Back in April 2005…

I was to spend my 1st week in PNG at a hotel called The Comfort Inn in Port Moresby (see above photo). The purpose of this 1st week was to receive intensive language training (Tok Pisin) and also get exposure to the new culture of PNG. Both The Comfort Inn and National Volunteer Services (NVS) – where this week of training was conducted – were both located in the Port Moresby suburb of Boroko.

A have a story to share from this 1st week in Moresby. Everything was very new and to a degree quite overwhelming, it all felt intense but enjoyable at the same time. My story is about my ignorance of the variety of ethnic groups that co-exist here in PNG.

I had the opportunity during my stay at the Comfort Inn to befriend a PNG National
- to this day I do not know what part pf PNG he would have hailed in from – I think perhaps from somewhere in the Highlands. The resemblance of physical features amongst some of the ethnic groups here in PNG can be quite uncanny. Then again when one is not familiar with a particluar ethnic group – people can easily all look the same.

Anyway, I was wandering around Boroko one afternoon after Tok Pisin classes and I kept on bumping into this dude that I had met at The Comfort Inn – or so I thought. By around the 12th time of greeting this man as I walked passed him in the street I realised….   hey !  – everytime I greet this dude he seems to wearing something different. Then it hit me…  it wasn't the same guy at all. The dozen times or so that I said hello to this man – it was someone different everytime !!  To this day I do not know if I bumped into the man that I had met back at the hotel.

The variety of ethnicity in PNG is just one of the many things about PNG that makes it  the place that it is.