Bird of Paradise

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An old man who was wearing just a hollowed out Penis Gourd and a few feathers caught my eye, said 'pagi' and stretched out his right arm in order to shake hands. I stopped and put my right hand in his hand. He smiled, I smiled and he shook my hand, moved his hand and thumb around in my hand and kept shaking, shaking and shaking. Five or ten minutes later I managed to disentangle my hand, hoping I wasn't being rude by breaking off the greeting too quickly!

The people of the Baliem Valley are a friendly lot.

I'd been looking forward to this break. It seems a long time since I was able to take some time off work. We've been busy with a total rebuild and relaunch of the school in Cirebon.

Papua is the Indonesian half of the island of New Guinea. It's at the furthest eastern edge of the Indonesian archipelago and I only had a week off...

It's a long way to Papua from Java, it's quicker and cheaper to go to Australia.

Transmigrasi

The many cultures of Papua are unique, much of the population had seen no one from the outside world until the middle of the 20th century but it is a culture that may be in danger. In the Suharto era the government of Indonesia encouraged migration to outlying islands from Java. Although the policy of tranmisgrasi has ended the migration hasn't. 40 years ago 96% of the population of Papua was native to the island, now 50% are from other parts of Indonesia.

Back to the land

During my brief trip I visited a festival at Lake Sentani which is near the capital Jayapura. My encounter with the gentleman at the start of this blog was in the Baliem Valley which can only be reached by plane. There are no roads through the jungle and mountains. Everything has to be flown into the valley and most of the population still live a life that is very close to the land, tending to their crops and pigs.

Independence?

Walking out of the airport when I first arrived in Papua, I couldn't miss the Papua Human Rights Memorial Park because of the huge sign that marks it. It's only a few hundred metres from the airport gate. It's a field that contains the grave of Theys Eluay, a Danu Tribal chief and independence leader who was murdered in 2001 by the Indonesian army's 'special' forces. Thousands attended Theys funeral.

Over the years there have been a number of violent confrontations between the Free Papua Movement (OPM) which is outlawed in Indonesia and the security forces. The OPM appears to reject economic development and modernity. In 2009 there was an undercover