PHIL FITZPATRICK

NEXT year will be the 100-year anniversary of the Gallipoli landing during World War I.

In Australia we will be swamped by an orgy of publicity – in the press, on television and radio and at public events with documentaries, mini-series, wreath-laying ceremonies, nationalistic cant and pilgrimages to Turkey. 

I’m not looking forward to it.

The Australian public has long been seduced by the sentimentality of war and, by extension, mass tragedy. 

By any measure the outpouring linked to the recent siege in Sydney was extraordinary.  It eclipsed even the public grief on display following the Bali bombings, the Asian tsunami and the loss of the Malaysian aeroplane in the Ukraine.

KEITH JACKSON

IN the first days of each month I undertake a chore I invented in September 2010 - highlighting the top 10 articles in PNG Attitude for the previous month as judged by the amount of reader feedback.

That first column more than four years ago (citing articles published in August 2010) disclosed that the greatest response was incited by Corney K Alone’s polemic, Education: oppression before enslavement.

It was a trenchant attack on outcome-based education in PNG and it stirred a hornet’s nest of comment, most people supporting the view that the innovation was a learning disaster.

It wasn’t long after that the PNG National Education Department abandoned the OBE concept.

CHARLENE DINIPAMI NII

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

I like any kind of dog. Huge bulldog, long lean greyhound, German shepherd, small, short-legged, as long as it’s a dog.

When I was small my father brought two beautiful puppies to the house. My older sisters, Cheryl and Maggie, fought over who should keep the fatter of the two.

While they were fighting, I grabbed the fatter one and ran away. Being small, I didn’t get far and they caught me and seized the puppy. I rolled on the ground and cried loudly.

Dad took me to the house where he got the puppies and told the owner what had happened. The man said there was just one puppy left and it was malnourished. I didn’t care. I cried for it and the man gave it to me.

KEITH JACKSON

JANUARY 2014 marked the eighth anniversary of PNG Attitude, which had travelled some distance since its tentative start on 26 February 2006 under the masthead, ASOPA People.

In its beginning, this blog was an internet version of a newsletter for former cadet education officers of the Australian School of Pacific Administration, which had trained kiaps, teachers and other professionals to work in Australia’s territories, especially Papua and the New Guinea mandate.

By February 2008, two years later, PNG Attitude was beginning to spread its wings to cover issues beyond those affecting ASOPA alumni, and by the next February it was well enmeshed in PNG affairs and the bylines of Paul Oates and Barbara Short featured regularly in its columns.

ROWAN CALLICK | The Australian

MY first night in jail was uncomfortable but educative. And unexpected.

It had novelty value for the other inmates, too, since the cell was in Papua New Guinea where, although it has its share of rough diamonds and remittance men, relatively few Europeans find their way behind bars.

I was heading home in Port Moresby after a long day at the local newspaper and magazine publishing house where I worked, in a car used by our advertising sales staff during the day. My own vehicle was being serviced.

There was an irritatingly long and slow queue of cars along Ela Beach road because of a police check. But the beer waiting in the fridge wouldn’t get warm, unless there was another blackout, and I was relaxed enough when I edged up to the checkpoint.

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Subscribe 50 free SMS
Abundant, create message from the phone book
Scrolled through the contacts

Forward the lovely text message
It reads from the pad
‘Dear’

Vibration on the phone
I glanced quickly through the touch screen
It was a message from an unfamiliar number

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

PEOPLE with disabilities in Simbu have described as a “mockery” and say they were unfairly treated when Noah Kool’s Simbu government recently implemented its much talked about K500,000 allocation for the province’s disabled.

Disabled people were excitedly expecting December 2014 to be their best Christmas in many years when they were told Governor Kool would be providing the funds allocated for them in the 2014 provincial budget.

They gathered at the Dixon’s Field as early as 8 am to receive their long due money, flocking in from most parts of Simbu waiting until 4.30 pm when they were told the governor was out of the province.

