The datasphere in PNG is thin and irritable. If I had no Internet access whatsoever, then I could deal: when living in Porgera I wrote letters, actual paper letters — physical correspondence which so many of us have already given up. Of course letters are easy to loose and, let’s face it, completely illegible when I write them. Even my patented Obviously Avoidable Blog Misspellings don’t mar the coherence of my prose as seriously as my own hand. But letter writing, I know.
Always on or always off, that I can handle. But the intermittent, expensive, half-available nature of Internet communication in PNG is a different sort of beast. If I lived here I suppose things would be different, but at the moment I am trying to juggle between a mix of expensive wireless access which requires me to lug my laptop around everywhere and purchase Hotel Espresso in exchange for a seat in the wi-fi zone, and the apparently-on-dialup wang ba wedged into the far end of one corner of Chinese-run shops in the Steamships in town. Suckage. If any readers can recommend a good Internet café (preferably in town) or have an office with a big computer and an enormous information pipe that is like, you know, going totally unused, then feel free to drop me a line.
My new strategy is to write these blog entries at home, after my normal anthropological daily diary, and then try to find a time to post them. When that time will be I’m not sure — I may end up posting them after I arrive back in the states. Or maybe I’ll time my Hotel Espresso runs for moments when I can post batches of entries at a single time. We’ll see. For now — over and out.
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