Robert@PNG

That Eli takes a particular interest in are as follows:

1.     Due
to my dandruff condition Eli is forever nagging me to rub oil or cream on my
scalp. From time to time she will sit behind or next to me and scratch the buggery
out of my head, always pointing out the amount and size of the dandruff flakes.
A particularly large dandruff flake cops the nickname of: “papa” (father),
“bubu” (granddad) or “tumbuna” (ancestor). She has also been known from time to
time to rub my head with a scrubbing brush until it has come up raw red. Lately
she has been having a go at me for not shaving (fair enough it’s been two
weeks) and I know that eventually I will have to give in, not so much to
cleanup, but more to get her off my case. Dandruff has also been known to
appear around the moustache area and it’s particularly painful when she starts
to scratch my facial hair with her finger nails. By the way when all this
scratching is going on and I’m sitting there yelping in pain, Eli tells me to
grin and bare it, to shut up and sit still, she does this of course with a
cheeky smile on her face. For the record dandruff in tok pisin is “dendrebs”

2.     The
other sections of my anatomy that Eli has taken an interest in these days are
my feet. Yes, my feet. Apart from wearing shoes when I go to work or
occasionally drop in to the Bird of Paradise Hotel for a coffee or burger, I
get around “lek natin” (barefoot). In the two years I have been in PNG I have
only cut myself once, that was during a visit to Wagang Village
towards the end of 2005. The truth is I love getting around barefoot, I have
for many years and when I was in Sydney recently I only wore shoes a couple of
times, once to the doctor’s and the other times I think when I went to the
movies. I love the experience and sensation of being close to mother earth; it
also happens that it’s a very PNG thing to do. Besides, the massaging of the
soles of the feet as one gets around a la natural I believe to be beneficial
from a health perspective. Reflexology I think they call it; some folks pay
hundreds of bucks for the treatment! All justifications aside, why does Eli
have a go at me about my feet? Well, she reckons they are slowly getting bigger
and wider! Some of the feet on the PNG Highlanders are Fred Flintstone like and
the last thing she wants is for her man’s feet to start looking like that. Eli
talks about the “Diamond” shape slowly appearing. I reckon she’s overdoing it a
bit.

3.     Finally,
the third and last body part Eli has adopted is… and then there are those
things that are better left unshared!

Full stop. (That is a full stop as in a “.”)