Bound from Singapore to Port Moresby, already tired, I slid myself into the well-worn seat of an Air Niugini Boeing. The lazy, reassuringly Australian voice of the Captain drawled on about the flight to come as I stuffed my book into the seat pocket in front of me. The safety card was sticking out. It was dog-eared and labelled “Icelandair”. Good for the metal fatigue, I thought, first a tour in the Arctic, then retired to the tropics. A sticker informing me that smoking on board would be a violation of Icelandic law was half-peeling from the underside of my tray table. Under the old Norse wording was an original sticker, in Portugese. But the sturdy Melanesian stewardess, decidedly older than the plane, was generous with her bottle of kangarouge. I sprawled gratefully onto the empty seats next to me, and plugged my ears against the rattle and wheeze of the venerable bird as she flew us across the breadth of Indonesia, through the night.
Arriving at first light, I was pleased by the lack of hassle at the little airfield, and was met by the head of HR of our banking client outside. It was warm, and a humid breeze met me outside the terminal. A bank car took me to the hotel. Another sticker warned sternly against the use of alcohol, or betel nuts, in bank vehicles. By the time I check in and shower, wander up to the outdoor restaurant by the pool, and sit down with some coffee, the sun is up, and wraiths of mist are being pushed back from the equatorial green hills of the Owen Stanley range, surrounding the city.
Our client is a bank, the biggest in the South Pacific. It is run – like everything here – by a posse of Aussie imports. Many of these guys are long-termers, addicted expats, in splendid tropical self-exile in PNG. A colourful variety of biographical accidents and marital shipwrecks have washed these guys up on the beach. Many have settled down with Papuan wives; some with several. PNG, a Commonwealth member, was entrusted to Australian stewardship following the First World War when the Northern part of the non-Dutch (today, Indonesian) half of the island was taken away from German colonisers. A typically poorly-prepared transition to Independence followed in 1975. Educated folks speak English (there are some 700 indigenous languages, many of them completely unintelligible to each other). In the under-educated lingua franca called “Pidgin,” some German words are marooned to this day: “Finance Haus” is plastered across the Ministry of Finance building downtown. I figure this out after the third time I see this usage, driving around town between meetings. There are also Malaysians, servicing their compatriots with forest-raping equipment like heavy machinery and labour supply, and some newly-arrived mainland Chinese traders, repeating the cycle of centuries of Chinese diaspora by establishing small shops and saving-up assiduously.
But it is mostly Australians, with a few Kiwi’s and Brits mixed-in for comic relief. A night at the Royal Papuan Yacht Club is enough to drive the point home: there are 3000+ Australian members alone; with a smattering of Papuans and assorted others. People who already see each other at work get together several evenings a week in the Club and swill bottles of SP (South Pacific) beer. On the night we are there, collections and raffles are loudly conducted for the Victoria forest fire victims. Even the non-Ozzies are infected. The elite go to school and university in Australia, and many maintain property, business interests, and bank accounts down under. Port Moresby boasts the largest Australian High Commission (Embassy) next to London, servicing this community. Aussie aid keeps the Government’s books balanced and perpetuates a love/hate culture of admiration, dependence and resentment. It reminds me of Holland and Suriname.
A Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur, born and raised in the country, speaks to me in a heavy Australian accent about doing business in PNG. He flies down to his family in Brisbane (3 hours) every other weekend. He is busy settling the estate of his father, a friend of the President and prominent local businessman recently killed by kids and bandits in a squatter suburb of Port Moresby when he failed to stop for a car-jacking attempt. The city is rough. Illiterate and unemployable Highland tribesmen have drifted to the coast in increasing numbers in recent years, spawning a wild-west level of petty crime which regularly turns ugly and violent. Settling his Dad’s estate involves providing for 14 newly-discovered half-brothers and sisters and a gaggle of women of varying ethnicity who have come out of the woodwork since the old man’s passing.
I look out over the harbour, remarking on the relatively sparse freighters at anchor. Is this a result of the crisis, I ask? No, there isn’t much trade in the best of times, apart from the mining commodities and some agri-business. PNG is simply pretty isolated. As a result, there is no local downturn yet visible. Local politicians, builders and real estate sharks have all set their hopes on new, vast reported finds of natural gas, and ExxonMobil’s concession to develop these. Wild stories of 3,000 Exxon expats about to be parachuted in are bandied about. The venerable Yacht Club is contemplating a Corporate Membership scheme to cope with this influx. Luxury flats with sea views are sprouting all around.
But a petroleum engineer looks at me with narrowed eyes. He waves a bottle of SP at the construction sites, Ozzie accent slightly sloshed. “Yeah. These folks are fooling themselves. This is seriously back-burner stuff for the Exxons of this world. With the oil price bombed-out and global demand crashing? With the tribal landlords wanting ridiculous compensation for the pipelines to the coast? With the Government boys expecting the bingo jackpot and a Sydney harbour-view flat tossed-in? With no banks out there willing to even think about lending billions to an energy project, with marginal economics, in this Godforsaken hole with no skilled labour? Who do they think they are kidding?” He takes a deep swig. But listening to the chatter and a casual glance at the local papers suggests that the gas money has already been spent and mortgaged twice over.
