PAPUA NEW GUINEA MY LAND MY COUNTRY

THE BONE DAGGER

2011-12-12T15:55:00.001+10:00

Simon, a leader of his clan, is an elderly man who has no use for shoes and the clothes that the white man brought in more than 50 years ago. This proud Hela elder is one of hundreds whose world revolved around traditional symbols of wealth and status.But all that is being torn to shreds as the whiteman's cash takes precedence over headresses, bird plumes and pigs. The whiteman's law has also rendered centuries old traditional commandments unapplicable in the 21st century.

These days Simon refuses to leave the confines of his village and venture into the Tari township -the capital of the new Hela province. His whole world - the world of the Hela man - is slowly crumbling around him.

For laws enforced to the letter by armed police dictate that he abandon his cassowary bone dagger that a Hela man always carries after initiation. The whitemen from gas project are fearful of the Hela with their strange headresses and their "offensive weapons," -the cassowary bone daggers. Police tell him that he can wear everything else but the bone dagger. Some of his tribesman have chosen. To wear shorts and trousers to avoid hassles with the police but not Simon. He doesn't care much about Exxon Mobil's multibillion dollar gas project but what worries him are ancient prophecies of strife and turmoil that will befall his people if the land is disturbed and the "fire" given to the outsider.

What also worries him is that his land is being invaded and trampled on by foreigners and he is unable to defend it.

WE'RE BEING INFORMED BUT WE'RE NOT ACTING

2011-12-08T08:56:00.001+10:00

OKSAPMIN, SANDAUN PROVINCE - 2002: Election year. I arrived at a school in the Tekin Valley after a 6 hour trek through the jungle. The rain had just ended when I began an interview with a local teacher. I was asking him about maternal and infant mortality rates and he mentioned in passing that the nearest health centre was a days walk from where we were. Two days for villages I had passed. For those in very remote villages, it was just too difficult for them. This teacher told me they had no proper record of the number of mothers and babies who had died that year or previous years. He gave me an educated guess. He said between 15 and 30 babies died in a year. So when a baby died just after birth, the father would take the tiny body to the back of the hut and bury him or her there. No one mourned for them. They were just nameless children who had not even seen their first birthday.

Oksapmin, Sandaun Province

NUKU, SANDAUN PROVINCE- 2002: I met a health worker in a small aid post. Half the concrete floor had collapsed. It had sunk about 15 centimetres into the ground. The medicine cabinet had only anti malarial tablets and liniment used for body aches. He told me a child had died about 24 hours ago of dehydration. By the time the child had been brought to the aid post, the health worker couldn’t insert a needle because the child’s veins had already collapsed. The father arrived minutes later and the health worker told him: If you want your son to live take him now and run to the health centre. To walk would have taken him six hours. He did make it to the government station. He had the health centre in sight. But the child had already died.

PORT MORESBY, NCD - 2003: At the Airlines PNG hanger. I was taking pictures for a story on EMTV news. The story was about the aftermath of ethnic violence. In front of me were seven coffins bound for Goilala in the Central province. What caught my attention were two coffins - a large one in which lay a man and beside him was a smaller meter long coffin containing the body of his son. They had been hacked to death after being blamed for instigating trouble at a marketplace. Usually, I don’t try to think about these things. But when you’re doing the job, you find yourself thinking about it a lot. You try to understand the reasons behind why people kill others and in this case – an innocent child. I still have difficulty understanding the brutality and reasons behind that massacre.

PORT MORESBY, NCD 2009: I met a landowner from the Moran Area in the Southern Highlands province. He’s been fighting for about three years for the government to recognize the legitimacy of his landowner group in the LNG project. He’s a young man in his early thirties. He isn’t as well educated as many of you in this room but he knows where is land boundaries are and he knows his land rights. He represents a group of dissatisfied men and women.

So what does the murder of seven Goilalas in Port Moresby’s Tete settlement have to do with maternal and infant mortality in remote Sandaun Province?

How does the story of a southern highlands landowner tie in with a child dying in his fathers arms minutes before reaching a health centre Nuku?

In Journalism school, they tell you to keep the big picture in mind whilst giving your story a human face. The stories that I’ve told you shows you the human face of the challenges and difficulties that confront ordinary Papua New Guineans.

These stories are also the human face of the dissatisfaction felt through a cross section of society.

A few years ago, the Institute of National Affairs published a small article about the ethnic violence that happened in the Solomon Islands. It said ethnic violence…

“…was largely the result of imbalanced development …with portions of the population feeling alienated and aggrieved…”

“…they were missing out on opportunities… or had injustices done to them or had lost control over land and resources…”

‘…corruption and deals over natural resources contributed to that dissatisfaction…”

Somehow all this sounds very familiar. If I were a doctor, I’d say Papua New Guinea already has what appears to be the Solomon Islands Syndrome and we are in denial. We’ve taken the formula that created the disaster on Bougainville and we’re creating a more lethal recipe for nationwide self-destruction.

OUTSTANDING ISSUES

We as a nation have so many outstanding issues that we need to address. Yet we keep creating new problems for ourselves. We haven’t solved Ok Tedi’s environmental problems and yet we’ve allowed another foreign company to dump it’s waste into the Basamuk Bay. While dozens of teachers in Port Moresby and other major centres live in classrooms because of the lack of accommodation and high rentals, we give ourselves hefty increases in accommodation allowances and we say it’s justified.

Why does a father in remote Sandaun have to accept the death of his son when our leaders have access to the best doctors in a foreign country. Why do we buy a jet to be used by just a few when we don’t want to subsidize rural air transport for ordinary people?

We all have solutions to the ills of our society. For ethnic violence, we say send them back to where they came from. But send them back to what?

To a village that has no road access?

To schools that have no teachers?

To health centres that have no medicine?

It is sometimes difficult to understand why we choose to nurture dissatisfaction and anger amongst our people? In a sense, we are fortunate that the vast majority of Papua New Guineans do not draw the link between decision makers and poor service delivery. Maybe it’s because they’re too busy just trying to survive because of those bad decisions.

But I tell you this that void of ignorance is diminishing at a very rapid rate. Soon every Papua New Guinean with a mobile phone will know exactly what Waigani is doing though mobile internet access and they will have every right to be angry.

WHAT TO DO

Each of us has a responsibility. Every person has the job of fixing this great country of ours.

If a teacher taught for eight hours a day, five days a week. Wouldn’t we have better educated people?

And if that one person in authority made sure medicine got from point A to point B, wouldn’t we have less people dying?

At almost every workshop or meeting where the role of the media is discussed, people keep saying “the media has an important role to play in development.” It has been said so many times that its become a cliché.

If you buy a paper, you see headlines on a newspaper. Turn on the radio at midday and the NBC tells you what’s happening around the country.

We can write a hundred stories about illegal immigrants and human smuggling…

We can write about disappearing millions and investigations by the Public Accounts Committee… But the media is good only if ordinary people and those in authority take the information that is supplied and act on it. If the systems and authorities don’t take steps to address the problems we expose, then our attempts amount to very little.

TODAY I LEARNT HONESTY FROM A CHILD

2011-12-08T08:10:00.001+10:00

In Madang town today my wife and I met a child – a boy of about seven – no more than a meter tall.

He was selling DVDs. I don’t always buy DVDs on the streets but there was something about this kid that drew my attention and I couldn’t put my finger on it. Of course when you meet someone, you notice the obvious first. He was small and of elementary school age, probably 6 or seven. His nose was dirty. He had a bag slung across his body.

After the obvious, you start to pay attention to the less obvious. To me, he wasn’t trying to be a streetwise salesman. He just wanted to sell his DVDs and go home. But where was home? He showed me his DVDs. Two of which looked good. He said without saying that if I wasn’t interested he’d go somewhere else, he didn’t mind if I wasn’t interested. I still didn’t know what it was that drew me to this kid until I spoke to him.

I asked him who actually owned the DVDs he was selling and he told me they belonged to him. I asked him a second time and again he told me the same. I asked where his parents were. He said his mother had died and his father “cut grass for Peter Barter,” the former governor of Madang. He said all this with a level of honesty that just broke my heart.

The DVDs - Green Hornet and Sucker Punch

This little person wasn’t seeking sympathy nor was he asking for help. I decided to buy two of his DVDs – not because I felt sorry for him but because they looked interesting. While I was giving him the money he told us that he had eaten too many lollies and that he had a belly ache. Again, he wasn’t looking for someone to feel sorry for him. He was just stating facts as they occurred. I paid for the DVDs and gave him two kina extra – a spur of the moment decision. Not because I felt sorry for him.

