Becoming New Irish

And now for the backed up blog posts:

The island scenery has been changed. On Friday we took a banana boat, aka a speedboat, to New Ireland, the next island over from New Britain. Original names, huh? The boat ride over was excellent, taking a little less than two hours. We even got to see some whales that are still unknown to us, I thought they looked like Killer Whales but their presence in the South Pacific seems unlikely, especially given the time of year. The wildlife we saw the most were flying fish. Until seeing them in the Philippines, I had no idea there was such a thing as flying fish, I thought they were just a thing dreamt up by Nintendo to kill Mario and Luigi. I was amazed by how far they can fly above the water for. Cruising along at sixty kilometres an hour, some of the fish hovered alongside us for up to five seconds.

We arrived in the village of Namatinai a little too late to catch the PMV to anywhere else, so we stayed the night at a local guest house and played cards with the family that ran it. The next day we headed down to the bus stop outside of the local market to wait for a PMV to our next destination. This is a fitting time to introduce the notorious betelnut. It’s a fruit kind of thing that the locals here chew. Basically it resembles a lime on the outside, but once you peel the outer husk off of it, there’s a bean-like substance in the middle, which is eaten with mustard plant and a little lime powder. The combination of all those turns the mixture red, and a deeper red the more it is chewed. Essentially it’s a different form of chewing tobacco, you spit the juice out instead of swallowing it. The only problem with this kind is that it will stain your teeth red, then after enough years of chewing it, it stains your teeth black. Basically everyone in the country has nasty teeth. And at this bus stop not a square inch of land was free of betel nut husks or spit juice.

We finally jumped on the PMV around 2:30, bound for the Dalom village guest house. We arrived two hours later to a beautiful guest house on the beach, right beside a fresh mountain water river. The river is so fresh that there’s no shower here, you simply bathe in the river with the locals. On Sunday we attended a mass at the church on the same property as the guest house. I was honestly expecting a pretty upscale mass, something with lots of singing and rhythm, but that wasn’t the case. It was more like bible school, and given my strong atheism, I found myself quickly bored. Later we took a walk up the beach to a point in the distance, which turned out to be way in the distance. The coastal landscape here on the east side of New Ireland is amazing. We walked over nice white sand, over hardened coral slabs, across the trunks of huge trees that extend over the surf, around the bases of huge cliffs, and through many cool freshwater streams. And of course past a ton of friendly locals.

Monday was another easy going day, spent on the beach and behind a book. I also befriended one of the dogs, Audi, that belongs to the owners of the guesthouse. A wire haired pointer mixed with possibly some German Shepherd, he’s a dog I would love to have back at home, a medium sized, well behaved dog. He followed me on a long walk down the other end of the beach, not having to be called once. The next day he also accompanied us on a walk to the local canteen. It was pretty hard to leave the comfort and peace of the beach life, so we stayed another day.

On Wednesday we headed out to the village of Lambuso to stay with a friend, Augustine, that we met on the boat ride over from Kokopo. He lives in Rabaul but was going back to Lambuso to visit his family at their home village for a few weeks, and kindly invited us to stay with him. It turned out to be some of the best days of my vacation, and some of the greatest hospitality I’ve ever been shown before. We arrived there thinking we would stay a night or two and just see the village, but it turned out to be so much more than that. When we arrived in the morning we were taken to his home and introduced to the family. Calling Lambuso a village is a loose term, it’s more like a community of homes spread amongst the forest and seaside, mainly centered around the local Catholic Church. Augustine’s home is just off the main highway on the jungle side, and has four dwellings on it. One is under construction and will house a brother that is currently working in Australia, another is for the women, a small hut houses the boys while Augustine is away, and a fourth house in tucked back in the trees. The first three homes are centered around a fire pit and courtyard, and back further into the bush is the jungle garden.

It’s incredible how much the forest provides for the people here in New Ireland. Immediately after arriving, the oldest boy, Isaiha, expertly scaled a palm tree and knocked down some coconuts for us to drink and eat. We were also treated to guava and passion fruit, which I fell in love with. The garden and fruit foraged from the bush provides enough food to feed over twelve people in that home, totally dispelling the need to rely on buying food from a market. We were also treated to oranges, grapefruits, yams, sweet potatos and greens, all picked from the garden. It’s truly amazing to see people survive off the land like this, something nearly impossible to do year round in Canada.

That afternoon we headed out to the beach with over twenty kids from the local village in tow, all eager to see and be around a white person, something that doesn’t happen for them. We snorkled around a pristine reef, watching the boys provide for the family by catching fish with homemade harpoon guns they rig up from wood, thick rubber banding and a long metal spike. For being so young, they sure were great fishermen, catching about six fish off the reef until handing over the harpoons to us clumsy, untrained white men, who couldn’t catch a damn thing. After a quick fish fry on the beach, we headed to the local river, in a quiet spot in the jungle, and rinsed off in the cool, pristine jungle water, loving every minute of the day so far. That night we sat around the fire pit, which they keep burning all night as a sign of light to let the spirits know people are alive in the home. We were lucky enough to have three nights of full and nearly full moon, giving us clear views of the giant fruit bats cruising around the trees. I’m not understating them being giant; they are fucking huge! Their wing span must be around six feet, and when one flies over you, the sound of the wings flapping makes you feel like they’re flying inches over your head.

