Dangerous waters: There are sharks

When we arrived at one island on our survey trip, we found some people at the shore, cutting two sharks that they had recently caught.

Small hammerhead shark:

Baby shark:

They cut off the fins to sell as they can get good money for them.

Shark fin soup anyone?

Fins on top of the hammerhead shark.

It’s a strange world, with combination of modern technology and traditional materials. Here’s a traditional canoe that has familiar looking fishing gear, yet in the background you can see a modern boat with outboard motor, in the top left corner of the photo. (Did you know that you can click on the photos to see them bigger?)

The basics of life

Food, shelter, a toilet, and a place to wash are some of the basics of life which we relied on other people to provide for us when we were on the survey trip. I’ve already talked about the food, so now for the other three.

Our living arrangements were very varied. Sometimes we stayed in a house that was made out of modern materials and was fully screened, so we didn’t need to use our mosquito nets. Other times we stayed in a traditional bush material house.

We stayed in bush houses similar to this one in some villages:

The toilets in most places had been provided by World Vision, and were little huts, with a concrete floor, and a ceramic toilet bowl with plastic seat and lid, over a pit. Thank you to World Vision and everyone who donates to them. Not only does their work benefit the locals, it benefits the foreign visitors too! Two places we stayed had even better toilets – one was a fully functioning flush toilet, and the other one was similar, but you just had to fill the cistern manually.

Here’s the inside of a western style house:

We didn’t have any showers with hot water on the survey, but the best shower was like a normal shower, just that it was only cold water that came out of the shower head. Everywhere else, we had a bucket filled with cold water, and a dish to pour the water over ourselves. The shower rooms had varying degrees of privacy – from full privacy, to fully open (no shower room). A lot of the places had just a simple, small square frame with tarp around it as the walls. I have a skirt that I can wear to cover myself while bathing, which means I don’t need to worry if we don’t have a fully private shower room.

This is the house that had the flush toilet and normal shower:

Good, clean drinking water was available too – also thanks to World Vision who provided water tanks for the villages. I shouldn’t give all the credit to World Vision however because Care International, Red Cross, Caritas and Ausaid are some of the other aid organisations that work in the area too and have probably also provided water tanks and toilets.

Survey trip food

We were so well fed during our survey trip. Often we were served two huge meals each day, and a snack at midday. Our tummies were working overtime digesting all that food, and I wasn’t hungry too often!

The food was served buffet style – all spread out on a table in different bowls, and we could fill our plate with whatever we wanted and however much we wanted, and of course we were always encouraged to take lots and come back for more!

At every meal there was usually rice, two minute noodles with greens, fish, sweet potato, taro and cooking bananas (savoury ones). Sometimes there was shellfish and I tried a few different kinds. I’m not a big fan of seafood, but most of the shellfish were okay. There was just one – a big one – that I couldn’t swallow – it was a bit gooey and gutsy. I threw that one out for the dogs, but I think the chickens actually got there first.

Here are some photos of the kinds of food we were served:

We were only served mud crab once – on our last morning of the survey. It was really nice.

Garamut drums

This picture shows a garamut drum at Kahule village on the west coast of Buka. Many parts of PNG have these or traditionally had them. At Kahule, only the chief is allowed to make these drums and he has passed the skill onto his future successor, who will only be able to make one after the current chief dies. It is made out of one piece of wood and the inside is hollowed out using a special tool.

This is the chief sounding the drum. He hits the side of it to make the sound. He is sending a message to the community that the visitors are here and they should leave what they are doing and come to help us with our work (maybe not quite as detailed as that though!). There are different messages that can be sent depending on how the chief hits the drum. For example, if he hits it in a different pattern, he could send the message that someone has died. It’s a great way of communicating a message to a lot of people without using modern technology!

Men’s house at Novah 1

Novah 1 men’s house:

The village of Novah 1 on the west coast of Buka still has its men’s house, and they have managed to adapt modern culture into their traditional culture, while still retaining tradition too. In the past women weren’t allowed into the men’s house or even to walk near it. Now women are allowed in, but tradition culture is upheld by having a section that only men are allowed in. The women’s side is larger than the men’s side, and the men are also allowed in the women’s area.

This picture shows me sitting in my proper place. The men’s area starts at the decorated pole, and also on the other side of the small wall/bench seat. (Note also, shiny yellow truck in the background! Infer: some people here have money).

If a woman crosses the boundary and goes into the men’s area, she and her family have to give a pig to the chief, otherwise I think the chief is entitled to marry her. There are garamut drums (slit gongs) in the men’s area, but nothing in there is secret as it is fully open for all to see inside.

When people have a feast and eat pigs, they eat them in this men’s house. The keep the jaw bone of the pig and stick it between a post and the roof, as a reminder, and they can count how many times they have eaten pig in that men’s house.

The men’s house is mainly used for community discussions and the people told us that it is good to have women present too, because it’s good to have their input in discussions. They said that the men’s house is a ‘resource centre’. I guess their definition or understanding of ‘resource’ is different to mine, as I didn’t see any resources inside the men’s house! Perhaps they are thinking of people as resources.

Matsungan madness

When we visited Matsungan Island, it seemed like everyone was in a fun, silly mood, which made it a little bit frustrating for me doing my questionnaires, but they were great people. One time when I asked a question about who speaks certain languages, a voice piped up in reply, “Me too”. I looked over and saw a Malaysian man sitting there, which was funny. The whole crowd that was with me started laughing hysterically and it took a while to get back to business. Later on when I was walking around the island he saw me and we had a short chat. It seems like he is a bit of a joker.

Mariela was taking photos of kids and young people, and I went over to join her, and as I approached a teenage boy came up to me, put his arm around my shoulder and posed for Mariela to take a photo of me. I got into the spirit of things and look a bit crazy in this photo too.

It was actually a bit weird for a second having a young man put his arm around me, as that is not culturally appropriate behaviour for PNG. I think this guy might have been a bit high on betelnut and/or something else.

Here are some more photos of people being crazy in front of the camera at Matsungan. (Mariela took all of these except the last one, which I took).

Sweet tea

I usually drink my tea with milk and no sugar, but the people of PNG like it to be sugar laden. When they say they have two spoons of sugar in their tea, they are talking about dessertspoons, not teaspoons!

When I’m in the village, I drink this sweet tea too and I quite like it. It’s totally different to white tea with no sugar though. I call it my ‘village drink’ because it’s not really what I call ‘tea’. I drank lots of cups of this sweet tea on our west Buka survey trip. Here are a couple of photos of me drinking my sweet tea.

Too much sugar all the time can cause diabetes, and in Tok Pisin it is called ‘sik suga’. I mentioned in an old blog post (here) how Sugaman welcomes you to Bougainville at the airport. This time I managed to get a photo of the sign and here he is: