An unusual encounter with a PNG artist.

Yesterday whilst doing pizza and coffee at The Bird, a PNG male yells out to
us from one of the other tables, it sounded like: “I'm not a priest, I'm not
a priest”. He was with a mate and they both appeared under the weather. We
ignored him as is best to do with PNG males after a few too many.

The same bloke a little while later, on his way to the “liklik haus” stops
at our table and starts talking to us. He is still hard to understand but
this time I hear something along the lines of: “I'm a PNG artist and I'm
from Okapa – I and paint I write.”. We shook hands briefly, I smiled at him
and then he left us to go and do his “business”.

My third encounter with this guy was as we were leaving. He came over to us
and told me once again about his art – the guy was fairly pissed mind you.
He then said: “I have a website.” – this got my attention and I went to the
serving counter and grabbed a pen and some paper and headed back to my drunk
mate to grab his E-details. We ended up swapping website and email addresses
and I though nothing more of it until I was at home later in the evening.

A fair dinkum PNG artist – if the website is anything to go by. Never did
get the bloke's name but I have just sent him an email for good measure.
Perhaps he'll respond – perhaps he won't. It must be one of those events in
life that we follow-up although we are not entirely sure why. Who knows
where this will lead?

For anyone curious to see what PNG art and poetry looks and sounds like -
check out the bloke's website: www.puragomarabe.org

A sample of his poetry below…