He hesitated but then took the money. I’m writing this because I can’t forget his eyes and what his whole being said without saying.

As young as he seemed, this little person had his dignity. He was honest. He was trusting and he was willing to work hard without begging.

What was sad was that he had accepted life as it is. He had accepted that life for him and his dad is difficult and will continue to be difficult. Yet he wasn’t going to take it lying down. He didn’t express sadness about his mother’s death. Had simply accepted that sometimes mums die when kids are small and that dads have to work hard to cut grass and that kids have to sell DVDs to make money. Today, I learnt a lot about honesty, perseverance and hard work. I will work harder and appreciate the simple priceless gifts that money can’t buy. I didn’t take a picture of him.

AFTER

2011-12-06T11:40:00.001+10:00

After we’ve waged wars

laid waste

maimed and murdered

and drunk our fill

What then?

After we’ve raped and plundered

Gouged the earth,

Taken all her riches

And stripped of her dignity

What then?

After we’ve polluted the rivers

Cut all the trees

Annihilated all beasts

And built our cities

What then?

After we’ve melted the poles

Drowned the islands

Gorged on tuna

Harpooned all the whales

What then?

After we’ve decimated cultures

Displaced our peoples

Robbed them of land

And established destitution

What then?

After we’ve fed our lust

Satisfied our greed

Abandoned all common sense

And that which is morally right

What then?

After we’ve destroyed

Our past

Our present

Our future

What then?

THE DARKNESS OF NEON LIGHTS

2011-12-06T08:48:00.001+10:00

Downtown Port Moresby - (My Magic Moments)

A youth of nineteen by Burns Peak road

A ten seater flies past his humble abode

His buttons undone his face a blank

Gust of air and into a twig his teeth he sank

A lump protrudes from his lanky frame

Cancer they said but tis all the same

He’ll die anyway and no one will care

For many more his life they share

His mind a baggage of a childhood lost

The last of six and born at great cost

His father a landless Moresby squatter

For years lived in the same city quarter

On the radio a new hospital is opened

For him it’s but a dream with a sour end

He’d curse his father for his foolish dream

If he’d known a better life for it he’d scream

This has been life since his mother left

Her death at birth left him bereft

Life sometimes was a cruel joke

No pain. No sadness nor tears on which to choke

Lights of the city had beckoned to his father

Even here on the hill they seemed farther

He lives it. He breaths it every day and on countless nights

He knows without knowing the darkness of neon lights

"WE CRY WHEN THE WOMEN DIE" - A STORY FROM SAIDOR

2011-10-23T12:00:00.001+10:00

Dilung Gama and her daughter Martina sit on bed in a small maternity ward at the Saidor Health Center. Martina who suffers from epilepsy, gave birth near their village a few days ago.

The child has been given away for adoption and Dilung - who appears to be in her 60s - says they did that because Martina has too many children. She doesn’t say how many children her daughter has but she points to a boy behind her and says: “That’s one of them.”

Mother and daughter, Dlung and Matilda Gama

Like many other parts of Papua New Guinea, stories about the plight of women and children is all too common. We’ve become desensitized to images and stories that would cause panic and alarm in other countries.

Martina is one of the lucky few who have made it to a health center. Her village was beside a road and she was fortunate that her relatives brought her to Saidor in time. Many others aren’t so fortunate.

“…For instance, we get a radio message that says there’s a women in pain,” says Lynette Dawo, a community health worker. “In actual fact, she’s been in pain for the last three or four days and the message has just reached us because it took several days for her husband to get to a radio.”

Lynette Dawo - Community Health Worker

The Raikos area of Madang shares a common border with the Morobe province. The area is rugged and mountainous. It’s people are scattered along across a thin coastal strip stretching from the Astrolabe to Wasu in Morobe. Many more live in hamlets in the the rugged hills overlooking the coast. Transportation is extremely difficult when it comes to medical emergencies.

Lynette and other workers here at Saidor are a dedicated lot of health professionals. But their dedication and commitment has not always been enough to save countless lives lost because of transport difficulties.

“It is a painful place to work,” she says. “Our patients are like family.

She recalls a medevac she requested several years ago for a woman who was suffering from birth complications. She died while Lynette other staff were desperately trying to find a boat.

“I cried for her. I went to the health office and I said: why did it take so long to find the boat. We let her die.”

Gabriel Puak, Nursing officer,

Saidor had a sea ambulance once. But the heath Center didn’t have the money to get it fixed after it broke down 10 years ago. The health centers, buildings are badly in need of maintenance. The workers point out that all available resources are channeled towards saving lives. Transportation alone eats into the meager user fees collected by the health center.

“Sometimes we try to get the patients to pay for emergency transportation,” says Gabriel Puak. “ But they can’t afford it. Transport difficulties also has a major impact on the local economy and their ability to make their own money.”

Gabriel holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Midwifery. In saidor, he has been able to reduce the number of deaths during birth. He knows he can do a lot more if only he had the money and the means of transportation to get the medicines and staff to the many rural locations that demand attention.

“Sometimes I sit at home and wonder why I was born here and why I chose this profession. I’ve got the skills to do the job but how do I get to those many people who need help.”

FINALLY EVICTED FROM THEIR LAND

2011-02-26T22:48:00.004+10:00

For two years, brothers Peter and John Kepma from Kurumbukare have been resisting attempts by the Chinese owned Nickel Mine to force them onto a temporary camp site. In September 2010, a group of armed police accompanied by mine workers forcefully evicted them from their ancestral home. The brothers documented how their huts were demolished and their lives destroyed.

On the morning of the 8^thof September 2010, John Kepma was suddenly awakened by noise outside his hut . He peered through the cracks in the wall and saw several policemen who had begun pulling down his dwelling.

He came out of his hut and was confronted with a sight he had come to both dread and expect. Armed policemen had begun an eviction of remnant members of the Maure clan who had refused to move to a temporary relocation site. His clan members included his father, his uncles his older brother, Peter and several children.

“One of the ‘officers of the state’ told us that we were weren’t landowners and that he would get three other clans to burn our houses down and chase us off the land, ” John recalled. “He said: ‘all of you come out and pack your things and leave,’ then he began breaking down the houses.”

Since January last year, John and his older brother Peter had become the face of a people’s resistance against the Chinese owned Ramu Nickel Mine’s push to evict them from their own land. On eight previous occasions last year, older brother Peter was confronted by heavily armed police who demanded that he pack up and leave. But each time he refused.

“They came armed and dressed in their uniforms. They wanted me to leave.,” he said. “But I told them: this is my land and I will stay here. This is an issue between me and MCC. You all are not from China. You’re all Papua New Guinean like me. You own land as well.”

The Maure of Kurumbukare are a small clan that control a small land area. For Peter Kepma, the success of this resistance is crucial. His clan’s survival depends on the land on which they live. But this large scale mining development has taken away their very means of survival – their ancestral land. “Our entire clan land will be mined for nickel, ” Peter says. “We’ve been forced to move to a temporary relocation site but that too will be mined later.

“They’ve told us that we’ll be moved to a permanent site but that land belongs to another clan and we won’t be allowed to plant gardens or hunt.” Like the majority of rural Papua New Guineans, becoming landless is unthinkable. It simply doesn’t happen. But for Peter, John and members of his clan, it has become a reality. With nowhere else to live, the clan planted a food garden on an area designated as the mining company’s ore stockpile area. John says that they had no choice but to plant on what is now the company’s land. Members of their family now reside on the fringes of what was their customary land. Their huts perched on a small mountain ridge overlooking the mine site. They’ve been living there for the last two years despite talk of relocation. When the eviction began, John documented it all using a digital still camera.

He took pictures of his village being demolished and of his displaced family. He even took pictures of a Chinese company worker who told him not to go to the media. John and Peter said they want the world to know about the things that are being done to them and how they’re being treated on their own land.

Ends…

HERE AND NOW

2010-12-08T09:27:00.002+10:00

Many of the stories on this blog are based on real experiences. I wrote this story after covering a rape and murder of an elementary school in Port Moresby. Personally, I've always wondered how parents of children who have been killed by total strangers go on with life.

