Farewell PNG - Last Post

So, after 60 days, 30 books, 55 alcohol free days (if I'm meant to have one AFD a week then I've saved up a years worth), 55 make-up free days (and you thought I couldn't go without my red lippy), I'm home.

In typical PNG fashion the plane from Mt Hagen to Port Morseby was over an hour late and had been downgraded to a Dash 8......with propellers!! I had dinner in Port Morseby with friends of Judy's so it was a nice farewell to PNG.

It's been an interesting and worthwhile experience and I've met some wonderful people and made some new friends. PNG has a lot to do and I hope that they can get their act together because its a beautiful country.

My photos have finally been uploaded so you can now see where I've been and what I've been doing!!! Click on the link www.flickr.com/photos/karyns

A few photos

Today I have come to Kudjip, about 20 mins from the college, to stay with an American couple. Karen and Ray are here for 2 years volunteering at the Nazerene Church Hospital. They have satellite broadband which is why I've been able to upload some photos at last!!!
Typical home
Mt Hagen
Samuel (librarian) and I
Library
Sameul and I in the Library (I'm wearing a merri blouse which Lero, who works in the office, gave me)
College Grounds
Roadside Market
Mt Hagen

It's nearly over!!

Standing outside the Mt Hagen market,wearing my Merri blouse and carrying my PNG umbrella to keep the sun off my face!!

This week we’ve had trouble with the phones, both mobile and landline so I’ve been totally out of range and unable to email. I’m in town today so I’m able to use the internet café.

Only another week and I’ll be on my way home. Not before time I might add…....as a consequence of only having only one TV channel I’ve inadvertently become addicted to McLeod’s Daughters!!

Last Friday I sat in on a meeting between the College Board and the Office of Higher Education. The college has introduced teacher training to its curriculum this year and are now seeking accreditation. It was very interesting and fortuitously the work Samuel and I are doing in the library ties in very nicely with the prerequisites the college needs to fulfill to attain their goal things like continuous improvement, quality management, documented policies, etc.etc. (sound familiar Bayside Library?)
PNG would have virtually no schools teachers or nurses if it weren’t for the missionaries and church schools. This is a fact the government readily understands and higher education facilities are developed by forming partnerships between the government and the church schools.

Election # 4
The saga continues looks like they’ll now finish counting by the end of this week and announce the final results on July 30. Along the way fights have broken out when seats have been declared and when the final results are announced we can expect some more. Last week in town there was a huge funeral procession, 100s of people painted yellow and piled onto the back of trucks to attend the funeral of a tribal leader who had been killed during the election hoo haa.

Election and other news

Voting has finished and counting has commenced. It will be another week or so before the final outcomes are known. The army is guarding the counting centres and police have been brought in from other provinces to assist (local police are sent to other areas to help circumvent bribery and wantok*). This week there have been several arrests of people trying to steal ballot boxes and a couple of people have been killed, lots of guns and rifles have been confiscated. Some candidates and their supporters tried to stop the electoral commission from taking the ballot boxes to the counting centre but that has now been sorted.

In Hagen last Friday police recovered two stolen ballot boxes and an AK47 and an SLR (both rifles I believe) at a roadblock……..it’s all fun and games at election time!!

The next round of tribal fighting may break out when the results are announced in a week or so. I may be sent off to stay in the hotel once again, behind the barbed wire and the guard dogs.

I only have two weeks of my assignment to complete and the time has passed quickly. I feel that I’ve achieved quite a lot in the library. I’ve also spent a lot of time on my own and consequently I’ve read a lot of books, (22 at last count). I’ve also read the past 6 months of the weekend Australian cover to cover and I’m now so overwhelmed with different perspectives on current events that I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to express a strong opinion one way or the other on a political subject ever again. I hear many of you laughing as I say this!!!!

Thanks to those who have posted a comment back to me, it’s been great to get your responses. (If you want to leave a comment: At the end of this posting you will see the word comment. Click on this and it will take you to a box where you can type in a reply).

* Wantok – one who speaks the same language, one who is of the same tribe, friend or neighbour.

