Runners

Here's the new singlet for the lihir runners, with a silhouette of the late, great dog rooster on the back.

They've been put to the test on the last few Wednesday and Friday evening runs.

And lasted the distance all the way back to townsite and pikinini park.

Which are above and below if you were wondering what they looked like!

Pizza oven.... complete!

After a few months of weekend pizza oven building, Stu's pizza oven is complete and ready for everyone in the town to use. 

Actually it has already had a couple of test runs and we can safely say it works like a charm. Even hundreds and thousands and banana and brown sugar pizzas taste good coming out of it.

Possibly the pizza oven with the best view in the world. Or at least the South Pacific.

One of the many things that we'll miss when we move on from Lihir this month to start our new life in Mt Isa!

Mumu time

Here's a few photos of our recent mumu that we did out the front of our place, put together by Eli.

Never have sweet potato, taro or bananas tasted so good. 

              

Once the food has been wrapped in banana leaves, it gets put under hot stones for hours (or overnight if you need to cook a pig or a cow).

Really labour intensive. But so worth it for the roasted, caramelised vegies. Thanks Eli, Susan and Evelyn for all your mumu skills.

Goal achieved.........a ride around the island

The one thing I wanted to do before we left the island was to circumnavigate it on two wheels. Not too hard to find your way, because apart from a few little tracks inside the middle, it's just one big loop of a road. Or a wider gravel-ly track that calls itself a road but is a bit gauged out in places with a few creek crossings and plenty of sharp steep hills (not one for the little old subaru). After a recent drive around the island after lots of rain lately, the roads were looking particularly worse for wear, which was playing on my not-completely-bike-fit mind a bit in the preceeding days.

Anyhow, goal achieved a couple of weeks back as a group ride to promote White Ribbon Day and PNG's new Family Violence Law, where domestic violence has actually become illegal (coming in line with the Sorcery Law where you can still be charged for sorcery-like activity). 

Setting off slowly and nervously at the crack of dawn (to try and dodge the heat as much as possible), I was a little nervous about my ability to get up all those bloody big hills. But 70-odd km's, 10 litres of water (and a few sneaky electrolyte and caffeine tablets), 14 very steep gravel-covered hills (having to walk up 4 of them), passing through countless villages where everyone seemed to be gathering before and after church (and for some of the more energetic of the parishoners, running alongside us and slapping us on the bums), and finishing off with a surreal ride through the blazing midday heat of the mine (at which point I felt somewhat delirious and asked a riding companion if she thought the brown sludge being conveyor-belted along the way resembled Willy Wonker's Chocolate Factory), we made it! Goal achieved. And it was great to see the island from a bit of a different perspective than a Landcruiser window at speed.

 

Melbourne Cup........... Lihir style

They're not thoroughbreds. But the hermit crabs here, which come in all shapes and sizes, brought in plenty of bets for an island version of Melbourne Cup. 

Apparently last year the winner was the smallest little crab in the field. But this years' hero was a big one. Here's a photo of the wooden spooner, number 88. It was thought that he ate a grape for the race and was in too much of a food coma to move.

And the main prize.....

 Crab 'treatment'

A trip around the island

A couple of weeks ago we finally went and did our 'social awareness training' day, which is put on by the mines' community department once a month to give fly in and out workers and expats

a bit more of an education about the Lihir group of islands and the customs here. Every month since we had been here it had been cancelled because of rain, which makes crossing creeks impossible (not many bridges here), but finally as we come into the drier months it was time to go.

We did a loop around the island, stopping off along the first half at the mine, the villages that had been relocated in the early nineties because of the mine, and Parlee, which is a village that was initially settled by Catholic Missionaries early last century and used to be the island's main town until the mine started up in the mid nineties. There is still a functioning hospital and a secondary school at Parlee which people from across the region use.

Although there are plenty of religions practised and churches scattered across the islands, Catholicism and other Christian denominations such as Uniting, Seventh Day Adventist and Anglican are the main ones. There are plenty of open-air churches and little shrines like this one scattered through the island.

It's about a 70km drive around the island, and there are villages scattered all the way around. Many of the people in the villages commute to the mine and its' related industries for the day, or for two week stints where they stay in the mining camps. But lots of the villagers live there all the time, practising a pretty traditional life of subsistence farming (with the occassional trip into the town supermarket to buy rice, tinned meat, nappies, two minute noodles and soap, if the main contents of the supermarket are anything to go by), going to their village schools, washing their clothes and themselves in the river and raising their highly prized pigs.

Half way through the day we hopped into a dug out outrigger canoe and paddled across to one of the villages for a bit of a treat- some dancing and feasting.

Everyone in the village had gotten dressed up in various plants, and the whole place was beautifully decorated with palm fronds and bright tropical plants.

We were also dressed up in leafy garb. Part of the custom is to have your back spat upon once the leaves had been tied to them. A bit of a surprise.

And then the real entertainment started. The males of the species got to see the dancers close up, and participated in a ceremony where they chewed betel nut, ate some treats and got attacked with face paint. 

However us women and children were delegated to standing beyond the fence outside the 'haus boi' (translates as boy house)and watching from a distance.

In typical Lihirian style, it then started pissing down, so while the menfolk were inside chewing on their mild narcotics that have the tendency to stain ones' teeth red if regularly chewed, Ed and I escaped into one of the almost-waterproof meri haus' (lady houses), where suprise suprise, most of the cooking for the haus boi's parties gets done. Then came the obligatory passing around of the white baby until he loses his patience (his tolerance is definately building up).

Unfortunately due to the torrential rain, we had to make an early exit from the village. Just in time to get over the fast running creeks that we drove through on the way home. No wonder that on some of the past training days people have had to spend the night in the village until the water receeded. But it was a fantastic day, where I exponentially increased my knowledge about customs on the Lihir islands.

