"Travelling to Kompian" by Chana

Mt Hagan

There are some nice kids here in Mt Hagan but the oldest I know is just over Judah's age. Sometimes people chew this red drug called beetle nut which makes them feel funny. You can tell when someone's had it because their teeth and gums are all red. There is rubbish everywhere in Mt Hagan but not so much in the countryside. I tasted Paw Paw and Sugar fruit. Some new words I learnt in Pidgeon English are "Pikinini" meaning child and "wappela" meaning one of something "tupela"meaning two of something

When we got here my grandpa and uncle were there to drive us to where we were staying for the night before we went to Kompiam.

Travelling to Kompian

The next day my uncle flew back to Australia then we started a four hour drive with most of us in the back of a ute.

We stopped at a market that was very smelly to get some food. Things were sooo cheap! We got around five kilos of beans for 4 kina ($2), but a packet of cornflakes is 40 kina ($20) because it is brought in from Australia.

We soon had to stop to change the tyre and we saw a man building the roof of a grass hut. Here is a photo.

We had only been driving for half an hour when we had to stop at a road block. My grandpa said if we went to the road block robbers would steal everything we had, threaten us with knives and leave us walking on the side of the road so we had to turn back. He says that road blocks are caused when someone gets killed and normally the person who killed them has to pay money to the family of the person whose been killed but if they don't pay then people can get angry and set up road blocks until they get paid.

The next day the road block was still there so we went to the airport to try to book a flight with M.A.F. They said that there aeroplane for the day was full. The next day we found the road block had been taken care of so we could FINALLY go.