Work

I suppose I should update you on how my work is going in the library at the college.
Samuel has picked up Dewey very quickly and seems to like organising things which I think will help him to be a good librarian. We are working on a collection management plan and we are going to start weeding the collection. I think 12 dictionaries in the reference section is slightly over doing it and the computer section has books on Lotus 123, wordstar and word perfect...does anyone remember what these were about?
We have made signs and we are working on a guide to the library brochure to help students and teachers find things.
We are also working on the access database to add subject headings to the records and investigating the best options for a library management system.
So, all in all, its going very well and everyone here seems to be happy with the work we are doing.

Elections # 2

The polling begins tomorrow and today I have been moved to a hotel/resort in Hagen. This is just in case there is any tribal problems during and straight after the polling. So I'm staying here till Tuesday when hopefully everything will quieten down...that is until they announce the results and then there might be more fighting!!
We passed several truck loads of soldiers on the way into town today, they were heading for the polling stations in the province to guard the election booths.
Last week there were big election rallies here in Hagen. Its a very big deal for the tribes and they come to town dressed up in tribal costumes, feathers, painted faces etc. etc. Unfortunately I couldn't get close enough to take photos.

P.S. After 28 Alcohol free days I have had a glass of wine today. Yay!!!!!

Update # 3

Travels
Last week I went on a trip to visit another college in Banz which is about an hours drive. The roads are not well maintained so it ended up being a very bumpy and slow ride.
Along the way I saw some beautiful countryside, roadside markets and pigs. The countryside is very green and lush and the recent rains have helped to make it even more so.

Pigs
Pigs are very popular here and the economy runs on them. They trade them use them as dowries and eat them for major celebrations. The pigs run free so you can see them along the road snuffling in the grass and mud. They apparently wander home when its dinner time.

Rain
Last week everyone was getting a bit worried that it hadn’t rained for four weeks and then we had a downpour, and when it rains, it rains cats and dogs (so to speak). Everyone is happy now and has been out planting to take advantage of it.

When plastic bags run amok

Litter is a huge problem in the town and along the road. All along the roadside rubbish, including vehicles has been dumped. The city is even worse where pink and white plastic bags blow around and get caught up everywhere. They hang from posts and shrubs making the most bizarre floral display!

Update # 2

Rugby

Having only one TV station does not give one much scope for their nightly TV viewing (hence the fact I am onto my 12th book). EM TV the local station has a mixture of channel 9 programs:Today, ACA, temptation, infotainment and sport. The sport is mostly about rugby as this is a rugby obsessed country. So I decide I would give it a go and I watched the state of origin match. (Qld won)

Now this is how I understand rugby:
Two teams of large men on a football field form a scrum (huddle together) and a ball is thrown in the middle, after what I can only imagine is some furious kicking within the scrum, the ball emerges and someone grabs it. The team member who gets the ball proceeds to run very fast up the football field towards his goal end. He is chased by members of the opposing team who jump on him and throw him to the ground. The ball is then passed to another of his team mates who resumes with the same schedule….run fast, get jumped on, pass on the ball. This goes on till someone reaches the goal or a member of the opposing team gets the ball and runs furiously in the opposite direction and gets jumped on, etc.etc…I still haven’t figured how one scores a try (tri?).

I don’t get it!!!!

Internet

The internet speed here is appalling and not consistent. I thought going into town to the internet café would be fine but I was mistaken. Last week it was great, this week it took half an hour just to do a blog post. Uploading photos is just not going to happen, so they’ll have to wait till I get home. It’s also frustrating when you are trying to research web sites for Library management software and have email correspondence with the companies…….but I will persevere!

Update

Elections
The elections are being held on 6 July, these are the first elections since 2002 and the first to use the preferential voting system. The current voting ballot requires the voter to write the names of the three candidates they will be voting for, an interesting process given that less than half of the people are literate.

A lot of the electioneering is done by candidates driving around in vans with loud speakers, chanting party slogans and policies. My first night here at the college I was awoken at 11pm by a noise that sounded like a group of tribesmen on the warpath, this was quickly followed by a speech, and after my initial fright I realised that the marauding tribesmen was in fact the siren they used to attract attention before they went into the electioneering speech!

