The walk to Gundai

Sunday, July 13, 2014

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We set off by foot from Dega at 7 a.m. for the last stretch of our trip into the Simbai Valley.   Forty minutes later we reached the end of the "road" and spent the next four hours on a path winding up and down the ridges leading up to the pass from the south to the north side of the Bismarck Mountain range.

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Over my head wisps of clouds were swirling and dancing under the blue of the sky in the space where the winds from each side of the mountains met.

At noon we set out with renewed energy.  The road was clearer as trees had been cut (IMG_1265).

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Lengths of wood were stacked by the road to be used as fire wood or as timbers for a new house  (IMG_1264).

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At the bottom of another steep slope, we came to a refreshing river.

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Father Nicholas cools his feet in the river   1271

A woman and two men were coming along the path towards us, carrying food and  50 kg sacks of coffee beans bound for market (IMG_1273 - 1277).

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I was introduced to them and realized that the man in the red hat was the eldest son of one of the families we had spent most time with in 1963.  How I wanted to talk and ask after his family!  I remembered so wekk the young woman from Fogaikump who was his bride at the time, and his son, Monda, who had been born in 1967 ...  and his younger sisters and brothers!

But we were all under the pressure of time and were going in opposite directions.  Was he going to sell his coffee to a middle man in Dega or Kwima?  Or would he be taking it himself to the coffee market in Banz?

I didn't know enough about this new economy to even be able to slip this question in as we crossed paths at the river.

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The path continued. Sometimes narrower, sometimes wider.  Sometimes steeper,  sometimes flatter.  Sometimes gravelly, sometimes mucky, sometimes slick.

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From there I could see Fogaikump Mountain, a sight I remembered well as we had enjoyed that view every day from our house in Gunts 50 years before. 

Fogaikump Mountain seen from the trail from Dega    1262

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While the local people wondered at my slow pace,  my mind was engrossed by the effort to keep my feet carefully navigating each step.

Suddenly a song arose from the depths of my memory ....  "and I know every step of the way."

"But wait!  No, I do not know every step of this way.
I am not going from Albany to Buffalo beside the Eire Canal with a mule pulling my barge of hay!"

Incongruous as the words were,  the tune did keep me going, step by step.

And another image rose to my mind:  the steps up to the throne of Queen Victoria (see Blog "Shopping in Sydney").  I realized I was on my way to a people who, only sixty years before, were sovereign over their own territory..........

Now they were part of an independent nation, member of the United Nations.

These thoughts and distractions faded as I recognized a garden with banana trees.  Maybe, at last, we were approaching Gundai.

I couldn't tell,  since I had never before been in Gundai.  Indeed,  I had never even heard of it.  It was on the land of the Korama clan, directly to the west of the Fungai hamlet of Gunts, within shouting distance of Gunts, but separated by an almost perpendicular ravine cut by the Rigahn River.  I was told that the track to Gunts had branched off to the right of our trail, but Gunts was not our destination this time.  We were being taken to Gundai and heading down the ridge on the west side of the Rigahn.

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Now and then Father Nicholas would sit down with me beside the trail.  I needed to catch my breath and he had a sore knee which he relieved by rubbing it with stinging nettle leaves picked from the roadside.  Once he showed me a wild taro shoot.

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By 5 p.m. someone said, "Klostu nau" (Tok Pisin for "It's nearby now").  Shiva, Alvilda, Alicia, Philippa, Sebastian and Jonathan pressed on energetically.

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However, it took me an hour and a half to cover the last stretch.

Dusk was already falling when I was welcomed outside the first houses of the scattered hamlet of Gundai with slices of fresh pineapple - juicy and sweet - which the younger members of our group had also been offered at their arrival - and had suggested that I, too, would enjoy.  Did I ever!!!  I was thrilled that the younger generations of my family and the WTYSL team had taken so well to this bush trail and were as happy to see the local people as I was.

And I was immensely relieved that my body and spirit had held out throughout the length of what had been a very challenging day!  Not one's usual Sunday walk!

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