Snakes and Ladders

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PNG - News #8: Snakes and Ladders
In this life of snakes and ladders I am definitely on a ladder.

LADDERS
Last Monday night I went by boat with the Hash Harriers* to Kranket bearing candy for the island children’s Xmas. The island is a community of thatched sago huts on stilts with a circle of outhouses in the sea as there is no water. The perfectly groomed lawns, and never ending numbers of children that made it seem like a suburb. I will go back to Kranket Island for a New Years Eve party.
Tuesday was a bike ride to the resort pool in the monsoon rain. On the way back stopped in at Gisele’s house where she made me my first cappuccino in 12 weeks. (but who is counting?) It was made with UHT milk the only milk available, it was what should I say? Divine? For sure a religious experience.
Needless to say that Gisele was invited to Malolo Resort (“malolo” means to relax). This way I got cappuccino at pick up time. Friendships tend to be functional here. Christine from Vienna lent me her car- she’d like to visit Vancouver. Western white volunteers become instant wantoks. Sisterhood is an apt antidote to the male violence towards women and all the fathers and brothers we are working with.
(There is a small Catholic women’s order on campus however they are not actively recruiting) We were three in one room and the only people staying at the resort. The ocean waves lapped on the black beach. Black from the active volcano on nearby KarKar Island.

Christmas lunch at Jais Aben Resort (‘jais aben’ means rest place) included fresh prawns, turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, punch and fruit cake. Fully satisfied I visited with the fish and then swam across the channel, where I have seen dolphins play. This weekend I completed three advanced dives from Jais Aben. This place is the best place to dive in the world. There are wrecks and the coral and fish are a marvel.

I am no ichthyologist however spending so much time with the fish I am beginning to see their family traits. Many of the fish actually have animal names, as in goat, cow, parrot, frog, lizard, squirrel, and lionfish. There are wolf eels and leopard sharks. And then there are trigger, trumpet, butterfly and angel fish, dragon eels, nurse sharks and manta rays.

TAKE ME DIVING!


SNAKES
This pelagic life is not without its problems. I have been to the doctor with an itchy attack of jellyfish tentacles. And while at Jais Aben a ten year old boy stepped on a Stone Fish. His scream turned into almost a animal howl for over the hour. While he had his foot in almost boiling water, others went out to kill the stone fish.

I have had two flat tires on my travels. The roads are mostly potholes or harsh rocky surfaces.
Coastwatchers wanted to charge us twice the price for the warmed peppered chicken salad. We accidentally ordered it as a main course.
Alot of people are sick these days, (and favorite friend Valia too) mostly with malaria which is not a pretty picture.
The Madang Hash Harriers don’t actually run!
* The Hash House Harriers is a social version of Hare and Hounds, where you join the pack of hounds (runners) to chase down the trail set by the hare or hares (other runners), then gather together for a little social activity known as the On On or Down Down.


PNG - News Shopping
(January 5, 2004)

“What do you do get when you cross Mafiosi with a postmodernist?’
The answer is someone who will make you an offer you can’t understand.

O’Farrell,C. (1999). Postmodernism for the uninitiated. In D. Meadmore, B. Burnett & P. O’Brien (Eds.) Understanding education: Context and agendas for the new millennium. Sydney: Prentice Hall,pp.1-17

The offers in the Madang Market are unique and in much smaller quantities than you find at Sunrise Market, for instance. There must be 150 merchants in the heat. The 30 peddlers, shaded under the roof are each selling small bits from their gardens- two pineapples, some greens, six tomatoes, half dozen five bean clusters, and maybe the same number of tepee-arranged four carrots on tables.
The merchants that greet you upon arrival have clusters of a dozen shelled peanuts and maybe some root vegetables. And of course there are plenty coconuts and papaya for sale. All this food is displayed on the ground, on tarps. One must never step over the food, even though the seller is a distance away. There is no bargaining and there are no tips in PNG. The prices at the market are good and the fruits and vegetables are fresh. However like Sunrise Market the cheaper the produce the more advanced it is. As in, they will squish in your bilum on the way home and certainly ferment in your fridge after a day.

The staple food on sale is saksak or sago and kaukau or sweet potato. They have plenty of bananas sweet for eating and others for cooking. It is a country filled with fruit and vegetables and here on the coast there is fish. Inland protein is scarce and people tend to pig out at feast time (pigs are slaughtered for singsings) but are protein deficient the rest of the time. They do not typically roast their peanuts which releases protein. There are stories of big men being stoned on marijuana and cutting up live pigs and eating them raw. YUCK!
Back at the market you can also buy handmade bilums, although the baby as in the picture is not included. These are woven bags that women carry heavy quantities of food etc. with the straps on their foreheads and the bag part on their backs. This particular bilum colour and design characterizes the Madang area.

