Florence Jaukae makes the world her stage

Everyone under the perennial-springtime climate of Goroka seems to know Florence Jaukae.

She has time for everyone, her smiles are contagious, and she is heavily involved in community affairs and charity work.

I know, because I spent almost five years working in Goroka for the Coffee Industry Corporation, and often passed her on her way to work at Frameworks Architects.

Such is the popularity of this 34-year-old woman that, in a male-dominated society such as that of the Eastern Highlands, Jaukae is a Ward 4 councillor in the Goroka Rural Local Level Government.

And she is known for her no-nonsense approach during council sessions!

However, it is with the seemingly-ubiquitous bilum, that she is making a name for herself, Goroka, and Papua New Guinea.

Florence Jaukae hit the world stage in Melbourne last March when the Papua New Guinea team wore her products at the Commonwealth Games.

The mean wore bilum ties and the women bilum dresses supplied by her Goroka-based company Jaukae Bilumwear.

It was a proud moment for her, more so, when Ryan Pini won gold for Papua New Guinea in that moment forever etched in time.

Another big break for Jaukae came in September 2006 when the Small Business Development Corporation arranged for her to travel to Hanoi, Vietnam, to attend an APEC seminar on supporting and enhancing capacity for women exporters.

Entrants in the Miss Papua New Guinea quest wore her dresses at crowing night last December.

Now, in a seemingly never-ending story, the Investment Promotion Authority arranged for her to attend an expo in Australia.

Indeed, Jaukae has made the world her stage, from very humble beginnings at her Kama village in Goroka about five years ago.

It was then that she started making and wearing dresses made like bilums.

The fad caught on in Goroka, the rest of Papua New Guinea, and the world is now Jaukae’s stage.

“We’re doing very well,” Jaukae says.

“SBDC has been very supportive and this has enabled us to get a loan from the Rural Development Bank.

“We’re got overseas customers, however, that I will not disclose because of increasing competition from other bilum dress makers.

“All I can say is that we’ve got a lot of interest from people overseas, mainly Australians.”

Jaukae Bilumwear involves about 50 women who spin and weave the wool to make dresses and other items of clothing at Kama.

“I buy the wool, give it to them, and they weave the dresses,” Jaukae says.

“They give the dresses to me and I find the customers.

“It is a labour-intensive industry.

“It can take up to two months to make a dress.

“That’s why the average cost per dress is about K300.

“The reality of it is that I don’t benefit.

“It is the women who make bilum dresses who benefit.

“About two-thirds of income goes to them while one-third comes to me, mainly to cover telephone and other administrative costs.

“We’ve come a long way over the last five to six years.”

Jaukae, however, feels that the women weavers need a lot more government assistance, especially in marketing.

She also feels that women must have readily-available access to credit, training in business, and knowledge of computers in this day and age.

“Every woman can make a bilum,” she says.

“It comes to us naturally as Papua New Guinean women.

“The government must help us find a market because the benefits trickle right down to the unemployed mothers.

“It will also fight against poverty.

“This is a new industry we’ve created in the country.

“We don’t want flattering remarks.

“We want your help.

“Marketing is the problem.

“We are looking at the government to help us find markets outside of the country.”

The future?

“I want to see this become a big industry in the country, because it is an industry for the grassroots,” Jaukae replies.

“The government should also look at creating a national dress for the country, and of course, I’m putting my hand up for bilum wear!”

People who wish to purchase genuine Jaukae bilum products can contact Florence Jaukae on mobile (675) 6868994 or email jaukaebilumwear@hotmail.com.

Flower pot man is a university graduate

Chris Dally is familiar sight outside Gerehu Stop N Shop Supermarket, Rainbow Village, and other parts of Gerehu in Port Moresby.

The tall, dreadlocked Dally, 42, from Busamang village in the south coast of Morobe Province, ekes out a living by selling beautifully-crafted flower pots made from old tyres.

Many a house in Gerehu and Rainbow Village is decorated with trademark Chris Dally flower pots.

He fashions them himself at his Gerehu Stage 5 home and then takes them to Gerehu Stop N Shop, and Rainbow Village, where his biggest clientele is.

Dally averages K300 weekly, which is enough to put food on the table for his young family, pay the bills, and put his two children to school.

He is adamant Papua New Guinea would not have such a huge unemployment problem if people eat humble pie and go into such small business.

He is also proud that he is quietly contributing to the fight against pollution and global warming by discouraging people from throwing away and burning old tyres – something for which Papua New Guineans are notorious.