Since her death, calling her name was forbidden in the house. It was just a house now. A home no more. When the police found her lifeless body, he didn’t want to believe it was his little girl. It had to be someone else’s daughter. It couldn’t be his pride and joy. He couldn’t think.
Those few hours were like a blur in slow motion. It was as if time had slowed so dramatically. In his mind he would pick out the events by the minute and look at them over and over. When he arrived at the scene, a crowd of men, women and children were hovering over the drain.
“They must have raped her too…” he heard someone say. “…it happened early this morning…”
Their almost unconscious fascination of a dead little girl sickened him. He pushed them aside and stumbled into the drain. Her school uniform was almost unrecognizable. Torn and bloody. Even her panties had been removed. There lay his own flesh and blood. He opened his mouth but couldn’t find his voice. It was as if his very being had been stabbed by a spear.

Picture from Zac's blog
http://www.zacsunderland.com/blog/2008_09_01_archive.html

Jennifer’s younger brother pulled him out of the drain when the police arrived. They would not let him hold his baby girl. His beautiful baby girl. They retrieved her small mangled body slowly and painfully and along with it three large rocks. All the hate and anger and sorrow… everything. It was all there. Crushing him under their weight. He tore at his face and dug his nails into his hair. He felt no pain even when his fists became bloody from pounding the earth upon which writhed. He wanted her back. He wanted her back. Why? Why? Why?
What pleasure did that animal seek from the body of an 8-year-old girl? What did he want when he took her away?
What hurt him most was the terror she must have felt those minutes before her attacker bashed her head with those rocks. Childhood fear is real when you dream. But somewhere somehow you know daddy or mummy will be there when you wake up and it will all be over with a hug. But that fear was not a dream. She must have closed her eyes and wished she would wake up from it all. It hurt him so much that he wasn’t there to take her daughter away from it all.
A fly sat on his lip and he slowly swatted it away with his hand. It hurt a bit. He couldn’t remember if he had broken a bone. He hadn’t been to the hospital since he took his girl from the morgue.
Since the hauskai, he had practically lived on the outdoor platform they built outside the house. He sat there for days on end. Another day was slowly ending. His eyes were now cast past the nearby hill. Port Moresby’s orange sunset on the clouds tortured his mind. …A little girl with a backpack…skipping… hopping… up the hill to the platform… then to the house. Jennifer framed by the timber door serving out food on three plates. Then an irritatingly beautiful girl’s voice calling out: “Daaaaaddy… Mama tok kam kaikaaaaai…! Slowly he pulled up his knees and laid down on the platform in a foetal position and closed his eyes. He didn’t ever want to wake up again.

END.

DISTANT (POEM)

2010-12-05T19:07:00.001+10:00

She seems distant and I am lost
I’ve taken so many turns
In this maze of life
Yet I am no nearer to her
With my careless lethargic ways
I keep hurting the one I love
I don’t know anymore
What is right and what is wrong
I can’t apologise
I can’t say I’m sorry
It means nothing anymore
There is anger in me
And I know I am to blame
The harder I cling
The farther I drive her from me
Every inch towards her
Seems to push her away
I can’t speak my mind
Without drawing anger
Yet I want her more each day
I long for her warmth
And I don’t know what to do
‘Tis like holding a shell
She does what has to be done
And doesn’t expect much of me
Slowly, I’m giving up on myself
For this selfishness is like
A monkey on my back
Eating into me and my soul
I ask and I don’t give
I give yet I want it back
I’ve lost the right
To fight for what is mine
For this barrier exists
Between me and what is mine
I caused it all. I know I caused it all

CONFUSED (POEM)

2010-12-05T19:03:00.000+10:00

The wee hours I wake
My slumber I break
My thoughts are a jumble
Through which I stumble

What should I feel?
How should I feel?
Still…all’s like twilight
And grey impending night

This silent intrusion
Of all this confusion
My feelings are a mess
My thoughts I suppress

I stifle my yearning
Yet my soul is burning
The storm hasn’t abated
For chaos I am fated

Again at days end
to my thoughts I tend
Why did I fall
To that beckoning call?

And now…. this pain
This pain…this pain
Tis as real as my heart’s beat
And the earth beneath my feet

In endless stupor
I seek and implore
If it’s a dream
Why is it real when I scream?

RIDICULOUS PAYRISES, DEAD BABIES AND CHOLERA

2010-11-30T13:24:00.005+10:00

It was election year in 2002 when campaign efforts were at their peak. I arrived at a school in the Tekin Valley in remote Oksapin in the Sandaun province after a 6 hour trek though the jungle.
The rain had just ended when I began an interview with a local teacher.    He was one of the few government representatives   in this   very isolated part of Papua New Guinea. The only government aid post in his village had closed down a few years ago. The orderly left   for the provincial capital of Vanimo and never returned.   I wanted to know about infant and maternal mortality rates. At the time the teacher was the only person available who could give me a fair analysis of the situation.

Funeral gathering - Tekin Valley, 2002

Having come from Port Moresby where one relies on easily accessible and “reliable” statistics, I got straight into asking   a series of questions trying   to establish the number of mothers and children who had died in the last 1 months.
“We really don’t know.” He said. “We only know of those who died in   this village and the next.”

He counted three infants and one mother who died in his village in that election month alone. They all died of complications that could have been solved if they had easy
access to a sub-health center or even a medical orderly.   The nearest health center was a day’s walk from where we were. It would take two days   to get there from the villages I passed. But for pockets of small hamlets in the far of distance, getting to that health center when a mother experiencing   birth complications is an impossible dream.     The teacher couldn’t give me an exact number of children who died in the last 12 months or in the previous year. But he gave me an educated guess. He said between 15 and 30 babies die every year in this mountainous region.

Woman and granddaughter - Tekin, 2002

“Too many,” he said shaking his head. “Too many.”

He went on to tell me   that people had come to accept the deaths of babies as part of their lives. In the nearby villages, many families would gather for the death of a respected elder.   For a baby who died at birth, only the father and the mother would be at the burial. The teacher said in the small mountaintop villages, this was the scenario that was played out every month when a baby died: The father would take the tiny body to the back of the hut and bury him or her there. No one mourned for them. They were “just” nameless babies who would not even be recorded as statistics because nobody knew.

In the same year, I found myself in another part of the Sandaun province at a small government run aid post.   Half the concrete floor had collapsed into the ground. The medicine cabinet had only malarial tablets and liniment for body aches. The medical orderly told me that a child had died about 24 hours ago from dehydration. By the time he had been brought to the aid post, the orderly could not administer treatment. The child’s father came at the aid post a few minutes later and was told by the orderly: “If you want your son to live, take him and run to the health center.” The orderly said he got word in the afternoon that the   father did make it to health center but the child had already died in his arms.

Broken bridge near Telifomin

The situation may have already improved in those areas but in other places, it remains a reality that ordinary Papua New Guineans have to contend with. What matters most to the ordinary person in the village are roads, bridges schools, good health services and most importantly, the ability to make money for himself.   But it seems we keep getting it wrong every year!
In 2008, the Treasury department released figures in the Final Budget Outcome (FBO) which showed how much money was being wasted. The 68-page report outlined how the government more than doubled spending from K202.3 million to K478.5 million in deficit. The expenses   included car purchases, a 12 million kina Canberra residence, 100 thousand kina for pipes and drums for the Correctional Service band and 65 thousand kina for the Institute of Medical Research’s 40^th anniversary celebrations.
In 2009, Members of Parliament paid themselves K10 million in accommodation and motor vehicle allowances.    One government backbencher said immediately after the decision that he would “give all the allowances back to parliament.” In contrast, the Public Service Minister, Peter O’Neill said allowances which MPs were getting were “far below what was needed to meet the amounts charged by real estate companies.”
The increases gladly received by MPs came at a time when the Port Moresby General Hospital and other hospitals around the country were   experiencing a dire shortage of drugs and medical supplies. It was also a year when several hundred settlers were made homeless in Port Moresby after a police raid. Also in that year, working class Papua New Guineans in towns and cities struggled with accommodation problems and high food costs.
As if all that wasn’t enough, members of Parliament have yet again voted this year to give themselves a 52 percent pay rise. On average each MP will get about 77 thousand kina a annually.
All this is set against a gloomy backdrop   of high infant mortality rates and new outbreaks of cholera in several parts of the country.

WHAT STORY SHOULD I TELL?

2010-11-10T10:16:00.004+10:00

Tucked away behind the Nobnob mountain on Madang’s North Coast is a small school – the Nobnob primary school. Its students are the liveliest bunch of youngsters I’ve met this year. Keen to learn and well behaved even when the teacher is not there.

But like many schools through out Papua New Guinea the fibro classrooms show the wear and tear of the generations of kids who came through this school.

