Bryce’s Notes

I arrived on Monday 19 November 2007 to hot and dry Port Moresby. It quickly changed to hot and wet, and has stayed that way since. Today’s a wonderful day in the tropics: Hot, with crystal-blue skies and a smattering of irregular cloud. Below, I’ll briefly state my first impressions for the record, and then run through my first week.

My first impressions of Port Moresby are these:
• Wet and hot
• Roads are pot-holed and in poor condition (I’m assured this is just because of the substantial rains over the last few days)
• Noticable absence of visible wealth
• Frightfully expensive rent
• Plentiful parties
• Dramatic and beautiful landscapes
• My fellow expats are older than I expected

What have I been up to? Well, I went to an election party on Saturday. The lead-up to this was a bit interesting: As we were having our initial briefing by AusAID during my first week, we were invited to the party by the hostess (who was delivering the briefing). This would have been fine, except we’d all already been invited by other sources. I thought I’d let it slide, but one of the others cheerfully spoke up with an, “I’ve already been invited”. As you can imagine, there was a bit of concern from the hostess about this. “Who invited you?”, she demanded. To cut a long story short, she ended up thinking she was going to be catering for the masses, and indeed so it ended up. There were loads of people there, and it was a good night.

In other news, I’ve joined a choir and already performed in the lessons in carols service on Sunday evening. It went quite well, and we sung some quite challenging stuff that stretched my abilities to perform with one read through. I’ve also found a place. I am paying an exorbitant amount for a one-bedroom apartment (well above inner-Sydney prices), and this was the cheapest place that I could find. There is fierce competition for accommodation in Port Moresby, and I consider myself fortunate to both have found a place so quickly and also to be able to have it for a 6 month agreement (12 month is the normal minimum). All being well, I will move in on Sunday, 1 December.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 26th, 2007 at 9:11 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.