Stranded!

ADVENTURE

What was to be another news assignment in the Finschhafen interior turns into an experience worth remembering

By GLORIA BAUAI
I HAD heard a lot about the developments taking place in Finschhafen and was keen to visit and see for myself.
The opportunity came this month; and it was an experience I will never ever forget.
It was just another working Tuesday. As I was stepping out of home, a senior media colleague called. He was very vague but mentioned a launch in Finschhafen which required media coverage.
And because I never leave for a travel outside the city without my jacket, I ran back in, grabbed my trusted black hoodie and headed for the bus stop.
I was told it would be a day’s trip – fly in to the district for the launch and return to Lae in the afternoon.
Relaying this information to my sister in-law, I hopped on the bus into town. I was determined to get on that flight, so I got a K10 cab from town to the Manalos helipad downtown.
Whatever the reason for a delay was, I don’t really know to date, but the day’s events saw the media group consisting of five personnel including myself travelling to Nadzab Airport to board a seven-seater chopper at the Hevilift hangar there.
We left Lae around 1.30pm, landing on a hill top strip at a village called Maran in the Burum local level government at around 2pm.
Another 30-minute walk to Dubi village where the event was held worked us craving the cool mountain air.
The excitement of a new place kicked in. I caught myself singing K-Dumen’s Burum Ambi a couple of times, while speeches were going.
But when the event wound down, reality sank in; 6pm was too late for the chopper to return for us.
The locals I had befriended told me that for network coverage, I would have to climb the mountain directly in front of us, up to Ogerenang station to be able to call home.
As the night closed in and those gathered left to their respective huts, we sat near the grandstand, confused.
Around 8pm, a woman named Cathy came to our rescue. She brought us to her cousin brother’s house. The house was built recently, and brightly lit by a solar light given by the local MP Rainbo Paita under his rural electrification programme.
The host family had not yet moved in to this house, so a box of biscuits and very sweet tea kept us comfortable for the night.
While part our team slept, some of us sat joking beside the fire, listening to singsing celebrations drifting across from the main village arena, into dawn.
WEDNESDAY: Judging from the previous day’s turn of events, we distributed the remaining biscuits among ourselves reminding each other to budget well in case things turned for the worse.
Our team of five made our way back to the main village by 8am and met up with few others who also flew in from Lae the previous day.
We were still unsure of our movement for the day so I took that opportunity to mingle with the locals. I found during my brief conversations that the most immediate need was the promised Lae-Finschhafen highway and the connecting ring roads within the district, promised by the current MP Paita under the Connect Finschhafen policy.
Due to the mountainous geography of Burum and nearby LLGs, it was harder to get more impact development in health, education.
While major infrastructural developments centered in Gagidu station and the coast of Finschhafen, the assistance inland was direct funding to schools, donation of vehicles and solar lighting, to name a few mentioned by locals.
Locals said processed goods there were sold more than double the city prices – a 1kg packet of A1 rice cost K10 and 1kg sugar cost K12. The closest stop to stock up was further inland to Kabwum, another highland district accessible by airplane or by sea through Wasu of Tewae-Siassi district.
Locals said they needed economic activity to generate more cash-flow, something only a proper road network could enable.

HIGHWAY
According to Burum’s Ward 9 councilor Ali Heutuke who has been overseeing the Lae-Finschhafen highway, the completion of this road depends on the return of the current member after this election.
He said judging from the progress so far, there may need to be a variation on top of the initial K280million allocated, to see a properly graveled and sealed highway.
Against the wishes of local elders, MP Paita maintained that this new highway was shorter and would be completed a lot quicker and with less cost compared to re-working the existing highway that runs down the Finschhafen coast.
Paita said the Lae-Finschhafen highway which starts from Hobu in Nawaeb, through the mountain ranges shared with Kabwum and connects Finschhafen, is a high impact project for Burum that would greatly impact their lives.
Lae-bound
It’s as if time flies by in the mountains because before I knew it, it was 1.30pm and I was still in the mountains of Burum with my biscuit ration and wearing the same clothes from yesterday.
Seeing that the horizon had start to fog and cloud, our combined team of now almost 10, made the rash decision to take the old Burum highway down the coast of Finschhafen, then into Lae. By 2pm, we were loaded on to the back of an open-back Land Cruiser, grass in our hair, mud on our faces, heading for Lae.
When they say local drivers know their roads better, Maita has to be the best. I did not know him before Wednesday, but I entrusted my life to him without a doubt.
The ride was crazier than the TV show Monster Trucks. We were not professional adrenalin junkies; we were media professionals who just found ourselves in that situation – one with very steep climbs kilometers uphill and then slicing through meters of deep mud.
Just past river Gang mid-way up to Mount Mut, the mountains got the better of our vehicle; the left back axel broke, leaving us stranded one more time in the jungles of Finschhafen.
And again as the temperatures dropped and dark clouds threatened overhead, we found comfort in the warmth of a very weak bonfire.
There were some vehicles that were still at Dubi when we left earlier that afternoon, so as we sat joking to pass time hoping silently that those vehicles would come to our rescue.
It was 9pm when we finally switched vehicles and took the five-hour torturous trip down to Lae. Decades of neglect spoke loudly – like a chef expertly flipping and tossing a pancake – we were thrown about in our ride.
We gripped on to the rails until our palms were white and hurting. At some sections of the road, the driver would shout at the male passengers to jump out and push the vehicle or run ahead and wait to get on where the surface was better.
Sad to think that this was the route locals walked by foot, carrying their cargo, to and from Lae just five years ago.
In the dark, guided only by vehicle lights, the night-life and the driver’s experience, the cruiser grunted and growled with determination as we crossed the borders of Finschhafen in to Nawaeb and on to Lae.
I left Lae on Tuesday for a one-day trip to Burum, and I crawled into my bed at 3am on Thursday. It was an experience definitely worth remembering.