The good ol' Five-Finger-Discount
Ok, so I’ve never been robbed at knifepoint here in the street but I’ve had at least four items belonging to me stolen since arriving in PNG. The first two items were jumpers – taken from my bag either in the accommodation I stayed in during in-country orientation in hot, humid Madang or in transit between the airports of hot, humid Madang and hot, humid Port Moresby. Either way, both places were hot. And humid. Hardly the kind of places one finds the need for owning winter woollens.
The third item was my favourite shell – collected from a beach in Alotau, Milne Bay, during my Christmas holidays. I had carefully packed all of my seaside finds from that trip as hand-luggage to take back to the Highlands for decorating my hotel room. And, of course, of the 110+ shells that almost all survived, only my favourite seemed to go missing from the kitchen shelf after the cleaning ladies came through one afternoon in the subsequent weeks.
The fourth and latest theft revealed itself in fabulous fashion on Monday afternoon.
A workmate, Andreas, was driving me around town to visit a couple of NGOs – for the purposes of inviting representatives to a community development meeting I had planned for this Thursday. After finishing up at our last stop, I got back in the vehicle and we headed for my hotel. As we rounded the first corner, I noticed the usual throngs of locals sitting on the side of the road chewing buai (betel nut), smoking and talking. And that’s when I saw it.
“Andreas! That’s my hat!!!” Two women were sitting on the corner, deep in conversation. One wore a beanie, the other wore my boldly-marked volunteer program hat. Confused, Andreas kept driving.
A little background information… A friend from Alotau who had shared in the Christmas holiday with me noticed after I had gone that I had left my hat behind. She promised to post it up. Well, that was more than three weeks ago. And though I knew the PNG mail system could be notoriously late, I had decided in the past week the delay was getting ridiculous. Well, the reason for the parcel’s tardiness was quickly disappearing in the car’s wake. I knew it was my hat because it was the limited issue (and not particularly fashionable) fisherman’s hat produced by my program – and emblazoned with that very name on the front. But also, I was the first volunteer on this program ever to visit Mt Hagen, so the chances of some random Highland meri getting a hold of one of my colleagues’ hats – who are all stationed in other provinces – were practically zilch. Back home – mouth agape – I ran into my hotel’s manager (and surrogate Mum) whom I told the story of my hilarious find. With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “Let’s go find her. We need to teach her a lesson.” And so, before I knew it, Andreas, Maggie and I were driving through the streets of Mt Hagen, back to the spot where the two women had been sitting. Unfortunately it had started to rain so when we got there, only the beanie-clad local remained. But, undeterred, my proponent got out, asked a couple of questions in her tok ples (local language) and was back in the car giving us directions and the description of a bus to chase! Apparently the culprit (who just might’ve been an unwitting participant in this whole ordeal) was in a blue bus with white stripes and heading for the village of a tribe known to her. Well, after a 40-minute mobile game of Where’s Wally, we never did find our quarry, but I did get to see a whole new part of Mt Hagen. We hugged the hillside and took the back way around to the airport, taking in derelict tea plantations, makeshift rugby pitches and scores of naked children who all seemed to scream out “Wait Meri!!!” when they caught a glimpse of me in the passenger seat. Oh, and we saw this precariously balanced tray-load of labourers...
who didn’t seem too perturbed about traveling with a huge, unsecured load on some of the worst ‘sealed’ roads of PNG.
As for the hat, well my companions have promised to keep an eye out around town. Meanwhile, all postal instructions given to friends and family back in Australia are now under review…
The third item was my favourite shell – collected from a beach in Alotau, Milne Bay, during my Christmas holidays. I had carefully packed all of my seaside finds from that trip as hand-luggage to take back to the Highlands for decorating my hotel room. And, of course, of the 110+ shells that almost all survived, only my favourite seemed to go missing from the kitchen shelf after the cleaning ladies came through one afternoon in the subsequent weeks.
The fourth and latest theft revealed itself in fabulous fashion on Monday afternoon.
A workmate, Andreas, was driving me around town to visit a couple of NGOs – for the purposes of inviting representatives to a community development meeting I had planned for this Thursday. After finishing up at our last stop, I got back in the vehicle and we headed for my hotel. As we rounded the first corner, I noticed the usual throngs of locals sitting on the side of the road chewing buai (betel nut), smoking and talking. And that’s when I saw it.
“Andreas! That’s my hat!!!” Two women were sitting on the corner, deep in conversation. One wore a beanie, the other wore my boldly-marked volunteer program hat. Confused, Andreas kept driving.
A little background information… A friend from Alotau who had shared in the Christmas holiday with me noticed after I had gone that I had left my hat behind. She promised to post it up. Well, that was more than three weeks ago. And though I knew the PNG mail system could be notoriously late, I had decided in the past week the delay was getting ridiculous. Well, the reason for the parcel’s tardiness was quickly disappearing in the car’s wake. I knew it was my hat because it was the limited issue (and not particularly fashionable) fisherman’s hat produced by my program – and emblazoned with that very name on the front. But also, I was the first volunteer on this program ever to visit Mt Hagen, so the chances of some random Highland meri getting a hold of one of my colleagues’ hats – who are all stationed in other provinces – were practically zilch. Back home – mouth agape – I ran into my hotel’s manager (and surrogate Mum) whom I told the story of my hilarious find. With a twinkle in her eye, she said, “Let’s go find her. We need to teach her a lesson.” And so, before I knew it, Andreas, Maggie and I were driving through the streets of Mt Hagen, back to the spot where the two women had been sitting. Unfortunately it had started to rain so when we got there, only the beanie-clad local remained. But, undeterred, my proponent got out, asked a couple of questions in her tok ples (local language) and was back in the car giving us directions and the description of a bus to chase! Apparently the culprit (who just might’ve been an unwitting participant in this whole ordeal) was in a blue bus with white stripes and heading for the village of a tribe known to her. Well, after a 40-minute mobile game of Where’s Wally, we never did find our quarry, but I did get to see a whole new part of Mt Hagen. We hugged the hillside and took the back way around to the airport, taking in derelict tea plantations, makeshift rugby pitches and scores of naked children who all seemed to scream out “Wait Meri!!!” when they caught a glimpse of me in the passenger seat. Oh, and we saw this precariously balanced tray-load of labourers...
who didn’t seem too perturbed about traveling with a huge, unsecured load on some of the worst ‘sealed’ roads of PNG.
As for the hat, well my companions have promised to keep an eye out around town. Meanwhile, all postal instructions given to friends and family back in Australia are now under review…
posted by Freelancer at
10:55 am
1 Comments:
Well hello there, 2YP! Congrats on completing your mission! Wish your Mum a happy birthday for me. It's been a long time since I've seen her.
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Freelancer, at 9:32 am
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