Elad’s blog

Here are a few extracts from my notes, as written during my first week at PNG . These notes describe my journey in PNG’s highland areas, and my journey on the boat till I reached Rabaul, where the mask festival took place. The festival itself - as the rest of my adventures here at Rabaul - will be covered elsewhere. I am now in Rabaul, where I finally have internet (though extremely expensive); I will probably stay here two more days (tomorrow I dive, the day after tomorrow I hope to fly), and than head to Madang for the last part of my PNG adventure.

• NOTE DATE: Thursday 7/7/05;
  on the domestic flight Port-Moresby -> Goroka

  Not many people know it, but some seven years ago, when I was in New-York (my work sent me to the USA for some days, and I had a couple of days off at NY) I hopped over to see Harlem. I just decided that I also want to see this part of America - so I left everything (including camera and wallet) in my hotel, and took an underground there; I was very frightened, walked there for some 10 minuts and straightly came back - after seeing all the blacks in their poor residents.

  My first impression from PNG was pretrty much the same: all of the people are black and big, all wear unfitting second-hand clothes, all look frightening.
  This feeling changes instantly the minute they start to talk - everybody is very polite, nice, and trying to help. On the airport I called a man named Pastor Erik Efore. He is a christian that runs an organisation called “Friends of Israel”, which tries to help Israelies from religous motives (there is a phrase in the bible that those who help Israel shall be blessed…) - he made contact with a FOI member in Goroka called John to meet me there. Excellent.

  The plain itself is extremely small - 9 rows, 4 seats in a row. With (typical?) local efficiency they sold me seat 9E - a nonexistent seat. Instead I caught a place in the front by the window - and I hope to enjoy the view.

  The land is huge and empty - no living sign. You fly over the beach, see jungle-covered mountains all along the way, with huge rivers going around by the mountains, creating huge ‘deltas’ when meeting the coast. The vegetation-covered mountains continue and continue all the way till they meet the sky at the horizon.

• NOTE DATE: Thursday 7/7/05;
  John’s house

  The phone call to Erik was by far the smartest thing I did for a long time. John was waiting for me at the airport, and I am a guest in his home - he was very pleased to meet me. The yard in his home serves as a ‘church’ - with flags of Israel(!) and PNG hanged over a board saying ‘Shabbat Shalom’. John lives here with his wife Lisa and their kids - Ruth, Veronika, Jeremiah, Steven, Grace, and we also had a visit from Naomi. We sang songs together - rehearsing for Saturday (”Praise for the Yeshu’a”), we had an amazing dinner and spoke a bit about their beliefs (bring back christianity to the times when Jesus lived, therefor the holy day is Shabat and not Sunday). They all have a passion of very naive and strong belief - really moving, without cynicism.

  On the way to his house John showed me the city: from a small university, through a cofee factory, to a scenary view on sunset from a mountain overlooking Goroka.

• NOTE DATE: Friday 8/7/05;

  We came up at 6 in the morning, and drove fast to the Dualo Pass in the mountains for a view around - but we got there too late: at 6 and a half, the pass was already inside the clouds. However, we met there a friend of John and spent some time in his hut at the mountain - between the fire and the pigs.

  When we went a bit down we came out of the cloud and I saw an amazing look of the Goroka valley. Very pictorious.

• NOTE DATE: Saturday 9/7/05;
  Location: Mount Wilhelm.

  John insisted that I should go and climb PNG’s highest mountain - mount Wilhelm. He claims that this way I will see both the people and the scenary - the ‘heart of PNG’. So I agreed. I left my big bag at his house, packed my small day-bag, and he drove me to the small city of Kundiawa.

  The road there - the so-called “highland highway” - can compete with the road in Cambodia (see my notes from there). I insisted to pay for the fuel (30K) eventhough he didn’t want to - he’s a wonderful host.

  In Kundiawa he put me on a PMV that goes all the way to the base of the mountain, with direct instructions what I should do and how I should do it - including an emphasis of the fact I should climb at night and reach the summit (some 4.5 K”M) at sunrise, before the clouds.

  The way from Kundiawa to the mountain in totally amazing. Every minute you see a picture that is worth at least a cover on the National Geographic Magazine - wether it is people (mainly women) in traditional costumes, the huts in the vilages, or the mountains themselves - which are simply much more beautiful than any other mountain sceneries I’ve seen, including Switzerland and south-east asia. I simply didn’t know where to look.