But, unknown to may people, Dally isn’t just a simple flower pot peddler.

The pithy saying, “never judge a book by the cover”, rings true for him.

Chris Dally is a graduate in Building Technology from the University of Technology in Lae and, before that, completed secondary education at Sogeri National High School.

It is with disbelief that former schoolmates of university and Sogeri, friends, and wantoks pass Dally under the shady neem trees outside Gerehu Stop N Shop.

He worked with a number of firms as a building designer before, literally, being run over by old tyres.

It was quite by accident, about two years ago, that Dally took up making flower pots from old tyres.

“I learned through trial and error,” he recalls.

“I had two old types, which I sold to some men from Pindiu (Morobe province).
“They found some faults with the tyres and came back to me demanding their money back.”

Dally fashioned the two tyres into flower pots and, lo and behold, “my neighbours said that they would buy the flower pots”.

“I saw that I could make good money so I continued.

“I make small pots, large pots, and hanging ones.

“Sales are very good.

“Everything I produce is sold.

“I can make up to K300 a week.

“I pick up old tyres all over the place.

“A lot of old tyres end up being burned.

“I try to stop people from burning tyres.

“At Gerehu Stage 5, where I live, I find a lot of tyres in the main drain which runs into the swamps behind Gerehu.

“I collect the tyres, dry them, mark them with chalk, and cut them out.

“I then make holes in the tyres, wire them up, thoroughly clean them up, and paint them.

“I can make six flower pots from an average-sized tyre, which I sell for K10 each.

“So you are looking at K60 from an old tyre!

“I can make K60 per tyre, and in one week, I can work on five tyres, which add up to K300.”

Dally is a crusader for self-employment and believes that there should be no such thing as unemployment in Papua New Guinea.

“I’ve passed on some of my skills to boys on the street and they are making their own money,” he says.

“There are a lot of ways for unemployed people to make money, rather than resorting to crime.

“I think people are just too lazy.
“A lot of people are also too proud to get into such small activities.

“For example, I have brought in some young boys, but they feel embarrassed standing out on the streets selling flower pots.

“Some of my ex schoolmates (from university and Sogeri) see me and they wonder what I’m doing out there, selling flower pots, but I don’t feel embarrassed.

“The problem with Papua New Guinea is that people don’t want to work hard.

“They just want to sit back and wait for handouts.”

Dally does get the occasional building job; however, he plans to stay on in the flower pot-making business.

“At the beginning of this year, I registered a business name,” he says.

“I’m just waiting for the certificate.”

People who wish to purchase genuine Chris Dally flower pots can contact him on mobile (675) 6952966.

Amelia Earhart jigsaw continues 70 years on

The year 2007 marks the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest unsolved aviation mysteries of all time.

The mystery – that of American aviatrix Amelia Earhart – intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July 1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her around-the-world flight.

The mystery and a long fruitless search –costing many millions of US dollars - had begun.

Today, 70 years after her final takeoff – from Lae in Papua New Guinea’s Morobe Province – the mystery is still to be solved.

World attention was focused on Lae in 1937, and continues to this day, when it was the last port of called for Earhart before she disappeared.

Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them off the next morning.

Their plane was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland Island, 4600 kilometres to the north.

On such occasions Lae-ites, regardless of class or social position, felt they were part of history.

Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park, opposite the famous old Lae airport.

Up the hill from the park, at the Melanesian Hotel, the bar is named Amelia’s after this great woman.

For the last 69 years, hundreds of rumours and theories – some practical but most the products of overfertile imaginations – have kept the memories of Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, alive for millions of Americans.

One of the popular crank theories is that Earhart and Noonan were on a spy flight for the US government and were captured by the Japanese and executed, something that has been vehemently disclaimed by the Japanese to this day.

Some have searched the sea, believing the plane ran out of fuel.

Others think she survived a crash landing but died on a deserted island.

The conspiracy-minded claim Earhart survived and lived out her life under an assumed name as a New Jersey housewife.

There are even bizarre, out-of-this-world urban legends that she was captured by aliens on a UFO.

To US aviation buffs, she is still ‘Amelia’ and they talk about her as though she only went missing yesterday.

The 39-year-old pilot took off from Oakland, California, on June 1, 1937, on what was reported to be her last record flight.

Slim, almost boyish, reminding one of Katherine Hepburn, Amelia Earhart had been setting records for 10 years.

In 1932, she had set a solo record for her Atlantic crossing and earned the nickname of ‘Lady Lindy’, because her slim build and facial features resembled that of Charles Lindbergh.