There is a lot of disagreement between tribes about candidates which can lead to violence. (This is why the Aus Government recommends that you reconsider travel arrangements to the highlands area during this time. But as I’m located some 20 minutes outside the township in a reasonably secure location it is not considered a problem.) Maggie, the ABV rep here in Mt Hagen, has decided that she is going to get all of the volunteers together and take them away from Mt Hagen a day before the elections and for a couple of days afterwards…just to be on the safe side.

Where I live
I have a small two bedroom house on the grounds of the college called Blue-Bell Cottage. The grounds are lovely and the countryside is beautiful. We are 20 minutes outside of Hagen and I go into town once a week with some of the staff. It is not safe for me to walk around on my own even during the day so someone is always with me wherever I want to go and shop. The market is great. Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables and this week I spent about $5 for everything I needed for a week. The supermarket on the other hand has nearly everything that I buy back home but is a bit more expensive.
The people here are nice they are very friendly and happy and smile a lot. The children stare at me a lot and always have big grins on their faces. I have been learning some Pidgin but I’m not very good (it requires you to use your memory and mine is pretty lousy).
The weather is absolutely perfect. About 25-26 degrees everyday with blue skies and the occasional cloud. It hasn’t rained for about 4 weeks so that’s a small concern as we are all using water tanks….lucky I’m trained in water rationing. At night the temperature drops to about 8 degrees so it’s very comfortable to sleep in the flannelettes!!!

The job
The library here has about 20,000 books and they are going to double the size of the building next year as the college is working towards becoming a university, One of the big things for me to do will be to convince the principal and his wife (who are away at the moment) that the library doesn’t need to keep every book that is donated. The librarian, Samuel, is happy with that concept but apparently the principal’s wife was appalled when the previous librarian tried to discard from the collection. Subsequently the reference collection contains 4 almanacs the newest of which is 1999!!! Samuel and I are going to write a collection management & development policy once we have met with the staff which we hope will convince everyone that not every book is sacred.

I am also teaching Samuel descriptive cataloguing and Dewey. This has been very interesting for me as I haven’t used those skills for many years…..now I remember why I’m not a cataloguer!!

My new home

I arrived in Mt Hagen safely and was met by David, the vice principal of the college. The college is 20 minutes from town so I have to rely on someone to bring me to town once a week to get groceries and use the internet. I have my own house and look after my own cooking etc. I am now on my 7th alcohol free day and am now doing three sets of 12 push ups every morning!!! I'll be a new woman when I get back!!
The market in town has some great fresh food which is very cheap, guava, tamarillo and mandarins are particularly nice. The supermarket is quite expensive.
This is a country of low literacy rates, high unemployment and a culture of violence.
From the airport signs which request that you check in your weapons and ammunition before you get on the plane, to constant advertising about stopping violence against women, and advertising about the elections asking people not to bring weapons to the polling booths and not to intimidate other voters.

Incommunicado

It is a strange feeling to be cut off from everyone,,,,I have no phone or internet where I am staying and have to wait for my weekly trip into town to visit the ABV office.
For a person who is very social and relies on the company of others it is an interesting situation.
There is one TV channel EM TV which has a mixture of sport, channel 9 current affairs and infotainment and loacl news. So I'm not missing out on A Current Affair!!!

I'm off!!!

This will be my last post until I reach PNG and get settled into my accommodation and my job. If you don't here from me again its because I can't get onto a computer!

The travel advisory has been upgraded to "Reconsider travel arrangements of you are going to the Highlands", so that that should make for interesting times! (Its election time and the tribal groups get a bit angry with each other.)

I'm a bit anxious today but that's just because I want to just get there. I've packed a couple of times trying to decide what I can leave behind. I'm only taking 3 pairs of shoes and some thongs......possibly some kind of record for me as I've been known to take 4 pairs of shoes for an overnight trip!!

So lukim yu bihain (that's pidgin for see you later) until I'm in PNG.