  The road itself, if you can call it a road, stretches for 40 km from Kundiawa, a distance that took us over 3.5 hours of rough 4×4 drive on the gravel (of course there is no asfalt) way. When I reached the mountain it was already six in the afternoon. I hired a guide (according to John’s instructions) and started to climb to the base station - three hours of climbing till you reach a hut. The hut is located on the edge of a beautiful mountain lake (there are two lakes in the middle of the mountain). We reached it around 21:30, ate some crackers and sweet potatoes, and went to sleep.

  On 2 a.m. we woke up and started the real climb. Amazing stars, very fresh, transparent and cold air.

  At 4:30 in the morning, at an altitude of about 4 k”m, I did a mistake (?) and looked up to the sky. Immediately I felt dizzy. I tried again. It happened again. I stopped and rested for five minutes. After the rest, I measured my pulse - my heart rate wouldn’t go below 110. I decided I have an altitude sickness: the dizziness is probably due to an instant decrease of blood flow to the brain and the heart rate suggests a compensation mechanism for the low air (Was I correct? I am still not sure, maybe I was just tired). I decided, although I didn’t wanted to, that I go down aqnd told this to my guide.

  The way back to the base station was really rough. I didn’t mention it before, but all the ways in the mountain are very muddy and small rivers and waterways cross the way every now and then. I thanked my good shoes at least a thousand times. We came back to the hut, had some sleep, and when I woke up, at 9:30, the summit is already behind the clouds - the decision to stop climbing was probably right.

• NOTE DATE: Saturday 9/7/05;

  I spent all yesterday with Alfred, my guide to the mountain. Most of the day we stayed on the mountain, near the lakes. He explained to me many things about the culture and the PNG (actually, the highland) way of life. From the way a boy is drawing a girl’s attention (coming with all his friends to sing serenades under her window), the wedding (the boy’s parents pay the bride-price to the girl’s parents, generally in the form of pigs; the girl’s parents buy all the pots and house materials for the young couple); the studies (there is a special ‘house man’ to which only boys go, where they study from old men; girls have similar arrangement), the traditional beliefs (the main god was the sun); the way a pregnant woman gives birth (holding a tree on top of her, having some leaves under her, and only one woman who helps her besides her); the way babies are treated (carried inside a string bag - so called bilum, which is filled with leaves. The leaves are replaced every day. After two weeks, when you can tell for sure that they are fine, you make a big festival and slaughter a pig. The babies are usually called after an uncle); the houses (walls from wood covered by straw, cieling from straw - dense enough to keep the rain out while enabling the fire smoke to also come out but maintaining the heat inside); the food (mainly vegetables, most important - the sweet potato, locally called kau-kau); the agriculture (before sawing a field you release several pigs there, and they prepare the land for you); and much more - he even showed me how to build Possum traps, it I ever go hunting on PNG.

  On the eary afternoon a poor Japanese girl, who didn’t know to stop on time, came down from the mountain. She got altitude sickness really close to the summit, and by now was not really concious - her guide took her down holding hands, and she really didn’t know what was going on around her. I felt that my decision from yesterday was really the correct one (though I hate to admit that I didn’t manage to get to the summit), especially when I looked up - on daylight you can see that above the treeline the real cliffs begin and the mountain gets really steep.

  After we got down from the mountain Alfred brought me to a local hostel (I am the only guest) and showed me some more things - at the Simbu province the huts are rectangular rather than circular like near Goroka. On the more advanced houses here they even got the pigs to a house of their own (yes, including a small fire to keep the pigs warm. Near Goroka the huts are shared - fireplace in the middle, one side for people and one side for pigs.) . Alfred also arranged for a store to be opened for me and I bought some food (rice, noodles, peas, tuna, tea) - and than he stayed and cooked for me dinner! We ate together and I let him take all the leftovers (some rice). Just before the electricity went off (around 9 pm) I managed - taking advantage of the light - to wash half of my body with hot water (yes, I used the kettle on the fire for this).

  Alfred the guide also arranged for me a ride to Kundiawa for tomorrow - the owner of the guesthouse. I slept like a dead person until 6:40, when I woked - afraid of being forgotten back. However, the guesthouse’ owner is not ready yet - after I finish breakfast (they brought me strawberries as a small present) we will go.

