Fish soup

Your fish soup is my tonic, nursing me back to health after days of malaria hell. It is the most delicious soup I have ever tasted, my body absorbs its subtle flavours and dances silently in its goodness. The ginger, lime juice, stock, freshly caught fish and banana; all so simple. And just what I need. Malaria, that great killer of this world and one that brings daily misery to so many. But to poor people so solutions are long long in coming. They say it makes you feel you are going to die, then you don’t and you wish you had. Yep. And while I have lain here it has become clear that it is time to move on. For all those reasons that are really so clear and that make it all so hard here. A weight falls from my shoulders? I really don’t know the hows and whens yet and really what goal I will pick, but it is time to let go. I would be so much more broken if I had to go through what I did last week alone here, without you, and my life would perhaps have been in danger. It is just not like the Discovery Channel at all, and can’t be. I have tried and tried and tried and it is time to try something else, somewhere else. Mmmmmmm, fish soup.

Rainy days

So what is a typical working day like for you…? Weeellll…today it is pouring with rain as it has done for three days; the monsoon has finally hit and it is streaming down…so much so that I am not sure I will be able to see where I am going on my bike as so far I have not ventured to the office and am trying to work at home, where I am having trouble focussing. But I need to go to the office to give a key to T so she can try to get into town to pay salaries. Hm, I don’t think I will be able to see, the rain is coming down so hard. I can hardly hear myself think as it streams down on the iron roof. There is only one pool collecting in the lounge so far. The garden is filling up, becoming one big muddy lake. I am also at home because of that truck that featured a couple of entries ago. My magical neighbours found a good mechanic (finally….) but there are no workshops or good places that supply parts here. The water pump has been replaced (its problems overlooked many times by previous mechanics), the radiator fix has been refixed and now we are searching for a head gasket and trying to find an option that will take less than ten days so that we can put that in and explore what the next option will be. And the rain comes down. M is sitting here with his leg up as he can’t put it down and the mystery “burn” does not go away and spreads and looks so mysterious. He can’t get anywhere for anyone to look at it and really there is no one who would know what to do. We are getting more FFT (sorry, that has to be cryptic) and that has been better, but that is very hard too. So much seems hard. So little money, so little support and…what are we trying to do here? Before I go on my bike, some lunch, which I decided to add capers to (they have those here, but I am not sure why, do the missionaries really buy them?), Spanish capers, imported into The Netherlands (along with those quite good pickles) and then finding their way to PNG, probably via China.

There is an island

There is an island not so very far from my house. It is a place of magic. A place you go to connect with the world. Where the waves roar and the waves lap. Where you can run around naked, skinny dip in warm jacuzzi wave waters, snorkel with sharks, turtles and cuttlefish over coral of so many kinds, surf, make love on the sand, see turtles hatch and scurry to that indescribable blue, hear ospreys call, watch shooting stars, see dolphins swim by, kingfishers arrive. You can just relax and relax. Worries disappear. You feel something primordial. You truly feel that you are part of the universe. Where you can wonder at it all and just be. As the numbers of the year change. You wonder at how dreamlike this life can be.

Lakarol

They used to give out oranges as presents for Christmas in Victorian times, didn’t they? As I handed around oranges to people around me where we had become stranded. “Woo-hoo, we’re leaving Kavieng!” Off on a really fun trip, down the coast for several days of surf and beach and cool, clear river and just being among the rainforest-cloaked limestone cliffs. Or not. I noticed the truck had suddenly lost power, then more, then pulled it over to the side of the road. Overheated, water all gone. People emerged from the sides of the road. The truck needed more than just water. It was…fucked. I…we…felt deflated. I realised how truly truly I had been looking forward to this trip. I had been all excited talking on the phone at Christmas time to mum and J as we packed up and drove off on our adventure. I had a bag full of books. We had the surfboards. We had the tent. We had a car that was not in good shape and we hadn’t known that; it was my first PNG breakdown (of the car mechanical kind). But….there were worse places to be stranded. Food soon arrived for us. We decided to stay for the night. We really didn’t want to go back to Kavieng. Of course we didn’t…We went for a walk through the coconut plantation, along the beach at high tide, a brisk wind off the ocean, roaring (non-surfable) waves. We were the village Christmas entertainment. It felt peaceful and friendly and bright and open. We went for a swim in the jacuzzi lagoon. We did everything with a crowd of observers/helpers. We put our tent up. What an incredible spot. I sat there as dusk enveloped us and the stars came out. M talked about fish. We were fed again. We released our stash of stale Gold Nuggets into a frenzy of grabbing people. I read my Buddhist guide to a more compassionate existence as the waves roared. The moon came up over the water. Our guardians slept next to our tent to watch over us. We woke up to the beauty of the beach. John brought his precious small breeding pig for a saltwater bath and kept throwing the squealing animal into the air and…splash and…no mercy. He had just decided to call it “Tourist,” to also show how valuable it was. We were their whitie tourist pets for 24 hours. They showed us kindness, which we tried to show back; exchanges of food. And I kept dreaming of a bush house by the beach in a place like this, to escape from Kavieng, or just a place to camp, a beach getaway. The tow truck from T’s family close by came too soon, as I was lying in the shade on the beach reading, really not ready to leave. And we began our slow journey back to town. And I really didn’t want to be back there. It had been lovely in the village and I find it harder and harder to be in Kavieng; that isolated buai-splattered urban dead-endedness. And to face thoughts of being here alone again. And to try not to feel disappointed that we are not on our trip. We will try to get to the little paradise island and camp there alone. If we can get there I am sure it will be wonderful.