A year later, she married New York publishing magnate, George Palmer Putnam.

A university graduate, Earhart spoke five languages.

When not flying, she spent most of her time on welfare work in the Boston slums.

Never satisfied with her records, she was always planning something greater.

This was to be IT – the ultimate in long distance flying!

She wanted to be the first woman to fly around the world!

Navigator Fred Noonan, senior navigator of Pan American World Airlines, was considered as good as any in the United States.

He had already crossed the Pacific 18 times, directing the flight of the company’s famed China Clipper.

Their aircraft, a twin-engined Lockheed Electra, fast and sophisticated for its day, was well suited to the task.

They had reached Darwin, Northern Australia, 40 days after leaving Oakland.

Possibly to save weight for the long over-water legs to come, they had then unloaded their parachutes.

From Darwin, it was a short trip over to Lae.

New Guinea was the departing point for the most grueling leg of the flight – near 4600 kilometres over water to Howland Island, the longest ocean crossing ever attempted.

Their destination was a speck of sand and coral in the mid-Pacific 2.5 kilometres long and just under a kilometer wide.

The Lockheed was to be the first aircraft to land on its newly-constructed airstrip.

“Even with a first class navigator on board, it would be an incredible feat to find the island by celestial navigation and dead reckoning alone,” wrote Australian aviator and Earhart researcher Terry Gwynn-Jones in 1977.

“With an error of only one degree in reading, they would miss the island by 72 kilometres.

“Thus it was that the US government stationed the fleet tug Ontario half way along the route and the Coast Guard cutter Itasca at Howland.

“Besides voice communication radios, the Itasca had a radio direction finder and a radio beacon that could be picked up by the aircraft’s Bendix radio compass.

“Once the Lockheed got to within a few hundred kilometers of the island, the Itasca could guide them in.

“Or so it seemed!”

Earhart maintained radio contact with New Guinea, and then later the Itasca and Ontario, until this was lost.

Her last words were: “We are in a line of position 157-337. Will repeat this message on 6210. We are running north and south. We have only a half hour’s fuel and cannot see land.”

The message blasted through loud and clear over the radio of the United States Coast Guard ship Itasca.

The woman’s voice betrayed anxiety.

Quickly, the operator switched to the 6210 kilocycle band and waited for her call.

It never came.

Her silence was shrouded by the crackling of static interference out over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, was missing.

The times they are a-changin’

Bob Dylan’s 1963 classic The Times They Are A-Changin’ well applies to what is happening to Papua New Guinea’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) landscape.

Back in 2005, when mobile phones were still in their infancy, I spoke to Pacific Mobile Communications’ managing director Noel Mobiha about the use of mobile phones and the Internet.

How times have changed since then with the arrival of new kid on the block Digicel, however, we lag behind in Internet with the outdated and exorbitant Tiare Gateway.

“…you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.”

Below are excerpts from the article that I wrote in July 2005 for the 30th anniversary of our Independence:

Many technical innovations have hit Papua New Guinea since Independence 30 years ago.

Record players were replaced by cassette players, which were in turn displaced by CD players.

Radio, once the most-powerful form of communication in pre-Independence and immediate post-Independence Papua New Guinea, was literally killed by video and then television.

How true were the words of that famous 1970s pop song ‘Video killed the radio star’!

The cinema (haus piksa) – once popular all over the country – has become as extinct as a dinosaur.

However, the Internet and digital mobile phones are probably two of the biggest technical innovations that have hit Papua New Guinea since September 16, 1975.

Pacific Mobile Communications (PMC) – 100 per cent owned by Telikom – is the only licensed provider of Internet and digital mobile phone services in the country.

Its two sections are mobile phones and Internet gateway

Internet hit Papua New Guinea big time in the late 1990s while digital mobile phones became a hit in 2003 and wiped out its predecessor, the more-expensive analogue mobile phones.

The number of digital mobile phones has, since 2003, eclipsed standard telephone line users.

PMC buys its Internet telecommunications capacity from Telikom and in turn makes it available to users.

“We connect to the Internet outside PNG and distribute the capacity to the four ISPs (Internet Service Providers) which are Datec, Daltron, DataNets and Global Internet,” explains PMC managing director Noel Mobiha.

“They are our partners in the Internet business.

“They sell the service through dial-up or lease line, on our behalf.

“The Internet growth in the country is limited by the available bandwidth from Telikom.

“However, this picture is going to change in September when more capacitators are provided by Telikom.

“We expect to double the current capacity we have in September.”

