One week, and counting......

Its been a week since I got here but it feels like I’ve been here for a month. This time though, settling in hasn’t been as hard (or teary) as it was compared with my adjustment years in Japan about 6 years ago. Perhaps it’s maturity that comes with years of experience that does the trick.

I have slowly gotten familiar with the place and people although getting used to some cultural peculiarities will require a great deal of adjusting for me. Quite a number of the locals are yet to get acquainted with Mr. Rexona that quite often I gag whenever I catch more than a generous whiff of it, complete with teary eyes.

My friend Mrs. Guaf still makes it her business to check on me every afternoon after she comes home from work. “How was your day Ging?” She would ask. And after a brief chit-chat she would later return with a big breadfruit, offer some papayas, and volunteer her son to grate me coconuts should I need one for cooking. Tito Nap also showed up recently with her son, daughter and apo in tow, and made himself feel at home by pulling up the curtains, turning on the ceiling fan and taking one of the sponge gourds I got as a gift from the Taiwanese team. Its good he didn’t check the fridge otherwise the bitter gourds and chilis I got from the DG’s wife would have disappeared as well. Tito Nap is such a character, hahaha.

It was also a delight to visit a local supermarket that sells Pinoy goods like Datu Puti vinegar, Lorin’s patis, bagoong, sinigang mixes and a host of other goodies, including chichiryas like Chippy. I helped myself to a can of Ma-Ling luncheon meat and limited my choices to brands I know in order to avoid a repeat of what happened last time I bought some local sausages. To put it bluntly, eating the sausage was like licking a live goat and putting the whole thing inside your mouth! Got the picture? But strangely, to my dismay, you don’t find so much seafood in the market to think that the city is near the ocean while the country is literally surrounded by sea. According to my Taiwanese friend Alec, fishing is an occupation which hasn’t been ingrained into the culture of PNG. In fact, a number of Filipino fishermen have been hired by the PNG government to teach their people to fish. Ironic yet interesting, isn’t it?

PNG television is also very amusing, especially the TV commercials. In Pinas, most product endorsers are freshly scrubbed, but here, a guy wearing a G-string, with painted face, huge eyes, red teeth and bushy-bushy hair offers you to try a biscuit called Snax! Hmmm….no thanks. One laundry soap brand is called Was-was, which is advertised both as a laundry and bath soap (how convenient!!, I wonder if it comes with bleach? Or even fabric softener?), while another biscuit is called Wopa, endorsed by a young fellow who could be Nog-nog’s long lost twin brother. The young lad sports a mammoth of an afro and goes around wearing a pair of shorts a size too small with his shirt tucked-in so high it almost reaches his throat, coaxing everyone to try Wopa! Try mo?

Taking a trip to a nearby talipapa is also a must do here in PNG especially if you are a horticulturist like me. Yesterday, I saw some interesting finds. Sago palm larva all looking fat and juicy (yaiks!) were being sold by a peddler while a huge and long red fruit, the size of jackfruit, which turned out to be the fruit of the pandanus palm was also on display. Bananas are sold by piece or else you buy the whole bunch, and peanuts in bunches. Chayote tops are also very popular. There are also other interesting greens which I haven’t tried yet, and a score of strange things I never thought were edible that are being sold as food. Nothing is sold by the kilo, by the way, but by piece, bunch or mound. I stop by the market when I can to buy peanuts and chayote tops.

Everything here is almost pre-paid. Perhaps they have gotten tired of running after folks who refuse to pay their bills. Prepaid phones of course are in fashion, but prepaid internet, and, prepaid electricity? Here, when you go the payment center they ask you, how much do you want? After “buying,” they give you a code which you input into the electricity meter and voila, you have prepaid electricity! A frowning “smiley” in the meter tells you its time to take out the candles.

This is indeed a unique country and the fascination never ends. Next week I might be going on a trip to the highlands to interview some sweet potato farmers. Perhaps there I would finally get to meet someone wearing a gourd, hahaha!!!


P.S. In case you didn’t know, the gourds are actually a type of sponge gourd (the slender type), which men from some tribes use to cover their, you-know-what. However, these tribes are found living in the borders shared by Irian Jaya (Indonesia) and PNG, which is quite a distance from civilization.