Before I go to bed

I will just write a few lines. Although I always plan on writing something way more inspired and insightful. Really this blog just becomes more and more a small outlet for my emotional sighing. Every now and then. I should be writing about the village visits, all so confusing, draining, energizing, exciting, foreign at the same time. The women with pink nappy pins stuck in their hair. The men and women in their separate groups. The rain dripping through my tent sanctuary. The ospreys, always the ospreys. The posturing with bushknives. The jealousies. The surprises. The trail of empowerment. The three villages, all so very different. The favourite place, even better each time. Paradise islands. Zipping over the sea. Frigate birds soaring. A movement building and people coming together. Buai and beer on a Saturday morning. And…here I sit before I go to bed and wonder and feel so stuck in how to make a relationship work. How hard it all is. How much it all seems to have dissected me and laid bare all the yeuchy parts, the ones I don’t really want to see. Critical words. The fun disappeared. Just hard. All so confusing and all such a surprise as I really thought it was all so wonderful, like a dream come true. And the bubble has burst. And I don’t know what to do. I never imagined it would be like this. And yet there was that one dream. For now, I can only keep trying. And Ungakum felt so special again.

Depression

Has hit (when you hit your head so hard) and well I guess I never thought of it as an option with you, really never. I thought you were just too…well…sorted. So it all makes things seem quite hard, even harder. And I know I am not the cheeriest anyway. Existential crisis and all. It does just seem so hard and it’s a bit of a challenge to find the fun bits. We’ll have to try.

Haus Meris

She supports a family of eighteen. And I thought it was her daughter who was in court for moonying who was going to jail, but it when I asked (just to check my Pidgin: Really….?) was another one who was going there for adultery where the plaintiff was not actually married to the man (but pregnant, so it is just like adultery, ain’t it?) And so…we couldn’t really let her go to jail for six months could we?

Local Food

The Kavieng Emp pizza is really good. And we’ll eat the ferns later.

Volunteers

All Italian chicks so far. They won’t be much good at fixing the truck. I know…you might be reading this and thinking…why not me?????

Your Verdict

It’s just a the-bananas-will-fall-off-the-tree-sooner-or-later culture, innit?

When the Johos Come to Visit

That is the longest conversation I have ever had with them. And you just sat there, picking your toes and preached the gospel of conservation intellectuals, all going over their heads. But you didn’t notice and you didn’t care. What did they really want us to say? “Yes, we’ll take your stupid magazine”? And I just glared at you from behind the post.

After Work Today

Swimming in the warm tropical calm with pink sky and full moon.

Doctors, Bush Medicine and Meditation

Well, I guess the varieties are different, the ones in Australia versus those in Kavieng (whom you tell what is wrong with you and…well, it is all relative to the patients they generally see and also a real bonus if they don’t give you amoxy), but in the end it all kind of feels the same; that they have nothing to offer me that is useful to me, that they don’t really listen, that they don’t really link anything up. That the best treatment of all, self-medication, is meditation. Meditation not medication. Kinesiology seemed the best. And I wonder what it would tell me now. But the people in the pathology lab at Kavieng haus sik really are quite good at taking blood and they are very nice and one of them is also called H and they do not splatter my blood all over my shirt and themselves like the other woman. I quite like going to see them. I tried some bush medicine this evening.

