Posted on by
1

Lesley summed it up – much better than Jacinta or I could…..

(ex)expatsinpng's avatar(ex)expatsinpng

Photo Taken by the lovely Ness at madNESS Photography.

There are some beautiful PNG images on her website – http://www.madnessphotography.com.au/ and she is taking the school photos at the end of this week, she took last years too. We might also use her for some family portraits at some stage ?  Off topic slightly – I was going to pay via paypal for the school photos – it is listed as a method of payment on the form the school sent home and the school rang Peter to say I hadn’t paid then rang me and asked what to do….umm you sent the form home !

The photo a bit small – but if you click on it you can see a slightly bigger image (or maybe not).

So that is the Poroporena Highway, the highway that many many many people use every day. I normally use it a minimum of 6 times a day 3…

View original post 408 more words

Thunder Lightning Rain

Posted on by
1

Last night the kids were shitting themselves, the lightning and thunder were incredible, with thunder claps like I have never heard before.  The rain teemed down, creating huge potholes everywhere.  Last week, the rain on Wednesday night washed out one land of the freeway, creating a 5 metre deep hole, today – apparently – all 4 lanes of the freeway have been washed away. Think of a four lane highway….  with a washout from one side to the next…

Billy came in with some photos showing how a 20ft container had been moved by the rain out by his place – metres and metres – floating…

incredible (didn’t I already say that?)

Billy never made it to work yesterday – all the partying on Saturday night (bride price) had cracked two poles holding his father house above the water…  Good thing they know how to fix them quickly 🙂

Bride Price

Posted on by
4

One of my team Billy, invited myself and the family to his paying back bride price ceremony at Elevala Villiage.  Sadly, Xavier had a birthday party to go to (in which he had lots of fun), so just me and the girls.

When we arrived Jacinta didn’t know that she would be part of the ceremony, and so off she went to get dressed up with the girls.  The ladies whipped up a dress for Xanthe in about 10 minutes, and it was time for the rain to start and the ceremony to begin 🙂

This part of bride price is the act of giving back to the families who gave to Billy’s bride price, the Motuan’s have a ledger that records the gifts, and it is the man’s responsibility to ensure he gives back in kind when that family’s son is doing his bride price.  I’m sure that there is much more to it than that – but that is what I gathered… The pole has traditional shell money, as well as K2 and K5 and lots of decoration, the girls carry the large denomination money – and recent bride prices have had over K100,000 gifted. A lot of money! Xaria was filmed by the local TV station EMTV whilst leaving the groom’s house – it really struck me how big the Bride Price ceremony is.

I was lucky enough to be able to give Billy’s father a pounamu pendant as a way of thanking him for the invitation to his home. And Derrick and Elias (two more of my team) were there to enjoy the special day as well – so that was very special. I do have some photos of the boys with a few beers under the belts, but promise that they will only get shown at work 😉

We were very honored to be invited, and stayed until 9pm enjoying Billy’s family and friends company – then left so that they could let their hair down and party hard (being Billy’s boss – I stifled the party a little). On the way out of the village – the whole place was in party mode, with lots of people wishing us well on the way out.

Needless to say – I am really at a loss for words – so here’s a whole heap of photos

Malaria or Poison?

Posted on by
Reply

My mind is all over the place today, the new drugs Quinine have some horrible side effects… Syd (my boss) popped around last night to see how I was, and he hooked me up with an appointment this morning with Dr Ma, who is the Chef de Mission for the PNG Paraolympic team and a very nice chinese doctor. His clinic looks bloody dodgy as hell, and when you go in, the ladies inside open the door (from the inside) sit you down, give you a thermometer to stick under you arm, get you to write your name and date of birth on a piece of paper – and then the good Dr Ma rushes through and grabs you. I needed my camera – as it was just a surreal moment for me, but of course -left that at home 🙂

Dr Ma was fantastic, and when I went through all the drugs that I was or had been taking – he shook his head “too much” he said.

We went through his book, symptoms etc – and we both agreed that the drugs were screwing with me and I am just getting poisoned by too many drugs. He then got two different rapid malaria test kits and run both tests – both of which came out negative. wtf!?! negative.

Either the quinine has done it’s job within 24hours, or I have just been getting poisoned by the hospital. The RDT (rapid kit) only detects a certain amount of parasite levels, so it’s possible that the malaria count has dropped below the threshold which gives a negative result. Either way – fucks knows, I have no idea…

Dr Ma wants me off the meds straight away – and boy, and I happy to oblige, I can’t cope with this anymore – it’s too hard. Just need to flush my system out – so Jacinta is going to put me through the liver cleansing diet.

I thought I would post a few photo’s, one of the quinine jabs from yesterday, a picture of me today (having lost now about 15kg since arriving in PNG), my medical bills for the past 2months, and the RDT kit.

For those of you back in NZ that know me – yes, that is me… Wish I did the Calder Stewart biggest loser competition 😉 no way I would have lost that… It’s too embarassing doing the before and after photos, but lets just say I can’t wear my old pants without them falling to the floor. lost over 10cm from my waist and 3cm neck, I haven’t checked any other sizes as those are the easy ones (trouser size and shirt size).

Maybe a weekend in Cairns might have to be on the cards…