South Pacific Lager

The photo in my last post about Kokoda and the lads sitting in front of Andrew's Stoa eating cucumbers is a fine segue onto my next post, and this one is all about Beer and the PNG fineart of Hospitality. You see the other day I was perusing my local beer merchants fine warehouse of alcohol and I noticed a very familiar beer on the shelves and it was one I had not tasted for some time but knew very intimately.

SP.
Well I just had to make a purchase.

But then I got to thinking about all the great times that SP had been with me over the years, all the laughs, all the tears, the good times... the good times. SP is a critical part of PNG culture and its dynamics; I'm sure those people who visit PNG and don't drink beer, miss out on something.

But lets talk about the beer itself... it's a hoppy beer and quite bitter, it does hint of its parent beer in Heineken especially the Export. Niugini Ice is pretty ordinary though, sweet and strong and designed for the PNG Nightclub market, Ice is pretty forgettable. But who could forget the Stout with Father Christmas on the label?

SP lager, has to be served cold, not room temperature nor "I have just turned the fridge on temperature" and some merchants got the temperature right when others failed.

The tale continues....

More from Kokoda Station, Oro

It's been a while now since I left Kokoda; in fact its been 18months at least since I was there and while I keep an eye on how things are going, I am sure something is different and maybe nothing has changed...

These three photos again show three different expressions on three different groups of people with three potentially different dreams. The first shot of the three lads sitting outside Andrew's Stoa is one of my favourites from Kokoda. If you finish the Kokoda Track at Kokoda then the first point of call is the carved timber signage out front of the Hospital and then the second idea is to wander down to the Airfield or find a place to stay. Diagonally opposite the Hospital is Andrew's Stoa where you can buy some typical stoa goods in PNG; SP lager, and Maggi Kakaruk Seasoning both seen here in this image. Next to this Stoa is Little Priscella's Place run by Priscella and David and not to be confused with the bigger Priscella's Place (scene for shot 2).

In many parts of PNG one can find isolated Villages where the kids may not recall the last time they saw a white person apart from the local Missionary and this often leads to awe and amazement from the kids when you first show up to town. Kokoda however sees its fair share of white visitors (some are brown from the 96km mud track, and some are clean off another plane) so I excused the kids when they didn't show too much enthusiasm for a white guy with a camera. But this guy at the front of the shot is great; his total "I couldn't care less" attitude has given this shot a sense of realism and it offers his whole "where does the future for me lie?" imagery. He is eating a cucumber and he is sprinkling Maggi Kakaruk Seasoning on it before taking a bite; a very cheap snack and apart from the MSG in the Seasoning, it could almost come across as being "healthy"???

Interesting fact; at the time of this photo being taken, the Kokoda Local Level Government (LLG) were holding elections meaning that the sale of alcohol was prohibited, the cartons you see in shot are empties and are waiting for the big truck to come by, pick up all the dead ones and take them to Popondetta, and then to Buna and then back to Lae by boat. The bottles that survive this journey then get washed and refilled and end up at a similar Stoa just like this one. Earlier that morning, I met with a few Police Officers who had been sent from other Provinces to keep an eye on the election and the Prohibition. We spent some time chatting as they were all waking up for a brand new day; later on in the afternoon, I would find the Officers again washing and relaxing at the local stream drinking the SP they had confiscated during the day and they then offered me a beer. Now I don't mind a beer and it had been some time since I had last sipped on the golden ale, as I had spent some time in the mountains away from such luxuries but even I draw the line at warm SP; no electricity in town, no refrigeration.

Shot 2 was taken at Priscella's Place which has quite a sizeable guesthouse and dining room. Like everyone in Kokoda (Little Priscella included), you can arrange Porters and Guides through most of the Guesthouses and contacts you make at Kokoda Station itself. Priscella is very welcoming and knowledgable about the track and Kokoda and on this day, she had arranged for a local Oro-kaivan sing-sing group to perform and the kids in the photo are relatives of the Performers. Again I like their "another white guy with a camera" look and I hope that PNG does not adopt this philosophy nation-wide as I am sure, more and more tourists will seek out the potential of this wonderful country. The fantastic thing about this image is the true awe and amazement of the three youngest kids as they watch their Mums and Dads and Aunties and Uncles perform a traditional sing-sing; perhaps the traditional ways will continue to educate and en-rapt for generations to come?

And finally onto the last image from Kokoda Station and that of the older generation of women I met down at the Airport. The day waiting at the Airport for my flight was a fantastic day of fun and games. I met up with Cecily again and we once again greeted each other in the language of the Tolai, much to the mirth of some of the meris in shot. I sat down with these ladies behind the Airport Shelter and the women asked if I would like to play cards with them and I remembered back to the moment in the Southern Highlands on a wet day, walking into a Pool Hall and a Rasta man asked me "Do you want a game of pool?" to which I replied; "I'm no good at pool" and he said "You don't need to be good, you just need to have money!" so I replied to the card meris that no, I didn't understand their rules to which they said "Neither do we, but you just need some money!" and they all broke out in laughter.

