Mahal Na Mahal Kita

The end justifies the means.

         As people we are all driven to accomplish things in our lives for our own unique reasons. Whether it’s completing a first marathon, overcoming a fear of heights, or cooking a new meal from a signature cookbook, we always find new ways to challenge ourselves, overcome obstacles, and learn new things. For me I like to do all the above but most of all I like writing. Contrary to the expected motive of my words, I never write anything for the intent of it being read; my reason for writing is for myself.  When the words splash against the foreground, I’m alleviated from a burden of secretes and truth that they hold. When I write, it’s a therapy to myself for a better understanding of what I feel and who I am. So forgive me in advance for what you’re about to read because this is not a conventional happy love story. I’ve kept this one locked away close to my heart and spent the past three weeks debating if the world was ready to read it. The verdict being to share the experiences in my life with people who will most likely never get the opportunity to endure themselves.  I’m putting myself out there on this one like I’ve never done before but for the first time ever since the beginning of my literature quest, this story is not only for me but for a woman who I fell in love with. She gave me the courage to fight my biggest fear and the least I can do is give her a small voice of a life that so many of us might not otherwise listen to and give a chance to understand.

                 Three weeks and ten thousand stories to be told, five thousands adventures had, twenty thousand awkward moments and twice as many smiles shared. After finally getting through immigration three days later on the second attempt, my journey in the Philippines was hardly about to begin. I could tell you the story about how I ate a boiled fetused duck egg and spent that entire night walking the deserted streets of Manila before finally collapsing on the footpath where I spent the rest of the night sleeping in the streets with the other homeless people around me. I could tell you the story of how I met one of the most inspiring people in my life when I invited myself and ten random travellers into his tiny apartment after spying him buying alcohol in a 7-Eleven, that same guy later saved my ass by leaving his job on an instants notice to collect my passport from an embassy that was about to close and hold me and my passport stranded in Philippines for nearly two weeks, which ultimately would have jeopardized my plane tickets and potentially the month long motorcycle trip around Vietnam with my brother. I can’t tell you much about the morning I woke up on a beach in Borocay dressed in clothes that definitely didn’t belong to me because I honestly don’t remember much about that story at all. So whether it was having a lady boy sitting on my lap and wiping tears from his/her face, or sailing through the night on a cargo ship made of bamboo in monsoon seas, none of those stories hold any strength in comparison to the one I’m about to tell you.

                To be honest I wasn’t giving the Philippines a fair chance. Being deported originally and sitting around Manila for four days sulking and in limbo of my next move, my view on the people and the country was in poor regard. I teamed up with two Australian blokes and headed south for Mindoro Island to escape the city. Unfortunately it was out of the oven and into the pan, everything infuriated me. Endless accounts of being ripped off from taxi’s, jeepnys, and tricycles. The constant vendors pushing their inflated boat rides, sunglasses, and special deals in my face was poorly ignored by my already pessimistic view on the country. Everywhere I looked I saw old fat white men with young Filipina girls under an arm or both. Around every other corner I found women prompting me for message with happy ending.  Just when I thought I was clear of the craziness on a secluded patch of beach, the suspicious looking girls would approach and greet me with a voice two times deeper than my own.  I can honestly say I was disgusted to be a white person in their presence. I was so ashamed of the industry that wealthy desperate foreigners had created and corrupted in their country that I was ready to pull the plug on my Philippines experience and run back into a jungle where I would get lost and pretend like this life doesn’t exist. Those were my thoughts of course until I met a girl and my world was once again turned on its head to contradict my morals, beliefs, and judgments I’ve been making since birth. It’s like I spent my entire life up until the day I left Canada preparing myself to travel the world and take on anything it threw at me but the only thing I’m coming to realize after nearly three years south of the boarder is I hardly understand a thing at all. Each and everyday I become even more humbled and tested as I move further from the western stigma and closer to the truth.

