This is the amazing story of our trip to Papua New Guinea (PNG)!
Lynne turned 40 last December and the last time she saw her mother was at age 2. Her dad (Australian) was a teacher in a remote island province in PNG where he met Lynne’s mother (a local) and 9 months later Lynne was born. When Lynne was 2 she left PNG with her father and hadn’t seen her since. She didn’t even know if she was still alive or where she lived as her father had been silent on the issue. When she turned 20 she found out that her mother was still alive but it still took quite some more years before she realised she had to find her mother.
So for her B-day last year I bought her a ticket to PNG, the plan being to find her mother. But before we left, her uncle Bruzz did something wonderful.
Uncle Bruzz works in a hospital and one night -- being the chatty person he is – he got talking to a female patient. He asked her where she was from, and she replied: “I’m from Manus in PNG.” Uncle Bruzz then said: “My brother’s daughter Lynne was born there”. Her amazing reply was: “O no, are you John Quinnell’s brother? I’m Lynne’s mother’s cousin!”
Pretty freaky, eh? The lady’s name was Angela and we met her family a couple of times, got lots of information about Manus and more importantly found out which island her mother was on!
So this is how this story begins…
Lynne wrote the next part of our adventure of finding and meeting her mother.
(PS: book and movie rights still for sale)
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April 7, 5am, QANTAS club, Sydney International Airport. Champagne? Yes please, …could you make that two?
Thus begins our big adventure.
The champagne works its wonders and the rest of the flight to Port Moresby, PNG’s capital, is bliss. As Port Moresby has a reputation for being unsafe (largely overdone) we had arranged for Geoffery, a relative, to meet us and escort us to our hotel. We are welcomed by a rush of obscenely warm air, but alas no Geoffery. To our great amusement over the following two weeks Geoffery fails to turn up to agreed dinner engagements and other appointments, only to turn up unexpected on other occasions. Welcome to the pacific islands!
We arrive in Manus the following morning, the only non-locals to disembark. The airport is reminiscent of those tin shed set-ups found in regional Australia. The humidity has stepped up and instantly reminds us we are but a few degrees off the equator. We had made no further arrangements beyond getting to Manus Island, however as news of our arrival preceded us via Radio Manus thanks to my Father, I was feeling decided nervous about just who might be there to meet us.
After 10 minutes, someone in the waiting crowd calls out “are you Lynne, daughter of John Quinnell?”. I walk over my mind performing cartwheels: so this is it, we’re going to be hijacked, quite possibly eaten…
Turns out the voice belongs to John Tewi, a friend of a friend of my Father’s (in Manus, that makes us virtually blood relatives!) who has come to escort us to town. He packs us into the back of a land cruiser with about 10 others for the 30-minute drive into Lorengau, the city centre. I am sweating uncontrollably on the man next to me who just smiles. He has obviously lost his sense of smell because I reek.
Needless to say neither of us are eaten and instead we are looked after like celebrities. Despite not knowing us from a bar of soap, John had taken the day off to pick us up and spend the day with us. He takes us on a tour of Lorengau, our first stop being the lunchtime markets comprising stall after stall of smoked fish, betel nut, mustard and little else. With John translating the story of why we were there to curious onlookers, we quickly attract a crowd. Suddenly, a well-rounded woman steps out of the throng, throws herself onto me and begins sobbing on my neck, squashing her tiny baby between us in the process. That was how I met Paula, my cousin.
Within minutes I was greeted by a former babysitter in a similar fashion and by the end of the day had met several. Into the afternoon and night visitors came knocking at our hotel room to pay their respects and ‘tell stories’ -- which is I guess what we used to do before TV -- with John patiently translating to both sides as Manusians mostly understand English but do not speak it confidently. Those that know me well and know my penchant for space and privacy will understand how truly overwhelming this experience was for me. By the time the week was over Ruud and I estimate we had met around 500 people and had near 30 woven Manus bags, signifying ‘welcome’, which we indeed were. (Heh heh…guess what you’re all getting for Christmas...).
The trip to my Mother’s island Rambutso is about 1.5 – 2 hours in a small boat with outboard provided, of course, you can find a boat.
It was starting to look ominous when the hotel’s receptionist informed us the lady in the room next door knew me (what?!) and was herself travelling to Rambutso. It transpired this person named Peta was a former student of my Father’s whom he had brought to Australia as a teenager in the 60’s for a short stay with my Aunties (Helen and Beverley) and Uncles (John and Bruzz). The story of how I began this trip to find my Mother was full of coincidences and it was at this point I felt perhaps there was a greater force guiding our journey.
