Part 1 In the valley of the Sun.

An Acquaintance of mine has put forth a form of request. “I'd like to hear more about your travels”. Yeah okay, that is a long and arduous task. I might as well begin at the beginning. In the summer of 1977 I had been accepted to the Cleveland Institute of Art to pursue my undergraduate degree, however they had no room for me in the Fall class, would I be interested in beginning in the “spring”? Yeah, I was going to fly from 70* Phoenix in mid January to arrive in Cleveland that would be -14* and ass deep in snow...I figured I'd ramp up to that joy So, I told them I'd begin the following fall. That left me with a year with little or nothing to do. I was at that moment in between apartments and in between Jobs...IE I was living in the servant's room of my mom and dad's house and they would have loved it if I'd found a job and moved out, and I didn't have $1 to spend. I sought work but I had gotten tired of the service oriented job market available to someone with a high school diploma and few skills. My life at the time was one would expect of a 20 year old in the Valley of the Sun, I'd go to bars at night and hang out with my friends, go to movies, looked for a job during the day and did artwork in the moments in between. In early August My Mother had accompanied my sister to Boston to begin her education at Wellesley College, and that left my dad and myself at home alone. The Tension was thick enough to cut with a cleaver. About a week after my mother and sister left he approached me with the news that he (and my mother) would be going for a year to Bougainville. As I've stated in the past my dad worked for Euclid, {big trucks}, and there was copper mine on Bougainville that needed my dad's special attention. SO, they'd be selling the house and I'd need to find myself somewhere else to live. “However” my dad said “Legally you are still my dependent. You have no job, you have a year to kill, I'm sure you could find a job on Bougainville, they'd have to pay your way round trip and it would be first class.”(I include this fact as it works itself back into the story later). After a great deal of thought I decided he was right, I wasn't doing anything so, I decided to go. We packed the house, got it sold, got our passports and Inoculations, and I helped my returned mother get ready to go the South Pacific while my father went to Bougainville to get the skinny on what he would be doing there. In September, I bid farewell to the house in Phoenix which was the last time I lived with my family, from then on I would be "visiting". Our first stop was San Francisco -we needed to get Visa's to get into New Guinea. After a few tense days they were given and we were cleared to go from San Francisco to Hawaii, from Hawaii to Tokyo, from Tokyo to Nagasaki, from Nagasaki to Port Moresby, and from Moresby to Bougainville. I had to admit I was excited about going to Japan. I had been a long admirer of Japanese Culture, I found their artwork to be remarkable, their approach to life unique, and it would indeed be the most Alien culture I had ever encountered. I will leave the 1^st class trip from San Francisco to Hawaii to Tokyo out, leave it at I had to watch “For the love of Benji” twice and a terrible Japanese Spy movie, and despite that we were in the air almost a total of 18 hours the stewardess' wouldn't allow us to sleep, they kept waking us up to ask us if we wanted anything to eat. We finally landed in Tokyo at about 4 am local time. It was cold, windy and the air smelled like the air in Gary, Indiana-permeated with Sulfur. We got to the Hotel about 45 minutes later and they gave my parents a double bed and rolled out cot for me. I slept as deeply as is possible and not be dead. The next day My father who doesn't care for ethnic food that isn't from Eastern Europe said that we would be going to have breakfast at the Holiday Inn. The fare that was offered was a “western” breakfast for $25 a head. In 1977 that was serious money. It consisted of limp toast, over cooked sausage, scrambled eggs, Cold coffee, and oatmeal. I announced that (after about 4 days in the immediate company of my parents non stop) I was going to seek out a museum, My mother would go shopping and we would meet back at the hotel to do a organized tour. It was during this time that I discovered a few interesting things about Tokyo when I compared it to New York City. 1. Despite the number of people that crowded the streets (it was like looking into a bee hive) the streets were immaculate, where as New York is Filthy and smells like a sewer. Not a used butt, not a candy wrapper, not a windblown newspaper was on the streets of Tokyo where its not unusual to turn the corner in NY and find someone relieving themselves on the street in a pile of garbage or where someone has already done it, all the brass and bronze fixtures attached to the buildings were polished like a mirror in NY they're covered in a film of pollution and etched with acid rain . 