They were then told to go to the provincial government building the next day.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

IN 1956 my family migrated from England to Adelaide in South Australia.  We were classic ten-pound Poms (that being the cost of passage).

We spent several months in a migrant hostel, which was a converted army barracks. Hessian walls separated us from our fellow Poms; we ate in a common mess and queued for baths.

After my father secured a job, our family moved into a semi-detached house in the new satellite town of Elizabeth.

We had travelled to Australia by ship, six long weeks at sea in cramped cabins.  All we were allowed to bring were a couple of cabin trunks loaded with clothes and keepsakes. 

CATHERINE WILSON | Inter Press Service

THIRTEEN years after the peace agreement which ended a decade-long civil war in Bougainville, trauma and grief continue to affect families and communities where the fate of the many missing remains unresolved.

The Autonomous Bougainville Government, identifying this as a barrier to progressing post-conflict reconciliation and development, in September introduced a policy to begin helping families answer questions and find closure.

“This is very important for reconciliation,” Nick Peniai, head of the Autonomous Bougainville Government’s Department of Peace and Reconciliation, told me.

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

THERE are many remote places in Papua New Guinea worth visiting.  Here you can discover much that is of great beauty, especially in people's lifestyles and culture.

There is also the diversity of the natural environment, showing the great handiwork of God.  One becomes curious as to how it all came to be like it is.

I recently attended a wedding ceremony in the small and isolated village of Menya in the Menyamia District of Morobe Province.

“Iso!” Mrs Peuba called, as I stood awkwardly leaning against the post at the pastor’s house. “Have you made up your mind yet?”

We were at Chinatown Foursquare Church in Lae and it was the frown on my face that had stirred her question.

In fact I had decided to attend the wedding long before Mrs Peuba asked. All that was in my mind was a hope that there was a space available in the hired Toyota LandCruiser.

FRANCIS NII

THE home-grown charity, Simbu Children Foundation, has just completed 10 years of its invaluable voluntary work for sick and the disadvantage children of Simbu Province.

And SCF members, benefactors, beneficiaries and partners have turned out in numbers to celebrate the anniversary in style at Kundiawa’s Mt Wilhelm Tourist Hotel.

The event raised K90,000 for the charity.

Among the guests were Chuave MP and vice-minister for mining, Wera Mori, guest speakers Jerry Gerry and Jerry Karl, and SCF patron Kennedy Wemin.

Mr Gerry is a geologist and currently country director of Mt Crater gold mine. Mr Karl is an accountant and chief internal auditor of Etihad Airways.

Entry to the ball was strictly by tickets sold at K300 each. Tables were sold for K3,000.

KEITH JACKSON

THE Autonomous Bougainville Government has appointed high flying Mortlocks man Monovi Amani, 52, as chief secretary and head of the Bougainville public service.

Mr Amani is currently the Provincial Administrator of New Ireland, a position he has held for the past two years. He has previously been a business and taxation consultant, an accounting lecturer and a tax assessor with PNG’s Internal Revenue Commission.

With tertiary qualifications in commerce, accounting and business, Mr Amani has been a member of the Australian Society for Chartered Practicing Accountants since 1992.

As Provincial Administrator of New Ireland, Mr Amani developed a new approach to improving service delivery and he has been able to turn the provincial government’s vision and political goals to improve services in the rural communities.

LAPIEH LANDU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

My ever-­‐wandering heart  Lingers into limbo
Lingers into despair Lingers into loneliness Lingers into attempt 

As I lay near you lifeless As I kiss into the air
I whisper into your shadow And confront your ambiguity 

My ever-­‐wandering heart  Lingers into limbo 
Lingers into despair Lingers into loneliness Lingers into attempt 

I overcompensate it all Healing every torment Restoring every doubt  Burying every grievance

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

SNAP!

The past sixteen years of his young life flashed before his eyes as he realized that the rope had actually tightened fully around his neck, crushing his throat and instantly blocking off his air supply.

