GOOD morning. Sunday, Jan 13th, eh?
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RIGHT – well, matters began with a howling gale that swept out of nowhere and attacked our house. The windows then refused to remain shut, allowing gusts of dust and clouds of smoke from a grass fire nearby to billow through our crumbling east wing. By the way, why do people light fires in the middle of cyclones?
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ARCHIE, the neighbouring cat whom we’ve previously mentioned, reacted to the wind in the time-honoured manner of all felines. His eyes took on the glaze of a madman, his hair bristled and he shot up and down trees, drainpipes and any other vertical object with the commitment of a whirling dervish.
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SPY in Madang reports that there’s been a rapid reaction to criticism of the role of local level government in maintaining the town infrastructure and services. Readers may recall that former Madang Member Sir Peter Barter and The National have been vocal about these issues recently.
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THE reaction may not be quite what some had hoped for – a series of photocopied sabre-rattlers warning the population to keep premises tidy and rubbish free and register dogs and so on. Spy says a group of citizens absorbing the bureaucratic utterances on the Butchery notice board the other day made a few utterances of their own – and they weren’t very complimentary.
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MOST Madang locals would like to know why there’s never any money for the town’s roads, now in the worst condition anyone can remember; sadly, in the light of the influx of trucks and trailers and heavy equipment in the town as a result of the booming local economy, it seems matters can only get worse.
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SPY says that no doubt “unsuitable rubbish containers” will be trotted out as the reason for the uncollected household rubbish outside virtually every house along urban streets and even in the scenic waterfront drive residential area. That doesn’t account for the piles of fetid rubbish at the market, of course.
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WE’VE detailed Madang’s woes because the tale is distressingly the same throughout the once attractive provincial towns of PNG. Cheers!
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- Dee Nesenolis