Diseases in Menyama District, Morobe

Update as of Sept 10:
There have been 3995 cases of Flu reported with 59 deaths.
698 cases of Dysentery (20 in Huon district) with 38 deaths. This is from only the 25 villages that have been contacted by radio or health patrol visits. There are many more villages in Menyama District (approximate population of 69,000).
There are a number of health teams visiting now but still communication is hard due to terrain and cloud cover. The road is cut at Aseki with supplies being stockpiled there in anticipation of the road opening.
They say that the dysentery is the Shigella variety which is supposed to be the worst kind (I don't know if there are 'good dysentery' varieties!)

Update Sept 1:
Latest figures put the death toll at over 70 now.
More medicine cannot be flown in due to poor weather conditions and road deterioration.

Article in the National (Aug 24, 2009).
A mystery disease that 'spreads like wildfire' has killed 29 people in five villages in Morobe's Menyama district since last month. (as you can see in my 'general location map' that Menyama is a very remote part of PNG -actually Menyama is slightly to the West of my highlighted region)
Twelve have died in Akwange, fifteen in Ikunda and one in Lagai, all located in Kome LLG (local Level Government area).
They suffered sever headache, high fever, dysentery, sore throat, running nose and sneezing but the Menyama health centre only had medicines for normal flu.
Bina David (health centre manager) said it needed immediate government action.
Last Monday the Morobe health division officer was sent from Lae. He returned on Wednesday and on Friday a batch of drugs was sent to Menyama and then dispatched to the affected villages.
Mrs David said the roads and communication links in the area were poor and appealed for a specialist team to be stationed at Menyama. She feared more people would be affected.
(I have seen a picture of the main menyama road where the height of the 4WD is lower than the heights of the ruts on either side. The car was like it was driving down a small mud canyon.)

Bride Price

I have just been talking Joshua Keno, operations supervisor at ADRA, who is returning to Anumba - his local community near Henganofi, Eastern Highlands Province (EHP) this weekend to participate in a wedding.
This wedding has the largest bride price that I have heard of in my personal acquaintances.
Joshua's brother, Herod, who works in Port Moresby is marrying a girl who also works in Port Moresby... the connections however have lead to the large bride price.
The connection is that Priscilla's father is the Deputy Administrator of Chimbu Province.

Joshua's wife, Jutty, bride price was K5,000. Which I think is a bargain! They seem very happy with their kids and she is often outside ADRA at lunchtime selling donuts and other food to the lunchtime crowd walking up the street to add to the family income. She comes from 'out past Okapa' which is a remote part of EHP ... Joshua told me a funny story regarding the negotiations of Jutty's bride price that involved Jutty's mother throwing a hot frying pan with oil from the fire between Joshua and his brother who were lucky to avoid serious burns!

Anyway, back to the story.
The bride price is as follows:
10 cows
20 pigs
20 goats
2 cassowarys and
K60,000 in cash.
All up with the feast over the weekend it will cost around K100,000 in cash and the animals as extra! There is also a chartered plane from POM to Goroka for the 60 guests from POM to attend. The guests will be transported to Anumba from Goroka in 6 hired toyota landcruisers (K1,200+ each!)
The cost for the guests from Chimbu is an unknown cost at this stage.

Joshua will try and get photos over the weekend which I will add at a later date.

Security in Lae

This was an article in June 16 National Newspaper. It has it all: attacking the national government, giving reasons for the security problems, blaming the criminals and even attacking the churches. I love the hiring of Menyamya archers (Menyamya is a remote region of Morobe Province located near Southern Highlands).

Wenge, Khay vow to rid city of Hooligans

Morobe Governor Luther Wenge and Lord Mayor James Khay have taken a step to clean the streets of pick-pockets, street peddlers and hawkers and win back some peace and order into the city.

They have authorised a security force of Menyamya archers to rid the city's hot spots of Eriku, Top Town and main market bus stops, of the notorious street peddlers.

"Lae city belongs to Papua New Guineans and the international community; there is no place for these petty arrogant rat-like perpetrators in public places and disturb and frighten people, harass women, children and the old people," Mr Wenge said.

Mr Wenge and Mr Khay were speaking at the Abunaka market at Nine-Mile, where more than 1,000 people had gathered to formally launch the Menyamya-Morobe Security Service Company last Friday.

A similar force of mainly Menyamyas, called the Maus Morobe, was set up in the mid-90s to police law and order when crime had risen beyond "the capacity of law enforcement agencies.

