I admit, shamefully, I may have embellished my previous posts in this series somewhat. I beg forgiveness: I did this only for the enjoyment of the reader. Truth be told I intended to continue down that road with this post, which features photos taken by my parents during their tenure in Papua New Guinea.
But once I received and looked at the photos they were so charming all thoughts of jest instantly passed. So here they are, with what little commentary I can (truthfully) muster. This post will be the first of two, and focus on my dad. Mum’s post will follow. In all these photos dad is younger than I am now…
That handsome guy in the top left is my dad. He spent a decade (slightly more?) in PNG working for the Divine Word missionaries. I think he got there in the early 1960’s.
Dad was training to be a priest, but he had decided against it before leaving Germany to join the missions. Divine Word was a catholic mission, and you can see a couple of ‘native nuns’ in the above shot (that’s dad in the fetching hat).
I can only imagine (and even then it’s hard) what it must have been like. Even today large areas of PNG are still removed from ‘civilization’.
Dad was a teacher. In the above photo he is attaching a sign listing school fee pricing to a post. It’s a nice shot. I wonder who took it?
I think that’s a tomato garden. Note that dad is in grubby ‘working in the garden clothes’ but that the kids seem to be dressed up. The boy looks to have a hibiscus flower on his head and an ornament in his nose. I wonder if that was his usual attire, or if he dressed up for this photo?
Dad’s comment on this shot is “Only the axe is from the 20th century”
The kids here are playing a German board game called “Mensch ärgere dich nicht“, which is similar to Ludo or Parcheesi. The lovely thing about this photo is that mum and dad still own this exact game (including all pieces, box and plastic insert) and we often play it when I visit Australia!
Dad describes this thus: “Ready for my relaxation on a Sunday – swimming and hunting.”
The gun looks positively ancient doesn’t it? I wonder if it was a relic left in the jungle during the aftermath of WW2 (dad has told me stories of such things).
Note the wall construction material: leaves. This is an unusual photo for an anachronistic reason: at first glance it looks almost like dad is using a laptop (30 years before they were invented…). Note the cable stretching to him and the way he is holding the folder or book.
I’ll end with one last photo, in my mind surely the most beautiful of the lot:
That’s dad with mum’s pet cuscus on his head. This obviously suggests the photo was taken by my mum, who met dad in PNG as she was there as a missionary herself.
But, as I said, her photos will follow in the next installment of this series 🙂
