IS IT A GOOD TIME TO TRY AND HELP?

It’s awkward when you go to the family home of someone killed for some reason.

Family and friends are gathered there crying and you wonder if they will welcome you to have a chat with them.

Doing a crime story isn’t difficult… Its dealing with the emotions of the family when you get there is the hard part.

Mother of Student Killed by Electrocution cried while talking

You are hoping that they can give you some of their time because the person was murdered and you need to do a story so the rest of the country can know about the tragic death…

You stand there… still feeling awkward, when someone recognizes you! Thank Goodness! Someone will always recognize you!

When they do come over you make small talk, your also very upset that the death has happened, even if they think your not…

Then they start telling you about the person who got killed, when it happened, where it happened, how it happened, who might have done it and why it happened.

You listen… and ask questions a small group forms, you listen… all the while your also getting pretty said, wondering why people are killing each other!

Then you ask them if they can talk, you ask them if a family member can talk on camera… SILENCE…. And then they say we can’t talk, but we will ask the family.

They walk off. You wait…. Your still waiting…. More crying coming from the distance.

Moments that seem like eternity past and they walk up to you…

Sorry the family don’t want to speak on camera because they don’t want it out on the media…

MY WHOLE WORLD CRUMBLES… THE DEAD PERSON CAN’T SPEAK ANYMORE, BUT I AM SURE THE PERSON WOULD WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM…

FUNNY ECONOMY

“Work hard to create a niche conducive to your living” ever hard of that one… it’s similar to the American dream right?

But in Papua New Guinea, you are still trying to buy that house. Your job doesn’t pay much. Rice and tinned fish at the shops are getting too expensive.

The children need to go to school and you need to plan for your retirement.

I am very sorry! These are the things you need to do in Papua New Guinea in a nutshell!

It’s very difficult, right?

To difficult to buy a home on the income you make.

The opportunity to start a business and make an extra buck is also very slim.

I am sorry but this is reality….

Papua New Guinea brace yourselves, because I feel the pinch. Don’t you?

What do the experts say, well they tell us…

its fine, but don’t relay on the oil and gas…

For those of you who have children, get them a quality education would mean a brighter future…?

I know this may seem negative to most, but let me explain the best I can… we are a country that spends…

Wow! The Lae-Nadzab four lane highway still under construction

Wow! the pacific Games is happening, venues have been built… the Sir John Guise Stadium aka BSP Stadium hosted a PNG Hunters match!

Buying a home continues to be expensive and renting one isn’t getting easier!

We borrow too much and we have to pay back, quite a lot!

So let me break it down… who is going to pay for the loan interests that our economy has gained? YOU AND ME!

Do y’all know what taxation is? Hahaha  I know right????

Look around you… schools and university infrastructures still need improving, roads need to be fixed, hospitals and health centers still need help.

The government is working to fix it.

Look carefully… NEVER EXCEPT ANYTHING YOU ARE TOLD BY FACE VALUE!

I think I left enough crumbs for you to figure out what I am talking about!

THE EVICTORS CURSE

Papua New Guinean families being evicted from their homes by National Housing Corporation officers who find the legal means to do so?

I don’t understand how you can sleep at night after you’ve kicked out a family onto the streets!

How can you go home in the afternoon, kiss your wife and hug your children, wow… you great dad! You wonderful husband! Your Pathetic!

I feel for your children. The sins of the father will be felt by the children… for generations to come.

Hahahaha! Your bloodline is cursed!

The families you evicted. The children’s happiness you’ve disturbed, when you robbed their home. They are helpless.

But nature has its way of dealing with the cruel.

That family you evicted also consists of a wife and children just like yours, how can you just treat them like they were some things to throw out!

Its where they call home, its where there heart is… its where they created love and nestled under a roof… Don’t you understand?

Surely, you must know that what you give, you will get back, its universal and its biblical.

You will be far worse then they are, by the time they have recovered and walked again… you would be poor and homeless, your children starving and dying.

So be it… the weak shall always have a protector and a savior!

PAPUA NEW GUINEAN TIME

Remember how you used to think too much about all the unnecessary things.

How you had this bunch of thoughts and things to do in your head that stops you from achieving what was important to you….

Well I am here to change all of that… I am here to help you prioritize what’s important to you.

You need to focus on what’s important to you, because you live on borrowed time on this planet.