This was nothing like the movies, where the unsuspecting hero jumped out in front of him to stop the leap, or an unexpected turn of events made him change his mind.

It was reality, one which was fast fading into nothingness with every second. There was no pain, just numbness. And there was peace – he felt peace.

Darkness!

PHIL FITZPATRICK

ONE of the more bizarre ideas in the run-up to self-government and independence was that Papua New Guinea should become a state of Australia.

The idea had particular currency in Queensland where avid eyes were cast over Papua New Guinea’s potential hydropower, mineral and agricultural resources.

Highlanders, informed by their innate conservatism and encouraged by the vested interests of the European plantocracy, also toyed with the idea.

Then there was Papua Besena, which argued that Papua, as a trust territory, was legally part of Australia and Papuans were Australian citizens and should so remain. 

LAPIEH LANDU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Do you have a mother? Do you have a daughter?
A sister or a friend maybe? For you not to stifle?

How do your eyes meet?

Do her tears serve your remorse? Or her fear give you heed
For your unkind scheme

Do you have a mother? Do you have a daughter?
A sister or a friend maybe? For you not to stifle

PHIL FITZPATRICK

Scenery and Seismic in Papua New Guinea by Barry Taverner, Self-published, 2014, ISBN: 978-0-9941501-0-3, 8½” x 12”, 133 pages.  Contact the author at [email protected]

I have to admit to a certain bias in this review.

Barry and I have been best mates since we met in primary school, at a time that seems like centuries ago.

We both went to Papua New Guinea together as young kiaps in 1967.  We later became brothers-in-law.

He went back there in 1996 to work in oil and gas exploration with the fledgling company, Oilmin Field Services, set up by George Leahy and a couple of ex-kiaps, Ian Thompson and Clive Nicholls.  I followed him a year later.

FIDELIS SUKINA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

A journey worth making
To see a city grow
New development, new look, new day dawning
Shops, bigger, better, convenient, all in one

Hotels, motels, guest houses, part of growth
Open air markets, road side markets, four lane roads
Connecting commuters to produce in afternoon traffic
People, infrastructure, jobs, benefits, commerce

ROWAN CALLICK | The Australian | Extracts

PAPUA New Guinea has joined the list of countries severely damaged by the collapse in oil and gas prices.

It faces a spiralling budgetary deficit unless it swiftly adjusts to lower revenues and unwinds ­ambitious new spending, according to former Treasury official Paul Flanagan.

“PNG had set itself on a slippery slope towards a crisis, and the world just gave it a great big shove,” he said.

If the government does not act soon, he said, “PNG will be going to the International Monetary Fund or another country seeking a large bailout”.

MANUEL HETZEL

LOCAL newspapers in Papua New Guinea recently reported the good news that the country was making progress in the fight against malaria.

And indeed, PNG has made immense progress in the fight against the deadly scourge.

Since the resuscitation of the National Malaria Control Program in 2008 with money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, malaria cases have continuously decreased.

The distribution of long-lasting insecticidal nets and the introduction of the new and highly effective artemisinin-based combination treatment have changed the malaria landscape in PNG once again.

In malaria surveillance sites established by the PNG Institute of Medical Research (IMR), the incidence of malaria dropped from 205 cases per 1000 people in 2009 to 48 cases per 1000 in 2014.

JOHN KAUPA KAMASUA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

A beautiful gift, a powerful gift
Is within you, somewhere, each one of you - if you dare to explore
A gift to reach heights not reached before,
And to go where no one has before gone;

A gift
To paint the sky, and ride on waves
Join the wind in a whisper, and paint a sunset
To love for love itself,
Fall to rise again
And play with words;
And to educate and inform, with a wonderful gift

ED BRUMBY

Lost in His Land by Winterford Toreas. Pukpuk Publications: Amazon/Kindle. 2014. 126pp. ISBN10:1503051846; ISBN 13:978-1503051843. Available from Amazon: USD 3.04 (Kindle); USD 5.70 (paperback)

IT’S now nearly 20 years since formal hostilities ceased on Bougainville.

