A Year in Papua New Guinea

Friday 5th December was International Volunteers Day when the Australian Volunteers Program likes to showcase its activities around the globe. Jenny and I and NARI were asked to run an activity to represent the Lae volunteers this year so we came up with a program combining a few inspirational speeches, some group activities, a quiz and a free lunch. We attracted about 40 staff and others and I think it all went rather well. The speeches were (mostly) short, the activities were enthusiastically embraced, my quiz was a hit (especially the Rugby League questions) and the lunch prepared by the NARI hostel women was superb. Setting up - will anyone come? Dr Komolong launching proceedings. Volunteers Sam and Juliet writing inspirational messages on bunting. The quiz went well. Volunteer Duncan and Consul-General Brenton designing a poster. Following my survey of science staff members back in September I have been working on two training packages on scientific writing. These combined a coupl...

View across Stetin Bay from Walindi towards Mount Mululus, a dormant volcano. Check out New Britain on a map. It is divided into two provinces - East and West New Britain. We flew to Hoskins Airport on the western side and were picked up and driven to Walindi Dive Resort an hour to the west. The resort, as the name suggests, caters mainly to scuba divers but has become a popular spot for international birders as an add-on to the traditional PNG tour. There is a number of endemic birds on New Britain and I, of course, wanted to see all of them. Willie Wagtail in the rain. Black-capped Paradise Kingfisher Black Bittern So we arrived on Saturday late morning and were soon settled into our bungalow with views out over the ocean to distant volcanoes. This is one of the nicest lodges we have stayed in with lush gardens full of butterflies and birds, a great lounging area, a rec room, bar and a small pool. Excellent, friendly staff as well. We met lots of people who were here for the diving....

I'm writing this a day or two early as we are currently stuck in Port Moresby airport waiting for a delayed flight home. Just as our flight was due to be boarding the announcement came that it would be delayed by nearly 3 hours. Sadly the two little cafes had shut for the night a few minutes earlier. We've had a very quiet couple of weeks and I don't think I even have a photo for you. I'll make an effort before I post this. Work has been routine with me reviewing papers people want to publish and polishing my training presentation before I rehearse it with a few local colleagues on Monday. The only excitement was this overnight trip to Port Moresby. We are getting close to relaunching the two old journals and my boss (Laurie) wanted to have a preparation meeting with some people in PM so we flew Thursday morning and stayed at the Sanctuary Hotel near the airport. We got to drive to some new bits of PM so that was interesting. Otherwise it was one long meeting and a coup...

Munum Elementary School (12 km up the Markham Valley from us) We were invited by The Australian Consul-General - Brenton Kanowski to accompany him on a visit to a Markham Valley school. There is a joint Australia-PNG project to provide water to regional schools and it was the turn of Munum Elementary School to officially launch their new water supply. They received an open building with a roof catching water into four tanks plus a number of desks.  Brenton cutting the ribbon for the new tanks ... ... and for the new building The school environment was beautiful with lush vegetation and grass - a stark contrast to the schools we are used to in Tanzania. The classrooms however were similar to those in Tanzania with no glass windows and earth floors the norm. It was a very pleasant couple of hours out of our normal routine. Last weekend we welcomed a new volunteer - Duncan Gibson. He’s a nice young bloke with an Australian/New Zealand pedigree and is a town planner. He’ll be working ...

We were asleep on the evening of 7th October when the jolts woke us up. Slowly at first then intense shaking followed by a long tail of decreasing intensity the whole event lasted about 2 mins with a couple of small aftershocks in the following hours. We didn't know whether to get under the bed, run outside or stay put so we stayed put and waited for the house to collapse. It didn't - which is reassuring because the quake was a big one by local standards and no-one at work can remember a bigger one. It was Mag 6.6 and 20 km from our house but 100 km deep. I didn't realise we had a tectonic plate boundary running up through our valley. There was a smaller (4.7) quake in the valley on the 15th that Jenny felt but I didn't. We also had a small tremor last night which doesn't seem to have been registered by any of the Geology Services. We had bottles and jars in the pantry fall to the ground and our fridge and stove have both moved. I've decided not to store my came...

After much frustration we've finally managed to organise an outing. Jenny and I, Ringisai (another Australian volunteer) and a couple of her friends went with LaeAbout Tours to Labu Lake. We met guide Emma at the jetty at the Lae Yacht Club and headed off in a banana boat to Labu village with Emma's brother Noah and two other chaps, 5 km across the harbour. As required, we had our official life jackets, an epirb, a satellite phone, our personal trackers and fully charged mobiles. A Little Tern with 2 Common Terns for size comparison. Common Tern Common Tern We cruised around inside the mangroves on Labu Lake for a couple of hours and then headed to Labu village to sample mud crab, shellfish, sago cakes and fresh coconut milk. Then we walked down the beach to the end of the village for a swim. The water was almost bath temperature. I, of course, was looking for birds the whole way with the occasional "Stop the boat!" gesture to the chap driving. It was not possible to...

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...