The Return of the Flying Foxes!

They're back! After 2 weeks Madang's flying foxes have returned to their spot high in the rain trees. Their disappearance continues to be a mystery. More and more rumors and theories have been spread across Madang. In addition to all the others I mentioned previously, some people suggest that the bats left due to a food shortage. Others believe Air Niugini sprayed some chemical in the air that forced them to leave. Some say the spirits from the singsings of the Madang festival drove them away. The most common and sensible explaination for their disappearance is the frequent but small earthquakes Madang experienced.

Madang's icon is back! The town felt so strange without the flying foxes. Their familiar squeals bring a since of comfort to me. I will not walk under a rain tree without looking up in appreciation.

Air Niugini-where the unexpected is expected!

The Madang Air Niugini Airport is a samll, but busy place. The planes taxi right up to the one-room building where check-in is located in one corner and baggage claim the other. Wooden benches that remind me of an old southern church are arranged in the middle of the room. Directly behind them is the "Kiosk and Gift Shop" where you can top up your mobile phone, drink a cold Coca-Cola and feast on as many flour balls as you desire. My ears continue to ring from the powerful sounds of the plane engine. It's 10:10 and the 8:30 flight to Port Morseby just departed. I now sit alone on the hard, wodden bench waiting for my 9:20 plane coming from Wewak to arrive. I will fly to Mt. Hagan and make the connection to Lae. The flight schedule is written in blue marker on a dry erase board behind the check-in counter....not that it helps!

While waiting for the Moresby passengers to board, I sat next to a handsome man from Fiji. He was travelling home after a year abroad a yacht working as a chef. He is among 13 other crew members from all over the world. It's an American yacht that holds 15 passengers in addition to the 14 member crew. The yacht will be headed for China and eventually back to South Africa. The chef said the American owners typically decline the food prepared by the villages they visit. They usually eat fresh fish caught at sea and food flown in from the States or Australia.

Our conversation was facinating. Before joining the crew, he worked in Fiji with a ngo creating awareness on sexual orientation. He identifies himself as a gay man who is advocating for the rights of the gay, lesbian, and bi-sexual communities of the Pacific. We had an interesting conversation on this topic which lead into gender equality and violence against these vulnerable groups including those with disabilities. He mentioned he wanted to continue his studies in psychology to counsel persons in these vulnerable groups. He was very refreshing!

Still no sign of the plane from Wewak. Reportedly the pilot is out sick and they are waiting on another plane. So typical Air Niugini! While waiting I met a man from Australia who is here starting a gold mining buisness. Our ideals did not allign. He arrogantly stated that he found a way to motivate the people of this rural village where he will be exploiting their land. He is promising them all big screen TVs so they can watch football (that's soccer in the US..haha!)! As our conversation continued, I told him about my work as a volunteer here in PNG targeting children with disabilities. The arrogance in his voice wasn't as prodominant as it was during the talk of gold and widescreens! "The gold digger" as I like to call him, mentioned that the people in the village did state that their children were unable to go to school and that the nearest teacher was a 9 hour hike up and down mountains. I took advantage of the situation and spoke about my project in Zambia developing community schools and helping communities with income generating activities to pay a teacher's salary. The "gold digger" was intrigued by the project and his focused changed from football and broadband access to the education of vulnerable children. Without trying to be too leading I suggested that since the community identified the education of their children as a major concern, he may consider offering to build schools and pay teacher salaries verses bringing big screen TVs powered by generators into bush material houses. It just amazes me how completely out of touch some people are with the realities of poverty. Does he really think television and soccer will bring happiness to this village? Hopefully our conservation will weigh heavy in his mind and lead to positive changes in a village in rural PNG.

The great thing about airports are the conversations you have with people from everywhere coming and going anywhere! My flight has been cancelled and redirected. I will now fly to Port Moresby at 4:00 and then to Lae tomorrow. The only advantage of the constant cancellations of Air Niugini flights is that they put you up in posh hotels! So, I now have the opportunity to see the capital again and possibly stay in the 5 Star hotel I stayed in when I first arrived in PNG. That means I get a seafood buffet dinner, white robe and slippers, and a television! I guess TV does bring happiness!!!

Gaining a Clearer Picture

The Creative Self Help Centre

Things are really staring to become clearer in regards to my work. I have been attending workshops learning Melanesian Sign Language, holding in-services on learning disabilities, flexible grouping and teaching strategies, as well as planting the seeds for ideas of how to roll out inclusive education here in Madang. We are making progress, slow progress but it is still progress. I try not to be too leading in my approach as I hope to build the capacity of my partners and help them to develop skills and strategies to use in project planning. Through the use of participatory tools, which I continue to learn about myself as I am not formally training in international development, we are beginning to closely examine the needs and way forward for inclusive education here in Madang.

Teachers making E charts as a part of a training on vision and hearing screenings.

We are in the beginning phases of forming planning groups to help facilitate the transition of students from centre-based services to more inclusive services in the mainstream schools. This will be an intensive project. The resource teachers themselves will need training in consultation and practical skills of how inclusion really works. Mainstream teachers,parents and communities will need awareness trainings. So far the mainstreaming efforts have yielded little success as most of the students who have been included in regular education classrooms have dropped out of school entirely. My role has been to begin to plant questions into my partners' minds. Why are these students dropping out after they are mainstreamed? Are we providing them enough support? If not, what support do they need? Do the teachers feel confident in their skills teaching a children with a disabilities in their class? If not, how can we assist in strengthening their skills? Do the parents and communities repect the rights and dignity of students with disabilities to see the value of sending their child to school? Once we really begin to grasp an understanding of the underlying issues of why inclusive education isn't working here in Madang we can begin to make positive, sustainable changes.

