Treats

Word goes out that some expat groceries may be available and two days later I receive four - four! - packets of wonderful glorious processed salty plastic wrapped, river destroying New Zealand cheese. First dairy product for a month if you ignore an ice cream that almost certainly had no actual cream in it anyway.

So now the question: scoff it all in huge chunks and hang the consequences? Or pare it thinly and make it last for months? Which did the chaps in Stalag V do when the Red Cross sent a tin of peaches? The latter I expect, and yet...

Law and order

A presentation at the Haus Stori to high school students from representatives of the various law and justice agencies: court officials, prison officers, policemen, probation officers and so on. Quite a line-up of heavies delivering some stern warnings: don't smoke pot (like that's the biggest issue here?), stick to your studies,  honour your family. One of the speakers was the ombudsman who is supposed to keep the leaders in line and investigate allegations of corruption. In the job for two weeks she made the rookie error of asking for questions. 'What are you going to do about political corruption?', 'How can we stop our leaders building fancy houses and buying fancy cars?'.  That last one came from the school principal.

The mood grew tense, but it is a very good question: what CAN she do? The answer in the short term is probably very little.

Two sabbaths

Both Saturday and Sunday are days of prayer and rest in Bougainville, for Seventh Day Adventists and Catholics respectively. Working out which shops will be closed on which day takes a while. Either way the Sabbath is a big deal.

Even Digicel, the mobile phone operator that specialises in high cost sevice to developing countries, gets in on the act with junk text messages like this.

Sign of the times

There's plenty of semiotic ambiguity in this sign, nailed to a tree at Loloho beach. This beach belongs to kiwis? Which kiwis? How come? Since when? Non-kiwis are welcome? Unwelcome? Welcome so long as they behave in some kind of kiwi way? Uphold defined kiwi values? When kiwis come across beach ownership in, say, the Mediterranean they are scandalised, but here is a bit of territory marking of a very similar stripe. Does anyone, could anyone, know what the people in the village right by the beach think?

Is there an Aussie beach? Could there be a Chinese beach? And what about all the other beaches in Bougainville, which lack signs?

Seems to me that this little sign points, perhaps  unintentionally but still unmistakably, down the familiar settler society path of re-naming, marking, mapping, pegging, surveying, fencing, owning.

Why not erect a sign 'Loloho Beach'? Why not just leave well alone?

All friends now

A Mitsubishi A6M 'Zero' if I am not much mistaken, on the foreshore at Kieta

It's the cops

There are three NZ police officers in Arawa. In uniform, but with an 'Adviser' epaulette. They're great people - and I'm not just saying that because of their 42" screen and Sky subscription.

By your pupils you'll be taught

Talking to a group of senior students from the adjacent high school to see if they would like to contribute their stories to the oral history project. I spoke, they listened in silence. Any questions? Not one. What a waste of time that was I thought. But then afterwards eight (eight!) of them came up to me individually and said yes they'd love to help, what a great idea etc etc

Target

After a few wandery days we scored our first interview today, with Paul Nakara, mayor of Arawa. Note the Zoom digital recorder - thank you VSA - on the table. Paul had some tales to tell: his father was a cargo carrier for the US Army in World War 2, he himself drove mine trucks for 13 years when Arawa was the Dubai of Melanesia. Then life in the bush, living off the land for years, and now back in an impoverished Arawa as mayor. A courteous and amusing chap who was a pleasure to meet.

Market

Pikus market, where the bananas are the most banana-y and the cucumbers the most cucumber-y ever. The indoor shops and supermarkets however...well the least said the better.

Organic

Fish sold in biodegradable packaging, the whole 100% organic.

Dining out

My wonderful neighbour Marion, a nurse from Feilding who is VSAing in the local school of nursing, keeps inviting me for dinner. Last night was special, with VSA staffers Sam and Paul, and the table carrying a spectacular centrepiece.

Lunch break

Students at Arawa High School use the library in their lunch break

Do the maths

Haus Stori, which is a public library, is in the grounds of Arawa High School - and so what student wouldn't use the breezy deck of the library to do their maths?

While library assistant Delma delivers her outstanding customer service to Elder Bruno. I think he was just after a chat really - good thing that kind of thing never happens in public libraries in New Zealand.

And I had a productive morning talking with Allan about oral history methods: release forms, file formats, access, cataloguing, language and who our first candidates might be.

Dogs

Could you sleep through this? And not for ten seconds, but all night? Or rather, and worse, 10 minutes on, 20 minutes off, all night.

Haus Stori

And so finally, a week after arriving in the country, I get to see the famed Haus Stori. Here it is, today, with the hardly less famed Allan and Florence who run the show:

What is more I get an office:

So far every single person I have met, from my landlady to the Kieta district CEO has known of my arrival and immediately identified people with stories to tell. Even the guy who runs the beach had a story.

Work starts tomorrow.

Arawa

Spent today being rattled to pieces on the four hour drive from Buka to Arawa. Starting with a final crossing of the BukaPassage, with bike:

A rocky drive with several river crossings

and so to my new home for six months

Buka

First six days are spent in Buka, training, being briefed, opening a bank account and, since this is not the town I will actually be living and working in, being  a bit of a tourist. My home for this week is the flat with the red balcony.

At the foot of the garden of this village is the beach

with its hot shallow water - not the greatest swimming. Buka itself is a tough, busy little town, marked by pools of red sputum: everyone chews betel nuts and expectorates the leftovers. The main difference between Buka and another Melanesian town, say Vila, is the complete lack of tourists and the lack of any support for them if any turned up. This is the real deal.

Buka is separated from the island of Bougainville itself by the Buka passage, across which boats go endlessly back and forth. 

The people in the street are indeed polite and friendly to a fault - broad toothy smiles stained red - the betel nuts again. But paradise this is not: Papua New Guinea is 158th on the UN's HDI and Bougainville has a palpable undercurrent of frustration and boredom. And rather too much liquor. However here we are with VSA for six months attempting to make some small dent in the many problems faced.

In that endeavour ideas are what really matter and the library at Arawa, where I'll be going on Tuesday, is full of them. My project is to help set up a system for recording the stories of the community there to complement the printed material already held. The other VSA volunteers here all say 'Oh I wish I had YOUR project!'

We shall see...