yet they had never, in twenty years, walked along the riverbed itself to feel the moods of the river or even watched the people working in their gardens along the banks. All they cared to do was dump the waste. 200 years of impacts along 1000 kilometers of river, and they've never walked the stretch five minutes from their house.
Among other episodes, I spent the day in a village on the lower Ok Tedi, about 200 kilometers below mine. It is accessible only by a gravel road and then a boat across the river. Here, the sediment is so thick you can sink almost waist high in it, a thick mud that coats you in God knows what heavy metals and filth. We hiked into the village, walking past a series of houses on stilts made from palms fronds and wooden posts. Its amusing to walk into the middle of nowhere with little more than treehouses, yet see people wearing beanies that say "Mexican Pride" on them.
As night came, we climbed up into to house and sat on the ground while the women (after working 8 hours) came home and made the men dinner. We had sago (made from the sago palm, beaten into a pulp), rice and tinned fish. It was surreal to be sitting in a hut like that having my food prepared for me. Except for the malaria bearing mosqiutos, this place would be perfect.
In th e morning, I attempted to climb a coconut tree, which was quite amusing to all the locals. I only made it about six feet before I couldn't go any farther, and slid down in defeat as everyone sat back and laughed. Then one of the young men inchwormed his way up to the top of a tree, climbed up into the crown and started them to the ground. We took out a machete and hacked them away, and there it was, a real coconut. We cracked them open, drank the milk and scooped out the white flesh. This was it. A memory to hold on to, and I knew that as I laughed with my friends there, spilling the jiuce all over myself.
There is much more to say, but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a link to all my pictures.
http://photobucket.com/albums/a92/tkisch2/Papua%20New%20Guinea/
I hope everyone is doing well. And I must apologize for all these mass e-mails, they are all so sickly impersonal, but I thought it'd be a nice way of learning a bit about PNG.
Love,
Teddy
The week is over an, and after four days it feels as if the previous seventeen didn't exist. No more bus rides through the smoky, trash-ridden streets of Moresby, no children following me along the Ok Tedi riverbed. None of that exists anymore, but the stories do.
If you don't have time or want to read the letter, there is a link at the bottom to t he pictures, which are quite nice.
I left a few weeks ago to go to Papua New Guinea to do fieldwork for my senior project, and the visit had a dramatic impact on my life. Everyday I was pushing my ability to cope with situations, in a foreign land with nobody to help me. This was one of my first engagements with the real world, where I had nothing to catch me. I had a few dates scheduled, but nothing that would save me should I fall. This was, more than anything, a real adventure.
I arrived in Moresby and wasn't particularly surprised with the place. It definitely takes some adjusting to, since it is dirty and being the only white blonde young person in the entire city it seemed, a lot of attention is directed toward youi. The crime makes you suspicious of most who help you.
I put my bags in the hotel and had the shuttle drop me off at the botanic gardens. I saw some peculiar looking birds, tribal dancers going at it in an open area, and lots of faces staring back at me with their eyes bugged out. Little children coming up and saying "hallo". This was quite relieving since I found that they did speak english, alleviating some of the dependence on my not so perfect pidgin english. Everyone is curious about white people in general, and they like Americans a lot because Australians are viewed as exploiting PNG while America is openly embraced. They trust Americans very much.
A young man approached me while I sat in the garden, a law student at University of PNG. We talked a fair bit about Ok Tedi and PNG politics, then he invited me back to the university, where we ate a simple plate of rice and meat in the mess hall with his friends. We had to bring our own utensils and cups. The university there was just like any other, just warmer at night and therefore everyone hangs out chewing betelnut (a natural stimulant that stains your teeth red when you chew it) and talking late into the night.
I wandered around the coast a bit the next day, ending up at a local cafe. Linda, the 21 yr old manager, took an interest in talking to me, and so we sat around playing pool and discussing PNG and US. Everyone is absolutely brainwashed by the television here about the US, but I suppose that's pretty universal throughout the world.
In my hotel, you got every channel you could have wanted: National Geographic, FoxNews, CNN, you name it. It was like never leaving home, except the mosquitos and cockroaches the size of your tongue running around the room.
Linda showed my around after her work, and I got acquainted with the public bus system. This was one of my best experiences in PNG. I feel stories are much better than a broad scope recap, so here is my take on the bus system.
Each bus is a 22 passenger bus, usually with broken front windows plastered over in an red glue that gives the appearance of a recent bloody incident. The seats are crowded and I often stood in the open doorway, watching the concrete go on below me. A man near the door makes a clicking sound with his tongue to people to hand back their bus fare (about 16 cents) and when the bus needs to stop, we click with our tongues to t he driver and then he stops. Despite its ratty appearance and exhaust pipes that deliver thick black clouds of fumes by the truckloads as it comes along, Public buses (PMV's) are great. They have the distinctive papua new guinean smell, which is an overpowering smell of sweat and body odor. The intense heat makes it that way, but its not particularly that bad. Little children sitting next to me would often stealthily put their fingers out and touch me, making sure that the paint didn't wash off my skin. You don't see white people in the city really, except in the yacht club or the expensive hotels. Nowhere else.