                It was the craziest three weeks of my life so I shouldn’t need to go into detail about why I was up at 3:00am doing wheelies and donuts on Mondoro’s most touristy beach with my hired Honda XR200 Motorbike. My new friend Rudi from Holland was along for the ride on his own bike as we commuted all the way from our part of the island in the pouring rain to meet up with a bartender who had previously given me her number. The bartenders name was Azia, a beautiful 25 year old Filipina girl who had a crush on me. I in turn also liked her but she made a mistake that night by bringing her friend along because the moment I saw that new stranger on the back of Azia’s scooter in the early hours of that morning, I lost all interest for anyone else in the world and I was defenseless against the new strangers beauty. I didn’t waste much time making it clear who I was interested in as I greeted her off the bike and onto a picnic bench next to me. Azia didn’t seem to mind and had no problems getting acquainted with my friend Rudi. We spent hours on the beach drinking Tanduay rum and laughing the night away but the morning was creeping up far too quickly and a retreat back to our own side of the island was necessary if we didn’t want to be caught by the resort owners or police who needed only to follow the tracks of carnage to our rental bikes in the sand. The journey home was much dryer and a lot more comfortable with a beautiful woman’s arms wrapped around my chest and her body pressed tight against my own. I could feel her muscles flexing and her body stiffening around every hairpin turn. Anyone who knows bikes knows that to be a good passenger you must surrender oneself to the driver and invest all trust into their movements while working with the corners instead of leaning against them. I reached back with my left hand to comfort her upper thigh and turned my head to ignore the dark wet road ahead and meet her eyes. I whispered for her simply to trust me and kissed her on the cheek before turning my gaze back to the traitorously unfamiliar road ahead. I’m not sure why she listened to the clearly mad man she met only hours before but every time she rode on my bike with me after that kiss, her muscles and limbs melted into my own movements as if we were a single creature riding the impossibly curvy coastal road. We spent the rest of that morning curled up on the beach together watching the sunrise on the perfectly clear turquoise tropical waters. When neither of us could fight off the exhaustion of a long and crazy night, we kissed one last time and I watched her walk away disappearing into the small complicated network of alleys running like veins through Sebang township. I walked home drunk on curiosity while others emerged from their sleep to face another beautiful day. I lay down on my bed and realized I didn’t know her name, age, or phone number but what I did know is she had a grip on me and I had to see her again. While the people around me woke and opened their eyes to a beautiful day, I was closing mine to the memory of far more beautiful face.

               It didn’t take long for her to track me down as she appeared in my doorway the next day with Azia who was there to see my friend Rudi. We spent the next day’s going on adventures to waterfalls, swimming in fresh water pools, and riding my motorbike around to exotic locations only known by the locals. Eventually I found out through broken English her name was Jessica and there were some questions and answers that just seemed to have gotten lost in translation. Maybe it was a bit of selective hearing on my part as well because I had a suspicious feeling growing in my stomach since the moment we met.  I considered some situations but honestly couldn’t bring myself to believe in them while blinded by lust. Spending three months living on river banks in Australia followed by living in the jungle for a month in Papua New Guinea definitely didn’t help sedate the need for a woman’s affection. It wasn’t until the third night when I met with Azia and Rudi for a drink that I quizzed Azia as to why Jessica wasn’t coming to meet us. Azia told me right then and there what my gut feeling and biggest fear had been. The woman who I was falling in love with was a prostitute and had a client. There it is, a confession to a story most people take to their graves with them and that’s the way it almost was for me as well but this story doesn’t end here.

                I had hardly enough composure to say my goodbyes that night before jumping on my motorbike and heading straight back to my room. Three years I’ve been travelling, four years since a relationship, and the girl I’ve been saving myself for turns out to be a prostitute. I’ve hit some serious emotional lows in my life but this was worse than rock bottom. I lay in my bed that night as the loneliest man on the planet. I don’t practice religion but I understand the ones who do because when you find yourself in situations like this, there’s nowhere else to turn for the comfort needed to get you through the night. Fortunately I didn’t have access to internet because I was already trying to book my route back to Canada. I was so far from home and I had nobody, I couldn’t deal with this one alone and I needed an escape route. I packed my bags and laid them against the door to my room and cried myself to sleep with the intent on sneaking away on the first bus out of the town and vanish from her life just as abruptly as I had entered it. The next day came with a bit more clarity and rationality than the night before. I never ended up getting on that bus. I lay in my bed not feeling ashamed for having a relationship with a prostitute but disappointed in myself for being so weak. The truth is I’ve been running my entire life from things that I don’t understand. It very well could be the same reason I’ve spent so long away from home in the first place but I’m tired of being a coward and if I want to inspire people and lead by example I need to be strong, honest, and brave. So for the first time in my life I found the courage to fight against my only fear, the fear of the things we don’t understand.