Like many others, I was just passing through to get to a vintage point where I could get a few take still photographs of Madang town in the far off distance. Walking into a classroom, a met a teacher. I asked If it was alright if I took a few pictures of the school and the children. Nobnob primary doesn’t have luxury of brand new classrooms but it does have a well maintained playing field and a tiny library . I guess, that’s what’s really important to kids – being able to play and enjoy growing up and being able to learn. Then again you think to yourself: How many of our political leaders would choose to send their children to schools like the Nobnob primary school? I can’t answer that for you. Some of the children, wide eyed and curious clutching worn copies of oxford dictionaries stared as I shot off a few stills on the camera I took with me.

I wanted to tell a story. But what story? I’d seen this story repeated a hundred times before. What new story was I going to tell? A sob story about children not achieving their dreams because government subsidies weren’t always paid on time? About demoralized teachers struggling with pay and living conditions as the cost of goods continued to rise everyday? About the teacher trying to decide whether he should have his salary deposited into his bank account only to have ridiculous bank fees charged on his earnings? Lecturers in university would have said give the story a human face, Scott. Make people see that it’s not just about the lovely statistics on flashy Power Point presentations. The kind that aid donors and government officials love to talk about in air conditioned conference rooms in Port Moresby.

Yes. But what story? The two other teachers I spoke to said Nobnob Primary is supposed to get 20 thousand kina every quarter as school subsidies. But it’s not news any more that the money doesn’t arrive on time or that many times it does not arrive at all. It’s not surprising. Not shocking anymore that our kids aren’t getting the support they need to achieve their dreams.

It doesn’t bother us anymore that maybe the kid in the picture I took won’t become a doctor because next year he’ll have to stay home all because daddy’s busy raising money to send his older brother to high school.

What story should I tell? For all this has become a monotonous repetition of stories with human faces we all recognize and live with everyday and yet choose to ignore. But then again, Nobnob is fortunate to have teachers and classrooms and a road leading to Madang town.

What about that school in Fiak? I bet you never heard of tiny primary school in some “insignificant” corner of the Sandaun province represented only by a mere statistic in the air conditioned conference rooms in Port Moresby. It’s a school that has had chronic teacher shortages for the last decade. Teachers just don’t want to go there anymore because the planes don’t fly there anymore because it’s unprofitable.

So what story should I tell?

FACELESS AND UNKNOWN (short story)

2010-08-14T10:31:00.004+10:00

Leonard dabbed on more somber colors with each stroke of the brush. The maroon blending with the darker brown. To the red, he was now adding a bit of black. It still retained its reddish hue. He wanted it that way. The sun dried blood at ten in the morning. The boy's feet had already taken shape. It was pale in the morning light.

The furrows his toes had made in the freshly dug garden soil were prominently placed. His head hung limp. The faceless strangers were only blurred images straining forward, the boys slender frame between them. Slowly congealing blood oozed from his nose and the corner of this mouth. Yes... it was slowing taking shape.

Leonard's brow creased. He leaned towards the large mug and drew a smaller brush from it and retouched the boy's slightly open eyelid. Another brush and another dab on the partially hidden white. the tip of the brush met the canvas again. the effect was an almost unnoticeable reflection of the early morning light on the dark glaze of the eyeball.

It was the intimate details of the boy's face that would have to tell the story and it was very much a story that needed to be told. Despite the brilliance of the artist, what the boy felt was far beyond anything that could be translated on to canvas. What Leonard could feel was the insecurity of the child begging silently in all hopelessness to be comforted. There were no words for it. No images for it. They could only be felt. Yes. Felt. But it was the feelings that Leonard wanted everyone to know. The tortured emotions of that one child. Half dragged, scared and his cries stifled by the shouts and taunts of adrenaline pumped strangers intent on satisfying that unquenchable lust for revenge.

It was now eight hours since he began. But he couldn't stop. He was angry and frustrated. He wanted the world to be angry with him. Life was being perverted and cheapened. Violence was accepted. It couldn't be and should never be.

All this was not only a symbolic crime against a higher class of society. For the boy was one of their own. He lived with them. His parents were as disadvantaged as they were. But he was an innocent victim of a foolish ethnic squabble.

He lived in the city all his life. It was so far removed from the tribal customs and traditions that governed his parents and grandparents. Besides, all that were just sketches of a life he barely understood. the blurred faces remained. the blade of the bush knife was stained with the boy's blood.

on the bottom right hand corner of the canvas was a trio dressed in blue camouflage uniforms of the special police task force. The aftermath of the murder. the attention...the authorities on the scene. But it was all too late. Too late. The boy was dead and his killers were only faceless figures in the ealry morning hours. People he didn't know.

END.

NOSTALGIA (Poem)

2010-08-01T19:17:00.003+10:00

That golf course on the hill

And thoughts of the thrill

Giant trees and their silent groans

Wet soil and white coloured stones

Berries and cold air in your nose

Damp earth and a pink rose

Kunai grass in waves of green

Tiny insects causing such a scene

The cold trickle of showers

Fields of tiny yellow flowers

Grass between your toes

Market sellers in rows

Distant hamlets, valleys and hills

Gentle showers and puddles it fills

Bamboo and pine cones brown

All at that small roadside town

Photo from "Kaunapulej's" photostream on Flickr

LANDLESS PAPUA NEW GUINEANS - IS THIS THE FUTURE?

2010-03-09T00:12:00.000+10:00

We came to Benny Mangua’s village at about Midday. This trip was for a story of how a foreign company allowed into the country by the government of Papua New Guinea was treating the local people - the original owners of the land.
I had packed a camera and several tapes not expecting anything major apart from a few disgruntled landowners who had not been paid their dues. As I was going to discover, I’d come to Kurumbukari mine site quite unprepared mentally.
Benny Mangua an elderly man of in his mid sixties greeted a teammate of mine, Steven Sukot - quite warmly but then whilst I shot a few seconds of footage, the old man broke down and wept. Steven responded as any Papua New Guinean would – embracing the old man and tried to calm him down as best he could.
“My tears keep falling. I’ve lost my land. I’ve lost my home.”
He continued to weep as I brought the camcorder around to him and clumsily adjusted the audio settings . In 10 years of television this, to me, was truly a rare moment. I never dreamed that I would live to see the day when this happened. This was a Papua New Guinean landowner who had been forced off his land by a foreign company. Benny Mangua of the Mauri Clan was born and raised on this land on which his ancestors had settled many generations ago. In a matter of months, he had become a landless Papua New Guinean.
“I’ve become like a parasite. I have no place to stay.”
He wasn’t exaggerating when he said it. For Benny Mangua’s entire clan’s land area contains some the richest nickel deposits in the Southern Hemisphere. It is here that the Chinese owned company – MCC - will begin the controversial US1.4 billion dollar nickel mining project.
About 50 of his clan members left for a temporary resettlement area – a forbidden, sacred site where Benny Mangua’s ancestral spirits dwell. It was a kilometer from where we were. But sacred as it was to the Mauri Clan of Kurumbukari, the site has been designated as a stockpile area for nickel ore.
Only two houses now stand on Mauri clan land. Both belong to Benny Mangua’s two sons - Peter Kepma and his younger brother, John. They’ve refused to leave.
“There is a permanent relocation area. But the land belongs to another person... another clan, says Peter Kepma. “If we go and live on the blocks of land there, we won’t be able to plant food gardens or hunt.”
MCC began issuing food rations to the Mauri clan since the relocation began. But the clan members say the food rations can only last them a few days.
“ The company is annoyed that we made gardens here,” John Kepma says pointing to cassava and taro growing on the stockpile area. “Even where the forest is… they don’t allow us to plant food.
“But we have to. If we don’t we’ll starve to death.”
John Kepma chuckles as he tells me about the company’s attitude towards local people.
“If we have a problems and we try to bring it to the company’s attention, they treat it like a criminal matter.”
Police have came to his elder brother’s house eight times already. Peter Kepma is the more serious type. Quiet undemanding yet stubborn.
“They tried to intimidate me,” he says. “They came well dressed in their uniforms and carrying their weapons. But I told them: “You’re not from China. You all own land just like me… I’m here because of my land. This isn’t State land. This is my land and I’ve still got it.”
To say “the Mauri clan faces a difficult future” is a gross understatement. As I filmed along the track leading to the temporary settlement, a five year old girl, walks ahead of me. She is in the shot nimbly picking her way through the kunai grass. I can see the audio levels on my camcorder peaking to the patter of her tiny feet on the yellow nickel rich earth.
I wondered if she understood why the old man had wept in front of total strangers about half an hour earlier.
He understood very well that She would not have the pleasure of learning the ways of old on her grandfather’s land nor gather eggs from the forest like her mother’s mother did many years ago. The old man understood that unlike other Papua New Guinean’s she was leaving behind the land that sustained her ancestors for generations. She was leaving behind her past and future.

