Robert@PNG

There was plenty of ranting and raving yesterday (Sunday) and not all of it coming from the preacher across the road. Most days I am filled with joy to be living here in PNG and spending time interacting with the locals, learning about a new culture etc… but there are other times and thankfully not too many,  when I am just totally “pissed off”.

Yesterday a series of events took place which just seemed to extenuate my mood from lousy to worse.

These so called “events” occurred as follows:

1) The noise coming from the church across the road almost always get me out of bed on the wrong foot. It starts just before 8:00am and goes on for 2 houts. The singing is cool but the preaching gets to me everytime!

2) Decided to head into town to do some shopping. By the time I got to town my mood had settled down (or so I thought). I needed some money so I headed to the ATM at the ANZ bank to withdraw some cash. Both ATM's out of order!!  Cool, not a problem I thought - I'll head to Foodmart, do some shopping and get some cash out at the same time when paying for my groceries.

3) Got to Foodmart, picked up some groceries (including my weekly supply of condensed milk) and I headed to the cafeteria for a meatball and some boiled rice (my favourite dish at Foodmart). When I got to the checkout - obviously I did not have any cash yet so I decided to pay via EFTPOS. Low and behold…  the checkout girl tells me that I need to spend at least K10 to be able to do a EFTPOS transaction. Trigger…  trigger…  trigger…  It's at this point that my ranting and raving started. I told the serving girls to “shove” the meatball and I stormed out of the cafeteria with my groceries towards the main checkouts.

By this stage I was angrier than earlier in the morning when hearing the preacher carry on. I was fuming !!

4)  Decided to buy some smokes and a Telikard (for phone calls). Smokes : OK. But… no K10 Telikard in stock (note that by this stage I had already payed for everything). The girls behind the counter must have seen the look on my face and told me that there were some cards out the back and the supervisor had gone to get some.

Waiting….  waiting…  waiting….   (and more waiting) - with each breath I could feel the anger rising - there must have been smoke coming out of my ears !!

(Card evtually turns up)

Now for the trip home…

It is difficult getting a PMV at the best of times but most of all on Sunday's. All PMV's seemed to be going to Eriku and certainly none to Unigate or my 2nd preference : Kamkumung. Before xmas it was possible to get a PMV from town to Unigate but lately things have changed. To get into town and back nowadays, one must do this trip in 2 and sometimes 3 stages. Each stage costing 50t.

5) I waited for around 30mins at the main bustop and eventually a bus came that was going to Kamkumung.

6) Now…  where things really got out of hand with my temper was when we pulled into Kamkumung - I saw around 200 people - all waiting for a PMV to go to Unigate and not one “fu*****” bus !!   I lost it at this point !!   I know that I when I find myself in this filthy mood I can easily take it out on bystanders - it's like I just go searching for “victim” to blame.  Now… Kamkumung is certainly not the place to go looking for trouble…  I knew this, but I had to do something with my Bel Hat (anger). I thought : “fuck the PMV's and fuck giving them 50t”. I'm walking back….

I walked and I walked….  about 6 kms worth. I walked fast and I walked hard. And whilst I was walking, I swore and I ranted and I raved !!   Just like that preacher on Sunday morning's !!  People that saw me must have thought I was mad - the way I carried on. Everyone that I passed - I told them the story about the “fucked” PMV's.

People that drove passed and knew me, stopped to offer me a ride…  I refused each time. I had to walk off the anger.

By the time I got back to Unigate….   I was tired….   but not angry anymore!!