Marble over muscle
If this new place has taught me anything, it’s that anything can happen. (NB: for further readings, see most recent blog entry...) Even if you wake up on the right side of the bed, make sure your Weetbix don’t go soggy, swirl the teaspoon thrice in clockwise rotation, brush your teeth, wear clean undies, get the good side of the wishbone, etc there are always bound to be drunks on the beach preventing you from getting to work.
With my alarm sounding at 6:00am I fought the temptation to pull the sheet up over my ever-so-slightly chilled shoulder. But with the rooster impatient for the day to start, I whipped back the cover and swung out of bed. The morning rituals well underway with the standard triple-check that I had taken my anti-malarial, I was out the door well before 7:00am.
I almost skipped with contentment along the track down to the beach as I bid my neighbours a very ‘bona malana’. Cursing and giggling hollered from behind a huddle of coconut palms as some of the locals boys attempted to heave their boat ashore after a very successful night of fishing. Desperate to impress, shy ‘mornin missus’ echoed through the group as they eagerly returned to their rope and in unison flexed their muscles like peacocks would fan their feathers.
The younger generation of fishermen (or rather fisherboys) playing a few boats down, oblivious to their elder counterparts masquerading and heaving up the sandy embankment, held equal attempt in vying for my attention. But in place of muscles they boasted their marbles. Keen to have me watch and desperate to have me play, I obliged in a round or two. As I thanked the boys for quite clearly letting me win, I turned to make my way along the beach into town.
Almost instantly, the marbles were abandoned and their little hands came running towards me clutching for my skirt. Trying to decipher their heightened tone of exclamations was a task but luckily one of their mum’s was nearby and translated on my behalf. There were a group of men down the beach who had had a little too much to drink, or perhaps just hadn’t quite finished yet, and ‘em raskols’! I knew that word and I knew it meant trouble. She didn’t need to tell me twice.
Turning myself right around, my little marbles escorted me all the way to the bus stop (a whole 50 metres away!) just to make sure I got there ok. Refusing their offer to wait with me until the bus came, I regretted it 50 minutes later when I had almost gone crazy watching dozens of full buses pass me by. At least my little marbles could have joined me in singing the Neil and Tim Finn song that was rolling around in my head... ‘I won’t take my chances, cos anything can happen’.
Lesson 16: Boys, don’t flex your muscles, flick your marbles.
Last week I was feeling dreadfully overwhelmed with the responsibility of trying to jumpstart tourism in the New Guinea islands. After a Friday night of living it up and a full day of recovery (if you can call it that – hangovers in the tropics are not fun) thanks to nasty red wine from, not a cask but a flagon (even the word sounds like you’ll get a hangover) combined with a round of tequila disguised as a Mexican stuntman (K, Tora and Turdy – don’t worry, there were no bibles harmed in the making of this hangover) I surprisingly ‘landed on two feet’ for my first day of the working week (despite the detour of the drunks on the beach). Excuse the pun, but there was also a brief moment in the midst of writing myself off that I did find myself flat on my back in the middle of dance floor. All class, no tact. I refused to leave the house for the better part of Saturday for fear that someone would recognise my limp as a drunken, dancing injury.
I gingerly hobbled to the League game yesterday to watch my team the Gurias win quite confidently (36-0...) against the team from Mt Hagen and tried to erase Friday night from my memory (which I couldn’t remember most of anyway), hoping that everyone else would too. But no, I forgot momentarily that in fact the MC from the Ralum Golf Club on Friday night is one-and-the-same person who also does the honours at the rugby.
Lucky for me, they’re all rugby mad and conversation soon swung from my war wounds to the much more impressive ones on the field. Alice and I more often than not are the inseparable duo, but Alice’s housemate Steph also joined us in the VIP stand to ogle and giggle at the pacific thighs (and ego’s) striding up and down the field. The litres of free beer that pulsed through the stand aided greatly our hypothesis-ation of the technical aspects of the game. I still can’t quite figure out why it is that when they get tackled (or someone calls ‘stacks on!’) the guy with the ball thrashes around violently (or looks like he is a dying animal dry humping the ground) to get his opponent/s off him?? And you think cricket is a weird sport...