ENDS

MOTI (Poem)

2009-11-09T11:09:00.002+10:00

It still baffles me so
Why they let Moti go
What did I miss? Fact is:
He hopped on a plane that wasn’t his
So who said he could go?
Why people won’t say, I don’t know?
It baffles me so
Why they let Moti go

NOBODY KNEW (Poem)

2009-11-09T10:54:00.003+10:00

Young lady got family to feed

Her husband gone and bubu is sick

“Children stay home no bus fare today

Or tomorrow… maybe next week”

When baby’s sick and she wait in line

Chinaman boss say: no wok no pay

Chinaman boss say it to everyone

Two weeks now baby still sick

Pekpek wara and strongpla kus

Her job someone takeover

She find ‘nother one taim baby orait

No food no pawa no water

Her daughter she die

Family not happy she did wrong

She killed her husband

And her baby daughter too

Husband’s people not happy

She get sick and soon she die

Bubu too sick to work

Children no mama no papa

No one knew she was HIV positive

FOREST REBELLION (Poem)

2009-10-27T10:16:00.004+10:00

One day he will rise from the squalor

The pleasure of his woman’s body no more

He’ll seek comfort from cold black metal

With his finger on the trigger

One day, this landowner’s child will be called a rebel

All because Daddy left him nothing when he was young

Beasts of metal ravaged his home when he was a baby

They tore down the giants that made him wonder in awe

The rivers are sick and the birds sing no more

The fish have left for distant streams

Daddy’s passion for pleasure died with him long time ago

What’s money when you don’t have a home?

One day, this landless landowner’s son will be called a rebel

‘Tis inevitable that he will arise driven by anger

At the slant eyed stranger who raped the ancient virgins

He’ll seek justice in lawlessness for rage will be his god

THANK YOU BEIJING (Poem)

2009-10-27T09:53:00.008+10:00

Thank you Beijing

Basamuk’s gonna be a city.
I want it to be just like Shanghai.

Thank you Bejing

Madang’s got a new building.
A wondrous sight it must be from the governor’s office.

Thank you Beijing

For excellent waste disposal methods on the Basamuk coast.
Why didn’t we think of that earlier.

Thank you Beijing

For the money you’re giving for 10 new canneries.
Please make them just like RD Tuna.

Thank you Beijing

For all those people you send to run our hauskais.
You’ve solved our skills shortage problem.

EPIDEMIC 2060 (Short story)

2009-10-26T10:04:00.000+10:00

He approached the tall white building – a group of apartments. It was probably the only one in Lae where the noise from the traffic didn’t get to you. Well … not totally. Traffic these days was a never-ending low pitched hum if you lived here. At least it was better than other parts of the city where screeching tyres and blaring horns were all a part of life. He remembered his previous residence in the town area. He never left his windows open at night. And when morning came the glass on the windows would always be coated with soot from exhausts of the hundreds of diesel and petrol vehicles.

As he came out of his car he wiped off the remaining traces of the five minutes of rain which fell when he was at the hospital.

PNG had always been way behind when it came to environmental issues. In the late 90s when environmental groups around the world were intensifying their efforts to curb the export and the destruction of rain forests, it had brought three different responses from Papua New Guineans nationwide. The ordinary people in urban areas had laughed at the television images of the dedicated men and women who stood in front of bulldozers to prevent them taking the last remaining trees from rain forest in the West New Britain and the Oro province. And while the foolish, money-hungry landowners did virtually all they could do to prevent the ‘greenies’ from entering their land, the wealthy elite of the PNG society were buying shares from joint venture landowner companies.

Landowners had never realized that the elite, through their ties with a few multinational timber giants had literally fed off their land. Before the country’s economic collapse, a strong kina and numerous logging projects had meant handsome royalties for the landowners. It had also meant more overseas trips for the government ministers and bureaucrats, including their numerous family members, all at the expense of the country.

Dr Omat entered the elevator from the underground car park and pressed the button for the 21st floor. He felt the gravitational push on his head and shoulders as the elevator slowly glided to its destination. He slowly glided to its destination. He gazed out of the elevator window out of habit. There was nothing to see except a smog-covered city with tall dull buildings. Was this what his grandfathers had imagined when they said they wanted change? Development at the expense of the environment. Development without considering the consequences on his generation. He had read in history books about the concept of ‘eco tourism. It was brilliant concept where economic development ran parallel to environment preservation. But with the depleting resource of rain forests in the world, the few surviving eco tourist resorts and the government were unable to control the hordes of tourists seeking relief from the stresses of first world life.

Without proper regulations in place, rare and endangered species located on the forest floor were trampled on until there were none left for regeneration. Environmental effects also took their toll. Global warming eventually killed off the remaining tropical rain forests and caused the disappearance of low lying atolls in Bougainville and Manus.

His thoughts were interrupted when the elevator jerked to a stop on the 21st floor. It was unusual. Normally the repairman would be here to fix such minor problems. He stepped out and walked down the corridor to his apartment door.

“Open,” he said as he watched the two halves of the voice activated door slide open. The technological advancements like this door never ceased to amaze him. Towards the middle of the 21st century, science had progressed in leaps and bounds. So too had man’s lust to be supreme over nature.

He laid his briefcase on the low coffee table and stopped to closely examine the cactus growing in a pot on the table. These days plants were not taken free form their natural habitats. They were bought from greenhouses run by corporate logging giants who had diversified into horticulture since the total destruction of rain forests. He was born and raised in Lae. So had his father. His grandfather’s generation was the last to be born in what they had, affectionately called ‘the village’. He had also heard of how the people lived in harmony with the nature – letting the land replenish itself without human interference. His grandfather had also told him of the days when they had fun gathering edible ferns and shellfish by the rivers. At the start of the century, his grandfather was one of those who stood up against the politically-backed multinational logging companies as they threatened to destroy what he held dear. He and the rest of his clan where relocated to a reservation where he died. He had been torn by defeat and weary of the lifelong environmental battle.

Dr Omat sat on the couch and gazed at the cactus. His heart was heavy as he mourned for this once beautiful country. He could almost see the images of his grandfather with an illegally bought asult rifle held across his chest as he stood in front of the massive bulldozer. He was defending his land, his bush, his life.

He could see the frantic tree kangaroo attempting a futile leap to the next tree as ruthless men armed with chain saws felled its home. He could see the dead fish on the rivers and the pig turning and snapping wildly to defend its young from advancing loggers. He felt the pain of the bullet lodged on its side as it watched helplessly while men slaughtered its young for sport.

His father had laid coughing on his hospital bed and urging him to preserve whatever piece of land he had left as a reminder of the former beauty. His father had died a few hours later. It had been a long, five-year struggle with the respiratory disease. He was now a doctor and a good one. It was the result of the anger at not being able to save his father. People who had the power to cause changes in the past had failed to do so. Driven by selfish desires, they had allowed problems to happen until it was too late to stop. One consequence was the mass destruction of the environment without reforestation. Many a politician in the end of the last century had said the 21st century would be a period of rebirth and fresh new ideas. This century was the period of ‘fresh new ideas’ alright. Fresh new ideas on how to correct the numerous, irreversible blunders of the so called ‘good decision makers’ of the last century. It was hopeless. Never had they tried to effectively correct the mistakes of their predecessors of the early 80s and 90s. In fact it was understood that whoever entered politics in those days lost his heart for the people as he was sucked into the whirlpool of corruption. Anti-corruption activities had called “the disease”. It was contagious they said. Like tendrils of a parasitic vine, corruption had spread from the heads of government to the bureaucratic circles. When it eventually took root among the lowly public servants and the community, there was no distinction between a corrupt and an uncorrupt deal. The whole system then – and even now – was a total abuse of democracy and people’s trust.

A series of rapid beeps from his mobile phone interrupted his thoughts and he reached into his pocket for it. “Hello?” he said as he looked out the window.

“Good evening, Mel”, said the regretful voice of Andre Schubert, the volunteer doctor on duty. “Sorry to disturb you but we’ve got 15 cases of respiratory probems I won’t be able to handle them alone.”

