Where Rabi Gamenu Walked

Imuti. Have you heard this word anywhere, anytime in your life? Maybe not.

What about Rabi Gamenu? Sounds familiar? Yes, she is the Papuan female singing sensation!

   Well, I am about to make the connection for you. Imuti is the name of the little village that Rabi emerged from…

   By chance (or is it by fate?), I went to Imuti, and spent almost a week there.  I was inspired by many things, but decided to write about only a few.

  In fact, I’m lost for words so I’d rather post pictures, since a single picture says more than a thousand words. Hope the pictures below will say more than I can write.

Clear as Crystal

Depending on the circumstances surrounding the use of the phrase, clear as crystal has different meaning. Commonly, it is used to describe pearls or gems or clean, clear water. At times, it is used to affirm that something is clearly understood.

   The word crystal was derived from the Greek word krustallos, which mean ice or any mineral resembling it. Scientifically, crystal is any solid mineral that has its atoms or molecule arranged symmetrically into three-dimensional aggregation. Modified definition of the word, accepted by the Oxford University, means highly transparent and clear. I think this is the definition that many people, knowingly or unknowingly, use every day.

   Take a look at the photos below. The waters of the river are so clear and transparent that you can unmistakably see the pebbles. There are also fishes in each of the photos. Can you spot a fish in each of the pictures?

The Being who designed the waters knew that the waters are clear as crystal, so He painted the fish with the colour of the pebbles to camouflage them!

  The tadpoles below are not camouflaged, but can be seen clearly because the waters are highly transparent and clear. If there were no tadpoles in this photo, you might not be able to guess that it is a picture of water!

Now, here is a competition. Spot the fish, or fishes, and descriptively give their exact location in the picture below. The first five (5) people to correctly spot the fish or fishes, and describe their location, will receive K1 direct top-up on their Digicel phones! Answers must be posted in this blog as comments so that I get to see them first before publishing them. Answers from anonymous persons or those using nicknames will not be accepted. The competition immediately ends when;

1.      Soon after the fifth correct answer is posted

2.      A correct answer is posted on Facebook (that means you should not post answers in facebook, because others might copy your answer)

   Is that clear? I hope your answer was, ‘clear as crystal!’

Have fun!

Moses Tau got by Mosquitoes!

Pacific gay singing sensation, Moses Tau, is nursing wounds at the emergency department of Port Moresby General Hospital after anopheles mosquitoes successfully injected malarial parasites into his bloodstreams yesterday.

   Though blood test to detect the parasites is still pending, attending doctors said he had classical signs and symptoms of malaria, so they are going to treat him for malaria. They said test for malaria parasite is never 100% sensitive, so they are treating him based on their clinical findings.

   Eyewitnesses at the emergency department confirmed that the singing sensation was attended to by doctors. He was surrounded by more than five ladies, but all where his sisters.

   A nursing officer who went to give him a pain injection said that Moses Tau was quick to tell her that all the ladies with him were his sisters! A male was seen with him among the ladies, but no one knows how they are related.

   Mr. Tau was kept overnight at ED. He is expected to be discharged this morning.

Boy shot by cops

   A relative of a medical doctor is fighting for his life at the ICU at Port Moresby General Hospital after being allegedly shot by police officers.

   Eye witnesses said that the shooting occurred at Boroko between 7-8 pm yesterday. The 17 year old boy was waiting with some friends to return home to Gerehu when confronted by police and shot in the head at about a range of 10 meters. His friends fled and reported the incident to the victim’s families.

   Doctors on duty at the emergency department confirmed the incident, saying that the prognosis of the patient is very poor at the moment, because part of the skull had been chipped off, and the brains exposed. They confirmed that an urgent CT scan taken showed clear cut evidence of bullet wounds.

    However, the policemen said that the boy sustained the injury during a street fight. They found him unconscious on the ground so they rushed him to the hospital.

   The police officers were not available to comment on the scan findings. However, health workers at the Emergency Department said that the police officers hung around for a good while, and inquired a lot about the outcome of the patient, which was quite unusual for them.

   The specifics of the confrontation with the police and the boy is yet to be determined, but it is understood that relative of the boy are planning to take the matter to court.

The Price of a Bride in the Bride Market

There is always a price tag attached to every item, or commodities on the markets and the prices vary depending on quality, quantity and rarity.

   Take this comment with you the next time you go marketing, and prove me wrong! Note the number of items displayed on the shelves in the supermarket, or the mats in a fresh produce market, that are for free. I guarantee you that there won’t be nine but none.

