14 October 2014 / leggypeggy

Still kicking myself over a purchase I didn’t make

airplanes, art, artworks, Goroka, Goroka Show, masks, paintings, Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby

Our newest painting and the tribes represented. Top row from left (including the pilot): Morobe from Lae, Huliman, Trobran Ireland, Central from Port Moresby, Mudman from Asaro. Bottom row from left: PNG flag, Dukduk from Rabaul, Simbu and Daru. Simon G is in the red shirt

For quite a few years, Poor John has played a stern devil’s advocate every time I start looking seriously at travel souvenirs.

And where do you plan to put that, he says. And what will you get rid of in exchange?

So I was rather surprised when we cruised through the craft area at the Goroka Show, and he actually encouraged me to buy a couple of somethings.

We dithered for quite awhile over several paintings and, in the end, bought one showing a planeload of tribesmen all dressed up and heading to the show. My dad was a pilot and I’m rather partial to airplane art.

I was pleased to purchase the painting direct from the artist, Simon G, and get a picture of him with his handiwork. He also told me the names of all the tribes shown in the plane windows—see the caption for the details.

I bought three (or was it four) bilums from the woman on the right

Bilums were next on the list. Everyone in Papua New Guinea carries one of these handy woven bags. I bought several made of bark, which is often called bush rope.

Coffee was our next hit. Poor John really, really loves his coffee. He’s an addict in the extreme. At the moment, we have at least nine different varieties of coffee beans in our house—and some inferior instant stuff. We visited the coffee tents several times and tried to order two kilos of coffee beans. On the last day of the show, the sellers were most apologetic about not being able to fulfil our order.

Power in town had been out for a couple of days (there was a generator where we stayed) and they couldn’t run the machine that could vacuum seal bags of beans. So we bought almost three kilos of ground coffee, and another three kilos of beans when we got back to Port Moresby. (I remember when Poor John visited Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and brought home something like 18 kilos of coffee.)

PNG women have a role in selling and growing coffee

We bought one of his baskets (not shown)

But then there was the mask. Normally I avoid masks, but this one was so amazing and so detailed and so lovingly made. And probably so out-of-bounds for Australia’s quarantine laws.

Luckily, this one wasn’t made with any hair products, but I was still wary. Poor John said, Go ahead and buy it. I’m sure it can be treated. The artist—I never got his name—said it took him a year to make and he wanted 250 kina or just over $100.

But I foolishly said, No, no.

I wasn’t so much concerned about quarantine, but more thinking that he should sell it to someone who doesn’t have a houseful of weird artefacts.

The mask I wish I’d bought

Imagine my dismay on day two of the show, when we went back to the craft area to see if the mask was still there. It was gone. 😦 I asked the artist was he got for it. The customer had ‘beaten him down’ to a mere 100 kina. He didn’t look very happy about that.

Now that’s the crime. A guy works for a year on a work of art and gets less than a measly $50.

Even if it had been taken off me at quarantine in Australia, I wish I’d bought it for 250 kina. At least the fellow would have had some decent recognition and compensation for his labour of love.

And I might have ended up with an amazing mask somewhere in my house. I still don’t know where I would have put it, but don’t tell Poor John. He encouraged me to buy it, but never asked where I’d put it. Maybe he’s sorrier than I am.