I’m not sure what I expected about Papua New Guinea. I suppose I expected a tropical climate (yes!), an economy and infrastructure very different from what I’m used to (yes!), and water being an important element of life in an island country (yes!). I should have expected “island time.” I knew there were lots of different languages spoken here — 800+ different languages (not dialects) so I didn’t learn any words.
What I didn’t realize how unbelievable friendly the people we interacted with would be, nor how extremely grateful they would be that we visited and contributed to the local economy. I hadn’t known (but I should have) that Papua New Guinea is on the world’s second largest island next to Greenland (an earlier speaker noted that Greenland is owned by Denmark and received an enthusiastic round of applause from the audience and I was happy to clap).
Island time. Our ship was prepared to dock in Alotau on January 13 a bit earlier than scheduled, but apparently there was a cargo ship at the only dock large enough for our ship so we waited. And waited. Then waited some more. About an hour after we were supposed to arrive we were finally able to dock.
To say it was hot and humid would be a gross understatement. It was 82F/28C when we arrived and it only got hotter. I don’t know what the actual humidity was, but I am confident it was well over 80%. My body doesn’t do humidity well so I was, as someone described it, “melting.”
Alotau, with its population of about 15,000, was definitely not a major or even minor metropolis (I did not see a traffic light). There were a few permanent buildings with grocery stores, and we entered one of them to buy snacks for what turned out to be a ridiculous exchange rate (it should have been 4 PNG Kina to 1 USD but they gave us 2.5). We needed local currency as PNG is definitely not a credit card economy.
Our group ended up on 3 minivan-type busses for an hour-long drive on the “highway” — a 2-lane road in poor repair with many 1-lane bridges that ran close to the ocean — to a community village. The drive was pretty, with lush green on both sides of the road. Lots of banana trees, palm trees, ferns, and other flora. And lots of people standing and walking along the road — many of them barefoot, some carrying things on their heads, lots of them waving hello to us (yes, I did lots of waving back).
The driver did a masterful job of avoiding countless pot holes and a few places where bridges had holes in them. So even though it’s “drive on the left” place, there were many times we were on the far right side of the road.
Once at the village, we were welcomed with a dance where the dozen or so dancers seemed to be having lots of fun, particularly the young boys. Then the local guide made a point of welcoming us and thanking us for supporting them as they regain their traditional culture. Actually, all of the villagers seemed to be enjoying themselves and appreciating that someone else was interested in learning about their culture (and supporting their economy). Pre-covid they used to get about 30 ships per year, now it’s fewer than 10.
We visited several areas where people were practicing their traditional cultural activities: men and women having different roles in making flour out of either taro or yams, young kids cracking betel nuts, traditional cooking (some of which we had the chance to taste), fire-making, weaving, and grilling. Most of the boys and men were wearing banana leaves covering up the obvious parts of their bodies, with women wearing “skirts,” though some of the teenage girls wore banana leaves to cover their chests.
June and I ended up sharing the items we brought to donate at the village. I donated 6 pairs of reading glasses with different lens strengths; June brought pencils with fun erasers. I also bought a wooden bowl for 50 kina (I had to borrow 20 kina from Jana which I repaid later).
Saw a papaya tree at the village, and a beautiful outrigger canoe:
It was nice to cool off in the ship’s pool.
Today’s excursion (on January 14, though I didn’t publish this until the 15th) to the Kiriwina Island made Alotau seem very much like a first world country by comparison. Spoiler alert: the water was too shallow for the ship to dock so we tendered to shore (we later learned that the ship was not anchored because the water was too deep, so they stayed in place with the azipods and thrusters).
More people in Kiriwina walked barefoot, there was no pavement (other than on the pier). Lots of canoes both in the water and along the beach.
We met Delilah and her team. Delilah is a 43-year old woman who is President of the Ladies’ Group (she mentioned the title but I didn’t write it down) and our lead guide for the day. She thanked us profusely for coming, and admitted she was a bit nervous as this was only the third tour she coordinated (she did fine). We were the first ship of the season, and the next one will come in February.
We took a “5 minute walk” (which seemed more like 15 minutes and was slightly uphill; someone estimated that it was about 1/2 mile or nearly a kilometer) to a village. Lots of people along the way selling carvings and other things, some of them rather aggressively. Lots of little kids age 3-7 or so singing — I heard many renditions of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. These turned out to be lucrative photo ops for the community — if you take their picture (which I did not) you’re expected to leave some cash.
