It was a day of firsts. For VSO it was the first time they had trained Boards of Management, the PNG equivalent to a school governing body. It was a first to partner with Simbu school inspectors in providing training. It was the first time Heather had lectured a large audience power point at the ready. It was the first time we have been caught up in a looting mob driven off by rifle shooting police. And we got home in time for a very nice tea.

The day started well, we awoke to a power cut: no water, no shower, no light and the foot still swollen and for some reason, probably a state of mind, hurting more than before. All was not lost, we boiled water on the gas ring and Heather had bought a lovely pawpaw and pineapple for breakfast. I had a little celebration as the belt did up 2 holes tighter than on our flight out. The air outside hung misty raising the question would it turn out a blistering belter or stay cloudy and cooler.

Big day I thought, time to get out the tie. Never before worn in Kundiawa. I tried on the suit jacket, rather over the top, failed to duck as I came out of the spare bedroom and discovered the doorway had been designed PNG height. Heather decided this would be an ideal opportunity to try out the new spray on plaster we had brought with us. Oooh that brings tears to the eyes.

We were driven out to Mingende by the elementary school driver along with the person in charge of Primary Education and the Guidance Officer, who has responsibility for counselling and careers advice. The workshop was to be held in the Catholic conference centre. It is an oasis of higher class provision. Around a large green space is dormitory accommodation a dining room and a hall which felt like a 1950s school hall. The 60 odd workshop members had been waiting for us, we were late due to having to wait for various people. Conscious that we had to pack a lot into the next two days we were anxious to get on with the training. But this is PNG, there were various preliminaries that were required whatever the delays. So we sat through an amazing traditional welcome chant which had at its heart an extended repeated call of "Chimbu" The word Chimbu or Simbu is the local expression for welcome. Then there were some lengthy speeches from the two education officers who had accompanied us. The senior primary officer based his speech on suggestions I had made about school improvement planning in the car on the way to the workshop. How about that for immediate impact or maybe just the easy way out. It was 11 o'clock before we could start the training. It was like nothing we had done before. One of the Heads was appointed translator as the Board of Management reps mostly spoke Tok Pisin, Raphael was incredible, especially when occasionally I got excited and forgot to stop leaving rather long passages for him to remember. As he warmed to his task he started to add in pieces he thought were also good ideas. But he was so good I would listen to his pigeon and think why couldn't I have said it that clearly. He was particularly good as he hadn't had any briefing. His translation was vital and alive and even claimed some of the laughs as he told the jokes better than we did.

The participants threw themselves into the task relishing quizzes, drawing out people shapes and doing matching games. We had dreaded the possibility that they would either not join in or just not understand. We had not realized just how new this type of thing was to so many of the village Board of Management people. Mostly they had never received any training before. At the end of two days we repeated the speech process. We gave out school certificates accompanied by much whooping, all rather embarrassing. Then Heather was given a PNG flag dress, or as it is called here, blouse and I was given a PNG man bag. My second, Heather is still ahead on the billum front with 3 knitted for her by women of Papuan Compound.

It was on the journey back along the rutted slimy boulder strewn highway between workshop days that we saw bare footed men and women of all ages pounding along the road. Peter the guidance officer said something has happened. Papuan instincts are always to run towards trouble. A mile or two later there seemed to be an unusual number of men walking uphill carrying large cartons of 15 2 litre bags of rice. Unusual, I thought. We crested a hill and turned down a steep incline. Tarmac at this point was an imagined dream. The rain kept pounding down. A line of stationary PMVs and landcruisers blocked the way. With the patience Papuans are famous for, the driver leant on his horn, a traditional sign of respect in these parts, and wove his way to the front, bar one. There half way up a linear rock garden was stuck a huge two-container lorry surrounded by at least 300 clamouring raiders. They completely blocked the road. To carry on would have either been murder or suicide, probably both. We stopped, there was no choice, we could go neither forward or back. The shouts of the mob were the backdrop to the rhythmic beating of axe on steel as the men were cutting holes in the roof of the containers. The driver, trapped in his cabin watched on. The shouting was interrupted by cheers and clamours for more when intermittent rice cartons flew out of the container tops. Men were clambering up the bull bars over the cabin and onto the roof. A steady stream of men with their shoulder burdens of rice trudged back up the mud slide of a road. We resolved to wait it out, the driver was on his phone to make contact with the police when the scene changed in an instant. One shot cut through the air. The whole crowd screamed as one, turned uphill and poured past the car. Then as the crowd started to thin police appeared rifles raised and firing seemingly directly at the crowd in the middle of which was our car. Looking directly down the barrel of a gun we hit the floor of the car and stayed there for what must have only been a minute until the police controlled the area. At points a policeman would raise a gun and fire at a fleeing person chasing them into the bush. The police then started to gather evidence, loading bags of rice into the back of their land cruisers. My father's generation would have called it liberating the rice. A couple of shifty police gave furtive school boy glances as they wandered up the road overly casually chatting to colleagues and then back handing a 30 litre bag of rice to an apparent stranger. Nothing suspicious there then. Once a police car had towed a PMV from an impossible rut by the lorry, we crawled past and made our way back for tea passing another lorry off the road but strangely ignored.