The Travels of the Techno-Freedom-Fighter

its a long way to the top if you want to bump and roll

Goroka, Eastern Highlands Provence, Papua New Guinea -

Helen was back at the hotel by 6:30am we dropped our bags off to her and handed over our tickets, she was going to the airport to get our boarding passes for us, apparently this time of year is very busy at the airport because everybody wants to go home for the holidays. Helen was an aeronautical engineer who use to work for the airlines before she was doing the ABV thing, so she could use the old wantok connections.

Chun and I went to the restaurant and had breakfast which consisted of a double stack of French toast with maple syrup and bacon (my idea was that I may not get another good breakfast in for a while so I may as well treat myself). The bacon was particularly fantastic because you could taste that it was organically grown and double smoked. After we had had breakfast we jumped in the bus that the Hotel provided for us and headed back to the airport. Once in to the foyer of the airport it was crowded with hundreds of people lining up and trying to get through security. Helen found us quickly (as mentioned before were not hard to spot) she handed us our boarding passes, showed us where to go through security and then departed. We of course were ushered to the front of the security line and pass through security without a single incident. I know that it’s not very fair or politically correct however when you are a white Caucasian male you tend to get first-class service wherever you go in developing countries. I try not to misuse this (white fella Magic) however at the airport you really do want to get to your departure gates quickly as possible and with as little fuss. Once we got to the departure gate we found ourselves a good position to sit down in setting ourselves up with Chun faced one way watching my back and I faced the other way watching his back and our carryon bags in the middle. As we were not really sure about the situation it seemed to be a good idea to adopt a fortress mentality throughout the whole journey. Also we had been told by many people s well as Helen that we were going to a very dangerous part of the country and that we should be cautious at all times. As we waited for the airplane we decided to play our favourite game, who is who in the zoo. This a game that I perfected when I was much younger and what you to is by observing the people around you, work out who the person is that what they are going to do when they get to their destination. So you try to observe will cloths that the person is wearing whether they have a wedding ring what kind of expression is on the face. Then if you are sitting next to the person during the flight you get a chance to interrogate them and find out how correct your where.

The time in which flight PX160 to Goroka was meant to depart came and went without a fight being mentioned once on the departure screens and did not show up schedules. So I was a little stressed. We where at the right place and the right time so it was just a waiting game to find out what happened to the flight. After twenty minutes of waiting I went and interrogated the flight staff as to what happened to the flight. Apparently the flight had been rescheduled because of the necessity for the plane to be used at the trip. Finally after being almost two hours late hour plane was ready to depart. It was a small pocket rocket otherwise known as a Fokker 28 – 4000. Knowing that the Fokker aircraft company had been sold in the nineties on youth of the aircraft was going to be at least fifteen years old, and it was even older than that. We boarded the plane due to a misunderstanding with a stewardess we had to climb over the top of the poor man twice to try and get into our assigned chairs. The fight lasted fifty five minutes and it was one of the most breathtaking scenery that I have ever viewed outside the small porthole of an aircraft. There was just kilometres and kilometres of untouched jungle, with these breathtaking large mountains that seem to rise up almost forever.

Once we got to Goroka we disembarked and waited for our luggage. There was a reinforced to 2m high fence with about a hundred or so locals standing behind it at the front of the airport. The sight of which intimidated Chun a little, I was not trying to concentrate to many steps ahead. Once we had gathered our bags we decided to tackle the jungle of people that were waiting just outside the airport. Just before we were going to attempt this miraculous feat Stephen from the CIC showed up on our side of the airport and greeted us. This was a relief as the first thing that you would do is just get out of there.

One of the things that is some great about travelling with the Australian business volunteers or any other such program is that they look after pretty much everything for you. There is always someone there to meet you at the airport, your flights are looked after, your insurance is done. Having spent a considerable amount of time having done substantial independent travel in developing countries I really do appreciate when things are all sorted. Properly the best example was when I spend five weeks travelling through Central America with my sister trying to negotiate with every street vendor and bus driver in Spanish, a language which I had just learned, in order to try and get to the right location. Having worked with most of the volunteer organisations in Australia and overseas I really do think that the Australian business volunteers have pretty much got everything sorted.

it was a long day but it was worth it.