I couldn’t leave all those questions unanswered so I called her and she agreed to see me one last time before I left the small resort town of Sebang. When she arrived with Azia that night, she waited outside for me hesitant to come in. I came out to confront her and the look in her eyes said it all. She had come to break up with me because she didn’t want me to be with a bad person like her, she felt I deserved somebody better than her. She couldn’t have been more wrong. I understood things that night that changed my life and the way I look at everything differently now. I wrapped her in my arms and just like being on the back of my motorcycle, her body melted into my own, completely disarming her attempt to leave. The words choked inside her throat and the truth revealed itself, she wanted to be there with me just as much as I did with her. We lay in a rooftop hammock of my hotel until the early hours of the morning where she told me her story. Married at 18, two children by 22, husband disappeared at 23, she was only 25 years old. She wasn’t the only person since then to tell me that prostitution is really the only source of income for uneducated women to make a decent living. A normal wage working an uneducated job in the Philippines is hardly enough to support a family if you’re a man but impossible as a single mother. I’m not sure why I’ve spent my entire life believing that that all prostitutes are horrible burdens on society who make selfish choices to follow such a shallow means of employment but I realized in the short amount of time with her that it’s never about the choice but the lack of it. She had no other choice but to sell herself just to keep her two kids in school and out of the hands of child trafficking.  She was the most selfless person I have ever met, she didn’t smoke, drink, or spend any money on substances she didn’t need. She worked an illicit job to spare her children a similar future; she even tried to leave me despite her own feelings and desires to live a normal life. Quoted from a Mafia boss in India who also ran the largest slum charity that ever existed during that time “Sometimes we need to do the wrong things for right reasons.”

As if my emotions weren’t broken as it was, they were definitely in ruins now. I surrendered myself to her in that hammock as she did for me every time she climbed on my motorcycle. I told her I would extend my visa and stay there for as long I could with her. She confessed that if I where to stay any longer it would be too hard to see me go when I finally did leave. I understood that every minute we spent together she wasn’t making money from her clients so effectively I was taking away from her children. It’s healthy to have some complications in a relationship to overcome but I don’t wish upon anybody to be faced with the same decisions I had to make with her. I offered her a lousy four thousand peso to keep her off the streets for at least a week after I was gone but she wouldn’t accept anything from me telling me it would take away from what we had. Instead of accepting anything from me, she lay across my chest and instructed my lips with her finger while teaching me how to say “Mahal Na Mahal Kita” which in her language means I love you very much. Four days ago I was scowling at anything that accepted money for any service but there I was being taught the most romantic words I have ever spoken by the last person I would have ever expected. I offered her everything and in the end the only thing she took was a passport sized photo of me so she would never forget what true love feels like.

I left her that day upon her own request to let me live a life I don’t deserve to live any more than she does. I walked away from her and her family knowing I had the wealth and power to save her and her children’s lives. I’m haunted each and every day with the thought of not using my gift of education and wealth to help the ones less fortunate than ourselves. It’s easy for me to beat myself up but I showed at least one good hearted woman that not all foreigners are interested in exploiting people with their money and power. I reminded her that she was still a person with a heart and soul like everyone else. My only request before delivering my final kiss was that someday when her kids are old and intelligent, she was to find a man who treated her same way I did and to never settle for anything less because she was more than worthy of it. I don’t wish for anybody to go through the same experience but I’m grateful that it happened to me. It broke my heart but built a new respect for people who live lives unparalleled to my own. I’ve learned to be fast to love and slow to judge and always see someone for their strengths rather than their faults. Up until now I would have told you that I had no favourite country and I would probably never return to the same country twice but the Philippines is definitely on my settlement list for places to spend the rest of my life. After that encounter I treated all Filipino differently and they all showed me caring loving innocents that I’ve never seen anywhere else in the world.  The majority of the country lives well beneath the poverty line but they will be the last ones to say it or show it in their faces. Never in my life have I ever met a people with such an undefeated attitude on life. I realize now that I didn’t just fall in love with girl named Jessica but I fell in love with an entire country called The Philippines. 

Mahal Na Mahal Kita.

Joe Goes Pro - Papua New Guinea

Deported

I hope it’s not true what they say about first impressions.

It was a glorious day in the town of Port Moresby. My good friend Sam who I met so many weeks ago on my flight into the country sat next to me in the driver’s seat. We were on our way to the airport for my departure to a new country, a new adventure. The streets were quiet and peaceful as a gentle breeze blew in through my window and out through his. I couldn’t believe the difference I felt between the same drive we did five weeks prior. It felt like a Sunday drive back from my summer home in Canada. I admired the dirty beaten streets and felt a streak of sadness to know I would probably never see these streets again, at least of course, that’s what I thought.