While Leonard Fong Roka and others have provided valuable accounts of, and insights into the events and consequences of those times via books, essays and other means, their endeavours have been targeted primarily at adult readers.

No-one has written of the conflict and its effects specifically for younger, adolescent readers. Until now.

In Lost in His Land, Winterford Toreas provides a timely and somewhat conventional tale of loss, recovery and reconciliation that illuminates, for younger readers, the trauma that war and conflict inflict on everyone, combatants and innocents alike, regardless of age or gender.

LAPIEH LANDU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

My ever-­wandering heart  Lingers into limbo
Lingers into despair Lingers into loneliness Lingers into attempt 

As I lay near you lifeless As I kiss into the air
I whisper into your shadow And confront your ambiguity 

My ever-­‐wandering heart  Lingers into limbo 
Lingers into despair Lingers into loneliness Lingers into attempt 

I overcompensate it all Healing every torment Restoring every doubt  Burying every grievance

RAYMOND KOMIS GIRANA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

CATHOLICS in Bougainville are receiving the Bougainville Diocese pastoral plan, Renewal into Balanced Life, and a booklet entitled Framework of Formation as gifts from their parish priests this Christmas.

The distribution of the documents was announced by the Bishop of Bougainville, Bernard Unabali, at a recent press conference at diocesan headquarters at Hahela in Buka.

The pastoral plan is the outcome of a diocesan senate held at Tsiroge in north-west Bougainville in July and August 2011 following a survey of all 33 parishes following the Bougainville crisis.

The senate included representatives from the entire diocese who endorsed 55 statements based on the priorities of the plan.

The 12-year plan is Bishop Unabali’s program for a healthy society in post-crisis Bougainville.

PNG Attitude thanks our many readers & contributors for being part of this great collaborative project. We wish you a joyful Christmas & a New Year of peace & contentment

BOMAI D WITNE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

CHRISTMAS in Papua New Guinea is a time when many homes, streets, stores and churches are gaily decorated and Christmas songs dominate music on radio stations and in the shops.

Like in countries around the world, kids anticipate that Santa Claus will bring goodies.  My son saw someone dressed in red in one of the shops, reminded me of Father Christmas and asked what the great man would bring him this Christmas.

This is an expectation strengthened by my son’s kindergarten. The school asked parents to dress their children like Father Christmas and buy gifts for the school’s version of Santa Claus to distribute. Some churches do the same.

Wherever the culture of Santa Claus originated (it was somewhere in Europe), many Papua New Guineans have enthusiastically inherited the tradition and built into their own family and community celebrations.

JOHN KAUPA KAMASUA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

CHRISTMAS normally brings about a special feeling.

And if today you are experiencing that special feeling, you are not alone. Many people are in this same vibration, on the same frequency. There is a connection.

You are connected in another other important way. You are connected to your past and your future.

Your past is your personal story, the future is the potential you retain to be the very best of you. To becoming what you want to be and live an abundant life. The future, although uncertain, comes with promise.

Yet, all that said, time is an illusion. The real time is when you live in the present moment.

MICHAEL DOM

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

30°C
décor in supermarkets
of snow on pine trees

red nosed reindeer
towing a Santa dummy
beggars on the curb

fountains and light shows
kids walk back to Six Mile with
bare feet and blank stares

GEORGE KUIAS

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

SAMARITAN Aviation’s float plane seems guided by the hands of Jesus to demonstrate God’s love by providing critical medical services to remote areas of Papua New Guinea that otherwise would not be available.

Eighty percent of the 500,000 residents in East Sepik Province live in remote areas without access to the province’s only hospital.

With the only float plane in PNG, Samaritan Aviation undertakes emergency evacuations, medicine delivery, disaster relief and community programs. It offers access and hope.

