PNG Meets the 21st Century

Papua New Guinea is an interesting mixture of the different ages of time, for example the Stone Age and the Age of Technology. I remember first being hit by this interesting dichotomy when shopping in the coastal town of Madang. On one side of the road was the market - women sat on the ground with their fruits and vegetables laid out on pieces of plastic or material before them. On the other side of the road was the grocery store, complete with an aisle of refrigerated goods and bar code scanners at the door. And since the introduction of the cell phone to PNG several years ago, this dichotomy has only become more obvious. It is not uncommon to go to the Goroka Show (an annual event where tribal groups come together decked out in their traditional garb as well as face & body paint to perform dances that represent their customs for events such as funerals, marriages, and other celebrations) and see a man wearing nothing but leaves and paint talking on his cell phone.
I was once again hit by the clash of the ages last week when I was walking to a village with my language helper, Jogina. In order to get to her village, we must cross a river; however, there is no bridge, so we walk to the river and shed our skirts to wade across in the shorts we are wearing underneath. Fortunately, it hasn't been raining too much so the water only comes about waist high. As we are in the middle of the river with nothing but trees on either side, a strange noise breaks the silence of wind and water - a cell phone. Jogina's phone is ringing. She lets go of my hand, and we stand in the middle of the river with water flowing past us as she has a short conversation in PNG's trade language, Tok Pisin. At that moment it just hit me as interesting that someone who walks about half a mile, including crossing a river by wading across, in order to fill up plastic containers with fresh water because she has none in her village, or someone who does not have a bathroom inside her house, or someone who washes her clothes in the river is currently talking on a cell phone. Slowly but surely the 21st century is making its way into Papua New Guinea.