Gogodala Canoe Festival on again

The popular Gogodala Canoe Festival will be held from April 23-24 in remote Balimo town of Western province.

It will be a celebration of the spectacular canoes, arts and crafts and traditions of the Gogodala people.

The festival was incepted as the Balimo District Agricultural and Cultural Show five years ago and has grown to be bigger and better each year.

Picture caption: One of the spectacular war canoes of the Gogodala people. Picture courtesy of National Cultural Commission.

The Middle Fly district administration, on behalf of the Western province administration, organises the event every year with financial support from the National Cultural Commission and Rimbunan Hijau.

“In Middle Fly district, and particularly in the Gogodala area, canoes are part of the people’s lives,” said NCC senior festival officer David Taim.

“Their culture is associated with the canoe and many depend entirely on canoes for their daily survival.

“Apart from that, the Gogodala are most-prolific artists.

“Many of their creative imagination art works surround animal figures associated with clans.
“And each clan has its own war canoes which are a massive 40 metres or more in length.

“These were the war canoes used in the olden days for warfare between tribes.

Now, the Gogodala Canoe Festival strives for continual maintenance of this important culture.”

Further information on the Gogodala Canoe Festival can be obtained from Mr Taim on telephone (675) 3235120, facsimile 3259119 or email ncc@culturetok.org.pg

Iruupi, like every place you’ve never been

Typical Iruupi village house

Papua New Guinea today remains one of the most culturally-diverse and unexplored nations on the planet.
Scattered inland are many small villages, each group practicing their own native tongue and traditions, eking out a living from the surrounding land.
Travel to the remote village of Iruupi, Western province, and you will have to be prepared to do lots of walking.
To travel to Iruupi, you have to fly in to Daru Island, and then be prepared to make a crossing back to the mainland on a fiberglass dinghy.
Despite the short crossing, with a heavily-laden boat, it can be quite treacherous at times when winds make for heavy seas.
Once across the strait, the dinghy sets a course adjacent to the mainland shore along the beach and an extensive coastal coconut grove comes into view, the subject of a fierce land dispute between Badu-suki tribe and others for centuries.
The dinghy gives the mouth of the Fly River a wide berth, paying respect to its strong currents before again trekking close to the shore, and to the mouth of the Kura River about 30 minutes later.
From here the 5 to 8km journey along the Kura is much slower, low tides necessitating care is exercised in negotiating fallen trees, sand banks, the occasional goanna and keeping an ever-present watch for a disgruntled crocodile.
Finally, it reaches the landing point Lani, the mangroves and palms along the muddy riverbanks giving way to grassland and a few of the ubiquitous gardens that would later become evident.
From Lani is a narrow marsh road to Iruupi village.
A short walk by village standards, some 5-6km, weaves through overgrown grasses, bamboo forests, swamps, marshes, and surprisingly, many eucalypts.
For the people of the village, every tree, every scratch in the dirt and ever tract of water is inextricably linked to some significant story or event.
Traversing a waist-deep small swamp reveals the first sighting of traditional Iruupi houses – bamboo constructions on the outskirts of the village, supported by poles with an under storey platform where inhabitants can gather away from the heat of the day, each distinctively different in those erected in other provinces through Papua New Guinea.
Upstairs are verandahs, bedrooms and a traditional kitchen – the timber strutted floors covered with woven mats to maximise comfort (in Daru, many of the more ‘westernised’ pre-fabricated houses still have a traditional bamboo kitchen erected at the rear).
In the main village, houses are erected around the periphery, enabling the central areas to be used as common meeting, play and performance areas.
Villagers do all the hunting, cooking, washing and other chores, leaving visitors idle to simply enjoy the surroundings.
Villagers tend to their gardens each day, rich with taro, bananas, greens, melons, pineapple and other fruits planted for harvesting in the dry season.
Skilled hunters meant there is a ready supply of deer, wild pig, wallaby and cassowaries.
These will be brought back to the village strung over bamboo poles, while hunting implements are carried in a free hand.
Kupilute is a large lagoon, believed to be sourced by a well of unknown depth in the middle, and linked to creation stories of the Bewani people.
It is believed the well forms the basis of a tunnel that goes all the way to the Australian mainland.
When diving for fish, prawns or lobster in the lagoon, locals skirt the edges, fearful of an encounter with Sapi-dade, a dreaming spirit.
Paying homage to the spirits in the appropriate way ensures there is a plentiful supply of seafood.
Yet another walk to a place called Imbade reveals a broad and pristine river that must be crossed in a dugout canoe or outrigger to reach the village of Masingara, home of warring tribes and family of the Badu-suki tribe of Iruupi village, some 2-3 hours away.
Most nights are filled with exotic and traditional dance in preparation for an upcoming event.
Pointing the torch to the lagoon beyond the washhouse reveals the red eyes of a crocodile, each night keeping watch.
For the people of the village, a simple taro or coconut is treated as a prize, yet readily shared among others, to ensure no one goes without.
Each and every person is proud of and well-schooled in their culture and identity, benefiting from an almost unspoiled existence with limited contact with the white people, in contrast to some of the major centres where the negative effects of colonisation and decolonisation, subsequent to Independence, can be observed.
In leaving the village for the long walk to Lani, through a procession of well-wishers and tearful souls, one can enjoy the breathtaking scenery.
At Lani, it is last goodbyes, the sun poking through and the promise of a return in the future to renew special bonds, as the dinghy heads for the open sea.
Minji, Mamne, Ato!

