Australia: like it or not...

After 6 years of me being away of Australia several things have changed...

- Cairns has built a beautiful lagoon at the Esplanade where everyone can swim for free (since the sea is covered in deadly jelly fish you need a pool...)
- Australia has been taken over by millions of Germans...
- Backpackers only drink shitloads, every day, and the next day they hang around the tv room and complain about how tired they are...
- While they are at it they complain about not having any money...
- 6 years ago I had the average age, now I am old...Or at least I feel old...
- The weather has not changed however, so there is an absolutely lovely sun out there now!
- There is cheap, I mean 'free' Internet at the hostel which is excellent after having no Internet or very slow Internet

But to be honest; I'm having a 'reverse cultural shock'. I'm terribly annoyed by all the lazy backpackers and I know it is me now who is complaining. So time to change that mood!!! I've seen everything in Australia that I wanted to see 6 years ago, so I rang my friends Helen and Duncan yesterday. I worked at their farm 6 years ago and I absolutely loved it, so it will be great to see them again. Talking to them on the phone made me already feel really welcome!! Helen is picking me up tomorrow, great!
And I rang my cousin in Darwin who is delighted to see me as much as I am to see her (and I cannot wait to see her 6 month old baby Liam and Josie who is 4!), so it's all good.

So I'm off now to buy a ticket to Darwin, take a dip in the lagoon, read my book and tonight I am going to see a movie at the cinema (Guusje and I were talking about going to the cinema since Thailand, so I am finally going!)

Back home in the Netherlands...

Just a quick 'none' traveling message:

A friend of mine is participating in a tv-show 'Op zoek naar Evita' to become 'the new Evita' for the musical Evita (it all makes sense...). She is very tiny (even smaller than me...gnagna) but she has a miraculous voice. My sister tells me she gets great criticism from the jury, so check it out:

Nederland 1- AVRO: 'Op zoek naar Evita'
Her name is Suzan Seegers...

Be amazed...

Em tasol…

Spending a week in Madang has been great; really relaxing. Moreover, it gave me some time to get to know Sjoerd’s future home, his friends, his new work environment (Divine Word University: he is going to be head of Physiotherapy Department there) and of course Elina and her lovely family. Especially Elina’s family have made a great effort to show us around, introduce me to as much things I had not seen or done before and we had some nice dinners together. So our goodbye on Wednesday was tearful…

But no time for sorrow, because we had cool stuff ahead of us. Laura (another volunteer in Madang) decided to go with us to Goroka, to see a bit of the Highlands and of course to experience the Goroka show (different tribes showing their traditional costumes and singing and dancing).

Laura works for a creative self help centre: she does disability awareness. Special about Laura is that she has a superb personality, she is a great laugh and she is blind. Basically I think being a volunteer in PNG is quite an experience and their lives are sometimes pretty mindblowing, but doing what Laura is doing is truly amazing and I really enjoyed spending more time with her, because I genuinely think she is one of a kind.

Anyway, we got to Goroka on Thursday and we were staying at Marcels, another volunteer. He was doing a workshop that week at his Physiotherapy Department in Goroka Hospital and us three helped him out a bit in the preparation. We even joined him the next day at the workshop which was quite interesting to do because I had not seen a professional setting like this in PNG yet.

The Goroka Show over the weekend was just great: seeing all the different tribes, talking to them, getting to know the story behind the dances was excellent. I took loads of wonderful pictures as you can (hopefully) see.

Laura has a degree in music so she decided to join a tribe when they asked her. Lateron, one of the tribes stayed at Marcels place where we had dinner together. It was a really really wonderful experience for both sides, because the tribe had never experienced that white people were so friendly to invite them into their home.

Yesterday we took the PMV home to Mount Hagen, together with Robert and Mark who ended up spending the night at our place. Today is laundry day again and tomorrow, well the title of this message says it all: em tasol [this is it]. I had the best experience ever in PNG, all the different things we did, made the trip exhilarating. I really enjoyed my time with Sjoerd and Femke, and I will be sad to say goodbye to Sjoerd, because I am probably not going to see him for the next three years. Learning a bit of Tok Pidgin has been challenging, meeting all Sjoerds friends made my trip even more fun because every single one of them is special. But on the other hand, I am happy to travel further to Australia, to be on my own again and see how I like Australia again after 6 years…

Some pictures:

This is a tribe from Mount Hagen.










Unknown tribe: some kids taking it easy...












Unknown tribe: their bilas were great! Covered in grass, moss and weeds!










Goroka tribe: this woman is chewing 'buai' and she really liked my blue eyes. I said I was happy to change them for her beautifull brown eyes...












Oncemore unknown tribe: the tribe is showing a Snake dance

Relaxing Madang!

After the exhilarating Highlands the three musketeers took the PMV to Madang via Goroka. The trip was , how to say it properly, NOT nice. The driver drove to quickly and the mountains and its drops came too close by...If you know what I mean. Femke and I have taught Sjoerd a new trick how to avoid to get scared: just put your head down, pretend to be asleep and what you do not see is not there...Yes, we are just like an emu, but it works for us...

Madang is nothing like the highlands: it's warm (bloody, sweaty warm!), tropical, nice sea and very mellow. Well, you have to with this warmth. We decided to go mellow as well, so we went to an island to do some swimming and snorkeling and 2 days we hired kayaks to go on the sea. Very relaxing. Again, we met some of Sjoerds friends who are all very lovely.

Of course we met Elina as well, Sjoerds girlfriend. She is very nice and she kicks Sjoerds ass, so Femke and I are very happy with her. It means that someone is taking care of Sjoerds manners when Femke and I are not around!
Elina took us to her village as well, or actually: her mothers village. It was really nice to see a sea village as well compared to the Highlands villages we've seen before. Elina's aunt has got the clear blue sea in her back garden...how cool is that!
Elina's mother helped me to try 'buai': it's a beetle nut PNG people chew. You chew on the nut, add some white stuff with it on a green stick and you get an aw full looking red mouth. While chewing, you spit it out. Sjoerd chews it a lot, and for me it was a one time experience...it was quite strong and I was sort of high for 5 minutes. Imagine that, even small kids chew it here...

In the meantime we did some more swimming, played tennis with some of Sjoerds friends, had nice meals and yesterday Sjoerd and I went diving! I hadn't dived in 4 years so being in the water like a fish was GREAT! We even saw a shark, but of course I did not see it. But everyone else did...

Anyway, Femke has left the country: we had the best holiday ever! Sjoerd and I are heading to Goroka this weekend for the Goroka show: all sorts of tribes will be there in their traditional dress. Should be good.
I just tried to put up some pictures but it does not work. Check out Sjoerds website for the visuals...

Southern Highlands

Since my brother likes to have more hits on his website, please have a look at his blog: there is a new (quite shocking) story to read...

[no, Internet is too slow, so we decided to publish it only once...]

We're in Goroka now, tomorrow off to Madang to meet Sjoerds girlfriend....coolness...!