ORCHIDS AT DAWN

13th July 2008

As a result of the judging at the flower show, tribal warfare was a close thing, as no-one could agree on how to award prizes.Richard, a VSO volunteer who is a botanist and helped to organise the show, was part of the judging panel.Apparently the judges felt that if someone hadn't got a prize, they should get one anyway, regardless, and if one stallholder had already got one prize, s/he shouldn't be allowed another one, so a fracas ensued.Richard hasn't received any death threats as yet but tribal warfare could be imminent!! Perhaps it could be resolved by those who were awarded a prize, paying compensation to those who didn't?

We have spent the week at a VSO conference just outside Goroka at a place which calls itself National Appropriate Technology - an amazing place.They have designed clean, smell free toilets which were a joy, or would have been if they hadn't been outside, so of course I had a 'toilet trauma'.We were in dormitories and the first night I was in one all on my own, as there were no other women, (the other party of volunteers from Madang had broken down on the highway, (another story), and so were delayed.) So, in the middle of the night (or rather half an hour after getting into bed) I needed the loo of course (nothing changes!).Off I trot, somewhat reluctantly, with torch gripped tight and my white knuckles shining in the dark.I found my way to the loo, opened the door to be greeted by a humungus spider sitting on the loo, daring me to enter.I didn't. Luckily there was another one next door, which was spiderless.When I got back into bed, my heart was hammering away and I resolved, whether I needed the loo or not, I was staying put in my bed till morning.That then brought its own difficulties, as the washroom and shower were also outside.The system was, you signalled to the man in the fire house, who brought up a bucket of very hot water for a bucket shower.This bucket, he hoisted aloft and it had a hose connected to the side of the bucket, near the bottom, with a nozzle attached to it.'I can do this ', I thought . I decided not to wash my hair and duly stripped off and hung my clothes on the one peg in this tiny cubicle.First thing that went wrong was I discovered that the hose was so long that to hold it above my head meant that no water came out and if you held it up with two hands you had to wash with your feet, not something I have mastered as yet.While I was cursing the thing, trying to fiddle with the nozzle to see if I could get it to work, the whole hose detached itself from the bucket, fell down on top of me and the bucket started spinning round and round with a jet of water spewing out of the side.As the jet spun round, I managed to duck, to try and keep my hair dry but alas, my clothes got well and truly soaked.As far as I was concerned, this technology was not appropriate at all!!

Lots of folk decided to get up before dawn to walk up the mountain to see the sunrise and hopefully a bird of paradise.John and I set off in the dark with our torch, as no-one else was up.Half way up we were joined by a couple of the others but sadly, it was a cloudy morning, so the mountains weren't as impressive as we'd hoped.A bird of paradise did do a fly past for us though, which made it worthwhile.

Talking of early mornings, we were woken up the other morning around 5.30am by a hullaballoo going on right outside our house.I peeped out to see two young men, one wielding a baseball bat, chasing our security guard round and round in a most threatening manner.Eventually they chased him up the road and he escaped to his village.The story was, that a woman who used to live on the compound had moved, but her dog kept returning, so the security guard killed it and ate it (as you do)! So his assailants were the sons of the woman whose dog it was.

Strange sounds, again, very early morning, emanated from around the house a few days later.John got up and looked out to find a woman who lives further down the valley, digging the garden round our house, like a woman possessed, being helped and advised by various children and adults.A few minutes later, a neighbour appeared with his bush knife and proceeded to cut our grass!!John went out to speak to the woman, Marta, and she told him to 'Go away' and said he was 'no good at gardening'!We were mortified!So I cooked some pancakes and put on the coffee and we ended up having a very nice, early morning pancake party, which everyone seemed to enjoy.When we arrived back from Goroka, we caught Marta putting some seeds in our newly dug garden (it went all the way round the house, a sizeable patch).Gardens are very important to PNG people- they were supposedly the world's first gardeners!In the early morning, we frequently see people digging their gardens and the cultivated plots on the mountainsides are very reminiscent of Rwanda.

The picture of the dog is Bula.She was a real bag of bones when we arrived and nursing a load of puppies.I started feeding her and now she comes to the house every morning looking for food.Originally, I couldn't get near her as she shied away if I tried, but she will now feed out of my hand and allow me to stroke her, but only when she's eating, otherwise she keeps her distance.John's very miffed because, they don't sell dog food here, as people just give the dogs scraps which is mostly vegetable matter, so I buy tins of corned beef - now you know how possessive John is of his corned beef, nearly as bad as with his HP sauce!

