Technology Blues

Things move pretty slowly here in PNG. Evolution happens faster than most bureaucratic functions, and ‘some time next week’ usually refers an undeterminable period which begins ‘next week’ and has no end. It’s frustrating, but you learn to live with it.

However, as slowly events are occurring, they usually manage to outpace my blogging (on what is arguably the most poorly administered blog in cyberspace). Hence, I spend countless hours writing journal entries – designed to inform and entertain – with intentions of updating fortnightly (by cut’n’paste), only to have the content become redundant because:

1) something actually happens in my life; and/or
2) yet another f*cking technical glitch means I can’t update the site.

I’m hoping to beat the typecast this time by writing a short and uninformative entry that will be updated tomorrow (Tuesday) one way or the other.

Communications technology seems to have almost completely passed PNG by, and the internet is more or less unheard of. There are two internet cafes in town (one of which is horribly slow and the other has some bizarre trait whereby I can type words into ‘Blogger’, but not save/publish them) and one or two people have private internet setups at home. And that’s it. No businesses or government departments are web-enabled, there’s no such thing as online banking, ebay or you-tube, and twice now I’ve had to explain the difference between an email and a fax (giving up on one person who really just didn’t get it). My theory is that, in a country where nothing happens in a hurry, there’s no demand for instantaneous communications… you might as well deliver the news face to face, no action is going to be taken until they’re good and ready anyway.

So I’m afraid that until I work things out, you might have to get used to infrequent and out of date blogs (assuming I can overcome the technical glitches with Blogger).

In a brief synopsis of events since my last entry:

1) My house (in Kerevat) still isn’t finished, but there is now talk of me being moved to Kokopo instead. This is a far better result for me because Kokopo is where the action happens and Kerevat is… in need of improvement (I’m working on it). I have no idea when this move will take place (‘some time next week’), but it will bring with it certain responsibilities, as they want me to sit on the Provincial Planning Board and basically decide on every physical development occurring on the island. Once again those of you who’ve worked with me in development control will be able to see the (extremely) funny side of this;

2) I’ve met a couple of other Australians and we’ve committed to all meeting up some time for a drink. That was about three weeks ago now and still hasn’t happened (‘sometime next week’), hopefully Easter will see some activity;

3) I’m now 30 (thank you for the birthday greetings on the blog and by email). In what turned out to be the Standard Bearer in a list of recent uninteresting birthdays, I did nothing of note to mark the day. In fact, I didn’t even have a beer, though this was more on account of the fact that I woke up the night before with stomach cramps that would have killed a lesser man, and was worried that I’d contracted dysentery. Turned out to be a false alarm – but I still had a sober birthday.

4) The volcano has been playing up somewhat terribly lately. When I first arrived it used to just steam all the time. Now it showers the town in dust from time to time and rumbles loudly enough to be heard here at the lodge (about 15kms). Occasionally it explodes, sounding like a depth charge going off in the distance, and when this happens the windows here rattle and the bed shakes. The locals continue to ignore it with amazing stoicism… I can’t. Everything feels somehow temporary to me – like sooner or later it’ll go up again and then people will finally move away for good. I’ll write more on this in another entry, because I find it fascinating;

5) As I’m typing this (9pm Monday night), estimates of casualties on the Solomon’s tsunami are low, but predicted to rise. I hope it isn’t too bad over there, but the reports I’ve heard so far (on A Current Affair… being physically closer to the action doesn’t mean I get more accurate news sorry) indicate it was a pretty serious wave. The quake was pretty strong here, but not strong enough to cause any damage to property (that I can see). It was my first ever significant earthquake (putting aside the tiny tremor that rattled the windows in Launceston in 2002). It’s a strange sensation, I always expected the room to just ‘shake’ a lot, but it’s more of a twisting sensation (hold on to diagonally opposite corners of a shoe-box and move your hands back and forward alternatively and you might understand what I mean). It was enough to move things around on my bedside table, but not enough to bump them off. Anyway… nothing too serious, and it sounds like there are people a lot worse off from it.

And that will do for this post. Sorry to end on a bit of a downer, it’s just the way things have worked out chronologically this time.

I promise to keep working on the communication situation and sincerely hope to have things sorted soon.

Hope you are well wherever you are,

JRB