Monday 30 May 2016

Rain In Port Moresby

Before my journey in Papua New Guinea has even begun, I had already looked its geographical location up on a globe as part of self-mind conditioning approach to leaving home for another country. It is located in an area just below the equator at around half the longitudinal line. 

Google says its exact coordinates are 6.1360° S, 143.9555° E.

If you take a ruler and measure out the distance between Port Moresby and the Equator, and use the same measurement to outline the space between the Equator and the Philippines, you will end up in areas around the Northern Mindanao. As a child, I have lived a couple of years in Cagayan De Oro. At around May to July, that place will receive a lot of rain throughout those times.

 Not quite so in Port Moresby. 


In Papua New Guinea, rain comes around to wash the place from December to January.  Sometimes it extends its showers up to March. But unlike the Philippines, our friendly rain here doesn’t come too often. But when it does come, I would usually expect a heavy downpour.

Apparently, our friend Zay Moe in the photo wasn’t expecting it.

When it rains here, it doesn’t usually last long. But it’s enough for our local friend Graham, to bath the truck that he used to drive around.

And himself too. 


I’m not much of a cook, but if there’s one thing that I’d like to eat while it was raining, it should be Lucky Me Pancit Canton. Yes, they do have it here so you can relax now.



If you’re somewhat wondering how I was able to take photos in the rain, my left hand was actually carrying an open umbrella while I did the shooting with my right hand. I must admit it has  taken some time to get used to but I'm now getting the hang of it.


When it rains, we hang our clothes close to our rooms. It is easy for us to gather them afterwards and it avoids getting mixed up with someone else’s clothes. We have not thought of coming up with a more modern way to dry our clothes but I guess such modernization is going to upset our electricity bill.

Including our financial manager.


This is Yoki. He would usually sit under this makeshift hut after the rain. If you’re wondering what he's doing, he was actually slicing off the husk from a young coconut.  Although I knew the answer beforehand, I still asked him, “What’s that, Yoki?”

It’s all part of breaking the ice and striking up a conversation.


If there’s one thing I’d like to do when it was raining, it would be reading a novel until I fell asleep.  I’ve had these few Michael Chricton collection which includes the Jurassic Park novel. Now, I’m not sure where these have all gone to.


 After a long but intermittent rain during the night, it’s nice to see how everything is damp. It brings out the vivid colours from everything. Here’s the bus shuttle that I usually drive every afternoon. It’s got a manual transmission and a bit heavy to drive, but I already got used to it. A PNG license must have a class number 4 or 6 before its carrier is allowed to drive this behemoth bus. I have upgraded mine to Class 6 a couple of years ago.


Soon enough after a heavy downpour, our sun, which prefers not to get its feet wet comes out of hiding to play. I guess Papua New Guinea is where it likes to shine and stay when someplace else is cold and rainy.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...