Liklik rokroks and a snake

On Saturday I had the type of experience I have been wanting since I got here – hiking through the villages and getting to know more of the locals. We got off to a great start as we drove to the worst settlement in town, where we picked up Aita who used to be the 'house meri' or housemaid working for one of the guys we were with and who is himself well known in the settlements, so we were under both his and her 'protection' and therefore safe. Without those two it would have been a pretty risky thing to do but with them it was safe as houses. Then we drove up a dramatically potholed, bumpy track in the 4-wheel drive to the village where Aita's daughter and grandkids were waiting and we all went trekking through the hills and along (as in actually sploshing through) a river. It was fantastic. This is the stuff I love.... talking to the women, them teaching me words and phrases in Pidgin: 'liklik rokrok' or little frog = tadpoles, and a dragonfly is called an 'elicopter'.

The wee kids came with us swinging their machetes, everyone was laughing, and Aita and her daughter Joyce were taking the micky out of the men. Just a joy!!! Aita and Joyce have invited me and some of the others to go walking with them at the weekends through the villages, which is a great opportunity as we need locals to accompany us. Next week we are going to walk to the interestingly named Nob Nob mountain, which is apparently not that much of a mountain but is a great walk through the rainforest and gives wonderful views back down to the Madang coast – it is a 6 or 7-hour round trip. I am really looking forward to it though I am thinking that next time I should be a bit more careful with my precautions against insect bites as I have a rather strange and vaguely worrying bite on my thigh which is growing ever larger, has turned into a bruise and gone grey. Mmmmm! Apparently there is a good doctor in town called Dr Mackerel (sounds a bit fishy to me!) but if you need to see him you should always try to work around his drinking hours at the Club….;)

Joyce showed off to us her new garden which she had built on a steep hillside, having cut down the trees then burnt the whole area ('slash and burn'), and planted corn, bananas and tomatoes amongst other things. As we walked we came across pineapples, cocoa, rice grown in dry fields, pawpaws, sago trees and just about everything tropical you could think of. It is really rich soil, and the tropical warmth and nightly rain even in the 'dry' season make it agricultural paradise.

Another highlight on Saturday was the arrival from JCU of Sally from our Physiotherapy department who is here for a week; not only because she is a delightful lady and my new next door neighbour, but also because she got my message in time to bring me some duty free to replenish my Baileys stock. Thanks Sally!!!

After a beautiful home cooked dinner by Patricia, a lovely doctor from Manus island and Caroline from Malaysia who work at the Medical Research Institute here, including great tofu, and bananas fried with garlic (it works!) We headed home uneventfully apart from the rather large snake we ran over on the main road. Coming from Townsville though that wasn't much of a novelty!

This week should be interesting as Friday is a public holiday to mark Remembrance Day, and there is usually a large and moving ceremony down at the lighthouse which I will try to get to.

For now, lukim you samtaim!