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| Creative Commons License: C. Frank Starmer |
I remember it well as it was like every other government designed house, raised above the ground with stairwell access from a small lower level. Your vehicle was parked underneath the master bedroom.
There was a large section of grass with a few banana palms at the rear. The grass was cut by sweeping a hand blade in a scything fashion; rhythmic but sapping work in the heat of PNG.
Any banana that grew had to be wrapped either in a plastic bag or with fibre from the plant to stop the fruit being attacked by insects.
Most of the decorative plants that were planted were the tropical, indigenous varieties that commanded a premium in New Zealand garden centres, but which grew with wild abandon in their natural habitat.
It was not only the flora that grew in this fashion, the fauna did as well. We had large spiders that spread their webs. These were Nephila pilipes (pictured right) and reportedly caught and consumed small birds?
All manner of bugs and beetles were new and foreign; stag beetles that hissed when threatened, cockroaches of enormous dimensions and even the odd snake, although the latter were not that visible most of the time.
I put the ants to good use by burying some decorative shells I had brought back from a trip to Rabaul. A month later when I dug then up they were completely clean of any internal organs and organic matter.
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| Shells picked clean |
It was not an uncommon occurrence for people to finish their government contracts and be lured by more lucrative deals in the private sector.
My neighbours on one side was a house full of Filipinos with a huge array of dogs that kept the neighbourhood awake whenever someone walked past at night.
Directly across from my house were Dave and Nancy Chard with their children Gamu and Emma. Dave was an Australian who worked for civil aviation and Nancy was a PNG national.It was from Nancy that I first learnt some of the secrets of Chinese cooking which became a passion of mine in later life.
Dave was a keen radio ham and I used to pop across from time to time to hear him converse with other amateur radio enthusiasts in countries thousands of miles away.
It was a must to purchase a receiver that could pick up the ABC on short wave. In the days before the internet this was the only way to learn what was happening in the big wide world as the PNG media mainly focused on domestic fare.
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