   Of course there are specials and discounts, but there is ALWAYS a price to pay. It is neither free when the ad says ‘75% off!!’ nor is it free when advertised as ‘Buy one, and get one FREE!!’ Every item is valuable, worthy to be price-tagged with monetary value.

   Valuing an item, or attaching a price tag to it, is practically saying that the item is equal or the same as the money, or whatever it is valued with. The item is the value. For instance, a K3 flex card (the item) is K3 in monetary terms (value) when dealing with a flex seller.

   We are doing the same with our PNG beauties, aren’t we? You may not have noticed, but there is a market in PNG, which I call the Bride Market. It is one where every young, unmarried girl has a price tagged to her. On their foreheads are engraved or embossed the words, “FOR SALE!’ and the payment to make is called the bride price, which vary depending on quality, quantity and rarity. I kind of see it as an auction, where the highest bidder grabs the ‘item’. Scarily, many girls allow themselves to be auctioned, accepting the man with the biggest wealth and fame. They think that the higher someone is willing to pay as their bride price, the more valuable they are worth.

    The fact, however, is that the more we monetarily value a girl, the more we devalue her actual worth. A bride price of twenty pigs suggests that the bride is fit to be valued with pigs, or with money as is usually the case today. Culturally, it seemed appropriate to pay the bride price. But since this is the 21^st century, let’s align our perspective on its horizon. In that view, we could be subconsciously or even knowingly saying that the bride is a pig, couldn’t we? I leave it to your reasoning.

   Now, if humans value women as such, how does the Creator of women value them? I tell you, He values them above the most precious and valuable material things in the world. ‘Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.’ Proverbs 31:10. Notice that it is not just above, but far above rubies!

   May our women folk be valued as such. They are worth more than silver and gold, or rubies and diamonds and thus, shouldn’t allow themselves to be priced, or be valued with material things of this country. They cannot, and must not allow themselves to be valued with pigs, and cows, and money and all these useless earthly things of temporal value. In God’s eyes, they are invaluable. They cannot allow themselves to be seen as another commodity in the Bride Market.

   May the parents understand that their daughters, whom they profess to love, are not pigs or cars, or money, to be valued as such. They should refrain from pricing their daughters, or allowing relatives to value them with material things. They should allow them to marry out of love for the man. Invaluable things in life like air and sun are free, so should all girls, for they are invaluable. If their daughters do not want to be bride priced, that choice must be respected.

   Uncles and kandres, or husait ba kaikai pe, should back off, and let the girl and the parent make the choice of whether to be commodities in the Bride Market or not. As the flex card seller gives away the card, and doesn’t care what happens next, they are most likely to do that to the girl. Pricing the girl is usually for their own benefit, that they can kaikai bikpla pe.

   The groom and his family should understand that even all their life’s income will never equal the value of his bride. The best thing, then, is for the groom to pledge lifelong love and care, to nourish and cherish the bride till death do them part.

The price of a bride in the bride market is too high to be valued with material things! Say NO to bride-pricing our invaluable women!

Pink for Boys!

If today was sometime between the 1920 and 1940, the above title would be appropriate, and taken with pride by the seemingly superior masculine group in the human race. In the 21^st century, pink is for girls, and is accepted by most, if not, all as such.

   A week ago, I took a ride to down town Port Moresby. This small part of Port Moresby, located between Paga and Togoba Hills, probably contained most of the few tall skyscrapers in the country. Walking along the streets, amidst their towering heights, I felt like an ant. Yet I walked into the ground floor of one of the towers, the Mogoru Motu building along Champion Parade.

   I made my purchases at Meddent, the company that sells medical and dental equipments. The beautiful girl that served me placed my items in a small shopping bag, and handed it over to me. I smiled a word of thanks to her and walked out. As soon as the door closed behind me, I quickly forced the shopping bag into the bilum that I was carrying. I’d rather be seen without the bag, because it’s coloured pink!

  An article published in 1918 stated that "The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." (From Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia). After 1940, the norm changed, and remained thus into the 21^st century.

   Today, the color pink is symbolically used to promote, or represent ideas that are generally feminine.  A pink ribbon is used as an international symbol for breast cancer awareness. In the West, a pink-collar worker is someone who does the job conventionally regarded as women’s job. Code Pink is an American activist women’s group, who use pink as their main colour.

   Pink is also the colour used more often in sexuality than any other field. Pink News is a leading gay newspaper and online news service. Pink TV is a French cable channel for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual community, whose spending power is also call pink dollar or Pink Money. Prisoners accused of homosexuality under the Nazi rule were forced to wear a pink triangle. The Pink Pistols are a gay gun rights organisation. Pink Movies refer to Japanese porn films.