EMMANUEL MAROSI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

GOD’s design for fathers is encrypted in his Word. He intended fathers to be teachers of their children, lovers of their wives and children, protectors of their households and providers for their families.

Fatherlessness is not only the physical absence of a father. It occurs when a father fails to diligently carry out his duties as a father.

As a person who grew up in the in the slums, I have seen firsthand the deep hurt and devastation that fatherlessness brings to a child’s life.

Our lives are full of men and women who live recklessly after being abandoned by their fathers; they have been wounded by the men who should have loved them most.

ANTHONY KAYBING

PEACE and reconciliation amongst Bougainvilleans to resolve issues flowing from the Bougainville conflict remains an integral part of the autonomous province’s development.

Dr John Momis, President of the Autonomous Bougainville Government, has exemplified the continuing process by reconciling with former combatants from the Solos area of North Bougainville.

During the height of the Bougainville crisis in 1997, Dr Momis was captured by the northern element of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army based in Tinputz.

What followed was a gruelling march through some of Bougainville’s roughest terrain.

Dr Momis, at the time Bougainville Governor, was led by his captors all the way to Panguna, the stronghold of secessionist leader the late Francis Ona and the central command of the BRA.

After a month in captivity in Guava village, Dr Momis was released in good faith by Francis Ona and this sudden move paved way for the peace process in Bougainville.

LAPIEH LANDU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

A poem dedicated to my late grandmother, Mehere Landu.
Your great courage and humanity earned you respect & stature

I am a mother I am a father
I am a daughter I am a son
I am a sister
I am a brother
I am what I have to be

As father strops his spear And mother her defence 

BOMAI D WITNE

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Cleland Family Award for Heritage Writing

WHAT did I inherit from my tribal and national ancestors who migrated here some 50,000 years ago and what did I inherit from colonialism? I have to find answers to these questions and the answers are hard to find.

I was born in Imil-Tomale, a remote hamlet, under the shade of pandanus trees and clothed with soft and tender leaves.

My mother named me Dominic immediately after my birth. I found out later that I was the namesake of the husband of the woman who assisted my mother to give birth to me.

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

A tribute for my mom and other mothers throughout
Papua New Guinea. God will bless their hard work for us

Life’s a precious gift to humanity
A scarce resource given to me
A moment of conception in my mother’s womb
Its significance defines the way I will live
I did not know, but that’s when my life began

GEORGE KUIAS

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

ACCORDING to the wrist watch at my bedside it was 3am. In the next room I could hear a voice whispering to an unknown person.

The only words that came out clearly were ‘honest darling, I love you’. My cousin Garry was chatting on the phone with his girlfriend or someone.

The previous night I warned him to turn off his phone before going to bed because of the irritating messaging and ringing tones. Anyway, his girl friends were his private affair but a conversation on the phone at the wrong time and in the wrong place was really disturbing.

PAUL FLANAGAN | DevPolicy Blog | Abridged

PAPUA New Guinea must adjust to lower LNG and oil prices to avoid a crisis. The PNG LNG project is still extremely important but many of the benefits of the production phase of have vanished– probably for at least a decade - because of lower prices.

The broad impacts will be that: there will be no tax revenue from the PNG LNG project for many years; deficit and debt levels will become even more unsustainable; the 2015 growth rate will more than halve; the balance of payments will be in overall deficit even with the project coming to full capacity in 2016; and, without an exchange rate depreciation, PNG’s international reserves will be exhausted in two years.

Oil prices are now more than 30% lower than the level forecast in last month’s PNG Budget. LNG prices are directly linked to oil prices so the reduction in LNG prices will be similar. This price drop in a key commodity is a classic example of what economists call an “external shock”.