After meeting Peta’s family and updating her with news on the family at home we set about organising provisions and petrol. The provisions are necessary because -- as we were to find out -- there are no shops on Rambutso and it is customary that visitors to the island bring some goods. So we duly loaded up on local luxury items including such “extravagances” as rice, flour, tinned fish, 3 minute noodles, Milo and orange cordial. We also had to purchase the fuel for the trip which was prohibitive by local standards: at 200K it equated roughly to the weekly wage of a junior school teacher.
90 minutes after leaving Manus Island we arrived at Bundro, a small village on the end of a small island that is part of Rambutso group. The water here was unbelievably clear and the most brilliant shade of blue I have ever seen. Much later Ruud and I had occasion to laugh when we realised we’d both had thoughts of faking a fall out of the boat and splashing about in this unbelievable water. My Father was later to tell me of his refusal to leave this island when his posting was up, and how his colleagues were forced to physically pack up his entire house to get him off the island. It is paradise and my Father didn’t want to leave. Today I understand why.
The trip from Bundro to my mother’s village (Langot) on the main Rambutso island is another 20 minutes. Rambutso is the second largest island in Manus Province, yet remains completely covered in jungle all the way down to the water. The ‘jetty’ at Langot consists of a couple of enormous tree trunks that have been pushed into the water.
At the waters edge it’s a zillion percent humidity and from there a 60 degree incline up 200 metres to my mother’s house. As we started uphill for a moment I had this vision of myself as an explorer, imagining I was creating history and reflecting on the many people that had made this journey possible. I felt I needed to note every microscopic detail so I could share it with everyone afterwards. Then a jolt back to reality and raw fear: my comfort zone was but a blip on the horizon….what the hell was I doing here?!
At the top of the hill were a group of palm thatched houses and a group of expectant villagers hanging around beneath a large green house. I remember looking around at so many brown, unfamiliar smiling faces searching for similarities at the same time as desperately wanting to turn and run. From somewhere, a small, slight figure stepped forward smiling tentatively before throwing her arms around me. We stood holding each other for about 5 minutes. She cried, I froze. This was how I met my Ina.
My first thought was: ‘she looks nothing like me’. This was quickly replaced with an urgent desire to run. Images of me hurtling back down the path to the giant tree jetty with my Ina still attached and flapping off my neck flashed before me. Then another jolt back to reality: what the hell would I do then, swim the many miles across shark infested waters to the airport?
The rest of the day was pretty much a blur but I do remember later that night showering under the moonlight and a millions stars in my especially erected Princess Shower, courtesy of my new brothers Fred and Mossim (4 tree branches and a tarpaulin). I remember thinking this was going to be a hell of a long week, and reminding myself that it really was too long a swim back to the mainland. I fell to sleep beyond exhaustion and completely at sea, disconnected from everything apart from my traitor sweetie snoring contentedly next to me.
But of course in usual fashion time passed all too quickly.
I was to learn that by the time my mother was 40 (my age now), she’d had 8 children – I have 3 new brothers and 4 new sisters, countless nephews and nieces and I’ve met my first Grandfather! I met all except the youngest sibling (Rose) who is on the mainland studying teaching. Without exception, all are taller than me. The boys are strong looking types renowned for their commitment to their families; the respect they command across the Manus province; and their hunting skills -- a definite advantage in the absence of modern conveniences such as corner stores. The girls are beautiful and it is painfully clear I woz robbed!! in the height and boob stakes.
We learned the village was cleared by Ina’s husband – Papa Nick – in the 70s and so according to custom he owns the land. 2 sisters live elsewhere, but everyone else lives within metres of Ina’s and Papa Nick’s house. The typical household has two houses, one the kitchen house (usually made of palm leaves) and the other for sleeping (wood if you can afford it). Papa Nick was an oddity on the island for having a trade, carpentry, a skill he passed on to two of my brothers. It also ensured his and Ina’s house was large and luxurious by local standards (i.e. it had a tin roof).
Island life is simple and most of our time on Rambutso involved (us watching others) getting and preparing food. Our first morning we dined on lobster and sago (from the palm tree, it’s the Manusian’s version of rice). Each day it was an assortment of fish (all line caught); giant clams large enough to fill two hands (and very illegal back home!), mud crabs, lobsters (all from reef to plate that day), all served with garden veggies (all organic!) including many of the 35 different varieties of bananas on the island.
