Goroka - like every place you've never left

By MALUM NALU

Goroka brings back so many memories for me.
Took a drive around town after arriving last Saturday, April 28, 2012,  which was quite emotional for me.
It was 10 years ago, in 2002, that my late wife Hula  and our two baby sons left Goroka for a new life in Port Moresby after four wonderful years.
Here are some of the pictures I took last Saturday.

This is the road leading from Goroka Airport to town. Do you see any buai pekpek or litter like Port Moresby, the filthiest capital city in the world?

Driving along Peace Park

The Highlands Highway runs right through town

Peace Park, Goroka, where we would sit under the cool pine and gum trees and watch planes take off and land. It's called Peace Park because warring tribes come here to make peace!

The main Highlands Highway at West Goroka shopping centre.

West Goroka Shopping Centre, still the same after all these days (albeit old and rundown), and which take me back to my childhood days as far back as 1975.

St John's Lutheran Church, West Goroka (right), a place which is close to my heart, as this is where we came to worship in the 1970s, and likewise, from 1999-2002 when I got married to Hula.Unfortunately, I didn't have time to catch up with old friends there yesterday, as I had to leave.

A bit of a goat track beside the hospital

Leigh Vial Street towards Goroka Base Hospital

Leigh Vial Street, West Goroka, which leads down to the Goroka Base Hospital. Just out of this picture, to the bottom right, is the big three-bedroom house where Hula and I used to live in 1999/2000, before our two elder sons were born.

Goroka Post Office, one of the many remaining pre-independence buildings which still survive. I know, because I was a pre-independence child of Goroka!

Town

A lazy Saturday afternoon in town

This is the main street of Goroka town on Saturday. It's so clean compared to the buai pekpek of Port Moresby and certainly puts the flithy capital city of PNG to shame!

Goroka last Saturday with Gouna Building in the background.

Clouds over Goroka, always a beautiful sight

That's our kiap friend BOB CLELAND talking to one of his fans along the streets of Goroka last Saturday as my good mate Tom Soles (with the beard like Osama Bin Laden!), executive officer of the Goroka Show Committee, listens. Bob, for those who came in late, first came to Goroka in 1953 as a 22-year-old kiap, supervised building of the Asaro-Watabung section of the Highlands Highway in 1953, was involved in the very first Goroka Show in 1956, and his Nokondi motif has immortalised him on the Eastern Highlands provincial flag. Trupela man Apo!

A Saturday arvo stroll in Town

Town on a Saturday

After all the 'buai pekpek' of Port Moresby, it was a breath of fresh air to come to Goroka, where the place seems to be so clean. And the beautiful perfumed flowers

What do you notice in this picture, taken in the heart of Goroka town on Saturday? The place is very clean and the flower garden is not full of buai pekpek and litter like Port Moresby!