“Dr Kenny in Kundiawa may have some Kavieng wisdom,” she thought and this gave her some feeling of courage.

“OK, I got to go now,” Nil-mam suddenly said to James. “Please pass my hello to Julie if you see her and give her my landline number.”

“Can I call you on this number?” James asked as Nil-mam was turning to walk away.

“You can, I’ll be back home by end of this week,” Nil-mam replied.

She rushed to the Simbu bus stop near the main market. There were a number of buses with crews calling repeatedly, “Kudjip! Minj! Simbu!”

“Are you travelling to Kundiawa,” Nil-mam asked a crew member, who nodded agreement and his hand reached out to pull her into the bus as he kept repeating, “Kudjip, Minj, Simbu”.

It took a while for passengers to fill the 25-seater. Nil-mam sat close to the window and kept looking at her watch. She still had enough time to reach Kundiawa. From her bag she pulled the chips and Sprite drink she bought. These she shared with a woman sitting next to her with a child on her lap.

The woman admired the generosity of Nil-mam and asked where was from and where she was heading.

Nil-mam said she was from Kavieng and married to a Simbu man and she was travelling to her husband’s village.

“You are so nice to me and my son,” said the woman. “I see that you are pregnant so my guess is you will have a son.”

“How nice,” smiled Nil-mam. Soon the bus was speeding past buildings, farms, rivers, coffee plantations and cutting through Kuli Gap to the Wahgi Valley.

The bus stopped briefly at Kudjip and some passengers disembarked including the mother with the child who wished Nil-mam well for the rest of her journey. Nil-mam thought of the woman’s kind words but her thoughts were interrupted a by a male passenger who inhaled his long-rolled tobacco and puffed in her direction.

The smoke was thick and acrid and almost choked Nil-mam. She kept her anger to herself and thought, “The government should make laws to ban passengers from smoking in public moto vehicles.”

The guy kept puffing as if there was no one around. An angry passenger at the back shouted, “This is not your house! It is a PMV! Can you f**kin’ stop that long thing!”

The person puffing tobacco sensed the shouting was directed at him. He could feel all eyes on the bus directed at him. Without saying a word, he bent over the seat and squeezed the lighted end of the stick with his left thumb and pointer.

An observant kid sitting next to him asked, “Uncle did it burn your fingers.” The smoker laughed and replied, “No these fingers are used to putting out small fires like this.” The kid laughed and looked at his own fingers.

By now the bus was leaving Mingende and heading for nearby Kundiawa. Nil-mam felt her back aching from the long journey but she was glad she would make it safe to the town.

The thought of what to say to Dr Kenny and the thought of the reaction of her parents bothered her. She got off the bus at Kundiawa and walked to a back street to stay with her in-laws.

Yaltom’s tribal people occupied most sections of back street. Some men had gathered at the junction for the usual afternoon stories, struggling to push hard scones into the coffee cups to soak them before pushing it down their throats.

This was a usual dinner for these people. They did not go for a costly meal because they wanted to save money to gamble at night. They had different card games. Queen and Last Card were the most common. The gamblers looked forward to each night.

A few of them knew who Nil-mam was and shook hands and hugged her as she passed. They explained to the others that she was Yaltom’s wife.

Darkness approached and Nil-mam was in the house of Kaupa, the youngest of Yaltom’s uncles. Kaupa’s family was happy that Nil-mam visited and the children struggled to keep the kerosene lantern alive so they could listen and talk with her.

Darkness did not matter to Kaupa who was outside looking for a live chicken to cook for Nil-mam.

Nil-mam was dead tired and could not hold back from sleeping. She was drowsy and several times almost fell face down on the floor. She found it hard to tell the relatives that she wanted to sleep. In his tutorials about the Simbu way of life, she could not remember Yaltom mentioning anything about this situation. Nil-mam blamed herself for not asking more questions.

She had to battle to stay awake to please her in-laws. She could not think logically. She was only half awake. She could not keep up with the children’s conversation. They called, “Aunty! Aunty!” Nil-mam did not respond so they scratched her feet or poked her side to attract attention. Nil-mam was furious children but kept it to herself.

Kaupa’s wife came in with a big dish of food and apologised for preparing it so late and asked Nil-mam to eat and sleep. Kaupa came in and asked the children to go to sleep and asked his wife to prepare bed for Nil-mam.

When the children left for their bedroom, Kaupa told his wife that Nil-mam needed rest too as she travelled a long distance. This was enough for Nil-mam to throw herself on the bed.