Mr Mobiha agrees that Internet growth is limited in Papua New Guinea to mainly those in the urban areas and with a good education.

“The growth (in Internet usage) is linear,” he says.

“The factors that are limiting growth are firstly bandwidth cost is too high, secondly because of costs and affordability of computers, and thirdly because of low literacy levels.

“These are the key factors hindering the growth of Internet in this country.”

To help alleviate these, PMC – as a community service obligation (CSO) - is investing in the universities to build a Papua New Guinea education research network (ERNet).

“That we hope will give us a subscriber base that is more information literate – an information society - for the future of the country,” Mr Mobiha continues.

“Because we believe that if we don’t invest in education and research, our future is dim.

“We are giving a grant of K250, 000 per year to assist develop this network, which will tie all the universities together.

“They will be bound under the agreement to provide support services to national high schools and lower education.

“In other words, they will serve as hosts and schools can dial in under them.

“That’s what we’re doing as a community service obligation (CSO) project.”

PMC launched its GSM900 service in May 2003, under the trade name Bee Mobile.

The digital GSM brought Papua New Guinea on par with the majority of countries in the Pacific region and the rest of the world, who have digital mobile networks.

Before that, few Papua New Guineans had the expensive analogue mobile phones, and the thinking among expatriate consultants was that digital mobile phone usage wouldn’t go pass the 20,000 mark.

How wrong they were, as Papua New Guineans took to the new ‘toys’ with glee, and the number of users is now near the 70,000 mark.

“Initially, there were 3000 subscribers,” Mr Mobiha says.

“The network was designed for a ceiling of 20,000 users: 12,000 in Port Moresby, 4000 in Lae, and the balance around Madang, Goroka and Mount Hagen

“Mobile phone growth was then very slow.

“Consultants thought that usage wouldn’t grow, and that the 20,000 ceiling would be reached by December 2005.

“The 20,000 ceiling was reached in December 2003 – two years ahead of what consultants predicted.

“The network has grown to more than three times what it was designed for, with currently 60,000 to 70,000 subscribers.

“We didn’t do anything to cater for this.”

“We have now reached a stage where we are logging 2700 new customers per month.

“That’s going to change to more people once the network expands.

“It’s going to grow, this (mobile phone) technology.

“What we see now is ‘going forward’.”

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763/72580278.

The Hunt for Amelia Earhart

I was pleasantly surprised to receive an email recently from Douglas Westfall, a book publisher in Southern California, USA, regarding a new book about the hunt for famed American aviatrix Amelia Earhart.

Apparently, Westfall caught my January 2007 piece on the Earhart saga in The National, and saved it until he got in touch with me and sent me an electronic version of the new book (e-book).

The year 2007 also marks the 70th anniversary of one of the greatest unsolved aviation mysteries of all time.

The mystery – that of the disappearance of Earhart and her navigator Fred Noonan – intimately involves Papua New Guinea as Lae was her last port of call before she disappeared somewhere over the vast Pacific Ocean.

Amelia Earhart, darling of American aviation, went missing in July 1937, after leaving Lae for the longest stretch of her around-the-world flight.

The mystery and a long fruitless search – costing many millions of US dollars - had begun.

Today, 70 years after her final takeoff from Lae, the mystery is still to be solved.

Old Lae residents used to recall entertaining the couple in the Hotel Cecil the night before their departure, and then seeing them off the next morning.

Their Lockheed Electra was so overloaded with its eight tonnes of fuel that it was still barely clearing the waves as it disappeared from sight, flying east along the Huon Gulf coast on its way to Howland Island, 4600km to the north.

Today, a plaque to her memory stands at the Amelia Earhart Park, opposite the famous old Lae airport.

Up the hill from the park, at the Melanesian Hotel, the bar is named Amelia’s after this great woman.

The just-released new book co-authored by Westfall and the late Richard K Mater, The Hunt for Amelia Earhart, tells the story of the 16 days following Earhart’s disappearance.

The US Coast Guard with the US Navy and nine ships, 66 aircraft, and some 3,000 men searched over a quarter of a million miles for the Electra and survivors.

The book contains seven first person accounts.

It has a man from most of the ships including a Navy man on the deck of the USS Lexington aircraft carrier (still alive) and an airman (also still alive) from the USS Colorado.

They all give such great detail within their account of the search.

The book has 260 illustrations including 160 photographs over - 100 unpublished - plus the diary of Associated Press reporter onboard ship James Carey.

The book has four hooks.

