Old man, young wife and sorcery: a glimpse into gerontocracy

One advantage of working for ambitious oil and gas explorers is you’ll be taken to places. Some of which are quite remote, slow pace of change of mindsets, helps keep age old practices alive. And if fortunate, one might just witness the tail-end of some weird and ugly practices and therefore get a glimpse into an ugly world of old.

After four weeks on a job and a really good time breathing real fresh air and observing arguably unrivalled glory and beauty of flora and fauna of which I still vividly remember after five years, my time was up.

A short helicopter ride to remote Wabo airstrip in the Gulf province gave me another chance to observe the Purari from above. This river did quite a majestic job – silently painting its meandering path a glittering murky brown. And in this seemingly endless evergreen jungle, its path into the belly of the Coral Sea stood out.

A small gathering of mostly excited children and a couple of adults under shade trees around the strip watched as we stepped out of the chopper and made our way to a temporary shelter that served as checking and boarding lounge.

Here, this simple setup represents the gateway to civilization. So we gathered around and sat close by. Others ventured beyond and found themselves chatting with the excited children.

After a little while the sun’s heat forced me to seek shelter under the shade trees too. As I approached the children, I passed by a little old man who had grey hair all over. He was puffing rigorously on a bamboo pipe. I noticed him struggling to get the fresh tobacco leaves he just fed his pipe to catch fire from his cigarette lighter. As he puffed harder, his cheeks bulged in and out more – the inward motion revealing the absence of molars. More could be missing.

I caught up with the men who went ahead and we watched the children play – some with shirts only barely hanging by a thread on their little bodies. Most of them had shorts with two huge holes at the rear.

After a while the old man with his pipe in hand walked past us. Closely behind, a girl of around 15 or 16; she could easily be 14, with a child inside a cloth (laplap) hanging diagonally across her chest followed.

I heard someone speak after the couple had gone a fair distance and I realized a local was amongst us. He must have sneaked in to catch a conversation with us and perhaps obtain some information in relation to the drilling project we’ve just come from. He was younger than me, I observed.

“Lapun man yah i wokabaut wantaim meri bilong em”, I heard him say softly but clearly.

We all turned and stared at him with eyes wide opened.

“Ah?” “Yu tok women?” “Aiyo!” “Turu ah?” I heard several enquiring voices.

We surrounded him quickly and after a couple of sincerely disbelieving moments where continuous head shakes and ‘tst tst tst’ expressed our disapproval, we returned to the boarding lounge to await our flight.

The light plane climbed into the clouds and we were on our way to Port Moresby.

I haven’t told this story to an audience until now. While I was reading an article on types of leadership in PNG, I happened upon ‘gerontocracy’. And this story nudged me from the dusts of my memory.

We further heard, until recently, only the old men have been allowed to take local young girls as wives through the practice of pre-arranged marriage.

When a baby girl is born, she is marked for marriage to a much older man – who might be greying at the time of the ceremony. The older man presents the parents gifts of prized food and an animal in exchange.

In the course of the child’s rearing until she sees her first menstruation, the older man continues his visits with food and other stuff. She then is handed over and becomes a wife.

An aspect of this tradition that disturbed me was the way the older man maintained a stranglehold or power over much younger and physically stronger lads. As boys come of age, their hormones kick in and the urge to seek a girl becomes a burden in this society as every girl is attached.

We were told that many young men commit adultery with the wives of the old men. And sometimes these young men pay the ultimate prize – death by sorcery. Other young men, being scared of the powerful older men – who usually are sorcerers, wait until their time comes. And by then they would’ve learned sorcery; how to make gardens, and hunt in the jungles and perhaps are ready for a wife, a young wife.

Older men’s power over younger men in this society is backed by their ability to use sorcery to threaten and maintain order in their favour. Governance in such societies revolves around maintaining this tradition that older men continue to reign superior over younger men and therefore subjecting them to craving and waiting for long years.

We learned that as the outside world opened up to them and the younger men traveled out to other places, they’ve brought back wives. Many young men continued to find wives outside when we were told this story.

I sincerely hope that much have changed now as more and more outsiders migrate into Wabo to find work and other opportunities that the project might offer.

NB: Gerontocracy – is a form of oligarchical rule in which an entity is ruled by leaders who are significantly older than most of the adult population (Wikipedia).

