Getting to Moresby

I’ve arrived and been in PNG for a week+ now – in Lae – about 45 minutes flight north of Port Moresby. For those I didn’t bombard with information prior to leaving, it’s on the northern coast of PNG – and is the second largest town in the country.

But I’m ahead of myself.

For those that didn’t see me after the going away party @ Flor, there was a few delays on the way to Moresby – Visa’s being a tricky business in PNG. So there were a few extra weeks tacked onto an already ‘extended’ application process with Austtralian Vols International. Having chatted to a lot of volunteers since, I wonder whether this is by some strange design meant to weed out people who aren’t really sure they want to go – but it’s just the nature of the game.

So after a spectacularly large amount of food and drink at a nice place down in St.Kilda on Fri., and more than a few tears on the way through for me vis a vis good friends and the lovely lady on Sat./Sun., I jumped a plane for Brisbane with slightly puffy eyes at 5am on a Sunday morning, 23rd of October. Good work Ben on being up that early. The Qantas man took to my tale of volunteering for 2 years with a quick ‘don’t worry about that overweight baggage’ – and all was well.

Brisbane airport has a train running between the domestic and int. terminals… that’s about the most exciting thing about Brisbane airport. Tho I was grateful to get some smaller Kina notes changed before entering PNG. Plenty of flights daily between Bris/Moresby– but still a packed flight. Hooked up with the other 4 AVI’ers at the airport, almost all of us having oversized baggage… of course.

It’s a 3.5hr leg to Moresby is all from Brisbane. Not so far to visit! . The leg to Brisbane was quiet – me being the emotional equivalent of pulped kai kai in the Lae sun – but no such respite for the Bris-Moresby Leg.

This dude next to me had a slightly wild-eyed look about him after the first ‘New Guinea Ice’ beer. Nice enough, but with a few twitches in the eyes and a difficult to explain attitude. Turns out he manages a bit of a road building company out of Mt Hagen called Global Constructions (based out of Moresby so he says). So I was straight into the ‘how much do you pay the labourers per hour’ sorta questions, and asking about how life was in the company. Didn’t take much for him to get started on the stories (and for each of us to start another beer). So, this guy has ended up, a few years ago, marrying a local girl. This dude is 40+…, and the girl he’s married is in the PNG National Soccer team this year. Anyhoo’s – so he’s been fully adopted by the village/Wantok and they’ve adopted him. They’ve built a house for him, and he’s still flown back by the company to Australia every 2 months, so he bring back lots of presents also. Laboring rates round Mt Hagen are 1 Kina per hour – normally 10-12 hour working days. [Remember that it’s $1AUD = 2.2Kina. The comparisons aren’t necessarily valid – not because of the cost of living, but because 70-80% of the population don’t participate (or can’t – depending on your view) in the employment/cash economy].

The stories then degenerated into stories about ex-pat workers who got into trouble with local women – married or un-married back home… and continued to degenerate.