               Security was laid back, they had a fun time examining my flint and Bear Grylls knife while patting me on the back and smiling when I showed them how it worked. The check in line was short and waiting with my massive bag on my back and wasn’t going to be strenuous two hour shuffle in the wrong airline kiosk like I once experienced in Singapore. I dropped my bags on the scale and no problems with the weight. I showed my ticket and passport and everything seemed in check until the attendant asked to see my outbound ticket from Philippians. Ah but I knew this trick. The airline in Australia made me purchase an outrageously expensive last minute flight out of Papua New Guinea with the threat of not being able to enter the country without one. Unsurprisingly an outbound flight from PNG wasn’t required and I passed through customs without the slightest inquiry. I told her I was heading to Vietnam from the Philippians. She asked to view my (travel plan) which in my selective hearing meant rough itinerary and not outbound ticket. I told her I had one but it wasn’t with me. Rule #1 in airports, never lie about anything. My boarding pass and passport were handed back to me and greeted a safe flight. I pre filled my departure card in the lounge and slid through customs with wide smiles and head nods. Something wasn’t right; in fact everything was too right. I’ve never been this incident free in an airport in my life. Maybe the airport curse had lifted and my bad dues had been paid. Was this really the new beginning to smooth sailing?

                My flight was great and so was the service. I sat in the far back right in front of the stewardess kitchen. After spending so much time in the housing settlement designed specifically for the Air Niugini staff in Morseby I felt like part of the staff myself. I sparked up a conversation with a flight attendant who happened to be Sam’s wife’s cousin. She knew and worked with Sam often so she made sure to take extra care to me as my beer or coke never touch bottom before a new one replaced it. I explained my haphazard travel style of no plans and no set destination; I also expressed a small note of concern for not having an outbound ticket from Philippians. She assured me that Phillipeans was even more laid back than PNG and mimicked the same response Sam had told me “You’re a Canadian, Canadian passports are gold” I gave her a big hug and thanked her, she responded with letting me know  the hotel they would be staying at and I promised to stop by for a drink. Ah yes, I haven’t lost my charm, smooth sailing was the only thing on my mind.

                I walked through the arrival halls like I had been there a hundred times boasting the confidence of an experienced traveler. I walked past a group of backpackers my own age frantically filling out customs cards. Pfft armatures, everyone knows to have a black tipped pen with your carry to fill out the inbound passenger declaration card on the plane. I sidestepped past them cutting the line and finding myself at the front of the customs cue. I’m getting good at this. The officer took all my paper work, cards, and passport and seemed pretty satisfied until the dreaded question came along. “Sir can I see your return ticket to Port Moresby” The knot started to tie in my stomach but it wasn’t an impossible question, I still had some moves “No, I’m heading to Vietnam from here, I’m not returning to PNG” Not convinced she asked “Okay, can you show me your departure ticket to Vietnam” the noose was tightening “Yes, I mean no I don’t have it with me” “But you do have one?” here it comes.. “No not yet but il get one as soon as I know how long my visa allows me to stay” “Sir please follow me” I mind as well have just taken the suicide pill right then and there.

               The interrogation room was allot more comfy looking than what the movies portray. The padded benches lined the circumference and a glass wall faced all the other passengers struggling through the diplomacy papers outside. But it doesn’t matter how comfortable something looks when you’ve just been detained in an Asian country, shit was going down and I was the cause of it. I stopped short of the door to let a Russian couple who were on their way out pass. Both were teary eyed and being escorted in the opposite direction of freedom. Shit. I always imagine myself as the clever witty criminal that would die before cracking under torture but I’ve said it before, I would be the worst serial killer in the world. I was a nervous wreck. Instantly the stress liquefied my insides and I was begging for a bathroom. I slid my hands inside my pockets to hide the shakes. It wasn’t that bad, I would just explain to them honestly what my plan was and if they needed to see a ticket I would pull my laptop out right there on the spot to purchase one. Sounds logical right? Unfortunately the handbook to boarder protection and customs is a compilation of illogical solutions to easy problems. Different people kept coming in and asking for my passport and boarding passes while walking off and returning moments later with the sense that they had forgotten the purpose of needing the information in the first place. Nearly forty five minutes of this confusion went on until I saw my large backpack being rolled up next to the glass wall on a trolley.  Things were getting worse by the minute and still not a single person had even explained to me why I was being detained.