In recent months, the street hawkers and peddlers have been accused of stealing, stabbing and rape.

Their capacity for wanton destruction was seen at its worst during last month’s riots against Chinese traders at the main market and Eriku.

"Morobe is preaching too much of Christianity and Good News for the Grace of God…Grace…and this Grace paved the way for the wild dogs to start inflicting pain and suffering upon Christian flocks," Mr Wenge said

"Nau mi rausim karamap bilong bainat na putim em ples klia. (I am now removing this bayonet from its sheath.) God shall bless this bayonet" Mr Wcnge said metaphorically.

"Why should human beings suffer, fall prey and die from the hands of those reckless lazy people scavenging city streets … while the National Government fails its constitutional obligation to fund law enforcing agencies to implement duties effectively for a peaceful society?” Mr Wenge asked

Making Lime for Buai (Betelnut)

Chewing Buai or Betelnut (Areca catechu) is a national pastime in Papua New Guinea.

It gives a mild narcotic effect that briefly gives a small 'up' while also allowing small issues like hunger to be 'hidden' for a while.

The fruit from the Betelnut palm is chewed over nearly all of South Asia, the Pacific and even in East Africa.
Although there are many different ways and additions in chewing, there is one essential addition and that is Lime. It is needed for the alkalinity to enable the chemical release of the active ingredients and thus the distinctive red saliva juices!

While at Aluki village the local production of lime was seen.
Collection of mussel shells down at the beach gives a nice soup or stew but the shells are more important!

They are washed and dried, then stacked together with firewood.

The fire is lit from the top and gradually burns down turning the calcium carbonate of the shells into calcium oxide (lime). The shell pieces are collected and stored with this herb (had a smell like marjoram/basil) for a couple of weeks to make it 'sweet'.
It is then crushed and put into bottles. This stack would last them 'a couple of months'.
There is a 'mustard' fruit that is grown. It is this that is dipped into the lime continually and added to the betelnut that is being chewed.
I would just like to add a couple of pictures that Marilyn has found that show the terrible cost that chewing is taking on some of those that chew. It is causing massive extra costs to the health systems of many countries, especially PNG which cannot afford to treat the conditions that are not caused by lifestyle choices and are thus totally preventable. (to be added later)

View as we Travel to Work

One of the biggest disscussion points for anyone living in Lae is the state of the roads. It doesn't matter who or where you are talking if you mention the roads it will bring a wry smile or a frustrated groan along with a 'what I would do' comment.
Take the views on the way to the girls school below.

This is the view of our front garden as seen from the top of the stairs.


Moving down the driveway and looking back to our boat along with Sam the Dog. The large trees in the background are across the road behind the fence in the Lae Botanical Gardens.

Our front gate with the razor wire.

Our road in front of the house has been deteriorating rapidly and yesterday there was a large grader that was 'fixing' the large potholes... it simply scrapped the dirt and mud from beside the road and filled all the holes with mud! We almost had to engage 4WD to get through this morning! Believe it or not there is a half sealed road under this mud.
This pothole is notorious for us as it was here (last year) that we came upon a serious accident where a 15 seater van and a PMV truck collided at speed trying to dodge this hole. Marilyn was in the middle of a crowd of people trying to help one of the men who was trapped. We found out later that his femur had been smashed through his pelvis into his liver while his head had been cut severly as well. Men were trying to separate the vehicles by attaching chains to both and wrenching them apart using other trucks. That man was probably one of the bravest people I have seen as he was still conscious and in extreme agony while the vehicles were rocking. (He subsequently passed away after a week in ICU at ANGAU hospital... by the way...he was taken to hospital on the back of a utility as the ambulance had come and taken one person and not returned for the others)

This is a close street nearby where other ADRA staff live. It is a minefield for pedestrians after a wet day (nearly every day) as there are many potholes and cars find it very difficult to not splash water/mud.


This is the Ericu bus station. The potholes here are 5 m across and sometimes a metre deep filled with water. Marilyn actually had to back out of one a while ago as it came above the bullbar on our Pajero 4WD!


There are some positive signs with some companies fixing their assigned sections of road. The local government assigned 5 companies different roads in town to stop accusations of favouritism. So it seems that the first thing each company did with their allocated money was to buy a grader, excavator and trucks! With many now lying idle as the funding has dried up. Many roads are half fixed with large drains being constructed.

I couldn't resist this photo. As they were fixing the other end of my suburban street the grader broke down and they just left it in the middle of the road for a couple of days.