• NOTE DATE: Monday 11/7/05;

  On the way back to Kundiawa I really got to appreciate 4 wheels drive. The driver promised me that unless there is a landslide we will get there - and indeed he kept his word, through flowing and standing water, through mud and stones, he made it.

  From Kundiawa I got a bus to Goroka, arriving to the middle of the market. I went there searching for food. After a lot of sweet potatoes, chicken legs (the part with the nails, not the drums), and other vegetables I found myself a nice fat kind of Banana. This was a mistake - it turned out that this is a banana version that must be cooked before eating; however the stall owner gladly replaced it for me to a normal, edible, banana.

  At the market I met Jim - it turned out that John sent him to look for me. He took me back to John’s house, where I saw the ‘church project’: all the family grows vegetables and sells them on the market, trying to collect enough money to build a decent church.

  On the evening I had another amazing dinner (Mama Lisa reall really knows to cook!); they had more guests invited for dinner - and so I met Patrik and his wife Mary.Everybody heard from me stories of Israel - I showed them the hebrew alphabet, the names of the jewish months, and more of this kind of things. They surprised me with a present - a bilum (string bag) they made especially for me. When they saw my enthusiasm they instantly replaced it with a different one, of more complicated pattern - the flag of PNG. Jeremiah, the kid, decided to also give me a present of his own: a hat made from cuscus (special local animal, something between a possum and a tree kangaroo) fur. This present proved useful much earlier than I expected: at 4:30 am John woke me up and took me to the city of Lae.

  We were sitting at the open back part of John’s tender. The ride was really aweful - cold wind, rounds, bumps, and so forth. We stopped for breakfast just on time - I jumped off the car and vomited. After this John picked up some villagers that were standing on the side of the road looking for a way to get to Lae’s market to sell what they had grown (cabbages, watermelons) and where carrying with them (every vehicle that passes here instantly becomes a PMV). They were so happy to hear that I am from Israel they instantly gave me a watermellon as a present.

  Isaacs, one of John’s sons, bought to all of us some strange fruit, which looks like a variation of red Guyava, only without the smell. We reached Lae at 10am and John dropped me at Pastor Eric’s.

  Eric looks like a soft and quiet person, very religous and strong in faith. Every room in his house has a flag of Israel on the wall (he has been to Israel 9 times alreay, and this is just the start). He is the founder of the ‘Friends of Israel’ organisation in PNG.

  First thing he tried to arranged a flight to Rabaul for me. It turned out that all the planes have been grounded for three days now because of some safety problem, so there is a long waiting list; shortly speaking, no flights. It is good that I arrived early: Eric put me on a boat sailing to Rabaul, so I will be able to get to the mask festival. Thus, after only two hours with Pastor Eric (most of them were dedicated to a cold shower and a lunch) I found myself on the warf, waiting for a ship that was due to leave at 1pm but left after 3.

  The ship itself reminds me of basic army trainings. I sleep on the deck, the only white person between hundreds of black Papuans, most of them travelling to the festival (as performers). There is absolutely no way not to draw much attention. It is good that Eric sent with me a boy (who escorted me till I was on the ship); on the warf this boy met another ‘friend of Israel’, also sailing this boat, so I am not alone and have someone to talk with.

• NOTE DATE: Tuesday 12/7/05;

  The way to Kimbe (a city in the middle of the way to my destination, Rabaul) went with no special events - just a few dolphins escorted the ship part of the way. On the night I slept very good, to my surprise; I must have been very tired. It is an extremely strange feeling to be the only white man around (in fact, on the warf at the way up to the boat I felt somewhat like a Palestinian at the Erez checkpoint). On Kimbe - surprise. On the warf an entire familoy is waiting for me, waving a flag of Israel. They came especially to see me. The ship was on the warf only for 20 minuts, but I spoke with them a bit and got a coconut (full of juice!) and two variations of cucumbers (enormous width, the skin is yellow and very tough) for the way. Impossible as it seems, it looks like more people joined the ship in Kimbe - the croudness is amazing. I saw, however, two more white people that joined in Kimbe - an american couple, both of them are marine biologists studying the corals here (yes, excellent job). These are the first white men I see since the Japanese girl at Mount Wilhelm. We spoke a bit and it was nice.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 17th, 2005 at 7:26 and is filed under Travels, Papua New Guinea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.