The next day Augustine took us out for a trek in the jungle to a remote swimming hole up a small stream from the trail that cut through a palm nut plantation. Walking back that far in the jungle I got a quick, brutal feel for the amount of misquitos the jungle produces. It was fucking retarded. Completely unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, I was being bit in six different places at once. Thankfully we didn’t hang around their long. Instead we opted for the trail through the grass, which contains tons of thorn bearing grasses that ripped apart my unprotected, flip flopped feet. Note to self: next time while trekking in the jungle, wear shoes and pants. That night we went back to the reef to do some night fishing under the now full moon. One of the local villagers guided us out into the inky water, armed with an underwater flashlight, a spear gun, and his wits. We hovered above, watching him dive down the reef to spot the colourful fish below, then harpooning them for the feast that was about to come. Apparently the catch we got is unusual for a moonlit night, when the fish tend to still be awake and more wily. In the end he bagged ten fish, a squid and a lobster. The feast that night was nothing short of amazing.

We had planned to leave in the morning to Kavieng, but Augustine had persuaded us to stay (as if we needed to be persuaded) one more day to see a local sing sing that was happening a few villages down, something that is very rare and even more rare for a white man to see. When he said sing sing I was thinking it would be something like some local school kids performing some songs or something like that, but I was in for a major surprise. The sing sing turned out to be a huge local festival, with different villages putting on their own traditional dances, and a giant feast for everyone to enjoy. The festival itself is based around honouring the dead, but without knowing the local language it was hard to detect that aura at all. We sat back and I snapped away with my camera at the amazing dance rituals that were performed, all with different styles and bright colours.

The first group to perform was a group of orange skirted girls with orange and baby-blue head dresses. They performed a choir-like slower paced dance. The second group was made up of men dressed in red skirts, grass necklaces, each man armed with two decorative wooden paddles carved in various designs and colours. The beat and rhythym of the music was hypnotic, and I was lucky enough to have a great spot on the front line to snap some great photos. I don’t think I can come close to capturing the spirit of these dances though, it would be impossible for an electronic device to do so. While these dances are going on, village people will run up with a handful of ash and slap it over the backs of the dancers as a way of showing how much they enjoy the show, of course with a few laughs from everyone.
The next group has an amazing and tragic story behind it. A month before the sing sing, these group of men venture up into the jungle to fast for a month, drinking only water. They then perform an incredibly fast paced dance, the rythym set to bamboo cane drums. A few of the dancers hold leaves wrapped around ground up human bone, channelling spiritual power through them that makes them shake and convulse during the dance. It is truly awe inspiring to see these men, who must have hardly any energy at all, perform this dance with such intensity and devotion. The tragic part of the story is that while walking along the highway from their village to the sing sing, one of the younger men was struck and killed by a vehicle. Yet they still performed. After telling that story I’m not sure if I can make the next group sound cool, but trust m in saying that they were just as good as the others, but this one seemed to involve the crowd more, with people running up to and throughout the group, adding to the joy of the occasion. To even further spoil us, Augustine got his hands on a pair of decorative paddles the second group of dancers used, one for Matt and I to each take home.

Another great thing about the festival was the feast that was in the middle of it. The villages all put money and resources together to provide a ton of food to feed the hundreds of people that attend the sing sing, all in all amounting to a couple pigs and about a thousand potatoes and bananas. The pigs and potatoes are wrapped in banana leaf and cooked in what is called a momo, basically a pit of stones heated red hot from a fire. The food is placed on the stones, more stones are piled on top and the whole thing is covered in dirt, creating a simple but amazingly effective oven. After two hours, the momo is dug out and the perfectly cooked food is distributed to the crowd. The way it’s distributed is the coolest part. Every man in the village the sing sing is hosted in runs up to the pits, grabbing a handful of food to run back to the crowd with, all the while obeying the shouts and gestures of the village elders, who direct the men like traffic on a busy street. Then when all the food is distributed to the crowd everyone digs into an amazing feast.

That night we sat around the fire again, chatting with Augustine while the boys sat around my laptop watching the Dark Knight, I’m sure their first viewing of the infamous Batman movies. We got to have a deep conversation with Augustine about their beliefs and customs over a few South Pacifc Lagers. One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was about Black Magic and Witchcraft, which is still recognized in the PNG culture. Rarely does this ever have a negative connotation attached to it, especially so in the islands where people are less volatile, but the people of PNG do still believe that sorcery is practiced. He even told us of villages still having Witch Doctors who provide spiritual and medicinal healing to the local populace. This further heightens my marvel at the culture of PNG, which sometimes seems so primitive but yet maintains a harmonious balance with the people.

The next day we took our leave of Augustine and his family, and jumped on a PMV bound for Kavieng. The whole family and some of the villagers came to the road to say their goodbyes and see us off. I was pretty sad leaving these people who for the past few days took us in as family members and showed us the most hospitality I’ve ever felt. The saddest thing about saying goodbye to them is the nagging thought in the back of my head that I may never see these people, who are now like family, again. I do hope that at some point in the future I’ll be able to work around the geographical and financial barriers and make a return to PNG, because I feel so happy, lucky and fortunate that we met Augustine. He showed us the village life that we could never see on a tour or simply a walk around the jungle, and was so enthusiastic to show us his culture and customs. The people here are truly magical and every day turns out to be a truly greater adventure in this country.