New Britain, Papua New Guinea

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<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Monday 12^th March 2012:



Oh my good gawd it was hot today. It was 31ºC with 75%!h(MISSING)umidity. I don’t even manage to sweat that much in the gym! Richard described today as like walking around inside a recently boiled kettle. But it was worth it because Papua New Guinea is like nowhere else we’ve ever been. We’re on the island of New Britain – which is just south of New Ireland - and much of this place was wrecked by a double volcanic eruption in 1994. Thanks to the work of the volcano observatory here, the islanders got 2 days warning of the eruption so most people were saved. 5 though lost their lives here and the main town was wiped off the face of the earth. As we were driving through what was just miles of volcanic ash our guide told us we were driving down the airport runway, past the police station, alongside the commercial area and the school and the bank and the houses. But there was no sign of any of them. Just black ash. When we got near to some volcanic hot springs we saw just the triangular top of a building sticking out of the ground. And that was it. The palm trees were just branchless trunks and there was nothing else. It was clearly catastrophic and very moving even now.



The villagers though are beginning to rebuild. They have a new police station and a new market but in a different location. New Rabaul is not being built on top of the old Rabaul. And I guess I wouldn’t feel safe in the old place if I had gone through what they did.



We’ve learnt lots about PNG over the last few days and here are some of the interesting bits:



The school has a number of desks and that number dictates how many children can be educated. If they have 200 desks and you are child number 201, you can’t go to school this year. You have to come back again in a year’s time to see if they have any new desks yet.



And if there is a desk for you, then you have to pass a test to ensure you are big enough to be allowed to come to school. The test is very simple. You have to take one arm, pass it over your head, and hold on to your ear on the opposite side. If you can do that, you are big enough to go to school. Apparently, 4 year olds have not grown enough to be able to perform this task. By 6, you can. So unless you’re a fast grower, the chances are you’ll start school at 6 years of age.



In World War II, the Japanese took over these islands. Our guide today said, “the Japanese were not very nice to my people”. To keep their location secret from the Japanese, the locals took their food to the volcanic springs and cooked it there. The sea water is 70ºC and so it was always steaming. Thus the locals could cook without any cooking smoke give them away.



They grow vomit fruit here on the island. It’s pretty but apparently well-named. We ate the most wonderful local bananas today but passed by the vomit fruit tree!



And the children here are the cutest of kids. There is absolutely no modern development on the island and the islanders seem genuinely delighted to see us. They all wave. And the children run to the bus to wave and shout hello. And this is the first place either of us has ever been where the children run around the villages as naked as the day they were born. Many of them have the most glorious ginger (!) hair and smiles to die for. In the warm shallow waters, cute shiny brown bottoms bob out of the surface as the play and dive. So no matter how much trauma the island has suffered, it hasn’t stopped the people from being unbelievably friendly.

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[soo cov]

love reading.......
your blog,seeing the photos and hearing what you are up to...... keep on blogging xx