An exciting new Papua New Guinea Blog

My good friend and writer TIRI KUIMBAKUL now has his own Blog at this address http://tirikuimbakul.blogspot.com/.

Have a look at this Blog to see what books he has on offer as well as what else he is writing about.

A good day to you all.

Malum

Daru on the verge of something good

Canoes in Daru. -Picture by MALUM NALU

Daru is a place that has to be seen to be believed.
Wherever there is a large tidal range, it is usual to find at low tide mud flats, rock pools and a general air of desolation.
True, at Daru, there are mud flats and rock pools.
But desolation is not the word for the waterfront of the capital of Western province.

Every day, outboard motor-powered dinghies and sailing canoes come in from outlying villages.

The passengers are coming to town for a variety of reasons: those from nearby villages may be coming to work – an idyllic way to travel, provided there is a favorable breeze and no rain squalls; others may be bringing their produce to market.
Not that they are likely to do a booming trade – but it gives them a good chance to chinwag with their friends while waiting for a sale.
And then there is the entrepreurial class: fishermen with barramundi catches, prawns, lobsters, sea cucumber, or live dugongs and turtles for cutting up and sale at the water’s edge; farmers with pigs, again for sale on the beach.
Several canoes are anchored semi-permanently on the mudflats, floating homes at high tide.
There are no elaborate cabins on them, just a sail thrown tent fashion over the boom.
More permanent boat homes have sago palm roofs.
No one worries about privacy on the mud flats of Daru.
The town still has that frontier feeling from the colonial days still about, as I found out last week.
It is a place of fishermen, traders, crocodile shooters, conmen, smugglers, and so on.
Australia, specifically the Torres Strait islands, is closer to Daru than Port Moresby and the drug trade proliferates.
Things are pretty slow here and the people seem to be too busy chewing buai, smoking, chatting and drinking away than to cut the tall grass all over town.
That dismal image, however, may change soon with the development of the Daru Port.
Air Niugini is also looking at restoring Dash 8 services to Daru to compete with Airlines PNG.
Indeed, Daru is on the verge of greater things.

A tribute to my wife

At our house in Goroka, 1999

In life, my wife, Hula, often talked about the natural Eden-like beauty of her remote Iruupi village in the Western province, just across the Torres Strait from Australia.
We had talked many times about visiting Iruupi during our 10 years together, however, this was not to be.
My dear wife told me many-a-time of the natural beauty of Iruupi – a virtual Garden of Eden - with its waterways, barramundi, prawns, deer, wild pig, wallaby, cassowaries, taro, bananas, greens, melons, pineapple and other fruits.
She implored me to go and write a feature article of the place and take pictures of its breathtaking scenery.