We all die at some stage… we’ve been taught at school that Papua New Guineans have an average life span of 65 years old. According to the World Bank.

So my friend, time is of the essence… decide now, what is important to you and get it before the clock stops ticking.

Close your eyes, take deep breaths… steady and calm, wherever you are now in Life, rich or poor, no matter how old you are… decide where you want to be.

Listen to me…  everything is going to be okay, you will be okay, relax… what do you want to achieve in this sort period of time.

You want a house?

Do you want a car?

Do you want that Job?

Do you want a Family?

What do you want a relationship?

Remember deep breaths… relax…. Think…. Decide…

Now carefully isolate what you need to do to get there… what are the teeny, tiny steps you need to take to get there…

Ahhhh there you go! You suddenly know… beautiful!

Now you know what you have to do, you now need to focus on doing that one little thing properly day in and day out.

Make it a routine and MAKE SURE that you do what you have to do, perfectly, every single day and you will achieve.

That little thing has become very important…

FOCUS ON WHATS IMPORTANT!

PNG FATHER GRIEVES FOR MURDERED SON

Teacher's Father, Albert Kuteve

“I brought this child up without any back ground, I don’t have a lot of money, I worked hard on my land to pay for his University tuition,” says Albert Kuteve.

18^th September 2014 seven days after Albert Gibson was tortured and stabbed multiple times along the Okuk highway from Kainantu to Lae and his people in Barola continued to mourn his death.

He was the son of a Pastor, who graduated at the University of Goroka two years ago, the father of a six month year old girl and a husband to a wife.

His family members still had the Barola Section of the Okuk highlands highway closed to all travellers, the feeling on the ground was of anger, sadness and revenge.

Men with bus knives

Barola Community block highway road.

They (Family members) came from all over Barola, food garden were neglected for a week as people from hamlets camped at the hilltop for answers.

The men armed with bush knives, their guns tucked away behind them, ready and waiting for the slightest spark to ignite a flame of rage.

The women were covered with soft maroon clay from the hillside, they cried and wept softly.

“The men don’t feel how we feel, we feel the pain of child birth and we lose the child through this inhuman way, he wasn’t an animal,” say the women weeping.

“He was a good boy, he tried, always, to walk a straight path. “

Barola Community leaders stood under the sun for six days, trying to contain the anger of the people. The section of the Okuk highway is renowned through out the Highlands as a place for serial car jacking and thieves who once terrorised travellers.

Burnt Highway Truck

The family of the teacher has claimed several highway trucks and another was torched on Saturday, when the news of the slain teacher reached home.

“The properties we have burnt, destroyed and claimed, we did it, because we were frustrated and angry,” says Community Leader, Allan Mosa.

“We are hurt, he didn’t die a good death, and he died like an animal.”

In the pain of losing a tribal leader, a son and a father they say it will take many more years for the community to produce someone like him.

The only thing stopping the thirst for retribution were the calm words of the teachers father, who is a pastor, he didn’t want violence, only that his son’s killers must be brought to justice.

The teacher’s father, Albert Kuteve, a pastor of the four square church, spoke for the first time about his lose.

“I brought this child up without any back ground, I didn’t have a lot of money, I worked hard on my land to pay for his University tuition,” says Albert Snr.

“For my efforts to get my son educated, I was stripped off my title as pastor for six years up until recently, when it was given back to me, my son was with me in the church.”

“My son was all I had, now I have nothing.”

On that Thursday evening I talked to an old man who invested so much time and effort into building his “living” insurance source.

The devastation of losing an asset that was groomed and moulded under the rain and sun, through sweat in the open fields.

I will never forget the sounds of pain, the agonising wailing of the Mother, Aunts and the Sisters of the late Albert Gibson.

HIGH RENTAL FORCING TAX PAYERS INTO LAE’S SETTLEMENTS

Recent ethnic clashes in Lae’s settlements have triggered a growing interest by the public.

Amidst the recent fights, Lae residents say the high cost of living in the city has caused more people into settlements.

Mus Property- Bundi camp

High costs in rental in the suburbs’ have forced taxpayers to settle into settlement to escape the sky rocketing prices of goods and services.

While Lae is also seeing economic boom, much of it hasn’t benefited the lower-middle income earners, who still struggle.

