A PAPUA NEW GUINEA COMMUNITY FACING CLIMATE CHANGE part 4

 

PAPA JOHN & MAMA MARIA

ABOVE: the author Big Pat having a friendly word with John Woods; and blow, John and Maria Woods.

Part IV - THE LIFE of JOHN & MARIA WOODS

By BIG PAT

He stands at ease, his lifeless gaze fixed, the stare permeating the cavernous room.

His permanent radiating smile wills tired travelers to the promise of a soaked soapy shower, a warm cozy bed after a hot spicy meal.

Beside him, his trusty wife and loyal partner for life squares off. 

She carries her PNG bilum on her head with self-confidence, a hardworking woman with a purpose, and a lifetime tale frozen in wood.

SESELE LAREVA, acting security guard at the front gate.

Many have met them, sat beside them, sought comfort from their solitude. Even many more have passed by them.

Some have paused and wondered: who is this couple? Just like Lofty did when I first met them on April 7, my birthday.

They must have known and secretly arranged it because a beautiful woman with a woody voice sang 'happy birthday' in the conference room next door. 

Lofty was 'shiver me timbers, shiver my woods' kind of larevafied.

Hello and welcome to Hotel Genesis, Kimbe in PNG’s premier oil palm province of West New Britain. 

Make it your business to stay with the Woodys here on your next visit.

Meet Papa John and his ‘lalokau’ Mama Maria, perhaps Kimbe's most popular Kimbe Lewa sweet lalokaus!

The forests need to be protected for the future generations of West New Britain.

They are the wooden couple that bids everyone a happy warm welcome or 'sesele' safe farewell in the journey of time.

Who carved them into their crafty lives, we don’t know. 

But they were a good enough looking couple, perhaps feisty and solidly attractive to win the approval of Genesis Hotel to guard this sometime busy foyer.

What we do know by considering their stock is that once upon a time, they were guardians of a forest somewhere.

Perhaps, they were both from the same log, maybe from the canopy or even the waist of a large tree. 

A group of journos walking along the Makasili coastline were shocked at the receding shoreline caused by climate change.

Once maybe a host of birds nested on their branches, and there, roosted their young, while shading those below and even providing shelter to all manner of insects and birdlife.

Life in the forest is plentiful and abundant. Each tree has a story to tell, each bird, a wing to span, each lizard, a scurry of fright.

Perhaps as part of that big tree, Maria and John were an important element of the cycle of life, their strong roots trapping and containing soil erosion and their massive canopy entrapping contaminants in the air to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Alas one day, a chainsaw or an axe may have felled this tree and the log sawn off into variants for commercial purposes.

All we can deduce is that some clever local carver considered the off-cuts of that tree useful and rendered John and Martha to a new lease of life of a different guardianship.

The beautiful sulphur creek in the forests of Makasili surrounded by natural rainforests.

If only papa John or mama Maria could speak, I believe their message would be simple.

Vote wisely in this elections. Vote for leaders who will manage our forests stocks wisely. 

Vote for men and women who have a heart to protect our forests, conserve our trees and sustain our eco biodiversity.

“Be smart, look after your forests, support REDD+ for your future generations!”
 

Two environmental scientists with a local tour guide walking through shrubbery to find the lake.