HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 1989-08-23, Page 14PAGE 14. THE CITIZEN, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1989.
Young couple writes of adventures in New Guinea
The following letter was received
by Mrs. Rosella Rooney of Blyth
from her granddaughter Lisa Arm
strong who is travelling in New
Guinea with her husband Glenn.
Lisa is a graduate of Fanshawe
College in Journalism.
DEAR GRANDMA,
As promised, here’s our form
letter, First Edition about life in
Papau New Guinea.
We live in a little house, about
the size of a large house trailer,
that’s a one bedroom, in a com
pound with two other staff houses.
It’s about one mile from downtown.
We have all the amenities, includ
ing a house boy, who does our
laundry and basic cleaning. He also
maintains the grounds. One ‘non
Canadian feature of our house, is
there’s no source of heat. All you
do to keep out the cooler night air is
close the window.
In one comer of the yard is a
swimming pool. Outside our door
are three trees that are 75 feet tall,
and about 20 inches in diameter.
Outside the front window is a
poinsettia plant that has about $300
worth of flowers on it, at Canadian
Christmas time prices. The yard is
grass with plenty of trees, bushes,
plants, flowers and other green
things in and around it. Beside and
back of our property, that’s fenced
in, chain linked locked and barbed
wired, all of which is tastefully
hidden by plants, is a ravine that
doubles as a land fill site. The
‘Joneses’ as we like to call them,
are our neighbours on the other
side of the fence. They reside in an
8 x 12 ft. thatched roof, grass sided
home with scrap tin accents. Their
yard and floor is carved into the
side of a hill and is the orange mud
the area seems to consist of. The
site has about three adults — one
husband, two wives, and 8-9 kids.
They’re reasonably quiet, until we
want to go to sleep. The problem is,
they’re about 10 feet from our bed,
since our house is in the comer of
the lot, there’s not much to stop the
sound coming through. Within
yelling distance of our place,
there’s about 50 other ‘Jonses’.
The population of Mount Hagen
is 3,500. About one thousand are
like ourselves, Ex Patriots or'
ex-pats, about 2500 are ‘coconuts’,
black on the outside, white on the
inside, that is to say, nationals who
have regular type jobs and houses,
and there’s about three thousand
other nationals in and around town,
that live in the bushes, coffee and
tea plantations, and in other unde
veloped areas, including the ravine
by our place. These people live in
‘traditional’ dwellings, just like the
Jonses!
Mt. Hagen’s altitude is 6,000
feet, and it’s located in the middle
of Papua New Guinea, and is in the
Western Highland Province (an
original name). White man came to
the town about 30 years ago. As
you can imagine, some nationals
have a hard time coping with their
new world - the stone age meets
the computer age. It’s not uncom
mon to see men with a leather
thong around their waists with
cloth hanging down the front, and
long leaves folded down the back.
It’s known as ‘ass grass’. Most of
the women have tatoo markings
and designs on their faces. You
also see markings on their arms
and legs as well. Most people wear
clothes as we know them, but
apparently it wasn’t common prac
tice until about 15 years ago. Few
of the nationals wear shoes. As a
result of a life time of bare-footing,
their feet and toes have spread out.
Highlanders are small people, the
average height about 5 foot 2, but
their feet seem big, and they must
have a shoe size of 13 or 14, with a
triple ‘f width.
The highlanders are known as
the fiercest warriors in the country.
Age old tribal conflicts are still
fought out. The nationals have
‘rock concerts’ fairly regularly,
where they throw rocks at each
other. Some of these are held in
town, so the stores have steel
garage doors like shutters on the
windows. We were shopping one
Sunday afternoon, when we noticed
nationals running down the street.
The doors of the building came
slamming down, as a scuffle down
the street started. A few minutes
later, the whole thing was over,
and it was business as usual.
On the whole, black and white
get alone well here. About 90 per
cent of the population seems
friendly, and good natured. How
ever, the other 10 per cent, or
‘rascals’ as they’re known here, are
the ones you have to watch out for.
Generally it’s a bad idea to walk
outside at night. During the day,
women especially are advised to
stay on the main roads, avoid
nationals when they’ve been drink
ing. My biggest, and only real beef
about this place is it’s more
restrictive than I’m used to, and I
find it frustrating always watching
my step. However, we’ve heard
that people in the lowlands aren’t
as threatening.
There are some other unwritten
rules here. The most interesting
are the rules of the road. There’s
basically four for the highways and
by-ways: 1) stay on the left hand
side of the road (something that
takes a while to get used to). 2)
obey any markings and the very
few signs that are posted (there’s
no stop signs in town, just yield
ones), 3) try not to hit a person,
even if they walk out in the middle
of the road, and if you do, don’t
stop, because they’ll tear you
apart. There’s not much of a justice
system here, and things tend to
work on ‘pay back’, and that
doesn’t seem to take into account
things like whose fault it is. 4) try at
any cost, not to hit a pig. Pigs are
worth more than people. There’s
lots of people, but not as many
pigs. Another unwritten rule, is
never get in a hurry. Things
happen slow around here, and it
will get done - in time.
However, things aren’t that mis
erable. The weather here is basi
cally perfect. Sunny every day,
with white puffy clouds, that
sometimes rain on you, for about
half an hour. Even the rain is
warm. The day time high will be 27
Celsius, and at night time low of 18.
