Returning to Papua New Guinea

I lived in PNG for two years (1998-2000), Goroka, Madanga, and Port Moresby. It was a marvelous experience, but a sweet two years that filled with some scary experiences. I'd seen people killed in public, bus being robbed, bank robbery, fighting in the streets, drive-by-shooting, pick-pocketing, and all kinds of stuff.
We resided at Gordons, close to the big round-about, overlooking the largest store at Gordons called Courts.
Moved to Boroko was not bad idea. We rented Fr. John Momis apartment opposite the Caritas Girls High School. A quiet place, but a raging road where cops and rascals often engaged in fierce shoot-outs. Sometimes later, we moved t0 another apartment a mile down the road, not as bad as the neighborhood we lived in before, but it situated new some poor settlements.

A year later, I found a new home at Koki, located behind iron-gates and manned by mean looking security guards who didn't even smile at tennants. The view from the balcony is quite amazing, overlooking Koki settlement and the public market. Gunshots was an occasional distant music in our ears. For sometimes, the market area was a cop-and-rascal playing ground. We would ran to the wooden gates topped with razor blades, or to the balcony just to see rascal being chased by cops and of course street gangs engaged in fist fighting. This changed dramatically one morning when we woke up to a sound of a passerby just outside our gate, he found a dead body in the drain just a few yards from the community school's main gate.

Life changed for a while when I flew to Goroka. A beautiful but isolated town in the Eastern Highlands region. My first impression was the greenish mountains, and when I exited the plane I could see smiling people at the entrance waiting for their relatives. Goroka is one of the best places I visited, yet a few instances shook me to the bones. A tribal encountered, for instance, took place a mile down the road from where I was staying. Next day the result came out, four houses were burned to the ground and two people died, including a man I knew and befriend.
While in Goroka, I took the chance to visit Chimbu. It is a province sharing a common border with Goroka. The trip was a helluva experience. At some points, I thought we weren't in a bus because we'd drove so fast that when we reached the highest point or the Pass, the tyres overheated and the smoke came through the window. We pulled over and driver and "boskru" walked into the bush with buckets and returned with water. They gave these bald tyres a cold shower and about half an hour we embarked on the rest of the trip. We reached Kundiawa, intended to continue on to Gembogl when a fight broke out at the market place. It was like a wild fire, everyone jumped in, looting the market, the stores and the gas station.
I'd never ran so fast in my life, but I couldn't afford to miss the bus. A 25 seater bus that approached the bus stop when the fight errupted. The drive yield and motioned to us to run while he drove the bus toward the gas station slowly. I found myself in the back sitting panting and ducking from in coming bottles, stones, and sticks thrown by angry bystanders. The bus driver turned the bus away from the gas station to avoid the angry crowd, but it didn't avoid desperate people trying to get away from the brawl.
Men climbed in through the windows and three forced their way in the back window and landed on my lap. They rolled on the floor and stood up, two were bleeding while the other one appeared unharmed. That trip was like going to hell for a couple of hours and back. But I knew that my fear owed to the fact that I hadn't seen such violence where I come from, after all, the ones around me seemed to understand the situation. A few minutes after we left the town, smiles and chattering brought back my sanity. I sat there shaking my head as if I'd just had a bad dream. But the people there are lovely, friendly, and hospitable. The love and courtesy they've shown me made my stay there worthwhile.
Toward the end of 1998, I returned from Goroka to Port Moresby. Life in POM remained dangerous and out of control. For a while I began to understand the public mindset there, and also the meaning of the common phrase, the Land of the Unexpected. But one day I failed. I had 40K inside my pocket waited for the bus. The Koki bus stop was packed with anxious people who were leaving work and others who were just there to cause trouble. When I finally got in, I reached into my pocket and discovered that I'd lost my money. The next day I came back to the bus stop and observed, street boys were picking pockets and bags etc. and I knew mine was picked that way. But how it occurred made me confused to this day.
During christmas I was posted to Madang, one of the most beautiful places in PNG. I heard about it, but never dreamed that one day I would go there. From the air I could see the islands, beautiful and amazing. I could see why many singers in this region praised Madang so much. I could see the "lighthouse" to my left as the plane descended slowly to the airport. My friend picked me up and took me for shopping. We parked outside the shopping center and as I opened the down, the smell of flying-foxes hits my nostrils. I looked up and there were fly-foxes in every branch of the trees next to the store. I felt extremely home-sick but swallowed that feeling and walked into the shop with my friend.
Madang became my home for the next seven months. Though beautiful, I had some encounters that made me wanted to leave. One day I got jumped by a dozen of street guys when I went to visit my friend at Nabasa St., for no reasons. I came out bleeding, but I survived the attack with minor bruises. That street is one of the most dangerous streets just a mile away from Divine Word University.
I left Madang around 1999 and headed back to Port Moresby through Mt. Hagen.
We moved back to Boroko, a short walk to Garden city where we usually shop for cologne, clothes, and shoes. By 2000, I was ready to leave.
It was a Saturday and I planned to visit all my friends and bid them farewell. My flight back to Solomon Islands as two days away, but I could feel the desire to stay. Friends came by to say goodbye, bringing food and clothes. That Saturday mornig I got on a bus headed toward Gorobe via 2-mile hill. The market area was deserted. But I pressed on till we came to our friend's house. On the road outside his compound were red stain I thought were betel nut stain until my friend related the gruesome incident occurred the previous evening. Two people stole a car from the market area at Koki and chased up the hill by cops armed with automatic guns. The car lost control and hit a young boy who was sitting on the side of the road watching people playing BINGO. The car dragged the body of the boy and smashed it against a big rock on the side of the road. The father and relatives of the victim rushed the car and pulled the drive out while the other escaped to the hill. The cops arrived and found the man being stoned to dead by the little boy's relatives. Cops pursued the other rascal up the hill. It took flying bullets to stop him, he bled to dead while the cops sat there smoking and chewing betel nuts.
The graphic discription of the incident made me dizzy, but the worst was waiting for me at my next destination. 9-Mile area is a place notorious for criminals, but also where my best friends reside. I caught the bus headed there to say good-bye and to drop off some things. The the same scene appeared as we stepped off the bus. The market area where vendors and people gathered every afternoon, was empty. I walked into the settlement until I came to my friends' residences. The expression on their faces meant something. The next story was just extremely graphic, a man who escaped Bomana prison came back for retaliation, he picked up a young man, chopped his head off and left his body near my friends' residence. They took the head and hanged it outside someone's house, which then discovered in the morning and put together for the burial. When I was there listening, there was talk for a "pay-back" from the people in the neighborhood, which, in PNG terms, meant blood and dead bodies.
They escorted me to the bus-stop where I bid them farewell. I lied in bed that night thinking about the things that occurred in my life in my two years in the Land of the Unexpected, wondering if I would ever come back to this country. I wiped away tears and slept my final night.
I left PNG the next day sad, but happy. The experiences I went through, some I recorded and some I would never adequately expressed in words, made me who I am today. But returning to PNG? OH heck yes, I did!