                Finally all the random people appeared at once and informed me to hurry because my flight was departing. Fed up with being held in silence with an improper explanation of what the hell was going on I spoke up and enquired to the Customs supervisor about my situation. I was informed that as of 2013 all passengers entering the Philippians require an exit ticket in order to be granted access to the country. In fact it was now international regulation that an exit ticked must be provided for entry for every country. No problem I’ll just buy one now. “No sir, we have changed the rules so that tickets must be purchased before entering the country and we will not allow tickets to be purchased after arrival”. I’m pretty sure that rule was written in bold on the first page of the book to illogical solutions. The five airline representatives waiting for me and listening to the conversation were growing increasingly impatient for me to leave. I was getting pissed off though from these stupid unrealistic rules and demanded to speak with the Canadian consulate, who at that point was the only person with the authority to allow me access. They refused my request urging me to get on the plane. I knew that stepping foot on that plane would cost me nearly $1000 in new visa’s, transportation, and tickets out of PNG again along with sacrificing valuable days of travel to political rubbish. The Custom’s officer informed that they had just rejected two Russians and had already fined my airline fifty thousand pesos for allowing me on the plane without an exit ticket. Unsympathetic to the strangers and multi-billion dollar airline, I didn’t see what that had to do with me. The noose was tight around my neck and the stool had just been kicked from my feet. In my last desperate attempt to wiggle myself out of the rope and salvage the situation I told them I was leaving on a cruise ship to Japan. They wanted to see my ticket. I told them the cruise ship was actually a small sailing boat my friend owns, they weren’t buying it.  I decided I was done for and seized the protest to allow fate to take hold.

                The airline representatives were frantically running and racing us towards the gate while clearing a path for me to run. But I walked like the defiant little bastard that I am. Very few people other than my immediate family have seen me really angry. Last night I showed and told every creature within earshot how I felt. I walked towards my gate letting out the loudest f word my lungs could muster. The airline reps took it as a sign to stop pestering me to run. Fists clenched, I walked past the last temporary barricade kicking it to the ground as my final farewell. I imagined smashing the large glass window to the terminal hall and escaping into the night like they do in the movies. I later had a laughing fit on the plane thinking about how stupid I must have looked and how lucky I was not to get arrested. Ridiculous behavior really however an angry man is not a rational man. Little did I know that a 180 seat plane full of passengers was waiting for me to board. So two hours after the initial flight was supposed to depart, I found myself rolling down the tarmac on my way back to Papua New Guinea after being deported for the first time ever. So much for smooth sailing.

 Lesson not really learned, here I am back in the country I didn’t expect to see so soon. Adventure has just been spaded from the world of travel. If all countries are going to follow the Philippians example on one way ticket holders then my travel style has just suffered a crippling blow. Spontaneous last minute decisions are the birth to unique unplanned experiences. Removing the flexibility to change plans and go with the flow creates a boring restricted itinerary.

It’s time for plan B

A Home Called Manari

It’s the people who have the least to give that offer the most.

My slingshot crafted from and old football

The cool waters contrast to the hot humid air soothes my sunburnt freckled skin. The round soggy stones beneath my feet bring relief to the week old blisters and daily new cuts and scrapes from running around bare foot. The gritty sand works well when rubbed on the shoulders and legs to clean off the daily grime and dead skin; a result of countless hours running through the thick mountain sides yielding slingshots, bow & arrows and, hand crafted spears. I lay back and let the waterfall’s force pour down on my scalp, parting my hair in every direction. The tangle of braids which where a gift from younger single village women rip free in the natural shower that pours from rocks above. I think of the countless hot shampoo and soap showers I’ve taken in my life but somehow this pool and waterfall I visit numerous times a day to bathe doesn’t compare, this is my paradise. The memory linking smell to soap evades me, I’ve so freely forgotten. I remember reading an article in the newspaper months ago, which at that point felt like years, a separate life of someone else. The article was focused on concerns that cell phones occupied all the time not assigned to work, conversations, and activities. Smart phones were replacing time meant for self-reflection. A funny thought to have under that peaceful translucent wall of water now that my days are filled only with self-reflection of the man I’ve become and a comparison of a life I used to live. Self-reflection reminds me of a time nearly three weeks ago where I sat starving and exhausted on the steps to a shelter when a man and his radiating smile walked out from in the rain and changed everything.

I bought this casuary to eat for my family.

