2012 PNG – 3
Dear Family and Friends,
This update is about some of the activities we did while visiting the island and at least part of our return trip.
Connie spent most of the time helping Thera with the cooking and cleanup and then working on an applique Hawaiian wall hanging to keep her hands busy. The kids were always fun as well. They loved to mimic hand motions that you might try with them. They waved until we thought their arms or ours would fall off. Then we tried such things as rabbit ears, two handed waves, and rolling hands. Oh the laughs we got. A small mound of dirt was at the end of the veranda. The kids love to run up that and wave to us from there. Then they would laugh and run back down. Of course in a couple of minutes they would do it again. If a camera came out then most of the kids in the village suddenly showed up. Their smiles are wonderful.
Some of the most memorable children were Josepha who is about 7. She brought her baby sister Thera to see us every morning. She is named for the lady we stayed with. Little Thera quickly learned to start waving as soon as she got in range. When she saw one of us her eyes lit up and she smiled from ear to ear. They have a third sister named Justina who is about 6. She has enough personality for several children. She also greeted us every morning. They have a brother Kit who is about 3. He is certainly his own little person. Sometimes coming up the hill he had such a determined look, we couldn’t help but smile ourselves. He usually stopped at least twice to wave. They had an older brother in school who had a smile that could light up a room. Too bad that will be destroyed by betel nut in another few years. From the house closest to us came Barbara. She had an unruly amount of hair that just wouldn’t do much except collect lice. She had missing baby teeth in front so we are guessing her to be about six. She loves to tap on the floor boards as if they were a drum. She also learned to twiddle her thumbs. In the same house lived a pair of twin boys named Jack and Peter. They are 15 months old. Even though we saw them many times a day they were more cautious about waving and smiling. Sometimes their mother would breast feed both of them at the same time.
We could talk some with the two teenagers who helped out 6 days a week. They spoke limited English but that is certainly more than the Sudest we could speak. (We did learn one word – ago. That is thank you.) Elsie is 19 and Rachel is 17. They will tell you they are sisters because their mothers were sisters. Family trees are very confusing and extremely extended. We learned there are 6 single girls and 6 single men in the village. Those are all under the age of 25.
One of the highlights was the day Milama came over and made a small basket from coconut palm fronds. One palm branch makes a small basket. Before the basket can be made the palm branch must be heated in a very hot fire. This dries the fronds somewhat but breaks down the fibers to make them softer. She has been making baskets since the age of 12 and is one of only 3 in the village who can make them. Unfortunately this art form may soon be lost.
Rob spent the first few days getting the ham radio gear up and working. He used this to send and receive email. First task was to get the antenna up as high as possible. Two of the men climbed up two big trees to attach ends of the antenna. With a few adjustments and some help from a friend in Boise the whole thing worked. One of these guys also helped put three portable solar panels on the roof. Unfortunately we didn’t have as much sun as hoped.
Rob being the more adventuresome one took several trips in the dinghy. First they went up to the gardens along one of the big rivers. You realize you are in a garden when a larger area of vegetation is shorter. They did see a small crocodile that trip. They also saw one of the gold panning operations.
On one of the Sundays Rob went to the school with the kids. They took the dinghy again to make the trip shorter. Instead of a 2+ hour hike, they only had a 40 minute hike. As soon as the word went out that the fuel was loaded the school kids grabbed their baskets, bags, or pots and headed down the hill. We never saw those kids move that fast before. Of course it had been raining and the walk to the dinghy was very slick. One of the small boys held Rob’s hand all the way down. He wanted to be sure Rob didn’t get hurt. The small boat was overloaded with 4 adults, 16 school children and 1 baby. The 40 minute wet and slippery jungle hike was uphill in both directions.
The third trip was to the other side of the bay to the village of Pantava. The guys asked if they could go fishing on the way. Well fishing in this case meant going out to the deep water to catch bigger fish. Lures are handmade and a fishing reel consists of a plastic bottle or piece of wood with fishing line wound around it. Four big fish were caught and it was considered by all to be a very good day of fishing. They definitely took the long way to the village. This village is much smaller, sits near some sand called a “beach”, is much flatter and is in poorer condition. However the old man or chief of the village is 70. That is ancient by their standards and he looked every bit the part. He pointed out where two WWII machine gun positions had been placed. On the return trip the guys hunted for turtle and were successful in getting a medium sized one. They may be slow on land but they are extremely fast in the water. The technique is to spear the shell and then send two or more divers in to catch it. They eventually get it back to the dinghy where they all work to load it in the boat. When they all returned Rob came up to get out of his totally soaked clothes. He looked like he was one of the divers. The guys divided the catch equally amongst the ones on the boat.