2. People with cars had in their possession a glove that had wire prongs that were “V” shaped coming out that were covered with the yarn head that one found on push broom type of mops. They used these to “dust” their vehicles and on these vehicles there was not a scratch, not a dent, not a blemish of any sort, where as in NY most of the vehicles look like they've been through a demolition derby. 3. Everyone was incredibly polite where the NYC attitude is world famous. 4. They had Vending machine for anything and everything you could think of, where as in NY, they have street vendors who will attempt to sell you nothing for something. And lastly there was a sense of calm but intense purpose in the people that passed me on the streets. I found a contemporary art Gallery, was told I could not draw what I saw so I spent the morning just looking and comparing this culture to the one I was used to. I met my parents back at the hotel and we strolled through the Ginza. I was shopping for a camera. I knew I'd need a decent camera in the future and since we here....I'd done some research and found that the Cannon AE-1 would serve my purpose well. I made a list of the stores that had given me the best prices and accompanied my parents on the tour. We went to a few historic places like a Buddhist temple, the Imperial Palace, A house that had been maintained as it appeared in the pre Western influence period of the 19th Century, We went to a supermarket where the managers of each department would stand on the corner of their department and yell out what they had on sale (Like one would find in an open air market). While we were at t he Supermarket I took to opportunity to sample Sushi at the Sushi Bar for the first time, My Father stated that I must be insane (an opinion of me that my father held and shared with me regularly) and found it to be wonderful and it still remains a special treat for me. I also saw an locally grown Apple that was the size of a cantaloupe. We went to a department store that was 6 stories tall and sold nothing but electric lamps. When we were checking out the historic sites and the 20 something tour guide would comment on the damage that we saw being done during the allied bombing of WWII my parents, who were of that generation, would comment that “that's what [they] got for Pearl Harbor...” After about 2 hours of this I finally pulled my mother aside and said to her (in front of my dad) “look, first of all that little girl wasn't even alive then, 2. you are in THEIR country, and there are more of them then you, 3. We WON the war, so you don't have to labor the notion, 4. We dropped an atomic bomb on these people that left anyone near it as nothing more then a shadow burned into the stone they were standing next to, and anyone not vaporized was melted... I'd say our revenge was complete.” I only mention this incident because it will dovetail into the story later. All in all the tour of Tokyo was nice, although I would have enjoyed a bit more immersion into the culture...do some puppet theater, Sumo, eat local fare, in short do the whole thing...however my parents didn't do cultural immersion real well. I left them and went back to the Ginza and picked up my shopping for my camera with earnest. I found the best price and bought the camera. I still have it and it has accompanied me on my every journey since. We left Tokyo for the short flight to Nagasaki, then the long flight to Port Moresby. Port Moresby is the capital of Papua-New Guinea. We arrived about 7 pm local time at about Dusk. Port Moresby is located on the southern shore of the long finger of Papua that extends east. It was separated from our ultimate goal of Bougainville by the Solomon Sea. Although it is an International Port, the airport consisted of a cinder block building that held the offices and ticket counter for the national Airline “Air Nugini”. The actual business of the airport such as customs and luggage recovery is handled under an open air area that had a thatch roof covering it somewhat like a pavilion that one sees in parks covering a group of picnic tables. The air smelled of deep forest mustiness, Human body odor and Jet fuel. There were drums of Jet Fuel between this area and the actual tarmac that had the planes, all this was surrounded by a chain link fence and that describes the airport at Port Moresby. The Runway was not electrified so flights could only come in during the day...we were the last flight for the day. We went through customs, with little incident and went directly to the Best hotel in Port Moresby. The Davara. Now by any standard the Davara is not a two, three, or four star hotel. However it was the best available and it was a double. So I finally got my own bed. We would be there over night...Which was enough. Lets just say that as in any third world country the capital offers some culture and much more crime...I stayed a day and a night on my way out of New Guinea, and understood a bit better what was going on...however lets leave it I came, I saw, I moved on. By this time my Father was on edge, he doesn't deal with alien cultures well, and he was leading this expedition. He