Rambutso is totally cut off from the outside world with no electricity, radio broadcasts, telephony, or newspapers. There are no roads on Rambutso only tracks in the forest and travel of any distance requires an outboard motor and expensive fuel. It would seem then that news travels on the wind because within a day of us arriving, we were told that all the villagers on Rambutso – some 30 km long – had been alerted to our arrival, many paddling canoes by starlight to reach us. Every day several villagers and relatives would arrive to meet us, exchange stories and share food with us, all signs of the deep respect they hold for Ina and Papa Nick.
The sense of community was remarkable and humbling. In spite of the poverty a woman offered Ina her 2 metre long snake beans just because Ruud and I had been drawn to them earlier that morning in the market. Food, baskets and shells were showered on us wherever we went. The children grow up confident in the care and love of not just their parents but the entire village. The village elders are not outcasts but respected and integrated into family and village life. Back home we may have running water and countless channels on cable TV but it is hard to shake the feeling much has been lost in the name of progress.
If Ruud had harboured any concerns about how he would be treated, he need not have worried. Aside from terrorising brother Fred’s son Nathan with his ghostly whiteness, Ruud was welcomed into the family without hesitation. As custom dictates none of my relatives would call Ruud by his name, so he assumed the moniker ‘Tambu” which translates as “in-law”. He won their hearts seemingly without effort. With my pidgin skills returning over the course of the week, I was to hear my Ina describe Ruud to a neighbour variously as being a ‘good man’; “funny”, ‘liking to talk’... In fact, I believe the literal translation was that he was quite a chatterbox!
I think Ruud’s appeal also owed something to the fact that Manusians -- both women and men -- are soccer lunatics. So if you have ever witnessed Ruud in full flight at a soccer match, you will appreciate then that in Manus, Ruud was truly amongst his own. When Ruud asked to join the afternoon soccer training sessions with my brothers and cousins -- in doing so becoming the first white man to play on their soccer field no less -- they were thrilled. With hindsight I realise there had been some apprehension about how to look after us, the white visitors. The ice was broken in a truly spectacular manner, however, when Ruud donned his runners and hit the field with brothers Fred and Mossim and cousin Martin…especially when Ruud rocketed in a couple of goals!
After too short a time we were on the boat back to Manus with Ina and brothers Fred and Mossim accompanying us that far. There is so much more to tell and it truly was an amazing journey. We have promised to go back and I say ‘we’ deliberately as I am under instruction to return but “not with another boyfriend, only Tambu”.
Thank you so much to everyone for the well-wishes and support in the lead up to this trip. Now over to Ruud who picks up the story of our adventure from here!
After a beautiful, intense and emotional week in Manus Province meeting Lynne’s family, we caught the plane to Kavieng on Monday 16-04-07 for a week of relaxing and battery recharging.
The flight to Kavieng is only 50 minutes but a 50-minute scenic flight over the islands of Manus Province and New Ireland Province. As on the way in, we also got a clear view of Rambutso Island and I could point out to Lynne the village where she was born, the village where here grandfather lives and the village where here mother and family lives.
It is sooo beautiful to see all the islands from the air and especially the reefs surrounding them as the colours of the sea are magic, from dark blue to light green. Yes, I’m ready to dive!! Wanted to do a dive on Manus but couldn’t find the dive instructor…
At Kavieng airport we were welcomed by Cara from Scuba Ventures Kavieng and Lou from Nusa Island Retreat, but only after Lynne met another lady who knew her story (she really is a legend, all Manus people know her!).
We arrived the same day as a group of Australian Kokoda trail walkers. For the non-Australians: on the Kokoda track in PNG it was where the Australians (supported by many locals) were able to halt the Japanese advance to conquer PNG in WWII. The Japanese never managed to reach the capital Port Moresby. A lot of Australians walk the 96 km. as a reminder of the heroic military campaign, a switchback footpath through some of the most rugged country in the world, endlessly rising and falling and hopefully muddy after rain.
As the Kokoda walkers had booked all the waterside bungalows, we got the Big House, a two-storey house made completely out of wood and palm leaves. Nusa Island is a two-minute banana boat ride from Kavieng, and next to the Retreat there are two or three little villages on the island.
Our daily program was more or less as follows: 7.00 Wake up 7.30 Breakfast 8.30 Pick up by the dive boat for a double boat dive for Ruud and a book/sleep-in/kayaking/chat with other travellers/locals for Lynne 13.00 Lunch 14.00 Afternoon nap and/or a book/walk/snorkel 19.30 Dinner and a couple of drinks 21.30 Bedtime
Diving is really fantastic here, and I was lucky enough to be the only diver 5 out of 6 days. Water temperature was 30 degrees, so no wetsuit required. And quite a variety of dive sites as well: coral reefs, WWII planes, walls, freshwater sinkholes, and a paradise for photography. To be honest, I impressed myself with some of the picture I took!