What will she be doing in Mt Hagen?

The question as to what I will actually be doing while I'm in PNG has arisen a few times so here it is.

I'll be based at the Church of the Nazarene Bible and Teacher Training College (let's hope they can cope with a heathen). The library is small and the staff are not library trained. My job will be to provide training and to develop training manuals and also to advise on IT solutions for managing the collection.
I'll be living in at the college which is couple of kms from town. What the accommodation is like and how often I'll get to go into town I'm yet to find out.
Mt Hagen is in the middle of coffee plantations so I'd better be able to get decent coffee. It's a large town of 40,000 people and from all accounts has a touch of the wild west about it.....(I've just watched season 3 of Deadwood so I'm up with the lingo and the social mores!)

Mt Hagen under siege!!

I've just read the front page of the PNG daily newspaper and Mt Hagen has been under siege (or under siegemann as a friend very wittily described it). Apparently consisting of intensive stone throwing and several stabbings.

Here's the front page of the Post-Courier

I believe I might have to stay cloistered in my compound for the whole 8 weeks.

Friday night may be my last chance to have fun for some time!!

Countdown to PNG

It's now only 10 days until I leave on 6 June. I think I have just about everything organised but I'm sure to forget something!!!!

I've been talking to a lot of people about PNG, its amazing when you mention it the number of people who have been there and also been there in a voluntary capacity.
The biggest thing I'm worrying about now is safety as the one thing that everyone tells me is to be careful and never go out on my own or at night. I suppose its just like any big city you just need to be aware of the conditions and act accordingly.

The other thing is the unknown, I have absolutelty no idea of my accomodation and you know me, 3 stars is roughing it!! I just hope its not too bad and there is a toilet close by!

But, this is all part of the journey, to get outside of my comfort zone and experience a different culture. I'm sure it will be fabulous. At the end of the day its only 8 weeks!!

Success

Due to the world wide web, and the wonders of email list servers, I've now been able to speak directly to people who have been to Hagen in recent times and they have given me the real story on what the weather will be like. Apparently its eternal spring, 20-25 degrees, with cold nights and cool mornings. (I think I'll be off to buy flannellette jamies.........v. attractive!).

It also rains a bit but I've got my raincoat and an umbrella so I'll be ready for all eventualities!!

I'm having second thoughts about the makeup.........perhaps I'll just take the basics, mascara, lipstick, lip line fixer, eyebrow pencil, eyeshadow, blusher etc.etc. Just kidding. I think I can get away with mascara and lipstick!!

Preparation Update

I've been in touch via email with some of the people I'll be working with so it seems I'll be able to communicate with the outside world.

I'm in a dilemma as to what clothes to take as I can't seem to get an idea of the temperature. One person has told me its warm but not hot and to take a jumper as it gets cold at night. Another has told me to take warm clothes and to bring a doona with me!!! I'll have to do layers and take warm pjs.

Preparation

I'm off today to collect a mountain of medication from the chemist. Apparently I have to be prepared for all eventualities from gastric problems to malaria. Fortunately I didn't have to get a vaccination as I had it for Vietnam last year.

I've been considering not taking make-up or hair product and it seems I may have to leave all this behind just to fit the tablets and creams in!!!

And what on earth will I wear!!! What shoes do I take??? These and other important considerations will be answered in due course.

New Technology

Well I'm up to # 7 in 23 things and today I have to talk about new technology. Something I've seen or am interested in.

I've recently purchased a recordable DVD which I found v. exciting but the only problem with it is that I can only use that player to view the recordings on. Unless I want to finalise the disc which means that it can't be written over. So now the task is to find very cheap RW discs so it won;t matter when its not reusable.

I still think I like video better for fast forwarding and fro being useable anywhere!

Logging on

Just had all sorts of trouble working out what my login was until I realised it was my email address!! Not as savvy as I thought I was!

Library 2.0

Today is my first day of trianing with Library 2.0.
By the end of the course I hope to be an expert in all things to do with the web. A tall order and one that is of course impossible!!!!

Note to self: Need to set achievable goals.