Well I continued to watch the very confusing blend of Go-fish and Uno and Snap and decided my money would be best spent on a cold beer when I finally returned to Moresby. The meris were enjoying the conversation and enjoying the betelnut and they then asked why I wasn't spending time with the white trekkers at the front of the Airport shelter and I was out back here with the gambling meris? I must admit it did feel like having a cigarette behind the shelter shed back in High School and was obviously the place where the bad meris hung out, but it was also the most liveliest place. I knew none of the trekkers and they were all tired and dirty and wanting to get home whereas the local meris were laughing, chewing nut, gambling and we were all eating the really bad chocolate do-nuts that PNG makes soooo poorly.

I had a great day, sitting out underneath the Oil Palm in the shade just watching the coming and goings of a group of people who could have so much more but thanks to a few are left with what they have and it doesn't faze too many.

Kokoda Track, Naoro, Central Province

I once walked the Kokoda Track with a wonderful group of people and I had such a fantastic experience. The majority of our Porters and Guides hailed from the Villages of Naoro 1 and Naoro 2; the first set atop a spectacular razorback ridge and the second in the valley below. As we left Naoro 1 and stood at the road junction to Naoro 2, a couple of the porters called out in the direction of Naoro 2 and someone responded. A conversation ensued and messages were passed. A point to think about is that Naoro 2 was a 20 minute walk from this junction!

I asked the Porter what it was he said down the valley towards Naoro 2 and he said he was passing a message onto his wife and family to say everything was okay and that he would be home soon.

One of the ladies who walked with me on the Track has now returned to Naoro 2 and has offered assistance to the local Porters in setting up a new Locally based Trekking Company. Please click on this link to visit their excellent website: Naoro Kokoda Treks

I wish them well in their attempt to enter a tough competitive market and I hope they find success.

Here is a picture of Lindy walking into Naoro 1.

Kokoda Station, Oro

Well there I was, I had spent a week working with a crew down in Milne Bay and going for walks to Waterfalls and the plan was to fly Airniugini out of Gurney to Jackson's on the Tuesday afternoon and then catch the scheduled Airlines PNG flight from Jackson's to Kokoda on the Wednesday. Now I have travelled to Alotau on many occasions and I know the afternoon flight often gets re-scheduled to the morning after and it did so on this occasion. So this meant I had one hour on the ground in Moresby to race home to Town, empty my week of dirty laundry, pick up a new fresh batch of clothes and camping gear and get on a plane to Kokoda. Which I managed to do quite successfully.

But then I arrived at the Airlines PNG terminal to watch the Schedule flight come and go and come and go and come and go. Three Charters meant that the same plane would go to Kokoda, get some Trekkers, bring 'em back to Moresby, get some more trekkers, take them to Kokoda and so on. I and my companions and a few locals would have to wait, and wait, and wait. Eventually, late in the afternoon, it was our turn.

In a weird twist of fate as I see it, our pilot that afternoon was the late Jenny Moala and she was quite pleasant and chatty to us as we were preparing to taxi. Motoring down the runway, she seemed in constant communicae with the Tower. I noted to my fellow passengers that the clouds were hanging heavy over the Owen Stanleys and that it may be a rough flight. Well, Jenny then turned to us and said "Hey Guys, we're not going to Kokoda today, there is heavy rain at Kokoda and I don't want to take the risk"

While I was annoyed at yet another cancelled flight, I felt that if the pilot says it is too risky, then its too risky for me.

So, that one hour rush in the morning meant that in reality, I had 24 hours in Moresby to sort out my things.

The next morning we left Jacksons and flew into a sunny Kokoda, and after visiting the Chinese Store at the bottom of the plateau, me and the crew were walking/half running up the Kokoda Track to go and get some work done.

Well the work got done and it was time to leave the mountains and wander back to Kokoda. Here we discovered we had a few days to wait around for our flight, so I engaged in some work with the locals and made a few friends. One such lady is the reason for this blog entry; despite my crazy work schedule and missed flights and hard yakka work and walking up and down Mountains, this lady named Cecily was a shining light.

Cecily was a lady who I believe represents all that is beautiful about the land of PNG and the people of PNG, her work was volunteered and unheralded; she had travelled extensively throughout PNG and to other parts abroad yet knew where her heart called home and she operated at a grass roots level. Here's her story.

