| Sports |
A crisis in waiting in the villages
JACK METTA muses
on drug abuse and the disruptive effect on
village life
SIUKE heard the clang of metal as he
exited the makeshift shower room. He lingered by the door
cocking his ear towards the sound of what sounded like flying
metallic objects.
His senses honed in on Lalafare’s house just in time to see
young Sarufa land his swinging right foot under the cutlery
table of the outdoor kitchen. The thud and the metallic sound of
the flight of cutlery reached him a moment later but not before
he saw pots and pans sailing through the air and landing
unceremoniously several metres away.
That is a very angry young man, Siuke thought, as he pondered
the reasons for such a tantrum.
As he watched Sarufa storm out of the building, a shrill female
voice cut through the air.
“Good for nothing … what have you done to put food on the
table?”
It was Lalafare yelling after her son, who walked on silently
but determinedly, oblivious of her words.
By this time, curious villagers had gathered at the scene of the
ruckus and milling around in small groups and chatting quietly.
Their line of vision, however, was focused on Sarufa’s back as
he walked off leisurely between the rows of coconut palms
towards the beach head.
Towel around his shoulders, Siuke joined the nearest group – a
band of three villagers – and asked them what all that was
about.
One of them responded in Toaripi without hesitation, “Kuku
meroro la lauai.”
Siuke looked in askance and the villager, reading his mind
continued: “It’s all they do these days, smoking marijuana,
eating and sleeping.
“And if there’s no food on the table, this is what you can
expect,” he gestures with his head towards the pots and pans
still lying on the ground where they landed. “And now he’s going
for more!”
“Where?” Siuke asks.
“The market,” the trio says almost in union.
Siuke follows their line of vision and understood. “That-a-way,”
he said, pointing in the direction Sarufa went and nodded. The
trio nodded in union.
Siuke stood there shaking his head.
He had still to learn about the modern village life. Whilst
certain features of life as he knew it, had remained unchanged,
some things just didn’t seem right and there was a nagging
feeling at the back of his mind to place his finger on it.
He had in fact, being very impressed with the market. That was
the first thing he saw when he came home.
The market was doing a bustling trade. It was almost an open-air
trade store selling every thing from fuel and lollies to fast
locally prepared traditional food.
Weary travellers would stop by to satisfy their short term needs
and move on but one thing impressed on his brain was that this
was indeed an entrepreneur’s haven – lots of money changed
hands; you just had to have the product to sell.
It is like most markets everywhere else except that this one had
the most breathtaking views. It is set in a frame of nature’s
own picturesque setting.
The market is on a riverside of a tributary of the Lakekamu
River which drains into the Gulf of Papua, at least a stone’s
throw away straight ahead .
Looking out from the market, a nature lover would appreciate a
scenic panorama of rivers, beaches, mangroves, gray sand and the
flora and fauna that goes with it. That is not to mention the
obvious sounds of the bush mingled with the gushing sounds of
rushing waters and the muffled roar of waves breaking on the
beaches.
Based at a site where the ferryman who once plied his trade of
moving people across rivers, the market is to say the least, the
“crossroad” or more appropriately “crossrivers” to one’s
destination.
Inevitably, one has to stop or pass by the market on the way to
Kerema, the capital of Gulf province or to Port Moresby in the
National Capital District.
Vendors and curious bystanders could sit at the market all day
and watch the traffic of humanity move up and down the river and
beyond.
Occasionally, old friendships are rekindled and new ones
started.
Suddenly, realisation dawned.
Like all markets, everything has a price. You are there to buy
and sell. Some goods fetch top prices and others not so good;
others are in demand and others not so much; others legal and
one or two illegal and the latter is shaping up to be the bane
of the village conservative.
Drugs (marijuana) has found its way into this blessed village on
the Gulf coast and has started to break up the harmony of the
village lifestyle.
H-Mafu village is blessed indeed for while others are being torn
asunder by the elements, it stands proud as an island on the
Gulf coast intact as it had been for generations. It has the sea
in front and a river at the back while on one side, the great
Lakekamu and the other its tributary, both constantly emptying
into the sea without much success.
Nature provides an abundance of food stock in terms of seafood.
You can find crabs when walking the 200m stretch from the
village to the beach. The vibrations of your footsteps in the
mud prompts the mangroves crabs to take defensive action and
that means raising its claws up over the mud and giving away its
location. You can be selective for your beachside snack – you
ignore those with the small claws and catch the ones with the
bigger claws.
There’s also shellfish there for the taking if you really wanted
to and fish all year around smoking on the fires in practically
every house every day.
The beachfront of the village has been carved by nature as the
breeding grounds for mullets and others species of fish and when
the season arrives for the hatchlings to make their way out to
the open sea, you can jump into the sea and practically trap a
large number of them under your feet – there’s that many of
them.
It is all there for the taking, Siuke thought. Pots and pans
need not fly. Angry words should not be spoken over lack of
food.
It has been spoken often enough in everyday life that “a full
stomach comes after hard work”.
Sarufa’s generation has gone astray. They are lazy and are
li-ving for on one thing – getting their next fix and new
batteries for the boom boxes they carry around. And that also
means a few valuables would go missing in the village to feed
the habit.
Their ‘pastime’ of drug induced nirvana is depriving young men
of the village from making sago, attend to gardening, fishing
and climbing coconuts, among others more strenuous tasks like
canoe making, community house construction and maintenance.
They rely on their own parents or others to fend for them – a
generation denying itself of continuing the harmony of the
village life in later life.
This life, at the Gulf village level, speaks volumes of similar
life in most other villages in Papua New Guinea. It’s just that
most attention is focused on the urban areas.
AIDS, Siuke thought, is the bigger picture – a generation mowed
down in the transition of life, disrupting and denying later
generations of opportunities and a life that we hold dear to our
hearts. And millions, which could be used for other important
needs of Papua New Guineans, are being poured into the fight to
stop the spread of the disease.
Drugs at the village level is but a smaller picture of a
disaster waiting to happen with an equally disruptive and
devastating impact.
The National Narcotics Bureau and relevant anti-drug and law
enforcement agencies just haven’t got the million kina budgets
or the teeth to effectively fight it. Or could they?
Perhaps the answer is in the Wise Councillor’s utterance:
“People do not lack strength, they lack will …”
 
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