Getting to PNG

Having secured a job in Port Moresby  it was then necessary to get there. Knowing that the last couple of weeks in Belfast were scheduled with “the client from hell” I decided that a few days stopover en-route to PNG were necessary. In any case then, as now, there were no direct flights from Belfast to PNG (I wonder why?) so I had to change planes somewhere!

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Making the vote count in Mt Hagen

Two friends were visiting me from the UK so I decided to take them to Lake Kutubu, well up into the Highlands of PNG. Our first transit stop was Mt Hagen airport into which we flew on a small MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) single engine plane (picture below). I personally didn’t like flying on single engine planes and would only do it where there was no other options.

Believe the Ambassador

Election Time in PNG

Do bear with me for what might appear to be a digression before I tell you about elections in Papua New Guinea. I call it context.

Not A Night Out At The Ballet – Goroka Show

Goroka is famous for its “Eastern Highlands Cultural Show”, better known as the “Goroka Show”. It is held every year on the weekend closest to Papua New Guinea Independence Day (16th September).

Goroka Market

Goroka Market, with ready access to produce from the fertile Highlands and Markham Valley is one of, if not the best market in PNG for fresh fruit and vegetables. It is certainly one of its most colourful markets.

Get a phone connected

During my time in Port Moresby I moved apartments, from a downtown apartment to a new one in the suburb of Boroko.

This move necessitated getting the telephone connected.

Coffin bilong dai man

In a separate review on the Aseki smoked bodies I related the rather gruesome ‘burial’ rituals of the Anga tribe in Aseki, Morobe Province. Another earlier approach, within PNG, to ‘honouring the dead’ was endocannibalism, or eating them!

Tok Tok Pisin (Speak Tok Pisin)

Time for short  language lesson.

Papua New Guinea has a population of less than eight million (2015), double what it was in 1989 when I lived there, yet there are over 700 different languages in use. Given this, it is not surprising that a lingua franca has developed.

Aseki Smoked Bodies

In my separate review of the JK McCarthy Museum in Goroka I introduced the reader to the Anga (also called Kuka Kuka) tribe and its rather peculiar and macabre custom of wearing human finger necklaces. Dear Reader, that’s tame when you consider the tribe’s burial rituals for its warriors.

JK McCarthy Museum – Goroka

I have to admit that, at twenty something years of age, I visited this museum purely because of the macabre nature of some of its exhibits.