Sadly, this would never be, as my beloved wife passed away so suddenly and tragically at Daru hospital on Easter Sunday, March 23, so far away from me and our four young children Malum Jr (7), Gedi (6), Moasing (3), and baby Keith (9 months) in Port Moresby.
Hula had been suffering from suspected post-natal complications following the birth of Keith last June.
She visited Iruupi to be with family, however, in the process, fell ill and was admitted to Daru hospital on Easter Saturday, but died the next day, leaving behind a broken-hearted husband and four young children.
Memories of another day came swirling in my mind as I struggled to come to terms with the reality that Hula, who was only 31 years of age, would never grow old with me and watch our four wonderful young children grow up.
My thoughts went back to 1998 in Lae, when I met the most-beautiful woman I had ever seen, and fell head-over-heels in love with her.
Hula, who was then living in Australia with her uncle and auntie, was in Lae for holiday when I first courted her and would not take ‘no’ for an answer.
We started dating, and our love blossomed, to the point that she left for Australia with the promise that she would be back to live with me as my wife.
Towards the end of 1998, I secured a job with the Coffee Industry Corporation in Goroka, and Hula joined me in early 1999.
We had a big three-bedroom house at the Rotary Park in West Goroka, with a big backyard and garden, and life was a dream to a young couple like us.
We’d roll on the grass like children, grow our own vegetables, take long walks along the streets of Goroka, go to market, have long lunches at the Bird of Paradise Hotel followed by a dip in the pool, lie in the park at the airport watching planes land, and catch a PMV or take a long drive to Lae as I pointed out places of interest to Hula.
Yes, indeed, life was a wonderful, carefree dream for us star-crossed lovers.
We were active members of the St John’s Lutheran Church at West Goroka, with Hula being a member of the church choir, and I have so many fond memories of watching her practice and then walking back home with our hands around each other on those cold Goroka nights.
Hula’s radiant personality and friendliness won us so many friends among the people of Goroka.
In early 2000, she became pregnant, and on Saturday, November 4, 2000, I held her at the Goroka Base Hospital and cried after she gave birth to our first son Malum Jr.
We regaled in the joy of becoming parents and enjoyed every minute of Jr growing up at our new home at North Goroka.
Our second son, Gedi, was also born in Goroka on February 13, 2002.
The laid-back lifestyle of Goroka, however, was to end later in 2002 when the CIC underwent a major retrenchment exercise in which about 75% of its staff, including me, was laid off.
We moved to the big smoke of Port Moresby, and although life was good, we never quite got to enjoy the privacy and happiness we once had in Goroka.
Hula, being the good wife that she was, stuck with me through thick and thin.
We were blessed with a third child, a girl named Moasing after my mother, in August 2004 and she brought so much joy to our hearts.
Keith came along last June to complete our hat-trick of boys and complete our basketball team.
At the end of last year, when my three-year contract was up, I decided – after consultation with Hula – to move on to The National where we both believed I could contribute more to the country.
To mark the occasion, we family celebrated by booking a room at the Holiday Inn, where we ate and drank as much as we wanted to.
At the beginning of this year, Hula started complaining of burning sensations in her body, which doctors said was heartburn brought about by child birth.
She was put on medication, however, the sensations continued, by which time Hula insisted that she go home to her village in Iruupi.
I tried to stop her, as she was due for an internal scan and x-ray, however, she would not be moved and flew to Daru, with a relative of hers as babysitter to take care of our children in Port Moresby.
I would never see her alive again.
On Easter Monday, my daughter Moasing and I traveled to Daru with Hula’s coffin, helped to dress her up, I kissed her for the last time, and it was homeward bound on the dinghy hearse for Iruupi.
I held Moasing and cried all the way from Daru Island to Iruupi on the mainland, as all those charming places Hula had told me so many times about, came into view.
We buried her the next morning, next to her beloved father, amidst a throng of mourners.
Before I very reluctantly let her off to Daru, Hula held me, and told me: “Darling, I love you very much.
“ If I do not come back, I want you to take the children to Church every Sunday, and to make sure that they all go to university, because I never went to university.”
I know Hula is in God’s arms, away from all the evil of this earth, and will do everything I can to honour her memory.
Minji, Mamne, Ato!

Death of my beloved wife

It is my sad duty to inform all you readers of this Blog of the untimely death of my beloved wife, Hula Debe Nalu, in Daru on Easter Sunday, March 23, 2008.



Hula had been suffering from suspected post-natal complications following the birth of our fourth child, Keith, last June.



She visited Daru to be with family, however, in the process feel ill and was admitted to Daru hospital on Easter Saturday, but died the next day, leaving behind me and four broken-hearted young children.



She was laid to rest at her Irupi village on Tuesday, March 25.



I was away for a week because of this totally-unexpected tragedy which has befell me, and returned to Port Moresby on Saturday, March 29.



Please think of me and my four young children, as well as our beloved wife and mother, in your prayers.



