Diary of a week in Kiriwina January 2004

Tuesday 13th January 2004

We got to the airport an hour before the scheduled time for our flight to Losuia and had a two hour wait for the plane. Going at this time worked out well because the two young men staying in the other unit at Goiloni(Med students from Melbourne Uni who had been doing a practice stint at Alotau Hospital) were going to Kiriwina on the same flight and staying at the same lodge. We were picked up by Rod Clark who I'd met last time I was in Alotau. He's married to Serah who's from Kiriwina and is on the board of the Tourism Bureau. We were taken to Butia Lodge which is not far from from the airport. Lunch was fresh mudcrabs & salad, very nice!

The lodge is built on an old US airbase from WWII and consists of a large open building with bar, kitchen, dining room & 1 guestroom and three separate one bedroom units with ensuite built with a base of Western materials covered with traditional building materials. Four more units are nearly ready for occupancy. There were six of us staying there, we two, the two med students & two employees of the works department from Alotau who were there to report on the state of the roads (bad!)

Rod picked us up after lunch and took us for a bit of a tour around the island. We visited one beach with lots of boats and saw in the distance sailing canoes on their way to the beach. They had come from Kitava which is an island several kilometres from Kiriwina. Everywhere we drove around the island children would come running and calling out 'dim dim, dim dim' and carvers would dash out and hold up a bowl or a walking stick.

Wednesday 14th January

Rod & Serah were busy today so they sent their driver & a guide to take us around. Our first port of call was the Paramount Chief's village. The Trobriands are the only place in Milne Bay with hereditary chiefs and there is a hierarchy of chiefs with the Paramount Chief being the most important. I don't fully understand the situation but Serah is from one of the other important clans. The next in line for chief is the chief's oldest sister's oldest son.

We spoke to the chief through one of his son's who spoke very good English. He'd been to school in Brisbane and was back living in the village, his brother is a member of Parliament representing the Goodenough Kiriwina electorate. He commented that he missed coca cola! (It is readily available on the other side of the island and I'm sure throughout PNG) While we were there the chief sat on a chair, his son on a low stool & we were sitting on a mat and the rest of the village was sitting on the ground. It was a little awkward not knowing what the protocol was for talking to the chief. Several villagers brought out walking sticks but we didn't really look at them.

From there we went to Kiabola, a beach on the North coast. Mike & I went for a walk down the beach & back then had a bit of a swim. By the time we got back to the car a mat had been laid out with various things for sale. There were a lot of shells, a couple of limepots (gourds with black design), some armbands made from woven vine and some wood carvings; a drum with a lizard skin diaphram & studded with mother of pearl, a crocodile & a fish. The Trobriand Islanders are very well known for their craftwork, particularily wood carvings. Each village has a speciallity, one is known for it's bowls, another for it's stonefish, another for walking sticks and another for very sturdy tables & stools. Many of the carvings are made from ebony which they now have to import (exchange) from Woodlark Island, there are very few trees left on Kiriwina.

On the way back from Kiabola we visited Serah's brother's house to see his yam house and a cave with fresh water reputed to be great for swimming in. There were so many mosquitoes aound that only the bravest two actually went down to look at the water. We also stopped to look at some women making doba (woman's money). They have a carved board and a small piece of metal and scrape banana leaf to make a pattern. they then soak the leaf in water for a day or two then dry them in the sun. Once dry they are bundled up and can be used to exchange for betel nut, kerosene, food etc. in the village.

Thursday 15th

Today we took a picnic lunch to a beach on the west coast of the island towards the south. Serah & Rod had originally thought to build the lodge here but it is too far from where they have thier main business, one of the two trade stores on the island. It was a lovely spot with a nice beach. We swam and ate and swam, spent hours in the warm water. On the way back we called into a bowlmaking village but everyone was off at a soccer match so we agreed to return the next day.

Friday 16th

Thiery picked us up in the morning and we went back to the village. We were soon surrounded by people with things to sell, some only half finished. We were shown how they polish the carvings with a pigs tusk and were offered a new carving tool to buy. Other things which were offered for sale here were walking sticks, fish, neckpieces, some carved painted boards(as used in some of the dances) and even a Soulava. Soulavas are one of the two things exchanged in the Kula and is a long string of red shells with lots of beading and other big shells attached. Muali are the other part of the exchange ring and they are are armbands made from large trochus shells. When I told Rod about the soulava being for sale he was surprised and said that if it was part of the kula it wouldn't be his to sell. We came away from that village with two walking sticks, Tom bought a slim one with a simple design and we bought a larger, more intricate one decorated with mother of pearl. We also bought two bowls which Thiery had bought with him in the car.

After lunch we went into the town and visited the medical centre. It was very under-resourced, no fully trained doctors, only 2-3 medical officers and several nurses for a population of 37,000. They didn't have power and the gas fridge used for storing vaccines wasn't working. Tom & Matt commented that the Alotau hospital could have managed with a few less doctors but I guess it's the same everywhere - hard to get doctors & other professionals to leave major centres for the more remote regions.

That night we were treated to a special dinner of prawns, crayfish, mudcrabs, salads & traditional fare. We were then entertained by a dance troupe. The young women were topless & wore grass skirts which were about the same length as some of the mini skirts around Melbourne at the moment and the males wore red loincloths and banana codpieces. They started by dancing separately to the music of a string band and a girl singer with a beautiful voice. Then the men & women danced together before they got us up to try. We had a great night, dancing the night away til about 1am.

Saturday 17th

In the grounds of the lodge there was a small village for the staff including a large open covered area. One day some of Serah's relatives were there making some doba. I watched for a while then asked if I could try it out. I did nearly as good a job as a couple of little girls who would have been four or five years old.

We had planned to stay until Tuesday but given the fact that the Saturday plane was delayed I didn't want to take the chance that Tuesdays plane might not come. I was anxious to get moving on the project because I could see the time slipping away. We changed our flight to Sunday and flew back to Alotau.

Kitavan sailors preparing bananas for a feast