26. Solving the Glitch / Unplanned Extra Day with Alla in Port Moresby (10/25/2024)

          October 25 started a little stressfully since the original itinerary had us in Brisbane for the evening, but with Air Niugini cancelling her flight from Rabaul we had to make a back-up plan quick. Starting at 8 am, mom was at the Rabaul Airport working with the airline staff to get back to Port Moresby by noon today and to Brisbane on a 6:30am flight tomorrow. Mom's rebooking was more straightforward than mine, because it was an obvious travel disruption. The change in my itinerary to also leave tomorrow more was more complicated. Despite explaining that she was old, decrepit, and easily confused and needed my help to travel, we were not on the same booking and my change was voluntary. Even more, since my booking was made by AirTreks, they had to be the ones to change the ticket. The airport's wifi was out and I had no cellular service, so I had to send messages to Mom so that she could communicate with AirTreks. After 2.5 hours of this, the flights got sorted out. Mom got on her flight to Port Moresby and I returned to the Airways Hotel to get a new double room. I returned to the airport a few hours later with the airport shuttle to pick her up.

Sign seen waiting for Mom at airport after seeing people with red wads of betelnut 

 in their mouths

Carved columns in front of Airways Hotel entrance

Necklaces used as dowry displayed in hotel lobby

        Although we were technically in Papua New Guinea, we were quite isolated in the luxury compound of the Airways Hotel and Residences.There were at least 10 staff for every hotel guest and at least 100 residential condos and apartments on the property. A proportion of the residences were leased by international businesses and non-profit organizations for their staff. I read a press release that Airways had a partnership with PNG's national rugby league to host visiting teams during tournaments. 

        The staff at the hotel were incredibly friendly and helpful, but very soft-spoken. It was a noticeable change from interactions with Australians.

We did go beyond the compound's gates, which meant that to learn anything about Port Moresby and PNG, I needed to take a proactive approach using the internet. I already knew that Port Moresby was generally unsafe for Westerners, but some reading helped put it in perspective. As a country, PNG has a population of 11 million, but unlike many other countries, over 90% still live in areas considered rural are separated by both geography, language, and tribal origin. Like the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, the island of New Guinea has a mountain range splitting the island into two halves and there a very few roads that connect settled areas. This isolation is one reason that there are over 800 languages still in use in PNG. 

       Port Moresby (POM) is a big city with 400,000 residents, but historical tribal affiliations, governmental corruption, and limited economic opportunities has created an environment where raskols, or street gangs, are a significant source of violence. This is magnified by cultural practices of escalating revenge violence and chronic distrust in the police and military. POM is ranked in the top 10 "unliveable cities" by the United Nations, for the same reasons that street gangs are so prominant. Forty-seven percent of adults in POM are unemployed, and land ownership is not a method that can be used in PNG for wealth accumulation. I haven't quite grasped how the system work, but 97% of land is held under a "customary" land tenure system governed by regional, unwritten rules, while the remaining 3% is land managed under formal laws like the Land Act. Individuals and tribes still fight for control of land under this system, and it makes development of land, either for public or private projects, challenging. 

Walking path at Airways Hotel

Swallowtail moth spotted on a trail at hotel

Female Eclectus (Moluccan) parrot

Male (green) and female (red) Eclectus parrots housed at hotel

Adult female world traveler,  temporarily housed at Airways Hotel

Same female world traveler in water feature at Airways Hotel

Laundry day is every day

       In my research on PNG, I ended up listening to a fascinating "medical mystery" podcast that described a fatal neurological illness, kuru, among a Highland tribe called the Fore. This fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disease appeared in the early 1900s and almost exclusively affected women. The tribespeople blamed the illness on sorcery and would use various divination and prognostication rituals to identify the person who had placed the "curse" on their loved ones. This began a chain reaction of "revenge killings" within and between tribes. When Australian came to help cure women of this illness, they believed it was psychosomatic and caused by female "hysteria." Unsurprisingly, trying to "uncurse" or command health among the afflicted had no effect. The solution to this medical mystery is fascinating, providing both an example of very defined gender roles in PNG tribes and an explanation of  PNG's past history of cannibalism. When tribespeople died, their bodies were eaten by family members to release the deceased’s spirit and ensure safe passage to the afterlife. Brain tissue was consumed exclusively by women. It was discovered in the 1960s that infectious agents known as "prions", or aggregates of misfolded proteins that accumulate in brain tissue. Funerary cannibalism was stopped and so did kuru. 

       I wish that I had gotten to see more of Port Moresby and to appreciate the varied and rich history of PNG in the same way that mom describes her experience from 20 years ago. Nonetheless, the visit stimulated my interest and put it on the list as a place I would like to return some day.