1) It's a first person account piece, with unpublished diaries, interviews, and memoirs.

There are seven first person accounts in the book, from the young men who were on the Earhart Search, three of whom are alive and the rest have family who can be contacted for interview purposes.

One of these young men was James Carey.

He was a student at the University of Hawaii, who was working at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and was a representative for the Associated Press.

His complete diary, photographs, and letters are included within the book including: a letter to Carey from AP’s Clark Lee, and a letter to Fred Noonan from AP’s Russell Brines.

Other than some web access, none of these materials have been published before.

2) It's a hero piece, what the boys did for Amelia.

“And I have seven of the boys; it's a real flag waver,” Westfall boasts.

Nine ships, 66 aircraft, and 3,000 US Navy and US Coast Guard men searched 260,000 square miles of open sea plus 24 islands within a 600 mile range of Earhart's target: Howland Island.

The book contains the accounts of sailors and flyers who in their early 20s were risking their lives on the Earhart Search.

“Two of these boys are still alive and can be contacted,” Westfall says.

3) It's a new theory piece, different than the two primary theories.

The splash-and-sank theory of Nauticos who have spent some US$3 million on three ventures to search for Earhart's plane at the bottom of the Pacific at 18,000 feet.

The book has the Lockheed man who built the aircraft, who is still alive, and can be contacted in Southern California.

The crash-landing theory of TIGHAR who have spent somewhat less on five trips to search for Earhart on Nikumaroro (Gardner) Island.

The book has the Navy flyer who flew over Gardner on the Earhart Search, who is still alive, and can be contacted in Utah.

4) It's a history piece, the story never told, with unpublished photos, charts, and maps.

A surprise ending where the Japanese officially tell Washington DC that they are out looking for Earhart, but never report back.

Two days after they would have picked her out of the sea, they attacked Beijing, China, on July 7, 1937, the start of the Pacific War.

Four-and-a-half years later on December 8, 1941, one day after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, they bombed Howland Island - some 1900 miles southwest of Hawaii.

There were only a few shacks, four boys, and a three-tube radio on the essentially deserted island at the time.

The Japanese had investigated the island, six months before Earhart was to arrive.

The Hunt for Amelia Earhart. By Douglas Westfall and Richard K Mater. The Paragon Agency Publishers, 2007. 262 pages. ISBN 1-891030-24-8. Email: Paragona@Pacbell.net . Website: http://www.specialbooks.com/.

ICT in Papua New Guinea: Blind leading the blind

The Government still seems to have no clear directions for its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) policy, if this week’s National Budget is any yardstick to go by.

This is despite the Government allocating K20 million specifically towards the ICT policy in the 2008 National Budget.

There is no clear indication yet if the ICT monopoly held by Telikom – particularly in its outdated Tiare Internet Gateway - will be broken.

As an aside, a couple of weeks ago, I sailed to Salamaua on the MV Rita and almost everyone on the boat was using mobile phones at sea to call their loved ones in Lae or around the country.

Competition is good, anyone will tell you, except a handful of narrow-minded Government Ministers and politicians.

And ironically, National Planning and Monitoring Secretary Simon Tosali, at the National Budget lock-up which I attended on Tuesday this week, indicated that mobile phone competition had made a huge contribution to the growth of the Papua New Guinea economy this year and would continue to do so next year.

Digicel’s entry into the local mobile phone industry to compete with Telikom and its subsidiary B-Mobile has sparked a 0.7 per cent boost to the growth of Gross Domestic Product this year.

During the last six months, Digicel has invested about K450 million in the country and generated 300 regular jobs with about 4,000 indirect jobs around the country.

It also generated substantial revenue from its sale of mobile handsets and call credits that went into the local economy.

I have said before, and will say it again, that the ICT monopoly in Papua New Guinea, exorbitant telephone and Internet costs, as well as lack of knowledge about ICT all contribute to the massive digital divide in the country.

Papua New Guinea will continue to remain light years behind the rest of the world if we do not jump on the ICT bandwagon in this globalised world.

The digital divide within the country is an enormous barrier to the ability of the people to participate in and benefit from the digital economy.

Access to Internet, adequate infrastructure, human capacity building and appropriate policies on ICT are central issues in addressing the digital divide.

Success in this globalised world is predicated on ICT knowledge and successful knowledge-based economies will be based on the efficient and widespread use of ICT by all sectors within any given country.

It’s a classic case of “the blind (Government) leading the blind (people of Papua New Guinea)”.

And in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king!