Even a tomorrow got its own

Heard the ticking of dawn
As with eyes without a lens I looked
Wrinkles of love lazily they pass by
Then Earth delivered and I was hooked
Hisses of storms old hastily rush by

Many a vivid plot pregnant with
Chances un-accounted for marched.
‘Aaha heart’, said I … ‘look at you’,
‘Look at me … who between us’
‘Is in greater pain … you knew!?’

Even a tomorrow got its own
Chances to be un-accounted for to moan
‘Oh’ said the heart. ‘My joy isn’t yours’
‘And your pain is certainly yours’.

Grade 8 dropout, a chef and a literature prize sponsor – who’s in the mix?

THIS IS THE STORY of Joe Yagama, 38, whose mother and father are from Sinasina and Bundi respectively. He lives in his mother’s village and is happily married with a son who was born recently.

Many a tale of success pops up now and then. This one strikes a chord I am familiar with and to a certain extent I feel I should claim it. Anyway, here’s the story.

In 1991, while still in Grade 8, Joe dropped out of Kundiawa’s Catholic run Kondiu Rosary High School. Like many young and vulnerable people in the harsh world outside of school, he roamed the streets until 2005, when he got a job as a kitchen hand at the Airways Hotel in Port Moresby.

After nine months and numerous secret lessons from other kitchen staff, he managed to grace his boss’s radar and was promoted to trainee pizza chef.

His success at Airways enabled him in 2008 to apply for and secure a new job at the Shady Rest Hotel in Moresby. But after only a few months he found himself on the streets again – thanks to workplace lies, deceit and jealousy.

But fate wasn’t finished with Joe yet. In 2009 he was working for minerals explorer Marengo Gold at its Yandera exploration camps in Bundi. This experience in the extractive industry was to prove crucial.

He applied for and was offered a position with Kutubu Catering Limited – the company that feeds the entire Oil Search Limited (OSL) operations in the Kutubu and surrounding project areas. He was posted to OSL’s drilling rig 103 where I’m stationed and the rest is history.

Currently he is night chef – a position that requires him to manage the Rig 103 camp at night apart from his kitchen duties. He has handled things well despite the camp’s mix of international inhabitants and their demands for peculiar dishes.

What interests me about Joe is his recent revelation during a casual chat. He is sponsoring a literature competition at Giu Primary School this school year.

I, upon hearing about his project, at once lit up and pestered him to tell me more.

The school is located in Dinga No 2 in the Suai LLG area of Sina Sina-Yongomugl district of Simbu Province.

Joe stated that through the competition he aims to “motivate and spark passion in students from this rural school to focus on achieving and aim high”.

What really intrigues me is the question of why would Joe, given his education background, sponsor a competition that could potentially alleviate the level of spoken and written English in this part of Simbu, let alone the other positive effects it may generally have over students from Giu?

It appears Joe is an educated and intelligent man, albeit without formal qualifications. He is aware of the positive impact the English language can have on students of Giu Primary School and is actually doing something to enable students to learn to write and speak in English better.

Like Joe there are thousands of Grade 8 dropouts in villages, towns and cities across the country. Grade 10 and 12 dropouts are also plentiful. If all can think and do something to help themselves and their respective communities without doubt there wouldn’t be anyone left to cultivate and nurture the cargo cult mentality.

If only we all could do our bit, however little it may be for the country, we will all be meaningful participants in the development of this country and may turn this country around from its path to self destruction over night – if overnight is too fast than in matter of a decade.

I am referring to people-driven change and not government driven change as many a time changes or proposed changes sponsored by the government is always hijacked by a member of, to use Martyn Namorong’s words, the predatory elite class.

I think Joe is doing something noble and have contemplated supporting him in his endeavour. He is aware of and has tried to view and read PNG Attitude but poor network reception at our workplace has denied him access.

More on Joe and his literature competition will be published here in PNG Attitude.

Poetry – we don’t sing anymore

A sonnet to Facebook group ‘Poetry PNG’
————————————————–

Here! Comfort and solace we seek. Where we love and beloved.
Once a promise I smell; of together hearkening to sounds of poetry;
Of to the beat of alliterations together dancing;
Of together in fields of metaphor, cuddling and be cheery;
Of through the bars of many a rhyme kissing.

Of a romance ever growing between us – you and I – feeding on abstractions.
Words don’t mean what they seem and substance of verses reaches beyond yonder.
When ocean isn’t deep, deeper we went; almost into bliss and we did dance.
Pity! Our true love, how its symbols we do not have anymore I wonder.
Words mean what they seem and before yonder are our verses’ substance.