RETURNING to POM city 2005 December



I went to PNG to be interviewed at the US embassy for my visa to travel to United State. I caught a taxi to Granville Motel for 20 Kina. This motel is surrounded by high fences and guarded by a handful of securities 24/7. The guards assured me of my safety and the reliability of the facilities. It was 4 pm , I caught a bus to garden city, where I met Dean William, a Bellonese who made PNG his second home. He disapproved of me staying at 6-miles because he didn't think it was safe. We drove to the motel and picked up my luggages and headed to his house. The town looks so different from what I used to see back some five years ago, most of the beautiful trees were chopped down, one of the largest shops burned and destroyed. William and I spent most of the evenings at one of his friend's pubs, Solwara. They did my police clearance, but then I found out that I left my x-ray forms back in Solomon Islands. The first week, I just enjoyed cruizing with William and his friends. My cousin Vonnie was in Honiara for the funeral of her sister's son who died a week before. She brought my medical forms on Monday, and I moved to her house and spent the last week there.
Saturday night before my cousin Vonnie arrived, William and I ended up at Solwara again. It was a NBC party and uncle E.T wanted to have a word with me. We arrived there and joint Uncle E.T and other friends in the VIP room. Toward the end of the dance, a fight broke out outside, William and I came out and watched gangs from different streets beat each other up outside. The security of the club came out with a shot gun and fired warning shots and dispersed them. Cops arrived and arrested the rest of the gangs, not to mention the beatings they got from these cops. It was a very frightening weekend.
My cousin Vonnie's residence is surrounded by high walls and barb-wires. Security guards are placed there 24/7. She assigned James as my driver. He's a very funny guy, but beside being funny, he is a weight lifter. He spent most of his time lifting heavy weights. I felt so safe being with him and drove around POM city. I visited friends from Gorobe, Gabutu, and Tokarara. We drove to Gerehu. It amazed me how things changed dramatically over there.
Before I went to the US embassy, I called and talked to them about my visa and I was advised to just walk in for a window interview with one of the embassy's officers. It sounds` simple, but we were turned away by a short and skinny security guard, he told us to call. When I tried to explain, he showed us the door, so without further argument we left the embassy. We drove around for a while looking for phones, but all the public phones were engaged. James walked into the police station and talked to the police chief there. I noticed that in the room were a couple of high-powered rifles. I was allowed to use the phone to call the embassy. After my interview, I left the embassy with a big smile, we celebrated it at Solwara with Uncle E.T and his family.
On Friday morning, Vonnie and James drove me to the airport where I boarded the plane and headed home. I will never forget PNG, I grew to love the people and the place.