Goroka, Eastern Highlands Provence, Papua New Guinea – December 2006
Once we had left the airport we drove to the CIC headquarters in Goroka, this was a short trip through the middle of town and out along the airport road. This gave us an opportunity to look at the town and to get a little bit of an understanding and find our bearings. The CIC headquarters building was built almost thirty years ago and it is a really nice to sign. The architecture of the building is a former fusion between Western utilitarian architecture and local cultural design. Once there we were ushered into the boardroom where there were a number of people waiting for us. It was quite an awkward situation because the CIC staff had brought the schedules and work plans with them. I took the lead by chatting to everybody having a quick five-minute discussion about why we were here and explaining that we might want to get the rest of the stakeholders in the room before we discussed what kind of work we were going to do. Once we had decided that we should reconvene with all the stakeholders we asked to be shown to accommodation.

Once we had spent an hour or so in our house just getting our stuff spread out and chilling out for a moment we went back to the CIC headquarters and started our second meeting for the afternoon. After everybody had gathered into the boardroom again and set down an uncomfortable silence soon came over the room. Even though there were more senior people within the room I decided to take the initiative once again and introduce myself and Chun formally and explain what our backgrounds were. I also explained that we were from a small country town called Queanbeyan and that it was also up in the mountains. I was trying to draw as much similarities between where we came from and Goroka so that the CIC staff would think that we were comfortable in our environment.

I then got everyone at the board table to go around and introduce themselves and explain a little bit about what they did and what they like to do at weekends. Having facilitated many focus groups in different cross-cultural environment is this is generally a really good idea because everybody likes to feel that they are part of the group. The interesting thing about this particular meeting was that there were the entire spectrum of hierarchy of the CIC within the boardroom everyone from an administration clerk to the general manager and CEO.

I was quite surprised at how organised the CIC was in their requirements. Both the accounts department and the economics department have both put together a list of requirements or specifications to what their information system should be. Within this meeting I was able to address all of their concerns and explain roughly how about we were going to get their system together drawing on as many metaphors is possible to explain the situation. Because most of the requirements were specified by the accounts department we decided to start there. It was important that we get to work straight away so that we show the CIC that we were here to get a lot of work done.

We spend about three hours in the back of the building getting some of the information technology infrastructure together. Once it had about four o’clock we decided to call it a day and head home. Unfortunately we had not really eaten since breakfast so by the time we got back home we were starving we made a quick run to the local store. We had something small to eat and felt much better. I have a very slow metabolism and don’t really get swayed by how much I eat or when. However Chun with his fast metabolism was pretty wrecked by four o’clock. So hungry and very tired from missing a lot of sleep in a foreign country in an remote location in one of the most unsafe areas of Papua New Guinea, Chun was having a little bit of a hard time adjusting. To tell you the truth I think that he was doing very very well and adjusting just fine this being his first posting I would have expected a lot less of him.

Stephen returned with the CIC and had about seven p.m. and we headed off to a small hotel outside town where the CEO will stay. The CEO had decided to treat us to dinner just to say hello and welcome to the CIC. It was a nice open-air restaurant where we had a simple meal and a few beers. We talked about what we were going to do in the coming two months and spend a little bit of time talking about all sorts of things such as sports and weather. We also met another set of ABV volunteers, strawberry farmers who are working with the provincial government. Once we had finished dinner we were taken back home to our house where we quickly went to bed and crashed out.

the things we do on friday nights at school

Xela, Guatemala – July 2003

Most Friday nights the school tends to put on something on because it is the night where all the students that have finished for the week graduate.
The first Friday night which I was in Xela we decided to have a pantomime night. The reason to go to all the trouble of organizing a pantomime was it was the evening when they invite their local school ( which is a social projects of theirs ) for a party night. we split into two groups and both did one play each. I was then the skit with Robert and Leonard which was proudly named the Dance of the ostriches. it is a bit hard to explain the basically ran around like silly ostriches on stage for half an hour. The second play was a Spanish version of snow White and the seven dwarfs. but of course most of the female parts were played by guys in drag. a guess it would not been a pantomime without it. 

it was a really interesting night, I had a lot of fun with most of my new friends at the school. I did not get to play a part in drag at even though I am meant to look quite good, formal dress. After the pantomime we all went to ‘The’ Tiender across the road from the school. Normally most of us gringos don’t tend to drink at a Tiender but the drinks are about half the price of a normal gringo bar and you get the hang it with some locals ( if they bother hanging around). Like most nights ended up being quite late and I don’t think I got home until 2:00 a.m.