One afternoon, resting after a hard day's toil, I was sitting around on the edge of the road saying "Apinun" to all who would wander past when a group of young children left their primary school and wandered down the road past the Kokoda Hospital and down towards the Memorial site. I said "Apinun olgeta" and the kids laughed at the white guy. We then all broke out into conversation about their day at school and sports and stuff, when I spotted a Motuan amongst the children. I said "Hadorai namona" to the young girl and she giggled wildly and the other kids all slapped each other. Then I heard Cecily say "You say Hadorai Namona to the nice man, he's speaking your language" and the young kekeni said "Hadorai"

After an "Oi namo" exchange the kids all ran off laughing. Cecily stayed around and looked at me, she said "You speak Motu, not too many white guys speak Motu these days, you're not a trekker?" and I said no I wasn't and that I was working in Moresby and had many Motuan friends there, but this week I was in Kokoda. We talked about the work I did and also of the work that Cecily was involved in. I asked if she were the teacher for the children and she said sometimes. Cecily volunteered her time a few days a week to offer support to the education that the children were trying to get through the proper school by teaching the children English.

Cecily told me that when she was a young girl growing up, they taught her her tok ples first, Motu second and then English, and everyone would speak English, none of the brutish tok pisin that the Highlanders spoke. Cecily told me of her disgust at how she travelled the length and breadth of PNG and had visited countries overseas only to return to find all the children speaking pidgin. So she decided to rectify the problem and she spoke English and English only to the children of Kokoda, hoping to educate them in the language of the planet. I promised Cecily that I would too greet the children of the school in English.

The next afternoon as the children wandered past again, I spoke with them in English and they responded, some in English and some in Pidgin, so I said that Miss Cecily would not be happy unless they spoke in English and they agreed and spoke in only English. We all sat down and we talked stories about the work I did, my family and life in Australia. I asked them about their families, their parents, their brothers and sisters and what they wanted to do when they grew up.

Then Cecily walked around the corner and the children all looked up to her. Cecily had let it slip that she had once married a Tolai man and lived in Rabaul before the eruption, so I said "Boina rabian" and Cecily looked speechless, her jaw dropped, and she then responded in Tolai. The children too could not work out what was going on, so Cecily explained that I had spoken to her in the language known as Kuanua or the language of the Tolai people.

Once again, the kids all rain off laughing and Cecily stayed for a story or three. Some years ago, the people of Kokoda Station needed electricity so a brand new diesel generator was installed, you can see it behind its locked cage on the hillside near where this young fellow was sitting and unfortunately due to an argument about maintaining the generator, someone locked the cage and went bush. To this day, the generator has never turned over and Kokoda Station is without electricity, despite having powerlines (that are falling over); so story telling is the pastime of choice. Cecily and I talked of Rabaul and how it once was, and how it is now.

The next day, I wandered down to the airfield along with the rest of Kokoda Station and we watched the charters come and go. We watched the tired and exhausted trekkers get on their plane and head back to Moresby to electricity and running water and we watched a new batch arrive. Again, my flight was the last to leave but this day we did leave.

I met Cecily once again at the airport and we chatted amongst the gambling meris and we told more stories much to the laughter of the gambling meris. Cecily and I, our conversation was part Tolai, part Motu and mainly English, and this had the gambling meris laughing and slapping each other, but that is another Oro Province tale...

Kokoda Track, Oro

How's this guy? This is one of those photos that is not meant to work, but somehow the content means so much more than "Did I get the right shutter speed for the light conditions?". To set this tale; I had just walked from Ower's Corner to Kokoda and here I am walking down the concrete path that leads from the Kokoda Plateau (Memorial Site) and down to the Chinese Store. This path used to be a road until a big Raintree fell across the path and in true Kokoda fashion, an argument has broken out as to whose responsibility it is to clear the road.

So I have walked for 8 days through the streams and through the Rivers and it is here that I have one creek crossing left and then a concrete bridge over the Mudi River, and then to the Kokoda Airstrip. I am merely steps away from finishing the Kokoda Track; the porters and guides have been wonderful, the Villagers on the track have been fantastic and I have had an emotional ride. Living in PNG and working alongside Koiari and Orokaivans, it took no time for the Villages to learn of my journey and I was met and greeted by many along the journey. I met Wives and Fathers, Children and Dogs of the men who I worked with in Moresby.

So, for the entire length of my walk, and the time I had spent previously in Kokoda, for a great deal of time I was thinking "What is the future for these people?"

And in this photo, I think this young boy is thinking the same thing... where does his future lay? In the old and aged Palm Oil Plantation? As a Guide on the Kokoda Track? As a Raskol in Popondetta?

This photo was taken as I was walking down the concrete path to the airport, I had carried my Digital SLR across the Track but this was taken with my little point and shoot, I have no idea what setting, I just grabbed the camera and still moving fired from the hip.

