ok time to blog.

ohai. i'm back.

it has been 2 weeks since i came back from papua new guinea. i am loving civilization. keep meaning to start writing but how do you condense 5 weeks of kampungness into 200 words. i have a 1.5k word report to hand in by the end of march. i guess blogspot is as good a place as any to begin.

so on the 5th of jan i fly off at around 11.55 pm for my adventure to the country that is papua and new guinea. flying to brisbane takes like 1093810923 hours and i stop over for a while then fly to port moresby which is around 3 hours then an hour to alotau. if i didn't hate flying before, i hate it now. maybe being in perth is a blessing in disguise after all - i.e. my flight home is half of what carrie has to go through. less chance of being blown up, crashed, drowned, eaten by sharks, kangaroos, cannibals.

so i thought it'd be more fun to go there knowing nothing about papua new guinea. other than stories about people who eat other people and get kuru i knew nothing. only reason i even had anti-malarial prophylaxis was because i thought i wanted to experience the fun of taking mefloquine. it does nothing other than burn your stomach for about half an hour. no vivid technicolor psychedelics happened, no sir. the stories people recount about how dangerous port moresby is are all true. the walk from international to domestic was scary as hell. the outside of the airport is packed with people, all of whom are obviously not flying anywhere and just eyeing you like you're a piece of meat. there are armed guards who check your tickets/passports before they let you into the terminals and there is even a counter for you to check in your firearms.

anyway i was headed to alotau (the safe part of PNG) so they say. it is an hour's flight out to milne bay (pronounced "milen"). i met a couple of expats who've been there for a while and they say that yes, it's dangerous but you could be robbed in australia as well. fuck off. that's like saying yes, you can get hit by a car running across a busy freeway blindfolded with your pants pulled down to your ankles but you could also get hit by a car in your garage so no, it's not AS SAFE AS ANYWHERE ELSE. there is some sort of perverse pride that the PNG-ers take in knowing their city was voted the worst city in the world and one of the top places to go if you want to get raped or killed. had i done any sort of research and known about all this, i'd rather have gone to afghanistan. reading the papers there is always fun - murder, rape, corruption, and sports.

ok nevermind about crime. i learnt the meaning of endemic after going to PNG. if they say malaria is endemic to PNG it doesn't mean yes, every other year you see a few cases of malaria. no. EVERY FUCKING PERSON HAS FUCKING MALARIA. yup. if you call in sick in PNG you don't say you have the flu. you have malaria. so only serious cases are ever hospitalised. serious being cerebral malaria. other than that, there's TB coming out of their ears, and a growing HIV/AIDS problem.

i'm bored. more to come when i feel like it. sick as a dog yesterday. might have malaria. if i do, just shoot me.