No one can deny that Tais, Papua New Guinea (PNG), is a blessed land. So rich was the forest around the village, the men almost never came home from hunting empty-handed.
By
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
·5 minutes read
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Sisi\'s father\'s pet cassowary. The bird will be slaughtered for a Christmas meal.
No one can deny that Tais, Papua New Guinea (PNG), is a blessed land. See how green the field that surrounds the village is, even though it is only overgrown with chest-high grass. Check out the bountiful crops: cassava, sweet potatoes, coconuts, oranges, bananas and super-hot chilies. So rich was the forest around the village, the men almost never came home from hunting empty-handed.
However, the children here are not well. Their bodies are thin, bones protruding, belly distended. When I showed my observations to Sisi, my host, she burst out laughing.
“The kids here have big bellies because they like to eat too much,” she said.
On the contrary, I believe it is due to poor nutrition from an unbalanced diet. Their daily diet is dominated by carbohydrates. It’s either steamed cassava, steamed sweet potato, grilled cassava or grilled sweet potato. Sometimes, they do go to the river to catch fish or to the forest to hunt deer, but that can be said to be very rare. I asked, Why don\'t Tais people eat green vegetables or fruit other than coconuts and bananas?
“Those are the food for you, Indonesian people. We black people don\'t know much about food processing. I can cook much better than all the black people here, that\'s because I studied in Merauke [Papua],” Sisi said.
###
Speaking of food, Sisi\'s father showed me the two cassowaries he kept in his backyard.
Cassowaries are giant flightless birds. Taller than an adult man, the cassowary has a strong beak and two legs with thick claws. Its kicks can break human bones. It is very difficult to catch a cassowary alive in the wild. When hunting for cassowaries, hungers usually kill the bird on the spot with their dogs or arrows, then distribute the meat to all residents in the village.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
Children in Tais, Papua New Guinea.
Sisi\'s father caught the two cassowaries when they were still baby birds and put them in two separate wooden cages. Every day, he provides a lot of bananas to feed these two birds, three times a day. The two birds looked much healthier than the human children in this village.
Sisi\'s father explained that the cassowary was only useful as food. In other parts of PNG, there are those who use cassowary feathers for art, but not in Tais. He\'s going to slaughter these two cassowaries for Christmas in two months because he\'s tired of feeding them all the time for the past two years. Regarding cassowary meat, he closed his eyes for a moment, then said, licking his lips: “There is nothing better than cassowary meat. Very, very tasty!”
So much time and energy is wasted on a Christmas meal.
An even greater sacrifice is made by three families in this village who take care of baby crocodiles. They caught the baby crocs in the river, which was a little easier than killing an adult crocodile. The goal was that their perfect skin without spear wounds could be sold to Indonesian traders at a slightly higher price.
However, it takes at least two years to raise a baby crocodile. They should provide some kilograms of meat per day for the crocodile to feed, far more than the owner eats.
Actually, the price of crocodile skin is also not very high, only 700 kina or around Rp 3.5 million (US$242.90). From a business perspective, in my eyes, this is not a profitable investment.
AGUSTINUS WIBOWO
A crocodile kept by a resident of Tais, Papua New Guinea.
###
That day, three boats happened to stop at Tais, carrying a dozen distinguished guests from a neighboring village. The leader of the group was an old man named Posa Doane. He seemed well educated, very fluent in English.
“We\'re here to talk about plans to form our own government,” he told me.
This is not a separatist insurgency but their attempt to gain control of development funds. Doane explained that their province received funding from Australia in the amount of AUS$3 million, but the funds were always cut in Daru, so the villages in this area never received anything.
That is why, six villages in this area — including Buzi, Sigabaduru and Sibidiri — plan to form a village alliance so that they have a stronger voice in demanding rights to the funds. Doane intends to invite Tais village to join this alliance.
Three days after their arrival, the meeting began in an open field at the far end of the village. Doane made a speech about what is wrong in this country.
“If you go to Daru, you will see that all the big shops are owned by kongkong [Chinese people], while we black people only sell on the roadside. Why is that? Because we are uneducated. It\'s because our government doesn\'t care about us. If we don\'t unite, no one will hear our voices," he explained.
All the Tais people applauded, but without enthusiasm.