                My soul was shattered, the weight of failure hung around my neck like a rusty iron chain. I was turning back on a trail that I’ve failed to conquer. Defeated by the dark valleys and steep peaks my mind was decided that Papua New Guinea sucked and I would never come back here again. That was of course only until fate had kinder plans for me and a man that went by the name of Wopa crossed  my path. I summoned him in from out of the pouring rain to sit next to me and I was presented a bag of chips from his backpack 1/8^th the size of my own. It was the best Christmas gift I have ever received but it wasn’t the chips that convinced me of his kindness. It was the radiating smile that was portrayed despite the fact he was soaking wet and had undoubtedly been trekking the same mountains since the wee hours of morning. I had known him only a few minutes and he offered me a place to stay and live in his village for the following weeks to come. An outrageous offer considering our strangeness to each other and my eagerness to get to Manila and feel sorry for myself. However that smile held so much innocence and kindness that my heart felt warm and for the first time in weeks, comfort replaced anxiety.  Ten minutes after meeting him for the first time, I was trudging back up the same mountains recently descended. Clothed in wet hiking gear, boots laced, and pack laden. Here we go again.

The oldest man in the village

                It was an incredible feeling being part of their tribal migration. We were a group of two dozen people, mostly women and children. Infants were laced onto the backs and chests of the women along with a heavy burden of food and supplies. The men hardly carried a thing and demanded the women up and down steep slopes to deliver them food and water. I was climbing the same mountains I had just spent the past ten hours recovering distance on however an energy existed inside of me that filled my limbs with extraordinary power and confidence. A curious younger boy kept speeding past me on the hills just to turn around when he got above to bare the cheeky smile so familiar to my own at his age. I admired his braveness towards the white man considering the others would group together, give me a stare and mumble words between them that always erupted into giggles. It was a curious few hours that first night as we all walked into the increasing darkness of dusk while no one quite knew what to make of a white man travelling with them to their village deep in jungle. Admittedly even I was a bit nervous. We didn’t understand each others language and had no exposure to the others culture or customs. One thing I’ve learned though in all the years of meeting and living with strange people is that our beliefs and practices might be different but at the end of the day we are still human, the only common denominator we can always rely on. We came across a river and the boys my age motioned through sign language to wash and swim in the river.  The brave younger boy came close and stood on a rock near me bragging with his body language of how good his balance was. A torrential monsoon rain erupted from the sky and I had enough of the awkward silence and discomforts we held against each other. I lunged out snatching the small boy from his cheeky stance and tossed him playfully into the deep river. He surfaced wide eyed and completely shocked; the others shared the same frozen shock until I beat my fist against my chest letting out my best Tarzan chant. We are all humans and they understood the denominator. Bellowing chants echoed my own with their unique identity as we tackled each other into the water playing like boys play into the darkness of night. 

Little Joe dressed and waiting for church

                 I’m a village man now, I eat, drink, and sleep like the brothers and sisters around me. “one talk” meaning “all the same” in my new Papuan language. The moment we entered the village my new father Wopa explained to his village friends and family that he found me along the way and I was now his fourth son. Everything given to him would be extended to me and I would be treated as a family member. Originally I thought it was figuratively spoken so people knew where I would be sleeping and getting my food from but I came to learn that when the Papuan people say you’re family they really mean it. The old women came running shaking hands with us in greeting while the occasional one wrapped their arms around me and planted a big wet kiss on my cheek like my own grandmother had once done. Once they heard I was family the only thing the color of my skin meant was that I looked dirtier when playing in the mud with the children. The acceptance to a stranger was incredible. These people had hardly seen a white person in a magazine in their lives yet they accepted one with open arms into their homes without hesitation. I was at home. 

Robin on my shoulders. My cheeky little brother.

                The people of Papua New Guinea have never been conquered. The Europeans came in the late 1800’s / early 1900’s colonizing the major towns and creating plantations but the land belonged to the people and still does to this day leaving the government with only 10% of the country. When the people asked the Europeans to leave their land, they did so with no war or protest. When the Japanese invaded during WW2 they were cruel to the people. The Americans and Australians helped defeat the Japs and drove them from the country in which the Papuan people are ever so grateful for. So regardless of me being family and a pier to everyone else, the kind gestures and gifts never stopped flowing. There were instances where I sat on the soccer field with 200 other people and someone would always find a chair and drag it over for me. I felt bad refusing the offer every time because it meant they would have to drag it back to where they found it but I refused to accept any extra attention because I was white. My food came every night with a fork and spoon but I discarded them each time eating with my fingers until one day the utensils stopped showing up.