People are wonderful there. I had only two bad encounters out of a few hundred, one kid who tried to pickpocket me and a mining company employee. I even got to interview two Provincial Governors. I was hanging out at an upper class hotel in moresby with a kiwi I met from my lower class hotel, and all of a sudden the provincial governor sat down nearby. After learning that mining was soon to come in his province, I went up and talked to him, arranging a lunch meeting the next day after parliament was out for lunch. Coincidences like this happened often, and they usually gave me unbelievable opportunities. For example, I missed my bus at the mine, forcing me to stay another night. In that day, I talked to the community affairs office, who have since invited me to return (most expenses paid) over Christmas break for a few weeks, doing community consultations about the environmental effects of the mine in the very most remote parts of the Province. All because of a missed bus.
Another thing:
Waiting. Waiting is a part of life. I waited hours and hours for things to happen. It took my hotel hours to pick me up from the airport, only a five minute drive away. Things are horribly unreliable, but if you just forget about Western standards or expectations, then it becomes a paradise. It's a beautiful place. Even the dirt, crime, and poverty of Port Moresby.
But, I digress.
I flew into Tabubil (the town next to the mine), and when I saw the Ok Tedi river for first time, my heart shot up into my throat, and I choked back tears and anguish for what I saw. A dirty dark brown stream of water in a channel ten times wider than the river. sediments choking the river, on the order of 80,000 tons every day for twenty years. Here was everything I'd studied, I knew so much about this river, and here were the real effects, the real feelings, and the real people (little dots below me as we approached the airstrip) affected everyday by this.
I took a path down to the riverbed, was approached by some drunk locals, then descended into the river bed itself. Almost a kilometer wide in some places, but really a tiny river, gray with silt, running through it. The sediment is 70 meters deep here.
I walked along the riverbed, my mind unable to think of anything, unable to speak (for me, quite an event) as I picked through the rocks and thick mud that coated the channel.
I heard a scream, and three little children timidly approaching me. One had a walkman with little headphones over his ears, the other wearing a blue shirt for pants, I waved to them and smiled.
They screamed over to other children, and instantly, as if coming up out from the trenches, kids poured off the hill and ran across the riverbed towards us. I was obviously the weekend entertainment, and no children would miss it. teenage girls running down from their hillsope gardens carrying their little naked sister, boys in brightly colored shirts, everyone running down to see this new species with yellow hair.
I began to speak a blend of pidgin and english to an older boy, who had very good english and a beautiful smile. He walked next to me as if he was my guide, and we made simple conversation while the rest followed, giggled and played among themselves. We walked for a few kilometers, picking up more children to join the group. He later told me that the children were frightened to see me because they had never see a white person walking the river bed next to the river, and they did not know what to do. So he (Abraham) was sent out to investigate and report back.
This simple statement broke a little piece of my heart off and deposited it in the Ok Tedi. Most of the mine executive staff are Australian expats, yet they had never, in twenty years, walked along the riverbed itself to feel the moods of the river or even watched the people working in their gardens along the banks. All they cared to do was dump the waste. 200 years of impacts along 1000 kilometers of river, and they've never walked the stretch five minutes from their house.
Among other episodes, I spent the day in a village on the lower Ok Tedi, about 200 kilometers below mine. It is accessible only by a gravel road and then a boat across the river. Here, the sediment is so thick you can sink almost waist high in it, a thick mud that coats you in God knows what heavy metals and filth. We hiked into the village, walking past a series of houses on stilts made from palms fronds and wooden posts. Its amusing to walk into the middle of nowhere with little more than treehouses, yet see people wearing beanies that say "Mexican Pride" on them.
As night came, we climbed up into to house and sat on the ground while the women (after working 8 hours) came home and made the men dinner. We had sago (made from the sago palm, beaten into a pulp), rice and tinned fish. It was surreal to be sitting in a hut like that having my food prepared for me. Except for the malaria bearing mosqiutos, this place would be perfect.
In th e morning, I attempted to climb a coconut tree, which was quite amusing to all the locals. I only made it about six feet before I couldn't go any farther, and slid down in defeat as everyone sat back and laughed. Then one of the young men inchwormed his way up to the top of a tree, climbed up into the crown and started them to the ground. We took out a machete and hacked them away, and there it was, a real coconut. We cracked them open, drank the milk and scooped out the white flesh. This was it. A memory to hold on to, and I knew that as I laughed with my friends there, spilling the jiuce all over myself.
There is much more to say, but, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a link to all my pictures.
http://photobucket.com/albums/a92/tkisch2/Papua%20New%20Guinea/
I hope everyone is doing well. And I must apologize for all these mass e-mails, they are all so sickly impersonal, but I thought it'd be a nice way of learning a bit about PNG.
Love,
Teddy