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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