THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE - PARADISE 2

31st May 2008

Hope this will put the photos into context, one of these days we'll manage to put the two together!

We weren't looking forward to our visit to Karamui.We'd heard such stories and secretly, I was a bit scared that some of the hijacker's mates might still be lurking in the bush!We were told that the mosquitos there were HUGE, it was unbearably hot and even one of the teachers said she was so scared about us going, but we were never clear quite why, as she'd never been there herself! However, we saw not one mosquito and had no bites and the weather was relatively cool.No raskals appeared out of the bush either, even though there was an election going on, which can be quite a violent time.

We had prepared ourselves for rough living conditions, so it was a joy to arrive at a beautiful house standing all on its own in the shadow of an extinct (thank goodness!) volcano (it belongs to the senior inspectors) with what appeared to be all mod cons, not a mud hut hosting snakes, spiders and cockroaches with a stinking pit toilet (my imagination runs wild at times!).There was a cooker (alas it didn't work), a shower (alas, no hot water), lights (alas no electricity) and not a stick of furniture! Please picture John sitting and sleeping on bare floorboards!!He managed (well actually, no he didn't) for one night, then we purloined some chairs from a nearby building. He spent the rest of the nights in a chair - he did remarkably well.I'm pretty well padded naturally, but I was black and blue on my shoulders, elbows, ribs, hips and knees, but we got used to it!

Our party consisted of a senior inspector ( a national who used to live in Karamui, so he was very helpful) our project manager Maarten and his wife Cate (a physiotherapist) from Holland and a British botanist, Richard.Another volunteer, Ben, from the Philippines was due to be with us, but we were with him in a truck, the day before we were due to leave for Karamui.John was in the front seat, I was in the back and he was in the very back. No seat belts of course, but I had a handle to hold onto whilst Ben had nothing.Suddenly, on appalling roads, we came to a deep hole across the road and were travelling fairly fast.The resulting impact caused Ben to be thrown in the air, he hit his head on the roof and came down to smash his chin on the back of my seat with nasty results.He was very shaken and ended up with suspected concussion and so, sadly was unable to come with us.

The flight was stupendous.High over mountains and jungle, in a small plane.We touched down skilfully on the airstrip (read field!) and disembarked.We were confronted by hundreds of local people (there's very little to do in Karamui except watch planes come and go) standing watching us.We're quite used to that in Kundiawa, but what we weren't used to was the fact that they were standing in complete silence - even the children!! Quite unnerving!It was the same every time we walked down the highway (read mud road), as we passed, people stopped, turned and stared in silence - bizarre, they don't get out much!The people are strong and stocky and have tufts of beards growing on either side of their chins - that's the women!Only the strongest survive I suspect, and the females are very testosteronic (is that a word?) There are hundreds of babies and it was common to see a pregnant woman with a baby at the breast, and several other tots from the same brood - I don't think they've heard of condoms,which is quite a worry with the high incidence of HIV/AIDS in PNG and I suspect Karamui is no exception.

It's a very fertile place (literally!) with plenty of volcanic ash and the vegetable gardens are remarkable.Things grow so fast, they have to weed every couple of days.There was plenty of food, rice, coffee, peanuts, bananas and a good variety of vegetables.Whilst we were there, people kept turning up at the door with gifts of fruit and veg, we were snowed under literally with branches of bananas.Live chickens were also donated (dispatched when I was well out of the way by Richard) and they made a good curry.Because of the lack of a cooker and electricity, we had a fire outside and cooked on that every night which was lovely.To use up the glut of bananas, we fried them and made banana chips and did the same with the peanuts and ate them sprinkled with salt - delicious!

We worked very hard.John and I delivered 8 hours of workshops to the high school staff in 4 days plus lesson observations, teacher and student interviews and management interviews and finished up delivering a report to them - really full on, but we were pleased with the outcomes on the whole, though what they'll do now we've left is anybody's guess.They are operating under terribly difficult conditions though.No resources, no electricity, which means no photocopier or light and one ancient computer.I asked the headteacher why their generator didn't work.She said it was broken. OK says I, isn't there at least one electrician in Karamui who could fix it?She told me there used to be one and he also was in charge of running the only large generator in the village, but unfortunately he got chopped up while he was asleep one night, so now, there's no power in Karamui and no-one to mend the generator!!She told me too that one of their students caught malaria whilst sleeping in the dormitory at school and so normally the school would be liable to pay compensation to the family.However, they, in their wisdom, decided that the child had died as a result of witchcraft, so the school got away with it, but some poor soul who was minding his own business but unfortunately had a wart on his nose or some other disfigurement, is likely to have copped it!