Dance I can’t no more when there is no beat! But you dance still,
Nor kiss you if there are no bars! But kiss oh kiss you will.
How I yearn you must know, for a return to the true ways,
Ever so close to the fields of metaphors – our true place.

Claws of yesterday’s madness

 

http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/33-beautiful-examples-of-sunrise-photography

 

How flaws of my goodness

Dance a little funny

On days past sunny

That weren’t uncanny

 

Smirk a bit of dare

Glare a little stare

Then your plans lay bare

O ye claws of yester madness

 

When he who wears my fear

Fades into heart’s rear

 

I’ll have yous hired

Then have yous fired

When yous are tired

 

Then like eagle … soar!

O’er vales and hills … roar!

 

This sting … your thing

Is but a nut in a nut cracker

Coffee, women and tyranny of terrain – an Eastern Highlands perspective

 

By:  Jeffrey Mane Febi

They call us camels. They call us white horses. They call us semi-trailers. They call us many names. Names of things we don’t know much about. We’re they who walk with the strength of our grandmothers; those bygone women who tamed angry rivers; appeased bellowing clouds and walked with mists.

This very dawn, as light stretches its influence across a grey sky, a weary traveler under a rock shelter; or under a tree’s roots; or from inside a hastily constructed temporary shelter during yesterday’s twilight; wakes to an early dawn orchestra.

A stifled yawn and stretch, then a long loving look and gentle graceful touch at life warmly kept in her bosom’s softness; and then at neatly stacked pile of white bags dissipate lingering weariness from a restless night. The journey that started 37 years ago must continue.

On a rocky ridge where violent winds play and clouds more often than not watch and cry over those who rise with sweaty sleeves, blistered backs and heavy hearts in any given gloomy morning; a young family walks on somewhat silently under heavy loads. The mother firmly cuddles in her weary arms a package from which a pair of peering sickly eyes – devoid of animation and manifesting all life’s flaws-caught her gaze.

At the ridge’s foot, over a fast flowing river a cane bridge swings left dangerously, then right. A stretcher of wood and reinforced used-rice bags is being ferried across on bare shoulders – one step at a time while the river’s deafening roars remind the carriers what lays beneath. One wrong step and certain death is inevitable.

On the other side of the river a voice gentle and soft sings: ‘…oh mighty Wamu, flighty splashes! It’s only me, only him! Olomo’s mama, Olomo’s papa! Calm down now, warm down you! Don’t be cross, let us cross! Sorrow will be tomorrow’s! Don’t be cross, let us cross’.  It echoes into the heart of him who is in the stretcher and uplifts the spirits of the carriers.

Then a skinny arm, like a dry tree branch reaches out and attempts to steady the unsteady stretcher. It drops back in as quickly as it emerged.

On a lookout, resting place where multitudes have paused to marvel at the beauty of seemingly unending evergreen faces of mountain ranges, waterfalls and patrolling birds yonder; a teenager pulls a piece of newspaper from a side bag. Before he rolls his tobacco leaves, he reads aloud: ‘…the gov…ern…ment…’ and abruptly stops. However the next word is pronounced and whatever the bloody hell it means isn’t going to stress his exhausted mind – not now! Soon he’ll be puffing his exhaustion into circular skinny columns of drifting mists of vapor.

But close by watches his mother. Her heart breaks upon hearing her dear son. ‘He really misses school! Hope the coffee bags we’ve been ferrying for the last three days raise sufficient funds to ensure his return to school next year’, she started to cry.

A dry bitterness in her thirsty throat starts to grow. She looks up. The damn track, zigzagging endlessly up into the mists glared teasingly back at her as if she hadn’t conquered it before. Figures of women under heavy loads, accompanied by their spouses and grown children continue on in a long line like camels.

Eastern Highlands women from remote rural places like Unavi, Gimi, Marrawaka, Unggai and Wesan, are daily impoverished by the tyranny of its terrains. Other places in PNG: Teleformin, Menyyama, and Salt-Nomane to name a few also encounter similarly daunting circumstances.

Many a heroine, accompanied by a trustworthy husband, whilst waiting for the government to at least promise them a glimmer of hope, continues to tread treacherous tracks to make ends meet.

Their eyes have beheld countless sufferings and their ears have heard many a final cry but still they persevere. Giving up isn’t an option and still they derive and summon incredible strength somehow. It is truly a marvel – the strength of a woman.

And the journey continues; a journey to sell coffee beans, vegetables or meat for money and to access the nearest health facility.

