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Papua New Guinea
Greetings to all from sunny Port Moresby! I'm in Papua New Guinea on a kind of holiday / research trip for stuff I've been doing with AidWatch.
We are just back from a week in a village called Serepuna, in Managalas plateau. Flying is the only way to get there, so it's relatively 'traditional'. No electricity, no plumbing, no shops.
It's really picturesque. Little houses on stilts, roofs made of palm leaves, forest, coconut trees and mountains all around. Lots of gorgeous kids with big round eyes, long eyelashes and almost constant laughter - beautiful, uninhibited infectious laughter. Sometimes they even fall over laughing. We spent a lot of time running around played with them. My favourite was a cheeky little boy whose pants kept falling down when he ran. He wasn't put off, just pulled them up and kept on running.
There are some awesome small local NGOs on the plateau, working on educating the communities about the impacts of logging and oil palm plantations, aiming to get all the clans to agree to create conservation zones. They run literacy, education and health programs- stuff that the government doesn't do. There's also a women's resource centre.
They've built an eco-lodge deep in the jungle, where we trekked out to for one night. It's indescribably beautiful there. I was so happy, swimming in a deep pool in the river, playing in the rapids and exploring the green luscious forest, so many colourful dragonflies and butterflies and tall trees, ferns, moss, vines and fungi.
Before we went to Serepuna, we'd been told there would be a 'cultural event' on. As it turned out, this was a celebration of the release of the bible in the local language (Namiai). Well, I've never been to a bible dedication before and can't say I ever wanted to, but despite the Christian element, it was still pretty cool. The whole place was decorated with yams (I can't believe they worship yams), with yam towers taller than 2 people, yams hanging like Christmas decorations from the edges of roofs, people dressed in traditional costume, dancing and singing. We were tricked into being dressed in traditional costume too but rather than looking beautiful and dignified like the villagers, I'm afraid we just looked silly.
I have discovered that while I'm very happy to go without such luxuries as electricity and hot showers (bathing in the creek was great), I am not willing to sacrifice variety of diet. The diet up there is mostly yams, yams, yams, plus other root vegetable like taro and sweet potato, with a green spinach like thing. Other vegetables are rare. The fruit is great though- delicious paw paw, bananas and coconuts. And fortunately we were there in okari season- okari are delicious nuts, which I can only describe as a mixture between an almond and a coconut…yum. On our return to Port Moresby, we were very happy to indulge ourselves with pizza, beer, ice cream and chocolate biscuits, although I miss water fresh from a spring.
Moresby is not as bad as people say, as long as you're sensible. We are staying in a house owned by Greenpeace, which has beautiful harbour views and there are great people here who are showing us around. The weather is beautiful. We are here until Thursday, then flying to a coastal town on the Eastern Cape. It feels like I've been away for so long!
By: Lisa
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