Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific. Michael Moran

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СКАЧАТЬ experience. The villagers say it ‘makes them feel strong’, ‘makim head good fella’. Certainly it makes people more talkative, but excessive use creates a drugged daze in the chewer. Nuts are often presented to visitors. In the past, if the point of an offered nut faced away from the stranger, it was a secret signal to kill him.

      I was overcome by nausea and an atrocious bitterness during my first attempt at ‘wearing New Guinea lipstick’ as it was popularly known. Gales of laughter accompanied my facial contortions and twitches but much friendliness followed. Captain Cayley-Webster, travelling through New Guinea in the late nineteenth century, referred to betel as ‘a veritable pâté du diable’. Chewing is paramount in social relations in Papua New Guinea, and the cosmetic clash this creates with modern sanitised life has become a symbolic focus of cultural freedom and kastom. Betel is chewed by men and women when working in the gardens, attending feasts and travelling by canoe, when making love and meeting friends. Television advertisements encourage people to stop chewing because of risks of mouth cancer and to present a ‘clean image’, but for most it is a universal refuge begun early in life, a balm to the rigours of existence in these islands.

I would be staying at Masurina¹ Lodge, run by Chris Abel, grandson of the missionary Charles Abel. I had never met him, but I had read a great deal about his unique regional business. In 1973 Alotau was a tiny place consisting of five trade stores and a post office. Chris established the Alotau Tea Shop with the help of Mila Walo (‘Aunty Mila’), one of the outstanding women who emerged from Charles Abel’s Kwato Mission. This tea shop was the forerunner of a large local public company called Masurina that Chris Abel established at Milne Bay, with interests ranging from accommodation to fisheries and construction. The local people of Milne Bay are major shareholders in what has become a symbol of the commercial way forward in modern PNG. I wanted to visit Samarai Island and the Kwato Mission and talk to Chris about his controversial forebear.

      ‘The Lodge’, as it is known locally, is situated high above the harbour and has the flavour of an early South Seas colonial resort with prefabricated units painted with large blue numbers. Reception and what might be termed a drinks veranda have a pleasant colonial atmosphere. A number of fans were ranged along the balustrade to keep the air moving and the mosquitoes at bay. My room overlooked the last thrust of the Owen Stanley Ranges, a line of jagged peaks heading down to the sea. Coconut palms crowned the hill above my writing table and from a garden below, a disembodied, unearthly monody sung by a child floated on the breeze. A dog barked in a distant valley. The weather felt unstable, the peaks shrouded in knotted clouds that were cut by the occasional flicker of lightning followed by sombre thunder.

      A couple of attractive local girls with engaging smiles were looking after reception and talking quietly in the Tavara language. A figure sat at a table drinking beer and reading. He wore olive-green officer’s fatigues as part of his tropical kit, the crown of his Australian Akubra hat covered with a colourful woollen cap from the Highlands. A furled racing umbrella was propped against the arm of the chair. Some artefacts and a slim volume entitled Betel-Chewing Equipment of East New Guinea lay on the bamboo table. Clear, grey eyes and a welcoming face framed by a well-trimmed beard greeted me as he lowered his clip file.

      ‘Come and sit down. Get yourself a beer.’

      It was a relief to relax near regular puffs of air from the fan. Carrying my luggage the short distance to my cabin had sent the sweat streaming down my face. Any movement in this sweltering heat apart from drinking seemed excessive. I bought an ice-cold beer and sat down in a cane armchair.

      ‘Who do you work for?’ he asked directly. The pressing need to speak to a European faintly betrayed itself.

      ‘No one actually. Just wandering the islands.’

      ‘Really? A wanderer is pretty unusual round here. I work for AusAID – Biomedical Engineer checking equipment – at the hospital.’ He would be the first of many aid workers I would meet on my journey.

      ‘So, what’s the state of the hospital equipment in PNG?’ I asked, unsure whether I wanted to hear the answer. Assembling my own travelling medical kit had taken weeks of thought and terror, as the list of possible ghastly diseases and the range of conflicting advice grew.

      ‘Dire, absolutely dire. The hospital in Alotau though is actually quite good with excellent staff.’ There was disappointment in his voice, overlaid with an almost convincing pragmatic realism.

      ‘What sort of problems do they have?’

      ‘Well, the main problem is lack of maintenance. The cultural mentality is so different. They think sterilising only requires the instruments to be washed in Omo.’

      I felt that the constant struggle with cultural ‘otherness’ had made him almost unnaturally phlegmatic. He smiled wryly.

      ‘Is it the same all over the country?’

      ‘The Highlands are worse of course. I saw an ambulance in Mendi drenched in blood. I thought, “God, it’s bloody violent. Even the ambulances are blood-soaked!” Actually, it was betel juice from people spitting on it. Looked just like blood! But spitting on an ambulance?’

      I smiled but my feigned bravado concerning health matters was ebbing away. We sat in silence, the fans whirring and the occasional tortured dog screaming in agony.

      ‘The tribes up there are spearing each other again. They love fighting and drinking. Some died recently after downing a hellish cocktail of coconut juice, methylated spirits and turpentine. It’s reverting to pre-colonial days.’

      An unmistakable tone of angry disillusionment and ruined hopes marked his voice. So many aid workers begin with high ideals that fade in the face of indigenous resistance to change. The benefits of being rushed headlong into a technological paradise from the Stone Age are not immediately obvious to men still profoundly involved with their elemental natures.

      ‘Don’t you ever worry you might be targeted?’

      ‘Sometimes, but I am related to a Napoleonic general!’

      Despite the off-hand smile, an expression of cultivated stoicism hardened in his eyes. An easy man to underestimate.

      ‘Is that so.’ I looked away.

      I must admit to being sceptical of Napoleonic references in this part of the world. I had heard many such claims while travelling through Polynesia in my younger days. Ravings mostly. The South Pacific attracts extraordinary characters often beset by cosmic visions.

      Heavy tropical rain had begun to fall on the iron roof and the storm channels were brimming with water. Night was quickly closing in as the fans hummed lazily. Village girls carried platters of food into the dining room. I rolled down my sleeves – a precaution at dusk in this malarial area. The female Anopheles emerges to strike at close of day. Small, silent and deadly.

      ‘But you’re not French are you?’

      ‘No, English, actually. Born in Surabaya in Java.’

      ‘So who was the French general?’

      ‘General Alexandre Mocquery. He attended the Military School at Fontainebleau. Around 1806, I think it was.’

      He chuckled in the way that those moved by the memory of illustrious relatives often do – a mixture of respect combined with a feeling of comparative inadequacy. The silhouetted coconut palms began to dissolve in sheets of water.

      ‘How СКАЧАТЬ