“I’ll be on my way in five minutes,” he replied without hesitation and folded the mouthpiece.

PNG was still repaying the debts of the previous government’s since independence 85 years ago. First, it was repayment with money, then resources. And now it was being repaid with lives. The government’s health system was on its knees and the crippling situation now meant the government was unable to purchase the latest serum able counter the new strains of the HIV. On his last visit, the health minister had promised to fast track a European aid package of 10 million dollars. But Melchior, as the hospital’s chief executive had learned not to put too much trust in a government that was struggling to maintain its four remaining hospitals in Port Moresby, Goroka, Rabaul and Lae.

He recalled his day at the hospital. People were still flooding in by the thousands suffering from respiratory diseases and unknown strains of influenza. With almost 50 percent of the country HIV positive, such curable diseases became even deadlier for the sufferer. Almost all of these people who came to the hospital lived in settlements. They were from a mixture of backgrounds, which included former public servants still awaiting their end of service entitlements and bankrupt business persons. But the majority had been laid off their jobs when the companies their worked for left following predictions of PNG’s economic collapse.

He was feeling light headed as the elevator descended to the car park. When it halted, he stepped out and headed for his car. He got in and drove out of the car park. It was 7.45 pm he noted as he drove along the streets lined with beggars and prostitutes. The number of beggars had increased dramatically in the last 50 years since the turn of the century. Prostitution had also increased since its legalization 30 years ago. The city itself had over 200 brothels.

Government policy makers had thought it would limit the problems of starvation among the unemployed. It was another bad decision. The AIDS problem had evolved from a potential disaster in the late 90s into a catastrophe by 2020. He recalled how doctors had discovered the first reported cases of AIDS in 1987. Their repeated warnings had fallen on deaf ears. Politicians had not really paid attention to the need for hard-hitting awareness campaigns in schools on sexually transmitted diseases. Yet in this century, PNG’s sexual attitudes still had not changed. In fact it was worse. With the many family break-ups, the moral fiber of society had eroded to a point where only strands of it were being supported by the few. Sexual promiscuity was rife with teenagers as young as 15 acting as pimps in schools. He was sickened by the trend. Attempts by the government to curb the problem had proven hopeless. Still there were thousands of children whose parents had died of AIDS. Thousands more had no other source of income except child pornography and prostitution. The government’s reaction to set up homes for the orphaned children came too late and was unable to cater fully for the increasing number of children.

He drove into the car park, and entered the emergency ward nodding a ‘good evening’ at the nurse at the reception as he hurried to meet Dr Schubert. He knew this call was going to last until the morning. He found Dr Schubert‘s tall figure stooping over a patient who was wheezing violently. Dr Schubert walked over to him as he approached.

“He has serious trouble with both his lungs,” he said. Dr Schubert was a man of few words who had a way of using the simplest words for complicated situations. Melchior helped set up the equipment and then went to attend to the other patients. With sunken cheeks, they eyed him intently as he walked in between their beds. These were men, women and children of what was once a green, resource-rich country. A wide-eyed child clung tightly to her sick mother’s wrist as she lay on the hospital bed. Her records indicated she had HIV. Melchior’s eyes clouded with tears as he looked at the little girl who seemed so sure the doctor would cure her mother. There were so many like her who would become orphans by morning and he, “the good doctor” as many called him, would be unable to prevent it. It had never really occurred to the power hungry prime ministers of the past that the after effects of decisions made in self interest were like those of a nuclear blast. In the past, such decisions caused the deaths of hundreds, but now millions more were suffering.

By the time he had finished with the last of the patients at the ward. His eyes were heavy as he pulled off his surgical gloves and washed his hands in the washroom. He stared at his face in the mirror. His 36-year old self felt 20 years older. His eyes and cheeks were sunken like the patients he had just attended to. He knew that without a cure readily available he too did not have long to live.

A MEANS OF SURVIVAL (Short story)

2009-10-25T23:22:00.003+10:00

Prostitution...Poverty... and business...

The moist sea breeze struck him in the face like a warm damp blanket as he hurriedly walked towards the gates of the wharf. “Come on hurry up!” he called to the three women who dawdled behind him. “I haven’t had a good drink in three days.”

Whenever a ship docked, it mean lots of ready cash and alcohol would be available as long as he had quality woman available for the foreign sailors on board. The ship had docked a few hours earlier. But Pius wanted to wait for the cover of darkness before he opened up for business.

He was confronted many times by local leaders and once by the parish priest. It was illegal, they told him. They also threatened to take him to the police. The community leader was a problem until a few months ago when he bought two cartons of the amber liquid to his house. Irresistible, it was. Soon they were chatting like brothers. The parish priest who visited him said his businesses was a violation of human dignity. Pius had heard that a thousand times before. But women came to him because they needed help and he provided employment. Besides they made more in a week than the average, “honest” Papua New Guinean made in a fortnight. He eased his pace as the three women caught up with him. Two of the women were 19-year old students on school holidays while the other was a single mother of two struggling to pay for her children’s school fees. Pius knew the two younger women would be in high demand.

“I’ve got the buyers, you’ve got the product” he once said . Many of those who came to him from all sorts of backgrounds – broken families, neglected children, teenage students and the occasional full-time worker looking for some extra cash. They halted under the shadow of a coconut tree as Pius watched for the changing of the guard. For the two students, it would be their third time doing this.

Pius strained his eyes to see who was on duty. He knew the guards by name. Like the Community leader, they got their cut as well. A six or a carton when business was good. He glanced at a shiny Rolex on his wrist. 10:56pm it read. “Wait here,” he told the three women as he made his way towards the guard house. He moved stealthily along the shadows. He had acquired a reputation for doing that. He approached the guardhouse and tapped lightly on the window sil.

“Oooooi! Peeeuuus! How are you this wonderful night?” Makis the young security guard greeted him with a grin that seemed to cover his face. “Plenty people asking, bro… We been lookin’ for you.”

Pius smiled and took a deep breath. His popularity had soared since he began 8 months ago. He had quite a few regular customers from the ships that docked here. There was nothing like a sex starved sailor.

“How many for tonight” he asked.

“Four… I think… I don’t know. The captain too. He’s a good man. Malay or Chinaman ya. He wants the same kind… you save… young and fresh,” said Makis idly flipping through the log book.

“Pius stepped into the shadows again and quickly calculated how much he would make that night. Two hundred fifty or three for the two students and probably another two hundred for the other. He’d be Six hundred kina richer maybe more.

“Hey Peeeeuuus! Here come two of your customers now.” Makis called out. Pius saw a burly man accompanied by another of medium height. They stood chatting with Makis as Pius turned towards them. These guys came with their wallets bursting at the seams. He’s probably be able to squeeze a few bonus payments tonight. He knew from experience that, from a drunk sailor, he could make a month’s earnings in a day. But these two were too sober.

“The bro here,” said Makis stabbing a finger into the big fellow’s jutting belly and laughing quite loudly, “says he wants a fresh one. He’s too lazy to work.”

Pius grinned and said: “The other one? Him too?” The other guy nodded. Pius turned to the burly mate and eyed him closely. “How much are you paying?”

“150.”

“150 too small. 300.”

“Aaaah!” The burly mate raised his hands in disgust. Last time we no get what we want. 250 tasol na… how ‘about this we give you too…” And the other guy opened a bag and pulled out two large bottles of Indonesian whisky.

“Ok…Ok… 200 each na Whisky.”

The big man laughed heartily and shook hands with Pius. He stood by and watched as the two men opened their wallets and pulled out a few fifties and tens. Things were looking pretty good for Pius tonight. The crew members handed over the money to Pius and then reached for the whisky bottle. Pius stuffed the notes into his pocket and took the two bottles.

He turned to the two younger women. “You two go first for one night only.”

“When will you pay us,” one of them asked. “I’m not going home until I get paid.”

“Saaaarap! Just go and give these sorry asses a good time \and you get paid, ok? My reputation is at stake here.”

He walked to the shadows and watched as they giggled with the two guys. He was always out of the way when the goods were delivered and he had the cash in hand.

“Come on,” he said to the other woman. “Let’s try the hotel.” She had remained quiet for most of the night except in the company of the two students. “I know where your customers will be.”

Her name was Lina. Pius heard from stories that her husband had left her for another and her relatives were not too keen on taking her in. She previously worked alone before she was introduced to Pius. The fact that she was desperate with two children to support made her an ideal employee. He knew people like her never complained about how much they were paid as long as they had enough for their next meal. He made sure he gave them just enough so they kept coming back to him.