Teacher at a sign language training.

I have been spending most of my time at the Creative Self Help Centre and at Gum Primary School, which is a short PMV ride out of Madang town. The long term goal is to train an internal resource officer (IRO)--similar to a resource teacher in the US---in each school. As of now, the province has trained a total of 8 IRO teachers. One of these teachers is at Gum; therefore, we hope for Gum to become a pilot school for our project.

Friday I am leaving for Lae to attend a workshop for all Special Education Resource Centres. The workshop will be targeting the "new" curriculum reform and outcome-based education. It will be a wonderful netwroking opportunity to speak with other professionals working in the field of inclusive education. It will also be great to visit another part of PNG. I will be in Lae for 10 days, spending a few days before and after the workshop with two other VSO volunteers from the Philippians who are working with VSOs disability program.

I am certain to have so interesting stories once I return from my trip to Lae.

"It's PNG....And I am in the middle of it all."

Some of the usual sights around Madang town. There's so much to tell and so few words to express the culture and beauty of PNG. I hope these photos help to create a colorful picture for you! Kalibobo Lighthouse


Cooking bananas and taro, staple food of island provinces.

Yes, this is a baby in a bilum hanging from a tree! Women also carry their babies in bilums strapped across their foreheads.

Women outside the school selling buai for the teachers and ice blocks (in the cooler) for the children. Ice blocks are like freeze pops---frozen, colored sugar water.

Yes, I sometimes manage to do some work here!

Today I facilitated a training focusing on reading disabilities and flexible grouping at Gum Primary School. The teachers here in Madang report they face difficulties teaching students English. The National Department of Education is promoting a new (2004) curriculum that focuses on child-centered learning and outcome based education (OBE). Although this curriculum was introduced nearly 5 years ago, many schools and teachers continue to struggle with implementing these teaching strategies. I tried to explain that I am not a trained teacher. Although I am a psychologist who works with children with disabilities in the school setting, to them I am an expert in OBE.

To illustrate the difference between teacher-centered teaching methods and child-centered methods, I filled the blackboard with all my "lecture notes" and asked them to copy them into their "exercise books." This is the typical teaching strategy used here in PNG. After 5 minutes of watching them copy my notes directly from the board, I asked them to stop. It was amazing to see their responses. They simply refused to stop copying. I literally had to place my hand over theirs to get them to stop writing. Next, I grouped them into 3 small groups to illustrate child--centered teaching and flexible grouping.

They appeared to enjoy the phonic activities in thier groups. I was invited to come back in two weeks to address writing disabilities. Guess they thought these learning games were more interesting than copying from the board!

Where are the flying foxes?

The flying foxes that fill Madang’s trees and skies have vanished. The disappearance of these enormous fruit bats has caused a stir of rumors across all of the country. Over a week ago, I noticed a large number of flying foxes flying from the trees at an unusual time of the day. I didn’t think too much of it as I haven’t been here long enough to truly understand their patterns. Typically they sleep high in the trees of Madang throughout the day and leave for the village settlements at dusk and return before dawn. During the Madang festival the drumming of the sing sings and the large crowds of people disrupted their pattern and they filled the sky during the daylight hours. It’s been over a week since the flying foxes have left Madang. Their absence is clearly noted.

The most troubling of all the rumors was that their disappearance was a warning of a natural disaster approaching Madang. The streets were filled with rumors of a tsunami. There have been many documented cases were animals and insects have acted “strangely” or “disappeared” shortly before an earthquake or tsunami, so the assumption is not entirely unfounded. There has been recent earthquake activity and extremely rough seas. Several mornings I have been woken by small tremors shaking my bed. Rumors being what they are, grew and grew and created something of a “panic” in Madang. Apparently, the people of Madang were filled with fear and began packing their homes and heading out of the coastal area. The police drove through the streets shooting their guns in the air warning people of the tsunami. Not long after, they returned shouting through megaphones for everyone to return to their homes. VSO was monitoring both the earthquake and tsunami alert websites and there was no tsunami warning issued of any kind. Therefore, the VSO office took no action. What a disaster! What will happen if there is a valid threat of a natural disaster?

After the seas calmed and the threat of a tsunami passed the flying foxes did not return. However, the coastline was covered with driftwood and the streets were filled with people carrying wood to their homes. The days grew hotter and hotter as the rumors grew faster and faster. The radio announced the arrival of the Madang flying foxes in Maprik of the East Sepik Province. Some suggested they left Madang due to the heat. Others said they went for “a meeting” with other flying foxes. A teacher told me that the flying foxes left Madang in 1973 and returned in massive numbers. He believes the flying foxes have left again for their mating season and will return in even greater numbers. I thought to myself….oh, flying foxes only mate every 35 years! I think that’s highly unlikely.

The mysterious disappearance of the flying foxes continues to hold a heightened buzz around Madang town. The latest buzz and most humorous apart from being at a meeting, is that they have been infected by the avion flu. Although their whereabouts is known, questions remain. Why have these creatures that are the symbol of Madang left? Will they ever return to reclaim their place high in the trees over Madang?
Sunset from my veranda...why would they leave this place?