   Apart from representing femininity, it is used in other aspects too. It is referred to as the ‘colour of love’, being used for Valentine’s Day and Easter. Traditionally in academics, pink is used to represent Medicine and other health-related field. Student from the School of Medicine and Health Science in UPNG will find themselves wearing a gown with pink stripe or ribbon on graduation day.

   Come to think of it, seriously, it’s just a colour, yet one that distinguishes, if not, segregates gender. Is it possible that the way the colour pink is perceived also contribute to gender inequality issues in PNG? Maybe, or maybe not, I leave it to your speculation. I just find it interesting that males are scared to hell to walk around with anything that is coloured pink.

   Hopefully, one day the attitude will change such that pink will be seen truly as the colour of love for women. Males will wear pink every day, making each day a special Valentine’s Day to their lady spouse. Violence against Women will find a place to exist in the society as it is replace by Love for Women.

   Maybe, let’s think about pink as the colour of uniting love, and not a segregating colour for gender. Not Pink for Girls, or Pink for Boys, but Pink for Love!

A Crush on You

Cobra was supine on his bed, scared to hell. He could feel his heart beating against his chest, as if to break through and jump out of his chest. In fact, he thought he could hear his heart beating. The normal lub dub of the heart, for a moment, sounded like a knock on his heart, as if fear was knocking to enter. He was determined not to open the door, but it seems that fear has crept in through the window and into his heart. His whole body now began to tremble slowly, as the fear escaped the heart and circulated around the body. His mind wasn’t spared, for it now throbbed with fear, and was in deep anxious thought.

   He picked up the little note and read through the words again, hoping they would change miraculously. But they did not. There they remained, neatly hand-written in just one line, in blue ink against a white background, carrying the same implication that he had understood earlier.

   He wiped his eyes, and looked again, but the six-worded sentence stared back at him as before. They now seemed to have glowed as he noticed tiny spots of coloured inks all around the white paper. Clearly the writer has used special technique to spray the inks, probable from coloured highlighters onto the page.

   Grabbing his troubled heart, and his distressed mind, he jump off his bed and walked out of Scrotch, the male dorm he has been living in. He needed someone to share his trouble thoughts with, and right now, he thought only of his lady friend from Kerema, called Mori. He folded the note, and placed it in his shirt pocket as he walked towards the girls’ dorm.

   On the way he heard his name called. He turned around and saw that it was Mori, sitting on the lawn buy herself. He ran up, and tossed the note to her. As Mori opened the note to read, Cobra was already pouring out his troubled thoughts, without explaining what has happened.

   “Up to this moment, I have tried to recall every insulting word I spoke to her, or about her. Maybe I’ve done something wrong that she is furious about, or gestured inappropriately to her. I don’t know, and I can’t think of anything against this lady called Lisa.” He spoke so fast, pacing back and forth and to the sides that he was out of breath.

   Mori tried to calm him down, but Cobra continued. “Yet, this lady sends me this scary note. She is going to kill me the next time she sees me. I’m scared. Mori, I’m scared. What shall I do?” Lisa was in the same class as Cobra, and they go to the same church meetings. To imagine the unimaginable, is not what Cobra was pleased to do that very moment!

   When he finally looked at Mori’s face, she was smiling. She had completed reading the note in just three seconds, and interestingly watched Cobra pacing up and down, and breathlessly wording out his fear. There was no look of concern for his troubled thoughts, but she understood why Cobra was behaving thus. As someone in the eleventh grade, she didn’t expect him to understand the note.

  “Listen, my little brother,” she said, and Cobra could see that she was trying to hold back a burst of laughter. “Here’s what you do. Take your little note here, and go back to Scrotch. Sit down on your bed, and with a dictionary on your side, read the note over again!”

   Confused, Cobra walked back to the dorm with the note in his grit. It was a note that sparked fear in him, yet one that was taken lightly by Mori.

   Once in the dorm, he borrowed his friend’s dictionary and sat down on his bed. Most words in the sentence carry simple meaning, yet he read them again, as instructed. A faint smile crossed his lips, as his understanding dawned on the note. Fear vanished, and his heart chilled. He looked at the note again, and couldn’t believe his understanding. He could feel his head going light.

   There in his hand, in a blue ink on a white paper, neatly written by a lady’s hand, was the six-worded note: I have a crush on you!

 Nothing but the meaning, and implication changed. Initially, he was scared for he felt that Lisa was mad at him. Now he understood that Lisa was in love with him!