I loved getting my hair braided by the women

As I strolled around the village inspecting the buildings for things to fix, random arms would extend from darkened windows bearing full cut pineapple in which I never refused.  In fact, on average I ate two full pineapples and eight ripe sugar bananas a day. Sugar, flower, and milk might have been in short supply but food certainly was not. I went from starving and dehydrated one day to bloated and incapacitated the next. My body didn’t know what the hell to do. I went from using the bathroom once every four days to four times each day. The bathroom of course was a tiny structure boasting a hole in the floor. The benefit of this was my quads were getting a killer workout and I’ve perfected the art of wiping my bum with leaves. The fuzzy surface actually offers a pleasant sensation, flip it over for a coarser clean…don't forget to check for earwigs first. Sneaking off to have a discrete relief was also impossible. I was still the most interesting thing they have ever seen and eyes would watch me during all minutes of the day. I made the mistake of telling my father Wopa about the consistent defecation so he took the liberty of telling everyone in the village about my irregular metabolism. It resulted in all the young pretty girls to gather together and giggle every time I made my way to the stinky hut. Performance anxiety is bad enough on a porcelain throne but physically strenuous squats above a hole in the ground while cute girls are having a peak through the bamboo slats is even worse.

Patching up the locals

The village has a very modern up to date health clinic with a fully trained doctor on staff however the people wanted me to treat their wounds. It all started when I noticed a bad sore spreading across a little girl’s back. I applied some anti-fungal cream that I always carry in my first aid kit and after a few days of treatment it receded. Rumor got out that I was a doctor so people would visit my hut daily with cuts and bruises for me to bandage. I don’t even know basic First Aid, all I had was alcohol swabs and band aids. I’ll admit to being a bit of a poser but it was a nice feeling to help people and fix their minor wounds. The kids came to see me with picked off scabs or self-inflicted burns and it wasn’t because for attention because no one else was around when they came to me. I later figured out it was because I was giving them a blob of toothpaste on their finger to brush their teeth after each visit. Clever kids. The bad patients like my father Wopa would come to see me with a swollen ankle and ask for medication to fix it. I told him the best thing to do is soak it in the cold river water and sleep with it elevated, clearly not satisfied with my lack of strawberry tasting anti-inflammatory’s, he went to see the real doctor where he came back looking like a mummy with wraps and compression bandages covering almost every joint in his body. My grandmother used a cane that never touched the ground, I know when a hypochondriac walks my way.

Struggling down the mountain with the billong

The village people come from a patrimonial society (contrary to the matrimonial society) the men live the easy life lazing around during the day while the women do all the chores from cutting the grass with machetes, cutting wood, washing dishes and clothes, to climbing the mountains and carrying a ludicrous amount of food back to the village. At first I was insulted to see how lazy the men are and how hard to women have it but the longer I lived with them the more I saw how much the women pride themselves on the responsibilities they have. In this culture the women are the work horses and strong they are. My guilt became too much to handle one morning so I decided I would help mama bring the pineapple, sweet potato. and corn back to the village. What a mistake that was. I met mama near the top of the mountain as she popped over the ridge and came racing towards me. I insisted that I would carry the billong full of food down the mountain so she could rest. She effortlessly pulled the straps off her forehead and handed me the bag. The unexpected weight literally crippled me to the forest floor; my mama was so strong she made the billong look like a bag of feathers. She kept trying to take it back but I was determined to carry it. The billong had to be at least 50kg full of pineapple, watermelon and potatoes heavier than rock. I tried carrying it on my head in the traditional way but I physically couldn’t support the weight and my neck nearly snapped. I had to sling it over my shoulder and cradle the bottom of the bag in my arms. A task hard enough done on flat ground unfortunately though we live in the mountains. I fell and slid the majority of my way down, cramming dirt and rocks up my shorts and underwear. Word had gotten out that I was coming down the mountain with the billong and to my surprise when I emerged out of the thicket and into the village, a soccer tournament had been paused and nearly 300 people cheered and applauded as I walked the final 50 meters to my hut. I decided then that it was less humiliating eating the food than it was carrying it down mountains.

