A Year in Papua New Guinea

Sing-sing performers heading for the arena. Over the last two weeks we have had extensive Independence Day (Sep 16) celebrations. Everyone at work has been so distracted. Jenny and I kept to ourselves and pushed on towards our plans for the rest of our time here. For NARI the foci were the Morobe Show on the weekend and the Independence Day activities on Monday. The show is a huge event on the local calendar each year. This year it was moved forward to be close to Independence Day.   NARI always has a big display space at the show and lots of staff are involved in preparing for it over many weeks. No apologies for the number of photos in this post by the way. A must for any respectable show. Mud! The show ran over Saturday and Sunday. We had already decided to go on the Sunday which was a good move as it rained heavily all day Saturday. We had the mud but also the sunshine. It was very crowded as many people probably cancelled their Saturday plans and turned up on Sunday instead. I...

The good citizens of Lae and PNG in general are very excited at the moment because of the approaching 50th anniversary of Independence.  Mostly this involves lots of flags and banners on cars, shops, streets, our offices and people wearing flag-themed hats, shirts, dresses as well as school kids in traditional tribal dress.   Sadly and possibly not coincidentally, there have been several violent incidents in town in recent weeks.  A group of men held up a store and took off in a van.  The police caught up with them and six of the thieves were killed.  A man was speared in town yesterday and our security company thoughtfully shared grisly photos of the poor chap dying in a wheelbarrow as people tried to get him to hospital.  Last night a fight broke out between some soldiers and others who were gambling together.  A soldier was stabbed to death so his mates set fire to several houses. We've been told by our managers to avoid crowds until all the fe...