Lesson 17: Your reputation will precede you until ‘the’ game exceeds you.
With my alarm sounding at 6:00am I fought the temptation to pull the sheet up over my ever-so-slightly chilled shoulder. But with the rooster impatient for the day to start, I whipped back the cover and swung out of bed. The morning rituals well underway with the standard triple-check that I had taken my anti-malarial, I was out the door well before 7:00am.
I almost skipped with contentment along the track down to the beach as I bid my neighbours a very ‘bona malana’. Cursing and giggling hollered from behind a huddle of coconut palms as some of the locals boys attempted to heave their boat ashore after a very successful night of fishing. Desperate to impress, shy ‘mornin missus’ echoed through the group as they eagerly returned to their rope and in unison flexed their muscles like peacocks would fan their feathers.
The younger generation of fishermen (or rather fisherboys) playing a few boats down, oblivious to their elder counterparts masquerading and heaving up the sandy embankment, held equal attempt in vying for my attention. But in place of muscles they boasted their marbles. Keen to have me watch and desperate to have me play, I obliged in a round or two. As I thanked the boys for quite clearly letting me win, I turned to make my way along the beach into town.
Almost instantly, the marbles were abandoned and their little hands came running towards me clutching for my skirt. Trying to decipher their heightened tone of exclamations was a task but luckily one of their mum’s was nearby and translated on my behalf. There were a group of men down the beach who had had a little too much to drink, or perhaps just hadn’t quite finished yet, and ‘em raskols’! I knew that word and I knew it meant trouble. She didn’t need to tell me twice.
Turning myself right around, my little marbles escorted me all the way to the bus stop (a whole 50 metres away!) just to make sure I got there ok. Refusing their offer to wait with me until the bus came, I regretted it 50 minutes later when I had almost gone crazy watching dozens of full buses pass me by. At least my little marbles could have joined me in singing the Neil and Tim Finn song that was rolling around in my head... ‘I won’t take my chances, cos anything can happen’.
Lesson 16: Boys, don’t flex your muscles, flick your marbles.
Last week I was feeling dreadfully overwhelmed with the responsibility of trying to jumpstart tourism in the New Guinea islands. After a Friday night of living it up and a full day of recovery (if you can call it that – hangovers in the tropics are not fun) thanks to nasty red wine from, not a cask but a flagon (even the word sounds like you’ll get a hangover) combined with a round of tequila disguised as a Mexican stuntman (K, Tora and Turdy – don’t worry, there were no bibles harmed in the making of this hangover) I surprisingly ‘landed on two feet’ for my first day of the working week (despite the detour of the drunks on the beach). Excuse the pun, but there was also a brief moment in the midst of writing myself off that I did find myself flat on my back in the middle of dance floor. All class, no tact. I refused to leave the house for the better part of Saturday for fear that someone would recognise my limp as a drunken, dancing injury.
I gingerly hobbled to the League game yesterday to watch my team the Gurias win quite confidently (36-0...) against the team from Mt Hagen and tried to erase Friday night from my memory (which I couldn’t remember most of anyway), hoping that everyone else would too. But no, I forgot momentarily that in fact the MC from the Ralum Golf Club on Friday night is one-and-the-same person who also does the honours at the rugby.
Lucky for me, they’re all rugby mad and conversation soon swung from my war wounds to the much more impressive ones on the field. Alice and I more often than not are the inseparable duo, but Alice’s housemate Steph also joined us in the VIP stand to ogle and giggle at the pacific thighs (and ego’s) striding up and down the field. The litres of free beer that pulsed through the stand aided greatly our hypothesis-ation of the technical aspects of the game. I still can’t quite figure out why it is that when they get tackled (or someone calls ‘stacks on!’) the guy with the ball thrashes around violently (or looks like he is a dying animal dry humping the ground) to get his opponent/s off him?? And you think cricket is a weird sport...
Lesson 17: Your reputation will precede you until ‘the’ game exceeds you.
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