LAPIEH LANDU

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

"Democracy must be built through open societies that share information. When there is information, there is enlightenment. When there is debate, there are solutions. When there is no sharing of power, no rule of law, no accountability, there is abuse, corruption, subjugation and indignatio" - Atifete Jahjaga

Tell us something, not tell us all!
The earth beneath us riddled
We should know!

Tell us something, not tell us all!
The trees around us prostrated
We should know!

KEITH JACKSON

THE Australian Senate, through its Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade References Committee, has written to PNG Attitude to draw attention to an inquiry it is conducting into Australia’s aid program in Papua New Guinea.

The committee is inquiring into the delivery and effectiveness of Australian aid to PNG.

And, if we get sufficient comments and observations in response to this article, I will put together a joint submission to the committee from PNG Attitude readers.

The terms of reference are below and the committee says there is no requirement to address them all, only the ones relevant to us.

ISO YAWI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

The light of literature is beauty
A means to create illumination
Glowing with words of freedom
Shining towards the dark world
This is the art of writing in light

The colour of literature is the colour of a rainbow
The colour to scope imaginations unseen
With its writers painting in words freely
And expressing deep inner heart’s desires
This is the art of writing in colour

LEONARD FONG ROKA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

BY the Chebu Road I stood admiring the midday drop-off and pick-up by the huge BCL buses of New Guinean and Papuan Panguna mine workers.

Where they had being working—those returning home to rest—I felt pity for them for it was noisy in the massive machine buildings just like the noisily churning Chebu Road that was shimmering and shaking beneath my feet every second the massive mechanized transport passed me.

I knew not where I was heading to. Should it be to Baroku hamlet to the east of town where my nephew was married to? I was not sure and could not be haunted over by this trivial matter. But the little booze I had at Orami Tavern back in the Panguna mountains had me contemplating a few more cool drinks.

JACK KLOMES

SINCE its political independence in 1975, PNG has always has always carried the image of a developing state facing a lot of challenges politically, economically and socially.

Originally the “failed state” tag was not prominent when describing PNG affairs, however it gained prominence after Australia’s then prime minister John Howard and then foreign minister Alexander Downer began using it in describing PNG and Solomon Islands when their foreign policy of the Pacific shifted from a more hands off approach to active engagement with Pacific Island states.

DALE DIGORI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

Welcome to PNG; we stand for Freedom, Fairness, Equality and Christianity
No child is left behind *chuckle*
Oh wait! Not you; God created you a sinner
You as well; you chose to be this way.
What idiot chooses to live a life filled with the most abominable hardships?
And why on earth would God create sinners?

Why’ve you got to be so rude? They’re just people too
Why’ve you got to be so cruel? It’s not an abomination
Why’ve you got to be oppressive? You’re restricting their right to life

EMMANUEL MAROSI

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Award for Tourism, Arts & Culture Writing

THE afternoon was hot and airless. We strolled along the beach as the waves rolled in and gently splashed our feet, caressing the fine black sand and leaving behind a veneer of foam as they retreated.

Behind us a lazy red sun was slowly sinking behind hills. Its rays made the clouds silver and a cool, soothing breeze raced from the sea. Crabs played hide and seek and graffitied the dry sand.

The artistic ability of the crabs caused the Sepik man, in his late fifties, to reminisce about his days of initiation in the men’s house.

With pride he removed his shirt and showed us the etchings on his back and chest. They were intricately carved into his skin. When examined closely, they resembled the scaly back of a crocodile.

JIMMY AWAGL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I assume life in the city is better
I will migrate for better
I moved to town and cities
I find employment opportunities
I saw ‘Nogat Wok’ on office doors

I turn back into shanty homes
Am subject to social activities
Involve in gambling and bingos
Earn enough for the day
Lose enough for the day

I become a gambler
I become a Siki (security guard)
I become a street seller
I become a tin can collector
I become a buai seller (betel nut)

STEVEN ILAVE SNR

IN September, Keith Jackson wrote in PNG Attitude: “More than 800 copies of the Crocodile Prize Anthology costing over $8,000 are now being distributed free of charge throughout Papua New Guinea, mainly to schools and libraries but also to tertiary institutions and members of parliament.” (The number has since increased to over 1,000.)

