Anamonapa, PNG

Tuesday, April 1, 08
Everyone is up before day break. Pauline and Samia have horrid coughs which will keep Pauline home from school. Roosters are sending their message of the new day. Sam is starting a fire in the house center. To shower or not to shower - quite cool. Maybe, simply more deodorant.
The family is pulling out all the stops. Breakfast is coffee, boiled kau kau (sweet potato), and a fried carrot, egg, noodle, green onion mix and bread. Before placing the pot on the open fire, Sam smears it with wet ashes to keep the outside from becoming dented from continual use. Pauline and Samia play a stone game - somewhat like jacks.
Silion (13) presents Sam with papers indicating he needs to pay 20 kina for his education. I reach into my pocket and pass it to him. Thank you is expressed. Cooked kau kau are wrapped in plastic for lunches.
Eric (Sam's nephew, age 21), Aru (bodyguard) and Babu (word meaning grandfather) will accompany me on a walk. Lynette and Silion hustle off to school. Oldest daughter, Doreen, has returned from school and will remain in the village. School isn't for everyone. Sitting over breakfast, a man describes how he, last night, shot (with an arrow) a flying fox which had stopped to eat in his guava tree. He says it squealed like a dog and woke the family.
Off the four of us go, all but I have a bush knife. Aru has a bow and arrows. This 2 1/2 hour walk will take us to a vista where Yonki Lake can be viewed. Through grassland, forest and bamboo we walk as Birds of Paradise float overhead - they fly more rapidly than I imagined. We pass women working together in gardens and couples cutting grass to repair a roof. Bubu and Aru share home grown tobacco and later betel nuts. Stories of fights with neighboring clans come out of Bubu recalling his youth - which could easily start anytime. These fights can last for a week as they jockey into position, 1/8 mile between them on the grassy hillsides, where they shoot arrows at each other. Some arrows are for close range, others for distance. Bubu's son is working in his garden at the furthest point of our walk. He walks to the edge of the small flat hilltop and calls loudly. Far away the call is returned. the soil is so slick, we all slip at times on the steep slopes. Aru always has his bow and arrows at the ready, his bush knife slung down his back and around his head. As a king fisher flies past he hurries a shot. No king fisher soup tonight, plus a lost arrow.
My shoes were traded in for too small boots. By the time I'm back at the village, I'm glad to rejoin my own sized shoes. With a short rest, bananas and water, Brian (Sam's 18 yr old son), returned from classes, Eric, Bubu and I take a walk around the village.
Lunch follows and we the younger generation and I walk back to the SIL compound.
My guesthouse stay tonight will feel a bit tame.
Anamonapa and walk pictures: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/musungi/AnamonapaPNG