Popondetta Airport, Oro

Like I mentioned before, one day while waiting for my plane to come in, a very popular pastime in Papua New Guinea, I was out chatting to the locals, and there were bag after bag after bag after bag of Betel Nut just sitting on the tarmac. Now I'm thinking, I sure do hope these bags are not getting on my flight because we are not going to get over the Owen Stanleys unless they send a Antonov.

So I am chatting to the locals and I discover that some very entrepreneurial kinda guys have chartered a plane to carry them and their Betel Nut to Moresby, they say it has cost them K23,000 for the plane but they reckon they got K40,000 to K50,000 worth of nut to sell. Now Betel Nut is a bit cyclical and it seems sometimes that it can be a bit seasonal (like a lot of produce) and my friends tell me that Oro Betel Nut is red-hot at the moment and the chewers of Moresby are just itching to get their teeth into some of Oro's finest.

So I left my Betel Nut Empire Kings and wandered around a bit more, and I found myself chatting to a man named Nathan whose Father Pol Toki owns and operates the Birdwing Butterfly Lodge, now I never stayed there, but I wished I had. I had a great time chatting to Nathan and his family and I kinda feel that his hospitality at the Birdwing may have been more pleasant than the Hotel Lamington, which is not the best of the Coral Seas chain of Hotels, and I think it may have slipped out of the Coral Seas group nowadays... but anyway, Nathan's daughter was sitting in the back of the ute eating the much loved PNG Cracker Biscuits, I think it may have been the Snax Chicken Cracker brand this time and Nathan asked if I could take her photo; which I did and later in Moresby, I printed the photo and sent it to Nathan. And he wrote a letter back to me which I still keep and is in my Lonely Planet guide, on the page of the Birdwing Butterfly Lodge, Oro.

Here is Nethalean.

Popondetta, Oro.

Popondetta; the Provincial Capital of the Oro Province and just quietly, its kinda stuck between a rock and hard place. I mean, I liked the place but it has a tough life ahead of it.

Here's how I saw it. Popondetta is a tough neighbourhood; I did quite a bit of solo travelling in PNG and I wandered around freely in many towns with the locals all telling me that "Nah, there's no raskols here" but in Popondetta, all the locals were saying "Take Care, Popondetta is full of raskols". This didn't stop me though, I wandered around the town and had no dramas, so I don't know what the fuss is about.

Popondetta; it's not on the coast so it doesn't have a huge ex-pat community, it's not Kokoda, so it doesn't get a huge influx of tourists, Cyclone Guba smashed all the bridges in the Province so road travel is a bit hit and miss, the Oil Palm doesn't seem to be as fruitful as those in New Britain and it doesn't look like the LNG project is going to be of any benefit to this part of PNG. The only thing that looked like it was going well was Betel Nut. Boy did I see a heap of that going on board a chartered Airlines PNG flight to Moresby! Street value was between K40,000 to K50,000 worth! Whoo oooh!

There's a problem here and it stems from the management of this Province, while I was in Oro, the LLG at Kokoda were being stifled for funds from Big Brother Popondetta because of Jealousies; that evil which permeates PNG culture. Kokoda gets all the international fan fare because of the track and it gets all of the tourists, yet the PLG based in Pop are unlikely to help progress Kokoda yet there is little reason to develop the Provincial Capital. What is the future for Popondetta? And I haven't even mentioned the other big Tourist Drawcard for Oro and that is the spectacular Tufi fjords.


So these pictures represent the people I met and worked with, chatted to and enjoyed a few stories during my visits to Popondetta. Nicky was a chap who cleaned up the Popondetta Memorial, which comprised of a collection of Battlefield Memorial Plaques that honour the role and sacrifice made by the Australian Soldiers during WW2 in the Oro region. Nicky and his mate John Billy were happy go lucky blokes who sat and chatted with me for a while, when I chose to visit the Memorial site one afternoon.

The lady and her baby were sitting under a nearby raintree just telling stories and chewing Betelnut with her friends; and they enjoyed chatting to the white guy. It was someone in this group who explained to me that the way the police allegedly deal with raskols in Popondetta was to knee-cap them, often resulting in the loss of a leg below the knee. It was after hearing this that I then started to notice so many young men in Popondetta were on crutches and only having one and a half legs! Oh dear.

And they love to gamble in Popondetta, well they love to gamble all over PNG, but in Popondetta it was huge; Gambling was everywhere and the high/low games were the popular choice.

In fact, there was prohibition on the sale of alcohol in Popondetta, after the Guba Flooding and a PLG election; the prohibition was lifted on the very day I flew into town. By 9am that morning, everyone was drunk, I saw SP bottles being launched out of a Police Car, I saw the recently elected PLG staff dancing drunkly with each other at the Hotel Lamington and I saw home brew sales decrease dramatically. What a wild night that was!

The future of Popondetta? I don't know... but what a ride...