Artefact carvings and meri blouses are also on sale. The meri blouses, flowered loud colours with puffy sleeves are a remnant of German colonization- the covering of the women’s breasts. They work well for breastfeeding and have become a PNG tradition.
I shop on a weekly basis, however I eat on a three times a day basis. My main kaikai, is lunch at the staff mess on weekdays. I have the option of eating all meals there however there is only so many meals with Polish brothers one can take. I like the fresh chicken (kararuk), however I can do without the odd meat cuts, the german sausages, the popular beef crackers and the beetlenut (or buai). If there was only one photo that I could take of PNG it would be of smiling locals showing their red stained mouths from beetlenut. The sienna coloured spit is everywhere on the ground.
Shirley wanted to know more about my circumstances. I live in my own cute little 3-bedroom house, hardwood floors, inside toilet, a fan in each room, TV with cable, and a washing machine. Unlike my neighbouring squatters, my life includes HBO, CNN, a back up generator (which is an incredible feature as the power goes off every time it rains) and 24 hour not so high speed internet access. Surrounding the house I have a garden of orchids, bird of paradise and impatience flowers, and pawpaw, coconut and banana trees. I regularly borrow fresh basil from my neighbour’s front yard.
When I went to the doctor last week about my itches, which were caused by jellyfish tentacles swimming in the ocean, he gave me an aloe vera plant. How’s that for being pampered? The bird sounds are sometimes too loud to think. I am used to the geckos however the ants surrounding my toothpaste this morning got my attention this morning, The air is unpolluted and I haven’t seen a building higher than 3 stories for almost 3 months.
Of course I don't go out much as there is not much to do. I read, sleep, surf the internet, ride my bike, read papers, do some work. I have contact with Valia my neighbour at least 6 times a day. She has a CD player which plays movies that can be rented at the local supermarket. I went to Kranket Island for New Years eve and in my enthusiasm to swim in the phosphoresces I scrapped my foot on the coral. This prevented me from diving this week but surely it will be ready next weekend.
I still haven't seen a student, January 26th will be the beginning of a new academic year here.
Now make me an offer I do understand.

PNG - News: Photography
(January 19, 2004)

On Tuesday, January 13, 2004 Eastman Kodak Company announced that it would stop selling traditional film cameras in the US, Canada, and Western Europe. On Tuesday, January 13, 2004 my mother was buried at Eden Memorial Park, 11508 Sepulveda Boulevard, Mission Hills, California. It is the end of a film era.
My mother’s father Ben, a Turkish immigrant created and ran Shapira’s Photography Studio on Selkirk Avenue, North End Winnipeg. He and Dorothy, a Russian immigrant, and their 3 children - Ruth (eldest), Jack, and Danny (youngest) and Dorothy’s brother Bert lived in the upstairs of the studio. My grandfather photographed babies, families, and weddings and then hand tinted the sepia prints. He also developed film; before my mom’s era of photo labs. My grandmother and sometimes my mother worked in the office, and my sister and I played in the darkroom making necklaces out of film spools. My brother could have been looking through the dirty pictures drawer. If we behaved very good we got ‘Areo’ chocolate bars the ones filled with air bubbles. Our behaviour seemed to directly reflect on my mother in many ways.
In the past six months I lost one camera in Vancouver and went swimming with camera number two in Madang. I have spent two months craving to create “rectangles of frozen memory.” In some “inarticulate major premise” way this was preparing me for my mom’s death and the funeral.
Madang, Port Moresby, Brisbane, Sydney, LA - times two.
As digital photography is not like the old processes of taking pictures, LA is not in the least like any place in PNG. LA’s Highway 405 has no potholes but a groovy surface with lines dividing the twelve lanes. Madang roads have large potholes with no lines, two lanes and we drive on the wrong side of the road.

LA has the Getty Centre, an over the top series of buildings built with rough and smooth travertine. It is fitted with stainless steel wall anchors and a horizontal elevator. The paintings are shown on the top floors with computer controlled skylights and a system of warm and cool artificial light programmed to the season and the time of day. The computer adjusts the louvers’ angles as well as the type and number of lights needed to achieve optimal illumination. Thus visitors can view paintings in natural light as the artists did. On the other side of the equator, I haven’t managed to visit the museum in Port Moresby it is closed because they haven’t paid their phone and power bills. The tourist information/museum in Madang is filled with dusty relics from the past. A special room is dedicated to artifacts which tourists unsuccessfully attempted to take away from the country. It might be a good idea to bring a torch (that is British for flashlight) as the light is very poor.

I did make the most of my journey to LA. Thanks to Brian and his friends my mother’s funeral was a fine warm sunny goodbye. She lies on a hill overlooking the mountains buried with Birds of Paradise on her casket. We played Sammy Davis Jr. recordings and said goodbye. And I bought myself a new hobby- a digital camera with a marine housing to take pictures underwater. I expect that you might be receiving some visuals with your PNG news from now on.

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Photos

Sight of Robinson Crusoe movie
A ladder of beauty

Spine Cheek Anemonefish
Photographed by Claudia Spittz at Planet Rock. Another ladder, this clown-fish is the Jais Aben Resort symbol.

Stone Fish
Photographed by Claudia Spitz at Planet Rock. Definitely a snake-I listened to a seven year old boy cry for 3 hours straight after stepping on one of these stone fish.

Market
The colours and heat of the market.

Comments

[Muryl Geary]

Shapira's Photo Studio Winnipeg Manitoba
Hi, Enjoyed your travel blog and was rewarded by info on your grandfather's photo studio in Winnipeg. I have several photos of my aunts and uncles taken at Shapira's. My family lived in the North End and it wouldn't surprise me if my grandfather knew yours. I was recently looking up the Studio name to see if anybody knew if the negatives were in an archive somewhere. I'll check the Manitoba Provincial Archives in Winnipeg. You did a nice short history of your family and the Studio. Thank you from Vancouver. Keep on Travelling!