The breeze died down and Pius felt a slight drizzle on his face. He didn’t want them to get wet before they found a customer. The bright orange lights of the hotel flooded through the tree-lined road. The parking lot was filled with an array of vehicles from executive four wheel drives to the beat up family sedan. He could hear the boisterous drunks up ahead and the irregular beeping of poker machines. He knew there would be a dozen government workers and company officials who would prefer to sleep tonight with women other than their wives.

The hotel gate was open. A lone security guard, dressed in an oversized pair of trousers and a worn out cap, patrolled the area. This was another easily corruptible security guard, Micah. He was a former cop dismissed after almost beating a suspect to death.

“Pius, what brings you to this place?” said Micah who was not really keen on having others seeing him talking to a know pimp. “Don’t you have a home to go to?”

Pius ignored the questions. Micah used to be a regular customer when he was in the force. He never came anymore. I guess he no longer had any spending money, Pius mused to himself.

“I have to go inside,” Pius said hurriedly. “Listen mate; take your shit business elsewhere. This isn’t the place for it and besides, you can’t go in. you’re barefooted and wet.”

“What business?” said Pius, trying to deny his purpose for being there. “I’m a changed man, Micah. I go to church every Sunday. I read my bible and right now I’m trying to find a fellow Christian Brother in there.”

“Is that so… Why couldn’t you just stay at home with your wife and let others do that for you? And who is this one you are with now?” Micah asked, eyeing him and Lina suspiciously.

“Shhh, okay, you win. Here take this and shut your bloody mouth,” Pius said quickly pulling out a whiskey bottle and handing it to Micah. He really could be a pain in the neck when he wanted to.

Chuckling, Micah took the whisky bottle and with a wide grin whispered to Pius: “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” So much for the ‘going to church and reading the bible line.’ People simple knew he too well.

Lina drew close to Makis as they entered the dimly-lit dance room. The music was playing at extremely loud volume and the air hung heavy with thick smell of cigarette smoke. No one seemed to notice them as they entered the club. Although this was supposed to be a dance there was hardly anyone on the floor to save a few staggering drunks who danced to a beat of their own. Looking across the room he could see a group of executives from the foreign logging company operating in the area. They were good regular customers, who never really argued about the price he asked. Pius saw it as a way of getting back the timber royalties cheated from the local people. Upon noticing him, one of them nudged the personnel manager who then signaled for Pius to join them.

“Wait here,” said leaving Lina by the door. Pius picked h is way through the maze of tables and people. Being called over this soon was a good sign.

“Have you got any for us?” one of the men asked in heavily accented Tok Pisin as he ordered a beer for Pius.

“I might have, if the price is right.”

“And if no one wants to trade, what you going to do with the left over goods? Take them home and put them on the shelf?”

All the men at the table laughed at the remark. Pius also laughed despite the fact that he saw nothing funny in it. This was serious business. His means of survival. His business operation had gone well so far all accept a minor hiccup a few weeks ago when one of the girls insisted that a customer wear a condom. She came back with a black eye and Pius subsequently ‘terminated her employment’.

“Listen, for 150 I’ll let you have her,” Pius said pointing to Lina who was sitting at a table near the door. “No disappointments like last time. This one will do whatever you want.”

In a space of about ten minutes, Pius had gulped four bottles of beer. He was into his fifth before he saw the company accountant sliding three brand new K50 notes before him. His hands were itching to pick up the money but he restrained himself.

“This for one hour?” he asked as he settled his half empty beer on the table.

“No, for the night,” said the accountant looking at Pius in the dim light.

“Give me six more bottles and you can have her for the night, Pius face was expressionless as he was unashamedly insistent. The accountant cursed beneath his breath and then ordered six bottles of beer. Pius downed the last half of his beer and bowing mockingly to the four men he made his way toward Lina at the far end of the room.

“Come on. Go to the table over there, they’ve already paid for you,” he said as he pulled her to her feet and directed her to the table where the company people were sitting. He stood and watched to make sure she didn’t stray. Another complaint was enough to turn away other potentially high-paying customers. Opening his bad of previously obtained loot he added to it the six bottles of beer. Not a bad night – three bottles of whiskey and over K500.

After leaving the hotel he sat down under a coconut tree on the beach front and opened a beer. He needed a break.

The tide had gone down when he awoke in the early hours of the morning. Although the sea was calm, his thoughts were like the untamed sea raging within him. He too was no different to his own ‘employees’. Never had he really given time to those thoughts. This was one particular reason why he hated calm spots like this. They always brought him to his senses. He had a wife and daughter to support. A daughter born a few weeks before he was sacked from his job as a labourer with a government department. Picking himself up he staggered toward the road.

The sun was just over the horizon when he climbed groggily onto the verandah of his settlement house. He was just about to drop off to sleep when a vehicle pulled up. The blue Landcruiser was unmistakable. Police. He was now wide awake. He could make a run for it but where would he go to. He watched as two uniformed officers came toward him. What followed was totally unexpected. The back door of the cruiser opened and Agnes, his wife, came out with their baby daughter. He opened his mouth to speak but Agnes quickly cut in.

“I found out Pius!” she called out to him. “All those late nights and the money. You should be ashamed of yourself. I know about those women you’ve been selling.”

Pius stood still as the two officers cuffed him and guided him into the cruiser. He should have known he would be busted eventually.

But he never thought his own wife would turn him in.

THE DAY YOU WENT AWAY (poem)

2009-10-21T10:14:00.001+10:00

This was inspired by Joe Satriani's - "Always with me, Always with you." Depends on how you want to intepret it. Suicide. Accident. Regret. Has a rather eerie feminine feel to it.

We fought over nothing that day
I said what I meant not to say

I hated you so for being you
I said I wanted something new

I cried and you said: ‘twas alright
You said you’d go away that night

The years have gone since that night passed
Still I wish that day wasn’t your last

I’d give my life to live that day
For we fought over nothing that day

I’d heed my heart’s call not my head
I’d forget you for all you may have said

I’d go back to the day you went away
I’d speak from the heart so you’d stay

I still walk with you in my dreams
Your hand I hold near crystal streams

But morning comes and I awake
But these days I lie in bed at daybreak

All I have are memories in a sack
And I still pray to God give you back

EMPIRE OF A NUTTY ORIGIN (short story)

2009-10-18T18:05:00.002+10:00

Joel Kenimbus is a self-made millionaire who made his fortune from the buai. At the height of his power, his empire collapses after small holder farmers turn against him and his heart fails.

From the 50^th floor of the Kenimbus tower, Joel Kenimbus’s apple shaped silhouette paced from one end of his large spacious office to the other. His plump hands were clasped tightly behind his back as he chewed and puffed impatiently on the fat Cuban cigar that protruded from his rather thick lips. He passed his desk the hundredth time and glanced momentarily at the silver plaque mounted on a frame. “TO KENIMUS HOLDINGS IN RECOGNITION FOR EXCEPTIONAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE BUSINESS SECTOR. DECEMBER 16, 2030. It became the first of many awards he had collected since he opened up for business 20 years ago. It was now was now 2050 and he was still going strong. The ground below seemed like a thousand miles away. The cars dawdled along the network of roads like hundreds of worker ants. Squatter settlements covered the hillsides like a wide brown blanket spotted with tiny pieces of shiny sheet metal roofing. They were here to stay. As long as they were around, business was going to be good for they were the biggest wholesale buyers and retailers. As long as they were around businesses was going to be good.

Twenty years ago he was a nobody. A failed businessman chucked out t=of the system after being declared bankrupt. He took to his village and began planting trees. His initial 40 trees was what gave rise to what was now a multi million kina buai based manufacturing empire. He was now trading as far as India and China. In the last 10 years he had moved towards an 80 percent monopolization of the buai industry after buying off almost all the smallholder businesses. His wealth had grown and so had the size of his clothes. There was just one small problem. The smallholder farmers he had failed to buy out. There were few these days but they still proved t be a hard nut to crack. They were selling high grade Buai for less and had, in the last 10 years, established a niche market for buai based alcohol. Kenimbus wanted that sector of the market as well. They were a pain in the neck more so a pain in the butt because he could not sit down until he had them sorted out. Then he thought to himself: Maybe he had to wait until their children inherited the land. Perhaps then he would some chance of convincing them. But by then he’s be dead too. He paced passed his desk once more and looked out the window. A series of rapid beeps on his phone interrupted him and a LCD screen on his desk flashed on.
“Mr. Kenimbus, Sir… there is a delegation from the BVA…

“The what?” Kenimbus yelled at the young woman on the screen.

