Flora, Fauna and People

We were a small group of fifteen that traveled on a cruise within a cruise. We left the glorious comfort of the Seabourn Spirit for a four-night cruise on the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea We disembarked the Spirit in the port of Lae, flew to our river boat in Madang and then reboarded the Spirit in Madang. Our itinerary promised that while traveling on the Sepik we would have two to three excursions each day from our Discoverer on one of the two speedboats that the boat carries.

Traveling on the Sepik I had expected to be amazed by the flora and fauna--and the people of PNG. Ultimately I was disappointed with the fauna as I was when we sailed on the lower Amazon. But I was not disappointed in the flora and absolutely not with the people. The crocodiles and the birds of paradise, the butterflies and cassowary birds, the parrots and cuscus might have been out of view but the people were always before us.

The people of New Guina We were walking amongst and talking to people who are as primitive as most anywhere in the world. They liked to stare at us giving us at the same time their broad betel-nut smiles as we stared back at them. Even the flash from our cameras caused them great merriment. They enjoyed saying good morning or hello. (English is official first language of the country, with pidgin the second language and their local language the third. In PNG there are 800 languages, one third of those in the world.)

The first morning we traveled in our speedboat up one of the canals or barats as they are called locally. We were in an exotic world. On both sides was dense jungle foliage--many sago and nipa palms, linea vines and water hyacinths with their purple flowers. The sound of water dripping softly through the trees was soothing as we sped along, always slowing down when we came to a canoe whose passengers were fishermen. (Often the mean would hold up their fish so we could view their catch.)

Our guide told us there were crocodiles in the dark murky water although they were not in view. Flying above were brown kites and white egrets, which led us along through the waterways as they flew gracefully ahead of our boat.. We heard the loud calls of peacocks but--as with the crocodiles--we couldn't spot them.

Returning on the same route there were hundreds of white bright May flies dancing on the water before us, around us, behind us. According to the guide, this is a rare sight.

However, before our return we crossed the mangrove-lined Murik Lakes and stopped for a visit to the village of Mendam. The current Prime Minister, Sir Michael Somare, comes from this village and is simultaneously the SANA or chief of the village. (He was actually on one of our flights with his entourage.). I couldn't understand how this illustrious person, who actually the first Prime Minister of the PNG and has returned to this position, could have risen to such power from a primitive village. Somare began his career was as a school teacher, then became a district head and proceeded to advance in positions in one of the country’s six political parties. His party happened to be the winning one

Later in the morning we visited a village in which we were greeted not only by the village people but with hundreds of mosquitoes. Here we thought these pesky and potentially dangerous mosquitoes only came out in the early morning and at night; not so in this case. Of course, we all had DET to slap on ourselves and were also taking malaria pills. It is the people of the villages who mostly go unprotected. The major cause of death is malaria (with t.b. coming in second) but they can't afford the drugs to prevent the disease.

The villager who was serving as our guide pointed proudly to an open structure and said it was their church. "We are all Catholic," he proudly added. They have their services every Sunday with the priest making a call from time to time.

Two villages, Kambaramba 1 and 2, we went by are under water 70% of the year. Obviously, the houses are built on stilts. When the rains are heavy the only way the people (and dogs and pigs) can get out is by canoe. The water was too high for us to actually call on the villages although some in our group had tours through Village 2 by canoe. It is remarkable to see the people in their canoes for they stand while canoeing. Sometimes they are manned by little boys--stark naked and maybe only three or four years old.

Another stop was at Angoram settlement village where we went shopping with the ship's crew to at the open-air produce market. The only appealing items were the fruits and vegetables. The cook bought some of the latter (sweet potatoes, yams, pit pit, spinach) for dinner that night. Meat and fish, much of it smoked, were on display--with the sellers slowly fanning their goods to get rid of flies.

One visit was to a school in Taway. Here the head master had a very organized program for us. His school was called St. Brian’s, named after a Brian who had been helpful in starting the school and who was perceived to be saintly by the locals. Here the head master presented us with a very organized program, which started off with the children marching in formation (left, left, left, right, left, etc), which is apparently the norm for starting each day in school. Then: singing, dancing, speeches, dramas. They presented us with coconuts with straws so we could drink the refreshing coconut water. The head master then said very gently that if we wished to give small gifts, which could be money or something like pens, there was a box in which to put them. (We had been advised prior to the trip that pens were very much needed by the students. In some school they are forced to emulate writing.)

The very last stop was at a small village the focal point of which was a missionary hospital.

Most of the villagers did not try to sell us anything. They were there to greet us and entertain us. The reward—seeing their pictures in the cameras and meeting us. We are not used to this

In five instances we were entertained by singsings, which means a song and/or dance performance. The first was a musical presentation with two musicians playing seven-foot flutes, two drummers in back of them and then in the rear--almost unseen--two very shy bare-breasted women dancing. On several occasions we were presented with dramas, which were in effect pantomimes. Each was a vignette with a moral dilemma acted out without words. We were always told in advance what the subject was--a problem with a boundary, an enactment of a pig hunt, a drama of a stolen knife with a devil hovering on the sidelines. The locals would gather around and thoroughly enjoy the presentation--as did we. Runny-nosed kids would be howling. Several times the villages didn't expect us on the day we arrived so they had to scurry to get their presentation together.

The people are very poor, living in houses made of woven materials from plants/trees like the sago palm, often on stilts. Some of them are totally enclosed except for one opening in which to enter, some are open on all sides and some on two sides. There is no electricity so it is hard to even imagine the darkness these people live in almost half of the day. A young Canadian woman in our group is currently a cultural missionary in PNG and she filled us in on how the daily lives of the people. She had even lived for four days in Pankin, one of the villages we visited. The people were delighted to be introduced to her mama and papa. When we left she was given a present of dried eel.

The villagers live at subsistence level off the land and the rivers. The basic substance of their diet is sago, which is made from the pith of the palm into something palatable--to them. However, sago is a starch without much nutritional value; it simply fills the people up. Basically the only protein the people get is fish, which are caught with nets or spears. On a special occasion there will be a roasted pig.

This young Canadian explained to me that it is not good to give them things except as a response to gifts given by them. Reciprocity is basic to their culture. If a visitor gives something that is not in response to a gift, the next visitors who arrive are then expected to give and if they don't, there are problems. I didn’t quite get how bad the problems might be.

The Canadian said the people might have t.v. sets in their houses but who knows where the villagers acquired them. With no electricity, they have no way of using the set. The set serves as a kind of status symbol.

When I asked my young friend how the people of these villages are affected by visits such as ours, she responded, "They are changed a little each time." What this really means is that they are brought a little more into awareness of what the outside world is like. In the meanwhile, are we just leaving them with the concept of a t.v., but no way to view anything except a blank screen? Are we giving them an ephemeral view of themselves in the small screens of our digital cameras but no real sense of who they really are. Are we helping them to move through the present into the future or are they just going to go from the past to the future in one gigantic step someday.

Taha'a Pearl Beach Resort

“It's a very special place. The Taha'a Pearl Beach Resort is a real gem. It's the closest to a five-star facility we visited and head and shoulders above the other Pearl Beach resorts we visited and heard about. It's very secluded, so there's not a lot to do outside of the resort, but Bora Bora is only 20 miles away. Taha'a would be a great first stop for honeymooners before moving on to Bora Bora, which was my favorite island.”

M.W., Jacksonville, FL