Nothing sets up the professional culture more than a meeting of Headteachers. In the UK they are essentially civilized, courteous affairs. But then they are usually arranged in a polite purposeful way with due consideration for attendees. I was aware that an important way of taking the professional temperature would be sitting in on such a meeting. A meeting was called this week for all the Headteachers in the Province some 146, the theme was in-service nee...

Our home Our home sits on a hill but then so does everything in Kundiawa. It takes 10 minutes to climb a rocky road from the centre of town. It is a very pretty house on stilts. Below the house in a traditional hut sleep two house boys. That is how they are referred to but in fact they are two delightful, fit young men who we discovered today are married. There is nothing apparently they will not do to help us in an outside manly sort of way. Their great...

It is tricky to know where to start after two weeks in PNG. Life is fairly extreme in every respect except as far as we can see in terms of wealth. Some Papua New Guineans are very rich but we see little of that. I expect the greatest concentration is in Port Moresby, which is an amazing capital city in that it is not accessible by the rest if the country except by air or sea. There are no roads leading out of the city. It is only a rumour that this is a p...

It is tricky to know where to start after two weeks in PNG. Life is fairly extreme in every respect except as far as we can see in terms of wealth. Some Papua New Guineans are very rich but we see little of that. I expect the greatest concentration is in Port Moresby, which is an amazing capital city in that it is not accessible by the rest if the country except by air or sea. There are no roads leading out of the city. It is only a rumour that this is a p...

Charlie has only been in Papua New Guinea for one day but he has already met wildlife, which is bigger than it is in Devon. Charlie was fast asleep at 6 o'clock in the morning dreaming of chasing balls on Exmouth beach when he was woken up by screeching. "Those noisy birds!" he complained why can't they wait for the sun to come up properly before they start arguing. Charlie grabbed his rather smart binoculars and went out to look for the offending birds. ...