Oh words of hope, which glisten and dance from many a leader’s lips, are words and mere words.

Highlands women with coffee bags

The PNG Way – a paradox, rhetoric and almost bullshit

Tribal fight in the Highlands of PNG

This has been our custom – the PNG Way – the way we have been doing our business ever since our Tumbunas understood the advantages of living together in groups – communities that developed ways of doing things that increases their chances of survival.

On many an occasion, I read and or hear rhetoric from delusional leaders, who occasionally emerge from a place where glimpses of almost-insanity tests my belief in our customs. Other times I hear one who actually sound like insanity itself rumbling from its deep and dark enclosure. There are also times when I think I am insane not to have understood their logic or lack of it.

How often does one hear or read of a PNG leader who does not call with a hint of ignorance to the masses to return to ‘our ways’ to sort things out – whether it is tribal fights, political fights, CEOs fights, or any other fight that involve leaders and their equally ignorant die hard supporters?

Somehow, weird though, when I hear a call to return to ‘our ways’ to settle disputes, a sense of assurance, and of confidence in the workings of our ways automatically envelopes and calms me. An inner call that tells me things will be alright when and if we return to our ways to find solutions. And I usually take for granted that our ways will certainly do us good.

Recently however, a call by a ward councilor from Enga province for a certain sitting MP and his runner-up from the 2012 elections to return home to stop the fighting and killings that started after the elections the ‘Enga Way’, got me thinking.

These same two leaders’ supporters fought after the 2007 elections. And they stopped it their way. But this didn’t stop them from fighting again this election, did it?

Having pondered for a long while about this – the return to our ways to settle disputes – I began to realize that our ways never solve once and for all our problems.

The call to return to our ways to settle a tribal fight after many deaths and destructions of properties usually end up freeing, in addition to rapists and torturers, killers or sharp shooters who are likely to find employment as hired guns in other tribal fights. And history records that even after a settlement, apparent pay back killings occur away from home. So essentially, some tribal fights are not stopped; rather they evolve and take another form, and may start again anytime.

So what constitute the Enga Way of solving a tribal fight? And by extension, what constitute our way of stopping tribal fights in other areas of the country where recurring tribal fights are prevalent?

How about this – a person suddenly dies from a mysterious illness. And doctors fail to diagnose a probable cause; and or relations of the deceased decide to ignore the results of an autopsy and return to their villages to find the cause of death ‘their traditional way’? Next we read about an old woman clobbered to near death and dumped in a pit latrine, or burnt alive or of something grotesque. And ‘our way’ helped discovered the cause of death.

Honestly, can anyone recall the number of calls by relevant government authorities and churches leaders for sorcery related killings to be stopped?

Further, after corporatization of PNG government’s business arms aimed at blocking political interferences and increasing efficiency hence productivity; PNG continues to be burdened by corporate liabilities. And there seem to be no end to government rescue announcements.

Who do you find working in those large corporations? Papua New Guineans! And more often than not, bulk of the workforce is Wantoks of respective CEO’s – some of whom aren’t qualified to serve in positions they occupy. And they usually have things their way – the PNG way.

The PNG Way – our way – is in the most part a curse unto itself. It may have served us well in the past but seem incompatible with contemporary PNG. There is an urgent need for change – a change that should happen immediately. Not to do away with ‘our way’ but to modify it to work effectively with current trends. Perhaps, change in mentality – discarding of redundant aspects of ‘our way’ and fusing its good aspects with globally accepted ways of doing business to come up with something PNG flavoured.

Our way is seriously crippling the country’s lifeline – the heart, arteries and veins, and its blood are poisoned. How long does this country plan to use ‘our way’ to manage its affairs?

Recurring tribal fights are testament of the inability and of course uselessness of ‘our way’ to settle problems once and for all. So for instance, just what do our leaders mean by calling to their fellow tribesmen to ‘stop a tribal fight our way’? Do such calls carry an inherent ‘stop_fighting_for_now_until_next_election’ clause? Isn’t our way the way of not settling issues once and for all?

On a brighter note, we’re not lesser human beings – we’re equally endowed with mental powers that enabled citizens of other countries to rise from the dusts of their mistakes to take their country to greater heights.

Many a brother or a sister from another country looks to us with sad envy. So many resource projects, yet we appear wretchedly poor. If and only if we see where our way has taken us and break free from its stranglehold. And no one will save us; it is us who will save ourselves, so let us make the changes our way – the PNG way.

Merry Christmas and a prosperous 2013.