Not only did the guys catch the turtle they came over to help prepare it. The first step is to chop the meat. Let us define chop in reference to turtle. Our share was a blob of pink meat the size of a large roast. They first sliced off a section about one inch thick. Then they beat it with a knife until it was somewhere between a cube steak and ground meat. The process continues until all the meat is chopped. This is fried with onion and salt. The overall flavor is quite mild. That fits in with the rest of their diet.
The fourth trip was over to the other big river. The main objective was to go as far up the river by boat as possible. When the water was not deep enough everyone walked and pushed and pulled the boat to the next deeper place where the poling and paddling continued. When the water was too shallow to continue part of the group “walked” for another 40 minutes up what the locals call a “road”. A better definition would be a very vague trail through the jungle. It was being improved while we walked with the lead using a machete. On the way back down the river they stopped at a wild boar hunting camp for lunch. Here they found yellow betel nut which the locals called “yellow gold”. Evidently this is far superior to the green stuff called “green gold”. Several bags of “yellow gold” were collected to be resold. Hunting wild boar is a great deal of work and dangerous. To go on a hunt you have to be good with a spear and be able to climb a tree in a flash. A group of men and dogs go running through the jungle until they find a boar. They chase the animal until it finally turns to attack. The men attempt to hit it with one or more spears. Then they climb a tree as quickly as possible while the dogs proceed with the kill. We never got to try this delicacy. Panning for gold has become much more profitable and less dangerous. Rob helped the local economy by purchasing a few grams of the panned gold.
All at once it was departure day. Connie had been praying for no rain so the path to the dinghy would be dry. She also hoped the boat would arrive early. Well it wasn’t there at breakfast. The rain held off until about 10 am but then down it came. The boat arrived about 12:45. That was long enough to make the path like an Olympic luge track. Rob tried to send out one last email saying we were leaving but it didn’t make it. Down came the antenna and solar panels. The last packing was completed. The dinghy went out to get the cargo and passengers from the boat. They got in the house and we headed down the stairs when the rains came again. Small streams were flowing everywhere. Then up the hill came Josepha, Fastina and Kit. Poor Kit’s teeth were chattering from the cold. We thought the temperature was pleasant. The kids came over to the pan of rain water collected by the water tank and proceeded to take a shower. They would have turned red from the cold if their skin was lighter in color. The rain finally stopped again so down the hill we headed. One of the men and one of the ladies helped Connie down to the boat. Rob should have had more help. He took two pretty good falls and took some nice red “top soil” from the Island as a souvenir. Everyone in the village had a good laugh. The villagers will be telling that story for years to come.
The next worry was the 6 to 7 foot difference between the dinghy and the boat that had been one of the big challenges on our arrival. Connie had all sorts of night mares about getting back on the boat. But you see everyone left out one small detail. If the crew lowered the dinghy on the back of the boat there was a metal ladder! Well they lowered the dinghy and we were all able to climb aboard with relative ease.
The boat ride from the village to Misima went fairly well. The sea was calm for the first 6 hours. The next 4 hours were not so calm. We purchased “local” motion sickness tablets before going out to the Island and they worked very well in both directions. The crew caught a nice big fish (Spanish mackerel) that was well prepared for supper. Talk about fresh fish. We arrived at Misima early and “slept” on the boat until the “port” came alive. We also waited for a good rain storm to move our bags to the airport. The black garbage bags helped keep the luggage somewhat dry. The flight from Misima to Alotau was uneventful. We had a good night’s rest in Alotau. Rob took a 4 mile walk to forage for supper. Almost everything is closed on Saturday afternoons and Sundays in Alotau. However, there were probably 50 opportunities to buy betel nut supplies. A point worth remembering for the next trip.
We were advised to go to the airport early. The flights are often over booked and people get bumped. Because we were early, we were able to get on an unscheduled flight and arrived earlier than planned. The plane was a 19 passenger prop plane which flies much lower so the scenery was wonderful. The jungle covered mountains are quite spectacular. We saw one 3 tiered water fall. The rivers in a few places obviously get a lot of water. The flight was uneventful except for retrieving our luggage. We watched it being loaded and unloaded from the plane. However, it seemed to have gotten lost for about an hour. After some effort of convincing the ground staff of the problem the bags suddenly appeared.
We had a good overnight rest at the Mission lodging in Port Moresby. The fish for supper was so good even Rob liked it. Connie got the recipe for future reference. We had a temporary setback at the Port Moresby airport. Just after clearing immigrations and customs, we went through a final security check to board the plane to Brisbane. At that point the security guys wanted to confiscate the gold that Rob bought on the Island. They claimed we needed paperwork but amazingly the paperwork was satisfied with a $50 USD bribe.
Well we made the rest of the trip home via flights from Port Moresby, Brisbane, Singapore, Yokota, Travis AFB, and Sacramento. All is well that ends well.
Enjoy,
Rob & Connie
Spoffords Travel 