Normally there are no police in Karamui, but because of the elections, there were two.They looked to be at least a hundred years old if they were a day, dressed in uniforms that looked as though they'd been picked up in a jumble sale - Dad's Army had nothing on these two!One night we heard a gunshot and dropped to the ground!In the morning the jungle drums informed us that there had been a domestic incident.A husband had chopped his wife's foot off (that'll teach her to be late with supper!) and these two characters had rushed in, guns at the ready, fired a warning shot, probably to allow the perpetrator to escape to avoid having to tackle him, or maybe he pulled the trigger by accident or maybe even, he shot the woman in the foot as well - no-one seems quite clear on the actual details, so who knows? Anyway, the villain was somehow apprehended and locked up (not sure if they hacked through his Achilles tendons or not).

There wasn't a lot to do for Cate in her role as physiotherapist.There is a health centre, but it has all but been closed down since the nurses that worked there were raped.But a couple of men were trying to keep it going.There was a man wandering about on all fours, he had lost the lower part of his legs to leprosy and had nasty sores on his stumps.Cate managed to find some shoes which she fitted to his stumps so he could get around and the sores could hopefully heal (there should be a picture of him with his lollipop - I'd brought them out to give to the onlooking children, but he insisted on being included.)

The day came to depart and we were ready to leave, despite the head and staff at school threatening to kidnap us so we couldn't leave.Everything was packed and put outside the house and we'd cleaned it up and were waiting for the plane.Please note, no departure lounge with cappuccinos and duty free shops to ease the wait.We sat outside, as we could see the airfield from the house, having been told a plane would arrive that day (when, was anybody's guess, but we were at the ready)A villager then arrived (everyone knew we were leaving) to tell us the joyful news that no plane was coming that day - quite a normal bit of news really!We were all fairly pig sick, especially as there was no guarantee that there would be one on the next day, Friday, either, so the week-end stuck in Karamui loomed large, with nothing to do, no food and no wine!We weren't happy!The senior inspector then took off and did some networking.This resulted in the offer of being transported in a carrier plane not to Kundiawa, but Goroka, which then involved a 2 hour ride in a PMV (public motor vehicle) to get back to Kundiawa, but something was better than nothing.

While we were waiting, a woman came by, a load balanced on her head, a baby in her arms and an umbrella held in the other hand, to shield her baby from the sun.She came up to us with a beaming smile and deposited some bananas with us to keep us going, then wandered off!Then an old man came up.Cate was looking at a hornbill in a nearby tree with binoculars.This guy went up to her and Cate gave him the binoculars to look through, which he did (wrong way round of course).He then solemnly handed them back to her, walked a few paces away and turned and posed.So Cate obligingly took a 'photo' with the binoculars and he walked away satisfied!

We got to the plane and had our luggage weighed (see photo of hand held scales!).The plane arrived and portable seats were installed in amongst the sacks of coffee and bundles of peanuts.No cockpit door, so we could see out of the front of the plane and the pilots both hanging onto the throttle (see picture).Another spectacular flight and smooth landing in Goroka.VSO stipulates that no volunteer, especially not females, should travel on the Highlands Highway (where the 'groun broke' (landslide) occurred) at night.Now, John reminded everyone that there's a half decent hotel in Goroka which serves reasonable food and has soft beds, so we tried to persuade Maarten that we should stay there for the night (the thought of a hot shower and soft bed made us quite light headed) but he was not for turning and PMV it was.

We arrived back safely eventually, to a house with no water, but at least we had lights, a treat we had been without for several nights, and realised how blissfully quiet it was in Karamui compared to Kundiawa, as we fell into bed exhausted to the chorus of howling dogs, domestic arguments, children screaming, cats yowling etc etc....

We may go back for a follow-up visit to see what progress has been made ....I wonder?

Love to you all from the intrepid adventurers!

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