Last year, in a serious of stories I did on High rental costs in Lae City, I interviewed, Entrepreneur, Mus Palang who lives in Bundi Camp in the outskirts of Lae.

Palang has for the last several years provided affordable accommodation to a wide range of people working in Lae.

“I have even Managers living in the settlements,” he says.

Mus Palang is one of many that have gabbed the opportunity to make a significant amount of revenue through providing cheaper rental alternatives.

But while, most following the series of stories called for regulation of the real-estate market. Experts say it isn’t possible at this time.

Professionals Managing Director, Mike Quinn, operates the real estate giant says the housing market can’t be regulated.

Expensive Housing

He says because demand is high for houses, the rent will keep going up, with mining projects coming up in Bulolo.

More land has also got to be freed up by Morobean Landowners to build more housing.

But, many have suggested the Nation Housing Corporation build houses to dilute the market.

Mus Palang

Minister For Housing, Paul Izikiel says he will sell houses owned by NHC to generate income, for the corporation.

By far the NHC is the only hope Lae residents have.

Whilst, this may be good for only a hand full of people, the majority of middle-income earners, still live

on the fringes of settlements or within one.

These are taxpayers; the fact is they are productive people in the country’s economy. But, they live in these areas known as settlements.

These settlements’ are located, often on customary land, leased out in agreements between tenants and landowners, valid for a certain number of years.

These are groups who claim that they are legal settlers.

Now as these “taxpayers” live in these settlements, there are also those who came to Lae looking for opportunities, because of the growth of the city into a vibrant industrial hub.

The “opportunity seekers” are often unlucky with their prospects and end up living with relatives or floating in these settlements.

According to Lae Metropolitan Superintendent, Iven Lakatani, it’s these individuals that cause a lot of problems for communities, when they take alcohol or marijuana.

The spikes in Lae’s settlement clashes are attributed to the monotonous alcohol and drug problems and even domestic issues that escalate into full-blown fights.

Lae City is surrounded by settlements, from Papuan compound (Tais), Bumbu, Busurum, Busu, Back Road, Bumayong, East/West Taraka, Kamkumung, Naweab, Bundi Camp, the Miles areas’ and back to Papuan compound.

These settlement areas are filled with affordable accommodation at rates of 100 hundred kina to a thousand kina a month (K400-K1000), for those who can’t afford the houses in Lae suburbia, K3000- over 10,000 a month.

So while clashes and other social problems are a risk to those “taxpayers” who chose to live in settlements, so far, it’s the only choice due to the high cost Housing rental in Lae.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA GIRLS GIVE HOPE IN NOTORIOUS LAE SETTLEMENT

On a personal note I was brought up in Lae City,  Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea, and I have seen the transition at first hand, both positive and negative.

The development of roads and other infrastructure has happened before my eyes.  But this story had fascinated me, since I read their story on Social Media Facebook J

After dropping out of High School, three girls began a mission to help other teenage girls to coupe with life.

They have pulled together, women and girls’ in their community, to teach each other, how to read and write, make bilums’ and sew Meri (Women) blouse to sell. 

The girls say they hope to help other girls live a better life. 

The girls pulled together all of the women. They meet at a canvas tent, once a week to fellowship, teach each other to make bilums’ and sew blouses to sell. 

They’ve also made little money for their group, by selling what they’ve made.

This may seem insignificant to some, but within communities such as Bumayong, known for high crime rates, associated with drug problems, simple unity, has helped many women, deal with the challengers they face every day.

Miriam Kondi’s story is similar to many other girls, she dropped out from high school, but choose are more positive role within her community

“We will stand firm to change Lae and the rest of Papua New Guinea,” she says.

It’s rare to see women or even girls play pivotal roles, in a culture dominated by men. Women and girls often don’t get an equal chance.

The Internet has showed the treatment of Women in this country, often by those entrusted to keep them safe, husbands, Uncles, fathers and other men within their kin.

The problem has plagued us and will continue, if not addressed.

But, these girls, have become role models and, by doing it, they have attracted help. Lutheran Youth Coordinator, Ruben Mete, has been at the forefront of youth mission’s, he was approached by the girl’s last week.

“They will get administrative skills, so this is just something, we’d like to provide,” he says. 

 Women and Girls in Papua New Guinea are deprived and often marginalized from opportunity, for many reasons, often by men, but while the solution isn’t near, small steps have already been taken by the new generation.