The Beaten Path: Thank God it is Sunday in Goroka

Instead of at 7 a.m. everyday to work, I go to work at 9:00 a.m. on Sunday;but the neighbor's Rooster/s does not care that it is Sunday. So he started to crow again as usual at 3 a.m. Well I started to wonder how good it will be to BBQ him next Sunday.

And the smoke detector battery must have gone flat & it keeps on beeping every so many minutes..and the rooster crowing at 3 a.m. in the morning; And I keep on dreaming (or at least try dreaming) a green island in the middle of a blue ocean....

Power failure happened a few times for an hour or so each time last night.But since the weather here is perpetual spring and no mosquitos, so it did not bother much.

Candle light and no TV is good some time; after all how much BBC autralia one can watch? it seems to repeat every 30 minutes. (well out of five channels we get here, one is BBC Australia, 3 channels I do not know from where, but all they show is Rugby..and the last one is an Indonesian channel! that on Sunday shows Hindi movies in some foreign to me language)

This morning on the way to work I noticed hundreds of people by the airport terminal, which is almost next door to us. I heard in PNG, when tribal fight breaks off, if you pass by, they stop and let you pass by and then start to fight again. They are very civilized in that sense. And when they fight, if you hurt one of their tribe man, they will hurt only one of yours. Just like the good old days tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye, not like G.W Bush- take over the whole country and kill millions when he thinks (or his CIA thinks) the country "might" have the weapon of mass destruction.

At work since the generator does not turn on automatic any more (after all, it is 20 some years old) the whole computer system was messed up last night due to long power falilures and surges. Email is down, inventory system is down, our engineers could not locate new parts needed for two helicopters that needs to be out tomorrow. The water pump was stolen last week (third time this year) under the nose of five guards so no water either. But thank GOD interent works !!!

Well well well. then the power goes off again this morning and we manually get the generator back on. A friend (expat Bangladeshi) whom I have recently met and he works here for Save the Children, called to say be careful as a riot has just broken off in town this morning and the mob are looting Indonesian, Malaysian, Chinese owned shops a spill over from what happened in LAE last week. I read in "The National" on Friday that mob attacked those stores beacuse Chinese are selling Cheap stuff. Well may be Macys and Bloomingdales and Saks Fifth avenue should move to PNG; but they buy cheap chinese stuff too.. Humn !!May be the Germans could move in to PNG and sell mercedes/ bmw quality consumeables...

May be Americans should follow the PNG.. and all economic crisis in America will be over. But then what is going to happen to Wal-Mart? Well it is Sunday and who cares, I have enough problem on my plate then worry about the Global issues. I do not want to become another Sunday Globalista like the old days.. Sunday Communista.

The Governor calls to say a riot broke off in town, so to be careful not to be out of compound for next couple of hours at least, and use the back road. The police is not in his control as it is managed by the Federal Government (Humn interesting!!)

Dave Chin shows up with his family as he was flying out to POM and his family could not get back home from the airport as both front and back road is blocked. Our new engineer Keith from Australia asks if we should go to store and buy some Machete, but Glenn our Canadian Engineer says, well they are looting the store you may not find any left on the shelves. Does Germans make Machete? If buying cheap chinese stuff is NOT ok.. Looting may be?.....

This morning we have 3 crew members going back on holidays (as known here the 28 day off schedule, and when here for work for 28 days, it is known as on tour) via POM (the capital) and we are only connected via Air with POM. And One new crew member is coming in from POM. So we decide to get on the runway & to drive them down to the plane and drop off and pick up, after all we are sitting next to the runway ;)
Well when & if the plane arrives !!!

Air Nuguinea may not come at all today. No not because of the riot. They only come when or if they want to come…. LOL LOL LOL

Well all this has happened by 10 a.m. But WE STILL HAVE REST OF THE SUNDAY....

Oh! I am heading back North to Canada next Sunday & will stop at Gold Coast Australia and California on the way to Toronto to see my boys and Dad and Sis.

Here are few pictures from the past Sundays:

VIPs in Goroka