Our host asks one of the waiters, in a sailor suit, to take our picture. He frowns and fumbles with the camera, waving it backwards and forwards, anti-red-eye pulses blinking. The camera, I note grimly, is upside-down and the flash illuminates his feet. “Patience and optimism, that’s my motto,” mumbles my engineering friend.
(Port Moresby, February 2009)
Arriving at first light, I was pleased by the lack of hassle at the little airfield, and was met by the head of HR of our banking client outside. It was warm, and a humid breeze met me outside the terminal. A bank car took me to the hotel. Another sticker warned sternly against the use of alcohol, or betel nuts, in bank vehicles. By the time I check in and shower, wander up to the outdoor restaurant by the pool, and sit down with some coffee, the sun is up, and wraiths of mist are being pushed back from the equatorial green hills of the Owen Stanley range, surrounding the city.Our client is a bank, the biggest in the South Pacific. It is run – like everything here – by a posse of Aussie imports. Many of these guys are long-termers, addicted expats, in splendid tropical self-exile in PNG. A colourful variety of biographical accidents and marital shipwrecks have washed these guys up on the beach. Many have settled down with Papuan wives; some with several. PNG, a Commonwealth member, was entrusted to Australian stewardship following the First World War when the Northern part of the non-Dutch (today, Indonesian) half of the island was taken away from German colonisers. A typically poorly-prepared transition to Independence followed in 1975. Educated folks speak English (there are some 700 indigenous languages, many of them completely unintelligible to each other). In the under-educated lingua franca called “Pidgin,” some German words are marooned to this day: “Finance Haus” is plastered across the Ministry of Finance building downtown. I figure this out after the third time I see this usage, driving around town between meetings. There are also Malaysians, servicing their compatriots with forest-raping equipment like heavy machinery and labour supply, and some newly-arrived mainland Chinese traders, repeating the cycle of centuries of Chinese diaspora by establishing small shops and saving-up assiduously.
But it is mostly Australians, with a few Kiwi’s and Brits mixed-in for comic relief. A night at the Royal Papuan Yacht Club is enough to drive the point home: there are 3000+ Australian members alone; with a smattering of Papuans and assorted others. People who already see each other at work get together several evenings a week in the Club and swill bottles of SP (South Pacific) beer. On the night we are there, collections and raffles are loudly conducted for the Victoria forest fire victims. Even the non-Ozzies are infected. The elite go to school and university in Australia, and many maintain property, business interests, and bank accounts down under. Port Moresby boasts the largest Australian High Commission (Embassy) next to London, servicing this community. Aussie aid keeps the Government’s books balanced and perpetuates a love/hate culture of admiration, dependence and resentment. It reminds me of Holland and Suriname.
A Greek-Cypriot entrepreneur, born and raised in the country, speaks to me in a heavy Australian accent about doing business in PNG. He flies down to his family in Brisbane (3 hours) every other weekend. He is busy settling the estate of his father, a friend of the President and prominent local businessman recently killed by kids and bandits in a squatter suburb of Port Moresby when he failed to stop for a car-jacking attempt. The city is rough. Illiterate and unemployable Highland tribesmen have drifted to the coast in increasing numbers in recent years, spawning a wild-west level of petty crime which regularly turns ugly and violent. Settling his Dad’s estate involves providing for 14 newly-discovered half-brothers and sisters and a gaggle of women of varying ethnicity who have come out of the woodwork since the old man’s passing.
I look out over the harbour, remarking on the relatively sparse freighters at anchor. Is this a result of the crisis, I ask? No, there isn’t much trade in the best of times, apart from the mining commodities and some agri-business. PNG is simply pretty isolated. As a result, there is no local downturn yet visible. Local politicians, builders and real estate sharks have all set their hopes on new, vast reported finds of natural gas, and ExxonMobil’s concession to develop these. Wild stories of 3,000 Exxon expats about to be parachuted in are bandied about. The venerable Yacht Club is contemplating a Corporate Membership scheme to cope with this influx. Luxury flats with sea views are sprouting all around.
But a petroleum engineer looks at me with narrowed eyes. He waves a bottle of SP at the construction sites, Ozzie accent slightly sloshed. “Yeah. These folks are fooling themselves. This is seriously back-burner stuff for the Exxons of this world. With the oil price bombed-out and global demand crashing? With the tribal landlords wanting ridiculous compensation for the pipelines to the coast? With the Government boys expecting the bingo jackpot and a Sydney harbour-view flat tossed-in? With no banks out there willing to even think about lending billions to an energy project, with marginal economics, in this Godforsaken hole with no skilled labour? Who do they think they are kidding?” He takes a deep swig. But listening to the chatter and a casual glance at the local papers suggests that the gas money has already been spent and mortgaged twice over.
Our host asks one of the waiters, in a sailor suit, to take our picture. He frowns and fumbles with the camera, waving it backwards and forwards, anti-red-eye pulses blinking. The camera, I note grimly, is upside-down and the flash illuminates his feet. “Patience and optimism, that’s my motto,” mumbles my engineering friend.
(Port Moresby, February 2009)
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