Mama and me returning from the gardens

New Year’s came up as a surprise. Time in the village was about as important as Justin Beiber's new girlfriend. There were no Facebook notifications or selection of parties and bars to attend. I usually make it a goal to kiss a girl on New Year’s eve as an excuse to a lousy superstition foreshadowing a successful year to come with the ladies. Of course I had my eye on a beautiful village girl since the day I arrived but asking for a kiss was my culture not theirs. It was a time to learn, not corrupt. Instead I gathered with my little gang of kids and teenagers to burn steel wool. We held our bunches of steel wool under the lighter and who’s ever went off first would spin around and jumped furiously in the air while screaming like it was them that was on fire. The dance created a spectacle of sparks and lights that zigzagged and swirled through the darkness. Amazing, I didn’t even know steel wool burnt as it turned out to be more entertaining than any firework display I have ever watched. For the last night of an incredible year, I spent it burning kitchen appliances. So for the first New Years in seven years I was in bed by 8pm, sober, still single, and happy. Maybe kissing a girl on new year’s was a curse as my history has been nothing to brag about. Maybe my luck was about to change….

Just a daily portion of greens.

For those who don’t know, I’m a hopeless romantic. While travelling people fall so far out of their comfort zones that everything and everyone becomes an exotic. I’ve met and have been one of those hostel grievers holding back tears for that girl we met only once but this girl was different. Her name was Matilda. The girl I fell for the moment I set eyes on her. She had perfect creamy black skin. Her cheek bones resided high holding the smile she bore so well high on its throne. Fantasies of kissing her luscious big lips filled my mind every time we stole shy looks at each other. I watched her hips move freely from side to side as she walked along barefoot. I would marvel at her strength every return trip from the garden laden with a heavy load. I was shocked at the effect she had on me, seeing her strength carrying the heavy billongs was incredibly attractive. The thought of being with a woman who could protect herself and didn’t need constant maintenance was a comforting one. The village men half joked about destroying my passport and hiding me in the village where I would get married and stay. At one point I was offered a piece of land and the offer to stay the rest of my life in the village. Believe me the thought crossed my mind many times to marry Matilda, build a big house out of bamboo, and become a true village man. Matilda eventually asked me to marry her. A hard request to turn down even after only knowing her for two weeks and never physically touching her but unfortunately I’m still searching for something I might never find. Sometimes we’re looking for things that are right before us but unable to see. Sometimes we don’t know what’s passing us by until it’s already gone. The hardest part about a decision isn’t the choice made but the consequences that follow; hope is the only comfort present in deciding whether you made the right one. I hope I have.

A bit out of my area of expertise but I did fix it eventually.

So life went on in my community. I made daily trips to visit friends and fix whatever they had that was broken. Sewing machines, solar panels, water filters, and rotten steps. They presented it and I fixed it (or tried to). I spent a full day fixing and giving a maintenance to the chainsaw that was being used to build a church and school. Milling had stopped once it broke so I was extra pleased when I fixed it up and showed the men different, safer ways to use the saw. I found a teenager building a bench one afternoon so I chose him to accompany me as my apprentice whenever I fixed or built anything. I wanted my skills to last long after I left the village. I think the greatest accomplishment was showing my apprentice how to carve a baseball bat out of wood which I then taught the kids in the village how to play baseball with it. I spent many hours strolling around with the pastor of the church. I told him all about Canada and the religion I grew up with. He showed me the dire state of the church and its need for maintenance. I promised him that I would write some letters and send them to some people who I thought might be able to fund some improvements. I also saw the school teacher and talked about ways to fund toothbrushes for the children considering their enthusiasm for toothpaste. These people were giving me an experience so unique to anything else I have ever had in my life. Writing a few emails seemed hardly enough to repay the debt. However the community also benefited from my presence. I made history in those three weeks as the first white man to have spent anymore than a couple of days in the village. They considered it good luck to have Christmas and New Year’s with a white man. I really blended well, learning the language, and contributing to the community so it was no surprise when there were a few hard swallows and teary eyes when it came time to start the journey back into Port Moresby.

Return journey halted by flash flooding.

I’ve been to some pretty exotic places, seen some pretty awesome things, and done some pretty crazy shit but my three weeks in Manari Village will be an experience I will hold close to my heart and reflect on for the rest of my life. I was shown light in my darkest hours, I was offered warmth on the frosty mountains, I was shown the road when I found myself lost. I now have a family on the other side of the world that will always greet me with open arms and embrace me with warm smiles. I’ve discovered that it’s the people who have the least to give that offer the most. I found the truth of PNG and that truth lies in the hearts of the Manari people living deep within the jungle. It could kill you trying to find that truth like it almost did to me but it will certainly save your life once you do find it. 

A final farewell

Farewell Papua New Guinea, 

Naroma, Badiagua, Goodbye.

Trying to be a village woman.

Cute but caged

Joanna my first medial patient

Eating some delicious sugar cane.