Our leaders in Government should know that the greatest problem the country faces in the area of ICT is the Telikom monopoly through the Tiare Gateway.

A former Papua New Guinea resident now residing in New Zealand highlighted this very point in an email to me this week.

“I was interested to read your views in the online edition of The National,” he said.

“After 17 years in PNG, the online papers are one way to remain in touch with what’s happening there.

“Although you make some good points in that article, there was no mention of the greatest problem PNG faces in this area: the Telikom monopoly through Tiare.

“It’s all very well to have a limited broadband locally but the true benefits are achieved with an international network.

“The tiny ‘pipeline’ linking PNG with the rest of the world means outside communications are too slow and their charging policies restrict most people from utilising them.

“Whilst I am able to implement a VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solution in my home and talk to friends in UK for free, I can’t use it to reach friends in PNG (unless they work for The World Bank).

“A caring government would axe the monopoly, allow the ISPs (Internet Service Providers) to actually compete and enable the people to use the technology.

“Telikom is a government ‘cash cow’ and that’s the reason they don’t want to open everything up.

“They’re billing Internet connections as a toll call whereas, elsewhere in the world, it’s a local call.

“Many people over here (New Zealand) never turn it (Internet) off!”

Telikom – through the Tiare Gateway - is the only licensed provider of Internet services in the country.

The four Internet Service Providers (ISPs) - Datec, Daltron, DataNets and Global Internet – buy their Internet telecommunications capacity from Telikom on wholesale.

The ISPs in turn sell the service through dial-up or lease line at hugely-inflated prices.

The Internet growth in the country is limited by the available bandwidth from Telikom.

University of Technology electrical electronics and telecommunications lecturer Elias Mandawali says people within Telikom are not doing enough research into new technologies in telecommunication systems.

“There is a lot of confusion in the World Wide Web (WWW) applications of Broadband Internet and the telephony Broadband Internet offered by the Public Switch Telephone Network ( PSTN ),” he said.

“The Tiare runs on the old 4 kHz frequency and bit rate at 64kbps, which is too narrow for Broadband, and one will find that the information can be lost or congested.

“We have to educate Papua New Guineas to use the latest WiFi-function telecommunication networks on the World Wide Web.

“This will enable triplay bandwidth … and is the answer to PNG’s ICT policy.”

•For feedback and comments, email malumnalu@yahoo.com or SMS 6849763/72580278.

You know you're a Papua New Guinean when:

*You can have cordial 4 breakfast.

* You have Buai for Lunch.

* You still live with your parents even though you're 30.

*U bring your boyfriend/girlfriend to the house and everyone's concluded that you are married!

* You wear board shorts to cruz in town even though u r not going 4 a swim (KBS 2 the max!).

* You share one cigarette with five other people.

* Your Mother gives your father Black eyes.

* You have about 3 families living in one house.

* Still keep drinking even though you can barely talk and walk.

* At any major function, instead of a plate, your food comes in a plastic container.

* You run into a mountain of Slippers blocking the front door.

* Your staple diet is rice and tin fish or Ox & palm.

* You have a huge gap between your first two toes, (excessive thong wear...).

* Swimming pool is filled with people wearing t-shirts, (Females).

* You can sprint barefoot on sharp stones and rocks.

* You wake up and go straight to work or classes.

* At crossings, u r supposed 2 wait 4 the car to stop b4 crossing, not the other way around.

* Your first and last names are the same. (John John).

* You have a perpetually drunk Uncle who starts fights at every family gathering.

* You call a friend - (squad).

* Every time you greet someone he says "YOU"?.

* You have sat in a 4-seater car with up to 8 other people.

* You can speak with your face - eg. Twitch like a rabbit to ask, Where you going?"

* Your Grandmother thinks Vicks Vapor-Rub is the miracle cure for everything> (including broken bones ....).

* You're getting a hiding and your parents yell at you as to ,"Why you are crying for?" ("you karai lo wanem ah ......").

* You've been shamed and belted up by your Mother in front of schoolmates at the Supermarket.

* You're a Tycoon on your payday by shouting everyone and scab money off people till the next fortnight.

* You invite people over for dinner and your family all of a sudden says the grace.

* You've had an afro at some stage in your life (boys AND girls) and thought you looked cool.

* You're at your Aunties and see your 6 year old cousin doing household chores.

* Your Aunty visits and she's talking to you at the same time as looking in your pots for food...

* You go to your village rich and come back poor.

* You have lap laps for curtains in your house.

Now, stop laughing and send it over to other Papua New Guineans!