Robert@PNG

With a phone line that continues to play up and a head that absolutely won’t leave me alone, I reluctantly write this post.

Blogging is like that a bit… a love hate relationship. Once it bites ya its gotya. The passionate pursuit of getting that daily post online at times drives me absolutely nuts. Let me tall ya.

If it was just the blogging all would be sweet but lately it aint been easy going. It all adds up - as they say… if it’s not the phone line that’s gone - it’s the power bill - if its not the power bill - it’s the Telikom bill - if it’s not the Telikom bill - it’s the long queues at the bank and if it’s not the long queues at the bank - its bound to be something else.

The current situation with the phone at home - let me explain what’s going on… The phone died on us about 4 weeks ago and after logging a call with Telikom faults - we had it back online within a week or so. A few days afterwards it just dies again. Then somehow I discover that if I call our home number the phone comes good again - but only for a short while. PNG has two mobile phone carriers - B-Mobile (Telikom) and Digicel. B-Mobile can call a land line but Digicel cannot. Digicel and B-Mobile numbers are not able to call each other. Essentially a mess. There are many a folk walking around that have two mobile numbers - me being one of them.

All was sweet with the home line fault up until a couple of days ago - if I wanted to use the home line (eg: Internet dial-up) I would call the home number from my B-Mobile. Problem now is that the B-Mobile network is down and has been for two days. Remember - no call - no home line - no home line - no Internet. Nevermind… get the neighbour to call the home number. All is sweet.

Anyway, I think you slowly get the picture.

Where does that leave me?

Here I am at my desk at home - writing this post “offline” using a Firefox add-on called ScribeFire. Once I have finsihed this post - I will connect after the next door neighbour just called our number. Hopefully the connection will last long enough to post this bizzo and send 10 emails or so.

So there you have it…

All in all - not a bad thing being without Internet - it’s hard like - and definitely has the symptoms of withdrawal - all addictions suck big time and to have some relief, albeit shortlived, from cyberspace is likely to be a positive event.

And then there was trouble back in the village - election related - a couple of homes destroyed and some pigs killed and some very upset folks. Things are currently at boiling point and it wouldn’t surprise me if the billy ends up boiling (so to speak). This situation greatly worries me as we have some Coffee folks visiting the village this Thursday to teach the locals better coffee growing techniques. Violence and fighting never did the purse much good (unless of course you own a weapons factory).

PNG Highlanders will never back down from a fight and more often than not they act before thinking. This habit ends up costing many a village folk big bucks in compensation payments - a burden which is slowly killing the village folks. I have tried to tell them in the past and will mention it on my next visit - as long as they continue to fight each other - they will slowly loose the battle with progress and development or any chance of a hopeful future. In my view this aggressive energy all Highlanders carry inside of them needs to be channelled towards constructive endeavours and projects or if they have to fight then let it be towards folks external to their own tribal groups.

On a more positive note (or perhaps not) - the passport for Eli has come through - I held it in my hands this afternoon. As yet she does not know - she thinks that her application is still stuck in some Government office in Moresby. I want to surprise her later on - she’ll be thrilled. There is now a good chance that we’ll take a trip to Sydney over the XMAS break or maybe early in the new year. In the end - how did I get the passport? Did I follow official channels or did I do the backdoor?

Inap long nau!

Let’s go and try that phone line…