A couple of highlights on the dives with Dorian from Scuba Ventures Kavieng: A cave full of lobsters - unfortunately I couldn’t take them for dinner as you are only allowed to catch then when free diving. Electric clams - a bright blue line on the mantle flutters and looks like a neon strobe or an electric light. The famous Albatross Passage – you hook yourself into the rocks (otherwise the current will take care of you!), and you just enjoy the big stuff cruising around: grey reef sharks, devil rays, schools of big trevallies and barracudas. Once you are hooked in you hang horizontally and the air bubbles disappear behind you. Pigmy seahorses – you really need a magnifier as you can see in the picture as they are less than one centimetre long! Lots of different species of anemone fish, including our friend Nemo, protecting their homes. I even got attacked by one of them; he bit me on the head. It really sounded like something hit me on the head and when I looked up this bloody anemone fish was looking at me like: “You better watch it mate!!” Stonefish – they are really hard to spot as they, as the name says, just look like a stone. But Dorian’s trained eye spotted a couple. I got my fingernails cleaned by a couple of shrimps. Crocodile fish – guess what, his head looks like a crocodile!!
Lynne and I also did some snorkelling (step by step she is getting closer to do a dive course!!) on top of a WWII plane and a fishing trawler, and spotted a crocodile fish and lots of blue sea stars. And when I went for a dive in the sinkhole, Cara taught Lynne how to dive with her mask and snorkel. On our way to the sinkhole we stopped at an eel farm. Lynne was unaware of this and was happy we stopped at this small creek as it was warm and she was looking forward to a walk in the water to cool down a bit. Not for long though, the moment she saw these “monsters” wriggling up the creek towards her, she jumped clear out of the water, you should have seen her face!! These freshwater eels can live in both fresh and salt water and some of them are pets for the locals. They also feed them fish, canned fish!!
The island we were staying was called little Nusa and the next island was called big Nusa. We did a walking tour on big Nusa and found a couple of big guns left by the Japanese after they surrendered in 1945.
Ok, I have to write a paragraph about the food at the Retreat. Every morning the local fishermen came by to sell yellowfin tuna, and we saw some BIG ones, up to 40 kilos!! Guess what, 4 kina per kilo, which is around 2 Australian dollars. Obviously, we ate a lot of tuna including sashimi -- my mouth is still watering thinking of it. And also crab every night, and lobster a couple of night. All so fresh, mmmmmmmmm.
Unfortunately time flew and before we knew it was time to leave. We flew from Kavieng back to Port Moresby, stayed a night and took the 7am flight to Brisbane, followed by a domestic flight to Sydney. As we had some “dubious” articles in our luggage (Manus bags, shells, wooden statues), I was ready for a long visit at the quarantine counter, but we were lucky, they checked my big backpack and all ok, welcome back to Australia.
We were only back for one week when we got some bad news from Rambutso; Fred, Lynne’s younger brother, had died, aged 24. He was freediving for sea cucumbers (to sell to the Japanese to earn some cash) and he never resurfaced. This was really tragic news and we were both devastated. Only two weeks before Lynne had met him for the first time and now he was gone.
Only after three days was the body recovered by a family friend who is also a salvage diver. Everybody was greatly relieved his body was returned for customary burial as if it wasn’t recovered he would never rest according to custom. For those three days every member of the community was on the ocean with anything that could float weeping silently with heads down until he was brought up.
As Lynne wrote in an email to friends and family: “I will remember him for the night I saw him carry and rock his sick baby, Nathan to sleep over several hours. One night Nathan woke several times crying with fever, and I will always wonder what were Fred's hushed words I could hear through the walls that settled Nathan in a matter of seconds and so allowed the rest of us to sleep through.”
Fred was a young man who contributed well to the community with his fishing and hunting. He and his other two brothers were the back line that the Manus squad slavered over. He was a shy guy with a wicked sense of humour. The fact that the whole electorate mourned his death was proof of his popularity. There was a big feast in his honour and his family will be well cared for by the community. That’s the beauty of Manus customs: they will never go short.
Back home, Lynne and I were joined by many friends in a one-minute silence under the stars with a glass of 'hot spirits' -- especially favoured by PNG's young men -- to mark Fred’s passing and to celebrate his life.