We're wondering what we're going to find when we go into school on Monday, as things have not been going well.When we returned from Goroka, the schools had been back a few days to start term 3, having had one week's holiday and one week PIST.Because of the confusion about which week was which, some teachers took two weeks off anyway!One of the teachers told us the term hadn't started well and hardly any students had turned up (could that be because they see no point, as there would be a very strong possibility that no teachers would either?).Then John met a school governor who calls himself 'The Bishop' and who witnessed John gripping Mr Incompetent by the throat at the end of term.He had congratulated John about it and said it was time something was done.So, the board of governors have issued a notice on the senior management team (Rev Weakness, Mr Incompetent and Mr Notaclue) that if they don't get their act together in the next two terms they'll be on their bikes.So, we're not sure how we will be received on Monday, it could go one of two ways.Either they'll be desperate for our help or they'll hold us responsible for their demise and call out their wantoks!

I now have a computer, courtesy of VSO, so we don't have to fight over the computer as well as the chair now.It's a good job we don't have a TV.Last week there was a big rugby league game between two Australian teams, the Maroons and the Blues (everyone in PNG is mad about rugby league), but they don't play other national teams of note, so they support these Australian ones.This was the State of the Origin game three, the decider in a series of three games, and people in town had their faces decorated either with blue or maroon paint ready for the big game, (apparently people have been killed as a result of arguments watching these games in PNG, so we kept well clear.)Food and beer was at the ready at our neighbour's house, TV switched on and the game began.We heard the cheering from our house, obviously an exciting match.Then the inevitable happened, there was a power cut.You should have heard the shouting and jeering. The next morning PNG Power offices were pockmarked with stones where people had vented their frustration (I don't think anyone was killed on this occasion!)

We have discovered a second hand bookshop in Kundiawa.Books piled high, filthy and in no particular order of course.We were intrigued to find a real assortment but the biggest discovery was a book by Norah Lofts who, until she died a few years ago, was a neighbour of ours in Bury St Edmunds when we had the guest house! Amazing!

The education chief of Simbu was at the conference at Goroka with his number two officer.We were able to voice our concerns about the state of education in PNG and Simbu in particular.As a result, we have a meeting booked with him next week, to make some suggestions about how things need to change and how we may be able to help.We have suggested that as well as doing workshops for teachers, it's the heads who need the training in how to manage and lead their schools, as they have no training for the job and often only discover a few days before the beginning of the academic year, where they will be working and what their position will be (sometimes a head can be demoted and return at the beginning of the academic year as a deputy or even an ordinary teacher!)We've found that we do a workshop with teachers, with positive feedback, but the work we do is not followed up by the management of the school, which lessens its impact of course. So, we're planning some training for heads as well as teachers and even the education department officers too, as they are fairly clueless about the new Reform Curriculum as well.They have an impossible task though, as apart from the main education officer and his second in command, there is only one secondary school inspector in Simbu for 13 schools, which is an impossible job.He also has a heart condition and is often off sick, which doesn't help the situation.So, we shall see what happens, either way, I think we're going to have a lot of work to do in the future.

At the last workshop we did, John realised he had some latent dramatic talent (Brad Pitt eat your heart out!)We were doing work on how to observe a reform curriculum lesson and so we set up a role play.John was the teacher and I was the head of department who had observed his lesson.In the feedback I gave him, we highlighted all sorts of things, like perhaps he could prepare his resources beforehand so that he doesn't have to leave the students unattended in the middle of the lesson and I congratulated him on turning up on time and addressing students by their names instead of 'you with the blue shirt'etc.It was great fun and the teachers loved it - Oscars all round!

I think we're now definitely in the dry season as it hasn't rained for a few days now.Tonight we shall eat some lettuce which we have grown from seed and are very proud of.The ankle is much improved, but I'm getting impatient as there's a walk I want to do up a different mountain.It's a circular walk and you cross the bridge over the Wara Simbu (a river) at the start, but to get back you have to cross it on an inflatable ring, rapids included for free, which looks fun.I'll have to see if John will let me go or if he's feeling bossy.I should stand a good chance, as I gave him a cracking haircut yesterday.

We're coming home for Christmas, arriving in the UK on December 5th and don't come back till 18th January - YIPPPEEEEE!

Enjoy the sun - hope there's lots of it.

Love from us both

XX

PS This is not a work of fiction and all the characters involved are real although their names have been changed to protect us!!!