Hula is pictured above giving a seesaw to our one and only daughter Moasing.



Good Bless You All!

Young men with An ICT vision

Anyone familiar with computers will know the famous stories of the enterprising young men who started Google and Yahoo in the USA.

That, however, is not a far-fetched dream.

What started off as a dream started off by a group of visionary young computer students at the University of Papua New Guinea has now become a thriving business.

Itel (PNG) Microtech is a young new Information and Communications Technology (ICT) company started by young graduates of UPNG, which specialises in removing computer viruses.

It was founded as a student academic group at the UPNG Waigani campus in 2006 by Panu Kasar, a young man of Madang and Morobean parentage, doing IT Services of PC repairs, printing, scanning and computer virus removal.

It was a group which consisted of students of the Electronic Computing Strand. The aim was to start a business of the same name after completing studies.

It was initially started as Itel PNG, IT for information technology and EL for electronics.
So strong was the desire to start business, however, after completing school, all members went their own ways, due to the hardships in life faced outside the campus, leaving only Kasar.

Having determination and courage of starting the business, which he initiated, he pursued the dream, while everyone who knew, were watching to see if he would still continue with the idea or give up.

Giving up would be an insult to him, so against all odds, he struggled all through 2007, putting up notices on public notice boards and doing part-time freelance jobs.

By then, he had saved enough money which enabled him to purchase more equipment.

He also registered the business and opened a bank account within the same year.

He was then ready to provide competition to existing firms and realise his dream of being founder of his very own IT firm.

Upon registration with IPA, the business was registered as Itel (PNG) Microtech in 2007.

Business started at a residential house at Waigani until November 2007, when an office space was sought at Five-Mile.

More equipment was purchased including new computers for the business.

With the new office, the client base increased, which saw contracts obtained from new business partners.

Four new members added extra manpower to the business, giving strength and hope to the new business.

“It took a year to fully experiment and carefully test the IT industry before drawing up marketing strategies,” Kasar says.

“The boys had decided to focus at a more specific area than general IT.

“Using the Itel (PNG) Microtech banner, we initiated The PC Clinic to specialise in Computer Virus Removal and Scanning.

“It is sort of a PC Pest Control Service; it became one of the first to fully specialise in that field of IT, that is, virus removal.

“During our one year of experimenting, we tested all sorts of viruses and made a tally of them.

“From these, we were able to purchase specific software, removal tool and fixes for each viral threat.

“We even went as far as infecting our own computers and stayed up all night to figure the counter active measures through careful study of their behavior patterns and symptoms.

“With each exposure, we have gained invaluable knowledge and experience in this specific field, and it is our dream to become the ‘best’ as the years go by.

“This service is in great demand, due to the increase in PC users in Port Moresby.

“Latest threats identified by The PC Clinic are the destruction of data by a virus known as infostealer aka W32.Gammina.

“This virus hides all data in the flash USB disc, making files inaccessible.

“The files exist but they become hidden for the user to access.

“This has caused frustration to the point that the user formats the USB drive, destroying all the data present.

“The PC Clinic provides solutions to this through data recovery techniques.

“This problem has caused businesses in Port Moresby millions of kina in the second half of 2007.”

“The PC Clinic’s basic services are:

PC virus detection, removal and monitoring;
Anti virus software installation
LAN firewall configuration;
Data recovery from USB and external drives;
PC Boot failure repairs from infections; and
Anti virus software definition updating.

The PC Clinic has established business ties with various government departments as well as business houses.

It monitor their systems on a monthly basis, updating their anti virus software and checking their infection rates.

Apart from The PC Clinic, other services are also provided such as website designing, basic PC repairs, database designing and management.

“Our aim is to further the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ by supporting Ministry,” Kasar reveals.

“We believe in ourselves and want to become role models for upcoming PNG businessmen and women in the technological industry.

“It is our desire to tell Papua New Guineans that all success is a result of hard work and nothing comes free.

“Lazy people have no place in this country!

“ If only Papua New Guineans stop criticising and start doing what they were born to do, this nation would rise up to the competitive global arena.

“It’s not about money but simply doing what you were born to do, excelling in it thus fulfilling the purpose of your life by helping others”.

The PC Clinic Crew can be contacted on telephone 325 8912 or 6890616 or72072701 and email http://us.f529.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=pkasar@mail.com .

Their service is on the spot and available 24 hours a day.

mnalu@thenational.com.pg