It’s Not Like This on the Discovery Channel

How many times have I thought that? It’s been a crazy week, even by Kavieng standards. So, there was no other option to sack him. And it is sad, but wow, what was he thinking? What the ^#*! Aren’t I supposed to be zipping around in fancy boats playing with colourful fish, doing all kinds of sexy things? Instead, waves of lingering mystery illness as I address village meetings to cope with serious crazy goings-on and wonder where all this is leading. But….there are really good things happening, and it does feel so worthwhile. And the responsibility feels so great. And I just have to get healthy again and have lots of energy for it all. And get rid of demons. And…I have just been asked as I sit here: What can you do with two tonnes of vanilla (because we do seem to have quite a lot)? And now he is doing pirate impressions of the Disgraced One.

A Sunday Morning

Writing reports on people and fish and trying to explain why reef closures are working in some places and not in others. Listening to classical Indian music tapes. Eating walnut bread with precious last supplies from Australia. Eating delicious tropical fruit salad. Drinking fake health food store coffee, which seems so special. Needing to be by the fan as Kavieng just seems to be getting hotter (was it really this hot one year ago?). I might have to go and buy some of those second-hand fifties dresses. Looking at the atlas, at Pacific islands, Australia and Indonesia, and listening to explanations of the best surfing. Looking at the expanse of Australia, tracing it down to Melbourne, even to Bendigo. Reading your blog and thinking of you. So you have a new job! And I have these wonderful images of your garden. And I do kind of miss the Western World. I will have to get on my orange Eco Bike and go for a swim in the tropical blue. Next weekend it will be a village guesthouse on a small island, just the two of us. If there are waves it will be paradise for you.

Long Time

I don’t mean to neglect this blog, but…my head feels so full, my life so full, my house so full. And I don’t know how to write it all down. And really there are lots of stories. And I am often quite confused about things. And it is so so hot. It seems hotter than it used to. And really we need a surf shack by the water and a boat, as a change from the purple house sometimes. Although we do have Eco Bikes now, which were Magic Bikes; one orange, one blue, where different parts fall off each day. But they get us to the market to buy all that fish and to the water to check the waves, and just to stand there and gaze out at the water, the amazing blues, the flying foxes, the ospreys, the jumping fish and the painted tropical sky. And all those hellos. “Hello Masta.” It is all feeling very challenging. I seem to be going through a process of peeling away layers of me, trying to discover how there is no me at all.

Excuse Me, I Need to Complain...

…But I don’t know why. So I do it, as I just realise the actual numbers on the bill as I am at the Telikom window anyway. “We didn’t get a phone bill at all last month and now this month we have credit.” “Yes, that’s because you didn’t get a bill last month.” “But if we didn’t pay anything at all then how can we have credit?” “It’s because you didn’t pay anything last month.” “Oh, ok then.”

Magic Pills and Magic Drops

Are making me, me and my body, me that is my body, feel strange things. Uncomfortable things, as I have not yet come to understand them, although I want to feel that they are good. And it has been going on for weeks now. And perhaps really if I were to linger in Cairns I could do this for years, although it seems that would take some kind of bravery and it would be quite a journey. How can all this come out? Why did I just not feel it before? How can it all be stored up? And can it all heal? Subtle energies, interplaying, creating an ever-changing me. A me who doesn’t really exist as me.

And so I sit here at my computer, gazing out into the rainforest. Butterflies flutter past, the lizard is still there, birds come and go and call from the trees and the stream….I’m not sure what noise the stream makes, but it is so relaxing and reassuring, one of those babbling brook type flows. And I listen, and this just feels like a very good place to be right now when so much seems really to have been quite tough, but it all needs to come out so it can be better, richer.

Out West

The Australian West…the outback. I feel kind of on holiday, also on sick leave, also…just part of a journey that seemed to start when? March? May? Nearly 6 weeks ago? Since last Thursday? I have still to tell of Crystal Tony and kinesiology. Just a short while ago I went for a walk on the red soil at dusk. It felt quite a lot like Arizona, California inland, the American West. It smelt like those memories. Parakeets flew overhead. I stood and merged with distant hilly contours and silhouetting solitary trees, each with its own unique pattern. I wondered at the space and peace of it all. How I felt so connected to the Earth. How pure and comforting it felt. As the almost full moon rose.

This is Charters Towers. A trip to help a friend, and also for me to take restful time for myself. An old outback mining town. A really cutesy historical high street. Where people really do say g’day…aiy. Where they wear very big hats and drive big old battered trucks. Where the white dogs I saw were covered in red dust from the soil half way up their legs. Where on my walk around the outback golf course I ended up at number 14 MacDonalds hole. And the view was beautiful. And there really are a lot of birds. I feel I really need this break.

Wales (oops, not Cornwall)

Why Wales now? Well, the pic just “arrived” (thank-you!) and takes my thoughts back there to nearly two months ago. I just realized…as long ago as it is now until you are here…And, that was one of the best barbecue experiences ever.