Independence Weekend
Historical fact: on September 16th 31 years ago Papua New Guinea became independent from Australia.
Other fact: on September the 16th 2006, we helped to celebrate Independence Day by going into town to see what celebrating was happening.
So after a rather excessive, but glorious, sleep-in Cam and I braved the wet and wild weather, and headed to the sports oval to check out Alotau’s Independence Day. The field was littered with stalls selling all types of food (yummy – lamb chops…so good), meri blouses, weavings and other assorted knick knacks…it was also covered in mud. It wasn’t the sort of mud that unobtrusively stays in patches, it was the sort of mud that enjoyed spreading everywhere. And due to the fact that lots of people wear thongs here, it well and truly was spread all over peoples clothing – got to love thong splatter.
We wandered around for a bit, grimaced over the sign that announced that “Jesus is the only Immunisation for AIDS you will ever need”, and said hello to our friends. I bought a meri blouse and we watched the greasy pole competition. Wow. The pole would have been at least 6 body lengths and slathered in grease of some sort. It is common in PNG to see someone or other shimmying up a coconut tree as easy as you please, but no-one could climb this. So the hours of getting grease off the pole started. First just at ground level, then a kid standing on someone’s shoulders…we couldn’t stay the whole time, but by the time we left there were 4 levels of people standing on each others shoulders, heads and faces trying to get the grease off enough to get to the top of the pole. And what was at the top? Just a couple of t-shirts, bags, and the reward of K100 for the first one up. It actually looked quite dangerous, and not worth the prizes, but I guess the kudos is a big part of it too.
It was an interesting and amusing day, but the weather was just too crap to want to stay for a long time. I don’t know if we missed the greasy pig, or if the event didn’t happen…disappointing, I know.
The next day we decided to go for a dive down at East Cape (about 1 ½ hours drive from town). It was a pleasant drive, and we did it in true PNG style – in a single cab ute with 3 people on the tray. Once we got there the water was flat and clear (20-25m vis), and we had a lovely dive, with a highlight of seeing a school of HUGE hump-headed parrot fish (it was kind of like being surrounded by a heard of coral eating suitcases)
My other highlight was actually managing to take this picture of Cam – pulling the moves underwater – it just cracks me up!
Monday was a public holiday, and was carried out in true public-holiday tradition by not doing much. Lovely. This week highlights will include: Jane starting driving lessons (we are hoping that I can get my PNG license in the next two weeks or so), call backs for the radio-play drama group, and Alix and Jace coming to visit us! How very exciting!
Other fact: on September the 16th 2006, we helped to celebrate Independence Day by going into town to see what celebrating was happening.
So after a rather excessive, but glorious, sleep-in Cam and I braved the wet and wild weather, and headed to the sports oval to check out Alotau’s Independence Day. The field was littered with stalls selling all types of food (yummy – lamb chops…so good), meri blouses, weavings and other assorted knick knacks…it was also covered in mud. It wasn’t the sort of mud that unobtrusively stays in patches, it was the sort of mud that enjoyed spreading everywhere. And due to the fact that lots of people wear thongs here, it well and truly was spread all over peoples clothing – got to love thong splatter.
We wandered around for a bit, grimaced over the sign that announced that “Jesus is the only Immunisation for AIDS you will ever need”, and said hello to our friends. I bought a meri blouse and we watched the greasy pole competition. Wow. The pole would have been at least 6 body lengths and slathered in grease of some sort. It is common in PNG to see someone or other shimmying up a coconut tree as easy as you please, but no-one could climb this. So the hours of getting grease off the pole started. First just at ground level, then a kid standing on someone’s shoulders…we couldn’t stay the whole time, but by the time we left there were 4 levels of people standing on each others shoulders, heads and faces trying to get the grease off enough to get to the top of the pole. And what was at the top? Just a couple of t-shirts, bags, and the reward of K100 for the first one up. It actually looked quite dangerous, and not worth the prizes, but I guess the kudos is a big part of it too.
It was an interesting and amusing day, but the weather was just too crap to want to stay for a long time. I don’t know if we missed the greasy pig, or if the event didn’t happen…disappointing, I know.
The next day we decided to go for a dive down at East Cape (about 1 ½ hours drive from town). It was a pleasant drive, and we did it in true PNG style – in a single cab ute with 3 people on the tray. Once we got there the water was flat and clear (20-25m vis), and we had a lovely dive, with a highlight of seeing a school of HUGE hump-headed parrot fish (it was kind of like being surrounded by a heard of coral eating suitcases)
My other highlight was actually managing to take this picture of Cam – pulling the moves underwater – it just cracks me up!
Monday was a public holiday, and was carried out in true public-holiday tradition by not doing much. Lovely. This week highlights will include: Jane starting driving lessons (we are hoping that I can get my PNG license in the next two weeks or so), call backs for the radio-play drama group, and Alix and Jace coming to visit us! How very exciting!
posted by Jane & Cam at
4:32 pm
1 Comments:
Thong splatter... you are making this too easy.
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