The other Lihir islands

Ed has been working on his sea legs and getting off Lihir's main island, Aniolam, to a couple of the smaller islands that we stare across to from our deck. Last weekend we headed over to Malie for a bit of a snorkelling/fishing session.

It's ok, Ed wasn't driving. Although it's only a 20 minute trip in a straight line, so maybe he could have.

Plenty of people live on the other smaller islands that make up the Lihir group. At least a few hundred. On Snambiet, which is right next to Mali, there is even a school and a pub with an atm. Banana boats leave from the main harbour of Londo town on Aniolam, and it's 3 kina ($1.50) for a taxi ride across for the locals. Kids commute from the surrounding islands to go to the school here.

When we got over to the beach that we were going to go snorkelling off, Ed and I headed to shore to chat to some of the locals (in our basic yet slowly increasing tok pisin vocabulary). So friendly, they climbed up a palm and got us a fresh drinking coconut to wet our whistles. 

In a few weeks we are heading across to Masahet, one of the bigger islands nearby, to hike around the perimeter and then up the top where there is a Japanese plane wreck. One of the guys who works at the mine but comes from Masahet is going to organise us a 'mumu' where we'll cook in a dug out fire oven. Can't wait. 

 A bit of a trip off the island.

Sorry for the poor blogging effort lately. We took a trip 'off island' in September to take Ed to meet his rellies in Philadelphia and to go to an amazing New York wedding.

First stop was Dallas, to eat Texan food, recover from the long flight, and eat texan food. Stu had to be held back from buying cowboy boots. I wish I'd been held back from putting so much food in the direction of my face.

And Ed discovered a probably life-long love affair with pork.

I guess he's not a vegetarian.

Our week in DC was an absolute nerd's paradise, and Ed humoured us as we dragged him from museum to monument. 

And then we found ourselves doing the playgrounds and dogs version of a visit to NYC.

The trip went too quickly, but it was a good chance to catch up with family in Philly and New York, and for Ed to test out his increasing mobility skills. Here he is on our last day in New York at Kate and Frank's wedding in Central Park.

And then thank goodness, he slept most of the way on the flight home. Phew.

gecko painting update.....




woo hoo. the gecko painting got auctioned off last weekend. Some art connoisseur (or blind philanthropist) was lucky enough to win the auction, at the price of 3100 kina. That's over $1500. Lucky Dr Barry.

Riding the island.....

Road bikes are out (or kept inside on their wind trainers). It's all about fatter tyres and suspension here. Gravel predominates over asphalt (although pot holes don't discriminate). But the riding here is GREAT! Plenty of hills to go up and down. Plenty of scenery. You just have to go out with a willingness to say 'morning' or 'apinoon' at least a hundred times as you pass the villages and people strolling home along the roads.

I've been getting out with some of the similarly minded girls on the weekend for a ride, in preparation for our goal of riding around the island soon. This will be a feat that will involve negotiating the day's humid heat (alleviated by the fine invention of the camelback) and a stop in the middle of the ride at the resort on the other side of the island for lunch.

  

    

Apart from the multiple hill climbs to plug away on, the current challenges to accomplish are 'the goat track', a steep short cut that gets you up from town to townsite (where our houses are) at the end of the ride, and managing to cross the creeks without falling in. Neither of which I've come close to achieving just yet.

It's not Beach Road, but the views are pretty good. And the road rage is non-existant. Or traffic lights (that could be because there aren't any on the island!).

      

   

   

On yesterday's ride we passed a big 'mumu' in full swing, involving the cooking of a very large pig. Here's one that was prepared earlier.

More stories of riding adventures to come soon.....

Saturday morning stroll......... (or acquisition of mud on clothes)

A few weekends ago a group of us started the weekend with a hike up a hill. To the 'comms tower', a shed on the top of a big hill with a big aerial that you can see in the night time down at townsite. 

I think the previous Saturday night, at around about midnight there had been a towards-the-end-of-a-big-night request about whether I could hitch onto someone's walk up the hill the next time they did it. As luck would have it, the decision had been made during the following week to head up the hill that saturday. So the group of keen hikers expanded until we consisted of a couple of full families, a half a family, myself and another lady setting out down the road to the beginning of the walk.

It was a gorgeous morning, plenty of sun. Although it had been raining quite a bit the week before (muddy!!).

So we set out up the hill. It was nice and shady, so the increasingly powerful heat of the day wasn't too oppressive.

We passed a couple of vegetable gardens, a lot of bamboo and a few creeks on our way upwards. Really beautiful and rain-foresty. Pretty muddy and slippery though. I think a lot of us were wondering 'hmm, will coming down be interesting?'. So we all tried to find ourselves personalised adventure/walking sticks. 

After a while we left the canopy of the jungle behind and followed the power lines upwards still. Through some very overgrown scrub, some of which was almost reaching the lines themselves. It's just so fertile here (the ground, that is).

And then after about an hour we made it to the tower. It was a bit of a surprise to find that the shed was in a bit of a state of disrepair, unlocked with all the computers and stuff (very technical explanation) exposed to the elements and open to the wild pigs. Maybe that explains why our internet and phone isn't always so reliable?

Anyway the view was absolutely worth the walk.

In one direction we could see across to townsite and out towards the islands in the distance.

And then in the other direction a view of the mine and beyond.

And then down. In a few more ways than one. Somewhat challenging. Fun if you like slip and slide. 

Here are a couple of the many dirty bums that headed back to town.

And my sock-dirt mark when I got my boots off.

But definately worth it and looking forward to another Saturday morning stroll soon.

And here's a little guy who is now crawling and working his way towards coming along on a hike real soon (albeit in the backpack).