First week in Port Moresby

I am coming up on my first full week in Port Moresby — the weather is (relatively) cold and (relatively) wet. I’m staying with a host family in Port Moresby who are welcoming, accommodating, and fun to be around. (I’ve been typing the word ‘accommodate’ repeatedly the last couple of days for some reason and it drives me nuts — two Cs and two Ms: Why?!?) The neighborhood where I’m staying is a perfect example of Papua New Guinea’s slow but steady growth towards stability and safety. It used to have quite a reputation (it still does to many. When I tell some of the executives that I study that I am living there they are gobsmacked.) but my little corner of it has quite a community feel — the tradestore at the corner is run by a woman from near Porgera, where I used to live, and last night I sat on the corner chewing buai and watching the local kids play footie in the street. Sorry — footie is ‘rugby’, I’ve reverted back to PNG/Oz English now that I am here. PNG seems to be righting itself — the totally random and supremely horrific violence (and sexual violence) that once scandalized the country in the late-90s seems to be a thing of the past, or at least much more rare. The managing director of one firm told me he saw white women jogging in the late afternoon as the sun went down — something unimaginable when I first arrived in 1998.

Having given social democracy and third-wayism a run for the first couple of decades of independence, PNG seems increasingly to be going in the other direction: privatization, business, and commerce are all the rage here. Mobile phone companies transform people’s lives. The 7,000 workers the upcoming LNG project is supposed to bring to the country is on everyone’s lips. Real estate prices are skyrocketing as freehold land becomes increasingly scarce. Cars clog the road and Moresby now has rush hours — a glut of white Toyota four doors running through the two blocks of Champion Parade Ground that constitute downtown Port Moresby. Neoliberalism is bringing benefits to people — at least in the short run. I’m concerned about the potential long-term effects of the near-abandonment of any confidence or hope in the government and civil service, but for now the obvious improvements to PNG are hard to ignore even if lefties like me worry about what may come later.

Bandwidth is unbelievably dear in Papua New Guinea. Moving packets over the Internet costs money, wireless is scarce and expensive, and cellphones need to be topped up constantly. After years of living in rural Papua New Guinea I can tell I am going to have to take a good hard look at how best to avoid hemorrhaging money turning kina into bits. Transport is also an issue — I am notoriously reluctant to drive in the states, and here in PNG with the backwards roads, reversed car controls, crazy traffic pattern, and the still-lurking issue of random events getting out of control, I just don’t feel comfortable trying to drive around myself. Luckily I have a wantok who drives a cab and my host family commute into work in a way that I can hop on to, but the fact remains that I have chosen a fieldwork topic that requires constant telephoning, emailing, and driving around when email, telephone, and driving are some of the biggest obstacles to me. Oh for an office with Internet and photocopying and a landline.

So all is good over here and I’ll try to post more as I have more to post and I figure out how best to access the Intarweb.