BY DAVID GONOL
Diskopa is the home of all kinds of fruits and fresh vegetables. It is a village which has truly been blessed with all kinds of edible fruits, fresh vegetables, crystal-clear brooks and lovely people.
However, in spite of all natural blessings, basic government services are almost non-existent. Infrastructure built in the 1950s and 1960s by colonial administrations have deteriorated a long time ago.
Contacts with the outside world occur rarely. The people of Diskopa are almost totally cut off. They hardly know what’s happening in other parts of the globe. They think the whole world is Diskopa.
Mothers die every month as a result of birth complications. Babies die of curable diseases. School age children float about like balloons in the air. They know of no western education.
All they know is: wake up, eat, drink and sleep. The sun rises and sets in the same place as it did since time immemorial. Days come and go. Trees grow and wither. Generations come and go. Diskopa sees no change.
Changes taking place in the outside world only reach as rumours. No one has ever seen a bicycle. Let alone cars and heavy machinery. There is the noise of airplanes overhead. The people dig deep into the vegetation for cover.
They have no thought of climbing their way out of the mountain ranges. They believe that beyond the mountains live cannibals who might eat them alive. Their fear imposes a tough prison sentence on them.
They have no freedom to climb out of the mountain range and see for themselves what’s going on in the outside world.
Steel axes and bush knives, given to them by early explorers cannot be used any more. Clothes given by missionaries have been torn into pieces long ago. They have no hope. The only hope they have is to use stone axes and wear clothes made of bush materials like their forefathers perhaps hundreds of years ago.
Grandparents are lucky because they had a taste of contact with the outside world when missionaries and explorers first arrived in the 1950s.
But those born after missed out on experiences associated with the first contact. When their parents and grandparents tell stories of men came and went through Kopadis with patrol boxes and the word of God, their children are lost. How can they understand when they haven’t had a chance to witness?
Unless they break free from the self imposed fear and climb out of the mountain range, they will continue to advance backwards until they arrive at cave-dwelling, while the rest of the world enjoys the beauty of the 21st century.
The irony is this. Just at the foot of the mountain range is Mount Hagen, the third largest city of Papua New Guinea.
Mount Hagen is the economic hub of the highlands. It is the gateway to the multibillion dollar LNG projects, oil fields and gold mines.
Near can be so far.
SOMEWHERE
IN THE CENTRE OF THE HIGHLANDS of Papua New Guinea there is located a
small village called Diskopa (literally ‘saucepan’, meaning a village
encircled by mountain ranges).
It is surrounded by
mountain ranges and fast flowing rivers. Birds of different colours,
sizes and shapes sing in the beautiful green, yellow and brown trees
that grow everywhere.Diskopa is the home of all kinds of fruits and fresh vegetables. It is a village which has truly been blessed with all kinds of edible fruits, fresh vegetables, crystal-clear brooks and lovely people.
However, in spite of all natural blessings, basic government services are almost non-existent. Infrastructure built in the 1950s and 1960s by colonial administrations have deteriorated a long time ago.
Contacts with the outside world occur rarely. The people of Diskopa are almost totally cut off. They hardly know what’s happening in other parts of the globe. They think the whole world is Diskopa.
Mothers die every month as a result of birth complications. Babies die of curable diseases. School age children float about like balloons in the air. They know of no western education.
All they know is: wake up, eat, drink and sleep. The sun rises and sets in the same place as it did since time immemorial. Days come and go. Trees grow and wither. Generations come and go. Diskopa sees no change.
Changes taking place in the outside world only reach as rumours. No one has ever seen a bicycle. Let alone cars and heavy machinery. There is the noise of airplanes overhead. The people dig deep into the vegetation for cover.
They have no thought of climbing their way out of the mountain ranges. They believe that beyond the mountains live cannibals who might eat them alive. Their fear imposes a tough prison sentence on them.
They have no freedom to climb out of the mountain range and see for themselves what’s going on in the outside world.
Steel axes and bush knives, given to them by early explorers cannot be used any more. Clothes given by missionaries have been torn into pieces long ago. They have no hope. The only hope they have is to use stone axes and wear clothes made of bush materials like their forefathers perhaps hundreds of years ago.
Grandparents are lucky because they had a taste of contact with the outside world when missionaries and explorers first arrived in the 1950s.
But those born after missed out on experiences associated with the first contact. When their parents and grandparents tell stories of men came and went through Kopadis with patrol boxes and the word of God, their children are lost. How can they understand when they haven’t had a chance to witness?
Unless they break free from the self imposed fear and climb out of the mountain range, they will continue to advance backwards until they arrive at cave-dwelling, while the rest of the world enjoys the beauty of the 21st century.
The irony is this. Just at the foot of the mountain range is Mount Hagen, the third largest city of Papua New Guinea.
Mount Hagen is the economic hub of the highlands. It is the gateway to the multibillion dollar LNG projects, oil fields and gold mines.
Near can be so far.
David Gonol
(28) was born in Marapa village in the Western Highlands. He is a
lawyer in his third year of practice. “I graduated from UPNG law school
in 2009. Now I am working with the court registry as an Assistant
Registrar here at Waigani, NCD. With my young life I want to spend
serving God, write a lot of books, poems, short stories and excel in my
chosen career.”
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