Bessie(?), one of the guides, introduced herself to me. She had recently completed 10th grade — she could attend thorough 8th grade on Kiriwina then had to go to Alotau for 9th and 10th grade. She would not be returning because, as she said, “I am already married.”
Compared to yesterday’s village this one seemed more authentic with people actually living there, though it’s was less organized for touring. In the village we saw (but I did not photograph) a cute pig, woman weaving rugs and/or baskets, someone making traditional currency (banana leaves that are dried, the green removed, and other steps before bundling them into a “bouquet”). We could hear a woman wailing — it turns out that her husband had just died and she would be mourning in her house, dressed in black, for about 7 days while others provide her food and drink.
We returned down to the beach to the basic shelter the guides had prepared — a 5 meter/15 foot square (give or take) with rather warn tarps on the top. Delilah encouraged people to go snorkel. I had just decided to get in the water, and stood up to start removing my clothes when a huge blast of wind came.
This was not a little breeze, it was wind that meant business. Within a minute or so it was gusting and raining heavily, and the tarps were not holding (I later heard it was gusting at 40 knots). Needless to say, snorkeling was aborted, though I did dip my toes in the water. We later learned that the squall was totally unexpected by the ship and, of course, had the squall been expected the port stop would have been aborted.
The guides did their best to hold the tarps in place, tie them down again, make repairs, etc. As I walked across the shelter to get some of the lobster, potatoes, taro and fruit they prepared for us, one of the tarps tried to escape. I was able to reach up to hold it down and eventually a guide came to tie it down with a vine. When a palm frond came in from the side they added a vertical tarp to protect a bit from the wind.
At this point several of us decided to go back to the pier to catch a tender back to the ship. Fortunately they didn’t let us board as the ship suspended tenders for an hour (and there were a few in the water with passengers that had to stay there as well as one alongside the dock). So we returned to the shelter dripping wet.
Delilah encouraged us to move to the classroom. We walked a minute or two to the classroom which did not resemble the classrooms I grew up in. It was a large square a meter or so off the ground with a roof. It didn’t have walls so it didn’t need windows. It also lacked a few other amenities that I’m used to in a classroom such as tables or chairs. There was a blackboard. But at least it was drier. And eventually the rain stopped. This picture is of Delilah and me in the classroom.
Several of us agreed that this was indeed a “three hour tour” and collectively tried to sing the theme song to “Gilligan’s Island.” I’m sure we provided entertainment, though our rendition left much to be desired. On the other hand everyone handled the surprise squall well, and the consensus was that it would make a great story.
While we were at the classroom there was a ritual dance performance outdoors However, unlike yesterday where the dance was short and done with joy, this one was long and joyless.
We left the classroom when it became apparent that Delilah felt obligated to say there as long as we were there. We went to sit on the grass where we could watch the ship and tenders and eventually got into line to board.
Meanwhile, the ship’s crew did a great job. Apparently 700 people had gone to the island so they had to retrieve us. Some number spent an extremely uncomfortable hour aboard tenders going between the island and the ship as it was not possible to dock in the rough seas, and one tender had about 16 passengers who were stuck on a tender at the dock.
Once it was safe for a tender to leave the ship, the crew took water, food (we didn’t see that), anti-emetics, and lots of staff including a physician to the island. We later learned that the ship’s captain did a nice job of keeping people on board posted on the situation; we also learned that only about 700 people visited Kiriwina which meant that only 700 or so people (mostly passengers, some crew) had to return to the ship.
Needless to say the ride back was a bit longer than the 5-7 minutes we were promised, and was rather rough. In all the previous times I’ve tendered, I’ve never heard a group applaud the tender pilot, but there’s always a first and this was the one.
I’m impressed that I heard no complaints from people about the wait or the rocky return to ship. I did use the ship’s online feedback tool to compliment Marga, our tender pilot, and Jex, the hotel executive secretary who we’d met at an earlier talk (who is the one who reads all of the guest feedback) and who we spoke with while waiting for a tender. Apparently Jex was touched as he sent me a (free) tray of 5 decorated chocolates and a nice note to my room which June and I enjoyed.
Wish I’d seen more of PNG, but it’s unlikely to happen. Oh well, at least I got a small taste of it … and I have a good story to share.
No comments:
Post a Comment