Company and Client Initiatives:

Cyclone Guba: November, 2007

Papua New Guinea, Australia's nearest neighbour, is a nation of about 6 million people, where about 85 percent of people depend on subsistence farming.
When Cyclone Guba tore through the area of Buna and the rest of the ORO province in November, aid was promised by our government. Other areas have received it but none had arrived in Buna as it was too difficult to access and without the crops that normally sustain them, these people were starving.

Running Kokoda track trips, has allowed me to get very close to the people of the Oro Province, particularly in the village of Buna.

Like Kokoda, Buna is a small village consisting of subsistence farmers in a friendly close knit community of 980 villagers.  Unlike Kokoda, Buna is located directly up front along the Northern coastline of PNG about an hour from Popondetta. It has no hospital, no running water, no airfield.
Food is primarily provided by the gardens they meticulously keep.  Water is provided by an open pit of ground well water, which is scooped out with an old cracked aluminium saucepan. The well would be okay if it were not for the sandy consistency of the soil that allows the contents of the pit toilets nearby to contaminate the well easily.
Buna is a fishing village and they use traditional hand carved dug-out outrigger canoes to spear fish out of. The entire village cares for each other implementing the 'Wantok system', which is a social structure put in place so no one ever goes without. Buna is a beautiful, happy, self-sustaining village.
In November, Cyclone Guba ripped through this village with such force as to pluck the hand built homes from their very foundation. Only the stronger structures remain. Luckily no one was seriously injured but the tidal surges to follow soon found them in 5ft of water throughout the whole area.
People were so hungry by the time the next floods came, that they were diving under water to pick any remaining veggies from their once overflowing gardens.
The aid that was said to be on the way, in fact never arrived in Buna and surrounds, as it was too difficult to get there. The focus of the aid was primarily sent to the Kokoda area and villages that were accessible by chopper or plane.
Buna  relied on the milk from the coconuts that have washed ashore as a substitute for clean water, and the coconut flesh for food as well as supplementary rice provided by a church group in Popondetta. However this rice sack must be slung over the shoulder and hiked the 5 hours in from Popondetta by those villagers with enough strength to do so, then shared around amongst the entire village.

Surprisingly, of the 30+ different companies that use Buna frequently for their Kokoda track trips we were, unfortunately, the only one who contacted the local villagers in their time of extreme need during this disaster to see what could be done. Through fundraising and generous donations from Northern Distracktions' past clients, we got enough money for supplies and brought these supplies & food into the area. The success of this campaign allowed villagers to start to rebuild what was damaged in the cyclone, including the famous Mana Mana Guesthouse, where so many Australian trekkers have stayed throughout the years.

-Jannah Brown & Paul O'Dowd

See more on Guba cyclone effort

Kids of Cathedral School:

A thank you to the war heroes created by the students of Cathedral school in Townsville, was trucked along the track and deposited by one of our trek leaders, David Eke, at Isurava memorial on the Anzac day ceremonial walk. This was part of a class excercise to pay homage to the sacrifice these young soldiers made for their country.

 

Sponsoring Buna Boys:

Shannon, a client that was touched by the devotion of the hard-working Buna boys along the Kokoda track, offered two of our carriers summer landscaping jobs at his company, to allow them to travel to a new country and get to offer them a look into Australian life (something they could never do on their own). He paid for their visas, flights and took them both around all the tourist parks and events sharing what he could with them and offering them the opportunity to work making enough money for them to live off of for several months in Papua New Guinea. Way to go Shannon!!

Upon their return to PNG, our carriers were beaming with pride and each had a million new stories to share with their families. Many, still talk of this trip today while walking with new clients, and still beaming with the excitement they had felt.

One of the Buna carriers was so touched by this sharing, he named his first born son Shannon! (see picture below)

 

Top Local Guide, Top Travels:

Often when working in Papua New Guinea, one local guide will stand out as an individual that has the ability to go much further than their surroundings allow. When these individuals make themselves known and show the dedication to their work that exemplifies strengths, we will reward such acheivements with further positive experiences. In 2006, we brought one of our diligent workers over from Buna and took him on a learning trip around Australia. This allowed him to see the differences of our two environments but also the similarities as well as giving him a well earned vacation. Wine tasting, driving in the dry outback, swimming in the gorges of the Paluma ranges or seeing the headquarters where the trips and clients are booked for Kokoda trips. An eye opening experience that allowed him to enthusiastically share this new world with his family back in Buna and restructure his thinking about Australian people. He was astonished that no one had family gardens to eat from and one must pay large amounts of money just for food and housing. This enlightenment allowed him to see that it isn't necessarily a bad thing living in a small village, but owning your own place, garden and having the right to fish without having to pay for it with money. Experiences such as these have been shared amongst other village carriers as well over the years and many more life lessons are yet to come.