wanted to achieve the goal as quickly as possible, and the goal was to get to Bougainville, get us in the house that we would occupy and get back to the mine where he belonged dealing with the trucks who had mechanical problems that he understood. My Mother was typical of her generation, she wished to get her things and to make the nest that would be her home for the next year. My goal was to find out where the beach was, locate the gym, find a bar, and figure out how to spend as much time pursuing these ends while “looking” for a job. Yeah well the best laid plans of mice and men. However I'm getting ahead of myself. We climbed aboard the Fokker 3 engine that would take us on our last leg of our journey and within about an hour and half we landed on Bougainville. The airport was a runway and a dirt parking lot for vehicles sent to pick up or deliver passengers, and the man there to meet us was my father's predecessor as the Euclid rep on Bougainville. He greeted us, allowed us to collect our luggage directly out of the planes belly and we got into a range rover and climbed on the the only paved road on the island. This road was the main artery of the island, it went from the airport to Arawa and then onto Kieta, and intersected with the road that went from the mine in Panguna (which was atop a mountain that the mine was slowly removing and turning into a sludge that was piped down the mountain to waiting ships in Kieta) to Loloho, which was where one of the beaches was, where the mines Junk yard was, was the location of the single men's quarters (called Donga's) and the “Mess” where these guys ate their meals . and the location of two places I would get to know intimately: the main yard for “Bougainville Protective coating's Pty. Ltd”, and the “Loloho sports and social club” . Every building that wasn't a hut along this paved road was there to service the mine. We plunged from the open air of the airport area moist heat into the cooler darker forest jungle that was as thick and deep as a well and seemed to envelope us. How to describe the overwhelming forest that surrounded us? Imagine being the size of a germ and then being tossed into the produce section of supermarket. It was every color of green you can imagine from the border of blue to the border of yellow. Some of the trees were ancient, almost 12 feet in diameter and the canopy over head let small pin points of light through making it impossible to tell direction from the sun or stars. One could get lost here and never be seen again, and it had happened. A story had been related at the time of our arrival that a fallen fighter plane from WWII had just recently been discovered about 20 yards into the jungle off the main road...almost 35 years after it had crashed there. It was like entering a green womb, that held many surprises in the coming months for yours truly. He delivered us to the Bougainville Davara hotel, where we were given a room that would be our home for a few days while this prior representative of Euclid and his wife moved out and started the long journey west through the far east, India, Middle East, Europe and eventually home. In conversation it was mentioned by my father to the guy he was going to replace that I would be looking for a job...I said yeah OK. We had dinner at the Davara and my father loaded both me and my mother into the Range Rover and gave us a tour of all the paved road, a grand total of about 35 miles....We climbed the mountain, and I noticed the skull and cross bones that was painted into the road like huge traffic lines. This is where people had died on the road. They were grouped in 4's and 5's which had sorta a macabre feeling to it. Panguna was the town that serviced the mine directly, It had the best stores, the most modern mess, the apartments for the married couples and the housing for the mine executives. It looked like a modern small town. We ate lunch at the Mess, and met a few of the guys that my father (and to a smaller extent myself) would come in contact with every day for the following months. We ended up back at the Davara late in the day, and had dinner. I love seafood and this was the place to get it. So I ordered the appetizer of oysters on the half shell and a lobster, as it was on my father's expense account he didn't care. What came was 7 halved oysters on 3 plates. It was the only time I'd ever had to eat oysters with a knife and fork and the lobster was a very large shrimp. I noticed that the wait staff and every other local spoke a strange language that seemed to be littered with some English and German and some words I couldn't make heads or tales of. This was Melanesian Pidgin. I learned to speak it in a few months of having to deal with the locals. My parents either couldn't or in my father's case wouldn't learn so for the time we were there I acted as interpreter for them. We retired to our room and we slept, I listening to the sounds of the mysterious life that crawled, flew, glided, slithered, walked and other wise moved through the jungle that theywere born to but that was new for me.