It’s like that year round. There’s
mountains all around us, that are
tall, but have vegetation right to
the very top. Brightly coloured
flowers growing everywhere, and
butterflies in colours that are
amazing. Every day we wear shorts
and short-sleeved shirts, and the
only time you’d think of putting a
jacket on, is to keep the rain off -
maybe.
As for what we do all day,
Glenn’s job is ‘as usual’ as far as
work on helicopters goes. A wide
variety of machines and all in need
of a little time and care. The hangar
is not much more than a high tin
roof and three walls. Most of the
work is done outside, unless it’s
raining, which doesn’t last long.
So, his tan is coming along just
fine. There are nine other qualified
engineers and half a dozen nation
als who do most of the dirty jobs,
such as paint stripping, and clean
ing up the messes the engineers
leave behind. Everyone gets along
pretty well, and it’s much like the
United Nations around, with no one
group outnumbering any other.
There are New Zealanders (Kiwis),
Australians (Auzis), Brits (Poms)
and Americans and Canadians
(Canucks), with a few others
thrown in for good measure
(Swedes, Philippines, etc.) Glenn
doesn’t do a lot of the routine type
maintenance, but prefers projects
that sometimes takes him away
from the hangar, and sometimes
over night, or longer. Such as tasks
like rescuing a broken helicopter,
or salvaging an old crashed military
machine off the side of a mountain.
These special jobs seem to come up
about once a week, so there isn’t
much time to get bored. Although
Lisa doesn’t appreciate the periods
Glenn is out of town on these
soirees, there is the promise she
can accompany him on some of the
longer trips, so that she can see
more of the country.
The airport is about 10 km. from
town, and getting out there is
sometimes a bit of a trick. There
are lots of company cars, but since
we’re the latest ones to arrive, and
often on a different schedule, it’s
hard to find one going the right
direction at the right time. Working
hours are generally from 8 to 5,
weekdays, and half a day Saturday
with Sunday off. That causes minor
problems as this is almost most
store hours, so most everyone takes
half a day off through the week to
do general shopping.
The standard of maintenance is
pretty good, as most of the engin
eers are very experienced, but as
usual, there’s not enough time or
money to do everything that should
be done. The Ministry of Transport
(known here as the Department of
Aviation, Transportation and Tour
ism) has only three full time staff
members, so it’s up to the company
or the individual to do what should
be done. All the regulations are
borrowed from Australia which
isn’t known for its greatness in
legislators, but the system is
workable. Glenn had an air regula
tion exam to write before obtaining
Papau New Guinea licences, which
is about half as good as a Canadian
ATTENTION
MASSEY FERGUSON
OWNERS
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License, but since the department
is so slack, anything goes until it
goes wrong. It’s better to have less
responsibility.
After a month of hustling
around, things are starting to come
together for me. I couldn’t find
work in radio, since I talk funny,
and am not a National, and not
near where the studios are. The
radio and TV here is pretty poor.
They’re just getting it figured out —
lots of dead air. However, I did
manage to become the “highlands
correspondent” for Kirsten Media
Productions. It’s a service that
covers a number of denominations.
I do stories for their newsletters.
It’s not much, but it’s some
reporting, and I’m happy to keep
my hand in that.
I also have a lead with a video
production company in town. The
lady operating it is a national, and
has agreed to let me work on some
productions when they come up. I
went to see where the editing was
done. There was a rather nice
editing suite set up in a building
with a grass roof, and grass
matting for walls. I’m also doing
work with the ‘Show Society’. The
Highland show is much like a fair,
with native dance groups, displays,
contests, etc. etc. I help out with
the writing of letters, making
phone calls, counting lapel pins -
all the really exciting stuff. It keeps
me busy for a few hours a day. I’m
also in the process of signing up for
some correspondence courses, so
there will be plenty to do. The good
thing is everything is flexible, so
there will be time to travel.
Shopping here is a far cry from
what we know in North America.
There’s plenty of stores and they
all sell food, clothes, utensils, and a
hundred other things — all general
stores. We haven’t come across
anything we couldn’t find here, but
you have to be willing to search it
out, and pay for it. Food prices for
things like jams, macaroni, spices,
and other dry goods, are about one
and a half times the cost in Canada,
but that’s mostly because it has to
be imported from Australia. Meat
is cheap, about half of what we pay
back home, the beef and poultry
seems o.k., but the pork is margi
nal. Milk products are a problem.
Cheese isn’t cheap, because it’s
imported. Fresh milk is a bit of a
trick. There’s one dairy in the
country, that hasn’t quite got its
technique down yet. Combine that
with stores that don’t fully appreci
ate refrigeration and you get
marginal milk. The key is to buy
the milk as soon as it comes to the
store (Wednesday), buy lots of it
and freeze some, keep the rest
really cold and drink it as quickly as
you can. Another problem is we
have a freezer that only holds two
litres of milk, so cow juice is only
around about four days a week.
The good part is, there’s veggies
a-plenty here. The highlands have
excellent growing conditions.
There’s an open air market in town,
where the women bring in what
they’ve grown, and sell it. You
cruise through to see what’s avail
able, and good, then start buying.
However, there’s two rules for
market shopping: 1) bring your
own bag to carry the stuff in, 2)
bring lots of coins, because they
don’t give out change. Things are
cheap in the market, a head of
lettuce, 70 cents, a bunch of
bananas 50 cents, green onions 50
cents a bunch, peas, eight pods 13
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