“Uuuuum… The BVA , Sir… Buai Vendor’s Association… you had them on for 11:30 today.”

“aaaaaah… not those black-toothed, red-lipped bums again” he muttered to himself.

“ …here to see about Buai commissions…”

“Send them in then! He boomed.

Although he his company was the biggest buai producer in the country, he never chewed it himself. He likened himself to a Colombian drug lord who enslaved millions with his product yet didn’t used use it himself. If there was money to be made, he was glad he was the one making it.

There was a sharp knock on the door and it opened hesitantly. A man of medium build entered accompanied by two other men and a woman whose cheeks bulged with a mouthful of buai. Upon seeing Kenimbuis’ relentless stare, she quickly spat the red semi-liquid into a plastic bag and stuffed it into her bilum. Disgusting. Kenimbus thought to himself.

“Yes? What can I do for you, Mr. Joe?” Kenimus looked impatiently at the leader of the delegation . He knew he was the president of the BVA but he never bothered to learn his second name.

“We come to talk to you ‘bout buai komisin yu give us. Is too small.”

“What do you mean ‘Is too small’? Kenimbus boomed again from behind his desk. “I don’t understand you people you sign a contract and then you come back and say you’re not happy! Can’t you ever be content?”

“Five percent is too small… we want bigger komisin.” Mr. Joe’s confidence was draining fast.

“Yes. Yes You’ve told me that already. Tell me something new!”

Mr. Joe shuffled his feet on the carpeted floor then looked at Kenimbus. “We want half. 50 percent.”

“Fif…Fif...Bloody fifty percent,” Kenimbus exclaimed. His double chin vibrating. “… and you expect me to give you that?!”

“That or we go on strike,” said Mr. Joe who seemed to have regained a portion of his lost confidence. “BVA has the number. We go on strike and we join with all smallholders.”

As sudden as their threat, the BVA executives stood up and walked to the door.

“You’re going to come back to me. All of you on your hands and knees, you know!” Kenimbus yelled after them. Unemployment is a big problem you can be sure there will be hundreds of people willing to take up a five percent commission.”

Without casting a backward glance, the BVA president cast his hand in an uncaring gesture before disappearing in the corridor.

Kenimbus leaned heavily into his chair. He was going to lose money. He knew it. He waited until the party had gone into the elevator before pressing a button that switched on a small LCD monitor on his desk.

“Miss Boring, could you come in here for a moment?”

“Certainly Sir.” Peering from the screen, the Secretary replied in a cheeky schoolgirl like manner. Seconds later a pretty young personal assistant entered. Kenimbus scanned here from head to toe. The employment agency certainly had good taste. She was the third personal assistant employed in a space of two months.

“Sir?” Ms. Boring inquired after noticing that his eyes had stopped just below her neckline.

“Um… Oh.. ahem… yes. What was I saying?”

“You haven’t even started yet,” Ms. Boring yawned.

“Oh yes.” Kenimus said remembering. “Get in touch with David from Public Affairs. Tell him I want online ads and ads on newspapers and all the major radio and TV networks. We want 500 buai sellers.

“We can’t have any more of those rats! Oh… and make sure… tell him… make absolutely certain that they are not members of the BVA.”

Kenimbus cast a long thoughtful glance at his desk. “That is all. Ms…um…Ms…” Kenimbus said moving his pointer in a circular motion trying to remember.

“Boring…” The young woman yawned again idly fiddling with a pen in her hand.

“Yes…Ms. Boring. That is all. How silly of me. How could I forget such a sexy… I mean such a pretty face.”

Kenimbus looked thoughtfully again at his desk then raised his eyes only as Ms. Boring walked out the door. “I really must have her for lunch… I mean invite her for lunch.”

He resumed pacing his office. Puffing and chewing mercilessly on an even fatter Cuban cigar. He had to come up with a backup plan just in case the ads for the 500 buai sellers didn’t yield the desired results. He couldn’t just give away 50 percent of earnings. Ten percent perhaps. Those blasted smallholders. A series of beeps and the flash of the screen interrupted his thoughts once more.

“What is it, Ms. Mourning? …um.. Ms. Boring.” Kenimbus stared at his personal assistant on the screen. He was feeling quite irritated.

“We’ve got BVA representatives from all other 19 province calling in support of the president. All our lines are beeping and I don’t know what to do.” A frantic Ms. Boring wailed. “I’m being stressed and stress isn’t good for me. It’ll give me wrinkles.”

By now Ms. Boring was sobbing almost uncontrollably. Kenimus screwed up his face disgusted. Why did they ever hire people like that. He switched off the screen and reached for his mobile phone. “Public Affairs!” He yelled into the mouthpiece. “Get David to send somebody up here right away to man the reception and also get David to tell that somebody to bring a box of tissues for Ms. Wailing.”

“…And get the PR people to start working on this right now before the press get wind of this shit!”

He ended the call and flung the remnant of his cigar into a plastic wastepaper basket where it settled shouldering into the crumpled pieces of paper. Just as he made for the elevator door, a woman in her late 20s appeared carrying a tissue box.

“Aaah. Just in time. I was about to sack the whole Public Affairs section. Ms. Boring still had her hands buried in her hands sobbing. “Oh please give her the tissue box before we’ll need Noah’s Ark in here.” Kenimbus appeared satisfied as he headed back to his office. But just as he entered the door, the new woman called out to him:”Um… Sir… workers from all 20 plantations have walked off their jobs some are reported to be… cutting down buai trees.”

“WHAAAT?! Kenimbus stomped back to the reception area. As sudden as his outburst he clutched his chest as his knees buckled beneath his apple shaped upper body.

“Mr. Kenimbus!” the woman screamed and rushed towards him.

“Get…David…Call.. a meeting…” The pain was even worse that his last attack. “Call the hospital get an ambul…” The white of his eyes rolled upward and his apple bulk collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Minutes later, he opened his eyes to a doctor flashing a pen torch on his eyeball. From a few meters he could barely see the woman from the office talking to the another doctor. “I don’t think we should tell him about the fire… He heard the doctor say to her.

“What fire?!” He yelled from the hospital bed. “What fire?”
The woman looked quite undecided but eventually said: “ the Whole building, Sir… the whole building… it started from your office.”

That evening, Mr. Joe sat sipping a cup of tea at his Gerehu home when something on the news caught his attention.

“…the multimillionaire died after midday today and in a cruel twist the headquarters of his Buai empire was totally destroyed prior to the to the tycoon’s death. Police are investigating the cause of the fire. Mr. Kenimbus leaves behind seven children from three different marriages and a business empire worth in excess of 900 million kina.

Ends…

WEST PAPUA FROM THE EYES OF A CHILD (poem)

2009-10-06T11:39:00.005+10:00

In the innocence of childhood

I saw pictures

Of fathers and children

Much like me and my dad

Of women with bilums

Like grandma and mum

Why do they flee

When the land is theirs?

In the innocence of childhood

I saw dark haired strangers

In photos all in green

Bearing tools of war

With a man just like

My uncle Jimmy

Laying dead at their feet

Why did they shoot him dead

When the land is his?

In the innocence of childhood

I listened to ‘Black Brothers’

And big men talk about the West

The land and it’s troubles

“They kill our people”

I heard them say

They should be free

If we are free

Why aren’t they?

Now with the childhood past

I understand the pain

The burning villages

A man shot on his land

I rage within at pictures

Of those who are killed

Women like my mum

And men like my dad

Boys like my brothers

Now with childhood past

I understand

Why they fought and died

I understand

Why men who looked

So much like uncle Jimmy

Fought the strangers

With bows and arrows

He fought for his land

He fought for his family\

IN THE YEARS THAT PASSED...(poem)

2009-10-04T10:06:00.001+10:00

In a dream last night
In a mirror he looked
In it was a face
One he did not know
Creases ‘round the eyes
Streaks of prominent grey
Lost and weary he seemed
Hopeless and angry
He grew up long ago
The boy became a man
Then he grew old
And nobody knew
Where did the boy go?
The years had come
The years had gone
And the years passed him by
He looked again
And he was alone
The paint on the wall
The mould on the wood
The old ones were gone
All was passed and gone
Where did it all go?
His youth was no more
It fled while he worked
It fled while he strove
So hard for a better life
Then the mirror faded
With his eyes still closed
His senses awakened
To the sweet scent
Of his woman’s hair
He was still young

-S