It's a Zoo around here!

Things are never quiet around the house on Coronation Drive. When Marleen and I moved into this beautiful two-story nearly 6 months ago, we recognized our volunteer lives as we knew them were over. We traded our international apartment building near the settlements for a traditional colonial home facing the sea.

The house is owned by a second generation Chinese woman. Her family was prominently known for their real estate business in Madang. Her childhood was spent in this house, however, she spends her adult life in her coffee plantation in Mt. Hagan. Marleen and I (along with the entire expat community) admired the house while a Canadian volunteer lived here last year. That volunteer took a job with World Vision in Moresby around the same time VSO sent out requests for volunteers to live together in an effort to cut costs. Thus, we landed the posh house on Coronation Drive.

Our house has become the VSO Volunteer refugee camp. As passerbys come and go through Madang, we gladly offer our third bedroom (in exchange for wine of course). And with our 'donated' projector, our house is known as Madang's only movie theater. It is also the party palace, where every celebration from birthdays to Dutch Queen's day is cause for a party! It's also nice to catch the breeze on the veranda on hot nights.

The lush garden is another appeal of the house. A local family has been caring for the house and grounds for generations. The family is kind and bring a lot of excitement to the house. Understanding the relationships within the family continues to be a challenge as brother-cousins, aunties and sisters (same mom, different dad) come and go. The extended family is important in PNG and the people of the household tend to move between families frequently.

As of today there are 12 people living in the ‘hausboi’ in the back. Traditionally the hausboi served as the servants’ quarters. I have never been invited into the hausboi; however, I can not imagine there to be more than two rooms. The grandfather’s (Papa) wife left for Port Moresby several months ago to care for other extended family members there. This was when I discovered Pauline (grade 6) to be his daughter, not granddaughter. His son, Aloysius, is a preacher. Aloysius is married to Maria and they have 5 children, Roland (16-18), Erik (9), Lilly (6), Joy (3) and Joshua (1). There are several children who arrived within the last few weeks who appear to be between the ages of 6 and 16 that I have yet to get to know.

The family has 4 dogs, 2 roosters, 3 hens, 4 chicks and 1 cockatoo. Each night in my dreams, I plot the roosters’ murder. Marleen and I have a kitten named Dolly whose sole purpose is to catch rats. The dogs are muts, only distinguishable by their color. Blackie is black, Snow White is …well, Marleen calls him Off White, Beldin is black and will answer to Blackie and Scooby is spotted. They are all in poor condition and I tend to pity them. Scooby recently had a litter and the family seemed surprised when the puppies died. Scooby was literally skin and bones because the puppies were draining her. She stopped allowing them to ‘kisim susu’ weeks ago. Last week, I was walking through the garage to the laundry room to check on the water pump when I found the last puppy had died. I continued walking through to the back to tell the family. I found a young boy who I hadn’t seen before. I told him about the dead puppy in the garage near the old, abandoned Mercedes. (It seems as if the Chinese family just left and abandoned everything. Boat, luxury car, 1970s furniture, and even the dishes in the cabinets.) The little boy stared at me blanked face. “Do you understand me?” I asked. He nodded his head and said something unintelligible.

His speech impairment caused me to wonder if he was the son of the deaf lady that visits periodically. The first night the lady came to the house after her late shift at the fishing cannery she scared Marleen and I to death. At night we are always on our guard and were quickly awakened by the sound of her feet dragging as she walked through the garden. We realized she must have been deaf when she didn’t answer our screams “Yu laikim wanim?” People come and go from the back so frequently we didn’t give it a second thought. Now, when we hear dragging feet late at night, we know it’s her.

The little boy and Papa picked a leaf from the banana tree and wrapped it around the puppy. Papa walked passed the children playing near their mother’s buai stand and threw the puppy in the sea. No one took notice. No crying children. No burial. Just as the rats, they simply tossed the puppy to sea. I was screaming on the inside…“If you don’t feed your animals they die!” I have been feeding Scooby canned dog food everyday since.

Our neighbors on the right have a faulty alarm system. Each day around dusk the alarm screams so loud you feel as if it’s piercing directly through your skull. Our neighbors on the left sell beer on the black market and all night every night cars pull in and out honking their horns.

Needless to say with volunteers and our family coming in and out, the zoo of animals running around the garden, the black market to the left and the screaming alarm on the right, things are never dull around the house on Coronation Drive.