To Town, You Say?

Kainantu-see the little bit of pavement on the right side
of the picture?

About a week and a half ago, I had the opportunity to go to Kainantu with several other ladies to do some shopping. We piled into the old firetruck and headed out bright and early (okay, so 7:30 isn’t really that early…but it was school break!). The roads here in Papua New Guinea (PNG) are very interesting (read: full of potholes), and the dirt road right out the front gate of Ukarumpa is among the worst (at least on the way to Kainantu). You can’t really dodge the potholes because they are EVERYWHERE, so you just look for the part of the road that has the least, or the potholes that look the least likely to eat your vehicle.
After driving through that for a while, you turn left and—voila!—there is pavement! Well, sort of. There are still vehicle-eating potholes every few meters, which means you never really get going very quickly. After driving for about 20 minutes, you cross the new bridge (remember the old one collapsed back in August?) and go up a bit of a hill, and you’re in Kainantu! At this point, the road gets even more interesting—there is still pavement…more or less. At some point in the past, I would imagine that the whole road was paved, but heavy traffic and a lack of repair have taken its toll on this section of road—all that is left is a strip of blacktop down the middle of the road, so you can drive with two of your wheels on pavement or just give up on that and drive on the dirt beside what is left of the road.

Pottery bowls at the Cultural Centre

After we parked at Papindo (a cross between a Ben Franklin and your local grocery store), we split up to go to some different stores. Some of us headed over to Kmart 2 (there are two Kmarts in Kainantu—nothing like the Kmarts in the States, mind you—Kmart and Kmart 2) to pick up a few groceries and random things, then we headed across the street to the big draw—the secondhand clothing stores. The clothes in these stores are baled up and sent to PNG from Australia, so while I have no idea what the latest fashions are in the US, I’m totally up on Australian style (or at least what was in vogue a few months ago!). For the most part, everything is super cheap—between 60 toea (pronounced TOY-a) and a couple kina (between 25¢ and $1), which makes secondhanding even more fantastic! J I was able to find a few tops and a couple skirts—one of which needs a few inches cut off the bottom…oh, the joys of being vertically challenged!

Making wool rugs; she told us that an English woman
came and showed them how to make the rugs with wool years ago.

After a couple hours of sorting through racks of used clothing, we headed over to the Cultural Centre, where beautiful handmade pottery and wool rugs are sold. One of the Papua New Guinean women who worked there was making a rug and was more than happy to explain the process to the waitskin meris (white women) who asked heaps of questions! Our next stop was at a kai bar (food bar) for some chips (French fries) or a sausage roll, then we headed over to another secondhand store, and finally back to Papindo, where the truck was parked. My last errand before heading home was at Papindo—buy toilet paper! Good ol’ TP is ridiculously expensive here, especially on Centre, where everything is shipped from either Australia or the US…so, when one is in town, one stocks up on TP! (Seriously, a 10 pack from Papindo is only K19 (about $7), while at the store in Ukarumpa, a 4 pack is K11 (about $4), and it’s super cheap quality. I think I must be getting old…to be this excited about toilet paper…oh brother!) J

One of the local primary schools had just let out
as we were on our way home-that is a lot of kids!

Once I got home, I tried on all my purchases (only two things didn’t fit—yay!), threw everything in the washing machine, and collapsed on the couch with a book! It was a good morning—long, but good!

*Photos by Rhetta King.