Jackson continued: “This is fulfilling the second leg of the Prize’s ‘contract’ with the people of PNG – which is not only to encourage and reward writers but to ensure their work is published and made available to readers throughout the country….”

In this article, I want to report on the distribution effort in the Gulf Province which began as a small attempt to get the book on to the laps of kids and which turned into a movement to revive a rich writing heritage, support overall literacy and re-open closed school libraries.

This is our Gulf Province ‘distribution’ story.

GEORGE KUIAS

An entry in the Crocodile Prise
PNG Chamber of Mines & Petroleum
Award for Essays & Journalism

NUKUMA (nuku=top/head and ma=people) is named for five large villages with common language and customs. Nukuma - the people at the head of the river.

It is located in the Ambunti district of East Sepik Province towards the border of the Nuku District of Sandaun (West Sepik) Province. It is also one of the least developed and neglected areas of the Ambunti Local Level Government.

Long before, when there were no schools, aid-posts, health centres or other government services, the people had to paddle dug-out canoes for many miles to be educated and treated for illness. It was very tough at that time.

The ones that sacrificed and struggled now enjoy lives as public servants. The ones that gave up sit in their villages.

FAUMUINA FELOLINI TAFUNA’I

WHEN I was at a gathering at the University of Goroka, there was a point where four women were on stage - Mama Daisy and three academics.

'Mama' Daisy Samuel is from Lower Bena in the Unggai-Bena district where she is president of the Ward 2 women’s association and a sling bag maker.

There came a comment from an audience member (a Moresby-based Papua New Guinean academic).

"I see three women on stage,” she said, and proceeded to compliment them about their work. She did not "see" Mama Daisy.

PHIL FITZPATRICK

I’VE often had cause to wonder whether your average businessman or woman is as bright as they like to make out.

I’m biased, of course, because the older I get the more I’ve become left-leaning. I tend to wear out my left shoe quicker than the right one and it makes me a bit lopsided, which is strange because life is supposed to work the other way round.

Rather than being bright, I suspect that most business people are simply crafty, stingy, rat cunning and very, very greedy.  I don’t think any of these virtues particularly equate to intelligence.

I’ve got some relatives and acquaintances (I was going to say friends but they aren’t really) who are in business. 

MARIE MONDU TABEL

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
Kina Securities Award for Poetry

I saw the tallest tower today.
Dark steels watching the bay.
Blank gazes, a sad spirit, thousand words running through my head until it hurts.
If I were to make a suicidal protest for the city to see, the tower is perfect for me.

A dark figure swinging back and forward against the strong Hiri winds.
Who will spot me first and who will read the note I quest?
Will it be the high class residents up Togoba Hill, the ANZ branch Manager or a Koki stranger?
How senseless how could I get there in the first place?

How crazy, gaped mouthed people pointing into the sky "there he is!"
My story will ring through generations: an urban legend.
Will my cause be heard when am dead?
Only am alive now and what will I do instead?

LEONARD FONG ROKA

An entry in the Crocodile Prize
PNG Government Award for Short Stories

‘MY son, Parisii, your baby is partially out but it’s under life threatening circumstances,’ the bush nurse Kerekere whispered. ‘Alert the young men and try bringing the mother and the child to Honiara.’

The father peeped into the semi-darkness of the makeshift shelter and shed tears witnessing a tiny innocent blood stained hand protruding through the birth canal begging for fatherly help.

The whimpering Kerekere staggered from shelter to shelter calling on each family to help contribute something.

‘Yes, my people,’ she said to a gathering in the first shelter, ‘one of us is in danger. Your sister Doomi is in need with the baby you see in her belly. Give her some money so the BRA can help her cross the sea to Taro and beyond to Honiara to get some medical help now or we forget them both.’