My father was up at 6 am and on his way to work...he was now comfortable because he would be returning to what he knew best...leaving my mother and I to fill our day the best way we could. We decided to go to the beach, remembering to bring our sneakers as there was life in the reef that loved to burrow and attach to warm flesh that lived under the water...the water was about 70* and the beach was white sand the was bordered by coconut trees that allowed us to not only notice their presence visually but with an occasional thump of a coconut working itself loose and dropping to the sand below. One had to keep abreast of this cause one of these falling projectiles could kill and I know from experience definitely knock you on your ass and allow you see little stars that floated in front of you. We spent the day lounging on the beach, swimming a bit, and just relaxing from our long journey, it was a beautiful day and we could just make out the peak and sulfurous cloud around Mt. Bagana-the active Volcano on the island. We had dinner at the Davara again and spent the evening recovering from too much sun and and too much sand and salt. The next morning found the guy that my father was going to replace at our door. He had spoken to one of his “mates”and might have found me a job. Would I like to meet the guy, like now? Yeah OK...I put on my shoes and we headed towards Loloho. I was delivered to a ring of scrap metal of every size and shape on one side was a group of 4 sea containers (the long train car size metal boxes used to transport cargo on ships) on one side, hinging off the line of containers was an building that had a warehouse to store paint, and 2 open bays one side had diesel operated air compressors and on the other a pile of sand about 14' tall. It was about 100 yards from the Loloho beach and about 50 yards down the road from the Donga's. I jumped out of the truck and was introduced to a man who's appearance was memorable and still leaves me with a smile shaking my head. His name was “Robbie” as is damn near every other male on the Aussie mainland. He was 6'3” tall. He had a barrel of a chest and a gut to match his chest, shoulders and arms that one might see on a blacksmith and below what supported the mass of a man were the skinniest legs I've ever seen on a man. He was in the standard working Aussie uniform of a sleeveless work shirt, shorts, knee high white socks, and construction boots. His face was broad burned brown the color of Mahogany, his smile wide and his eyes flashed below the shrubbery that he used as eyebrows. His hair seemed to have a will of its own as it climbed and fell around his head-having been permanently matted like this by years of hard hat use. “So, ya lookin fa work?” I nodded. “WEED wantya to watch the boys, they know what to do, bloody canaca's need to be watched-they-r all Tolais or Sepiks...locals don't know how to wok. SO, have ya ever run a pressure pot paint gun?” I stated that I had used one once. “SO, do ya know how to tie a knot?” I told him I'd been a boyscout. He smiled and nodded “So, are ya afraid of heights?” I answered “Just falling from them.” He smiled again and nodded. “Ya Hide. We'll pay ya 315 Kina a week. Ya can start in the morning. Unless you want to start now.” I said I had no plans for the day. The guy who had brought me there smiled and said he'd stop by and tell my mom that I'd gotten a job and that she should expect me that evening and quicker then I could spin and spit I was the newest employee of Bougainville Protective Coatings Pty.Ltd. It was and still is the damndest job interview I've ever had.
That first day was brutal. I was not dressed to spend the day in the sun doing construction. Although my time in AZ had prepared me for being under a brutal sun, the humidity and alien terrain plus having to communicate with few who spoke English left me exhausted. I had my first Meat Pie for lunch which is a staple in Australia. At the end of the day I met my co worker, A tall lank Aussie who had scars of teeth marks around his nose that was at an obvious 10 degrees out of square to his face...I was just sure there was a story there. At the end of the day he was the one who delivered me back to the Davara. “How did it go?” asked my mother. My Father was just so pleased that I had a job he just sat their smiling. “It was OK. I'll need to get into the swing of things...” I was the color of a cooked lobster, I was covered in grit and paint, I was half blind from the sun, and exhausted from trying to manipulate 6 individuals who were brown natives, (the local Bougainvillian's were blue black and some of the sweetest nicest people that God put on the earth-these were from the mainland (along the Sepik River) and New Britian)...had holes in their Nose for placement of a shell or a pig tusk, and some were covered with patterns of darker stained scarred welts that were in some sorta Geometric pattern. I figured it had to do with some sorta family/tribal thing....I slept the sleep of the just that night. This would be our last night in the Davara...my mother would oversee the move into the house while her men went to work the next day. I awoke at 6 am. I got dressed and went outside to wait for my ride to the yard. What met me was in the top 5 of the strangest things I've ever seen. I had just sorta come accustomed to the fact that my new world was every color of green I could ever experience, However what greeted me was not even remotely green. In the half light of the morning the Jungle surrounding me was Pink, It was pink, slimy and undulating. For as far as the eye could see in the half light, damn near everything was covered with huge pink snails. They were the size of your fist and quite literally everywhere. I felt like I'd gotten into some weird mushrooms....It shocked me at first. My ride came and explained that “the bloody things came over in some Chinese sewer pipes and the bloody things were eating the island damn near to the ground....I thought to myself that the next year was going to be interesting.