Rabaul and Chuuk: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

SOMEWHERE BETWEEN CHUUK AND GUAM: Wednesday, March 24, 2010

There is no denying that the ports of Rabaul and Chuuk were the poorest and dirtiest we have visited but also were the most fascinating. Frankie, our deputy cruise director, offered a discussion session for passengers to comment on the good, the bad and the ugly of these two ports. We have divided the comments from our fellow passengers into three categories: general comments on both ports, comments on Rabaul and comments on Chuuk.

GENERAL COMMENTS
1. Both places had poverty but many of us did not notice it.
2. One passenger commented that "they were just a couple of Hell holes so why did the ship stop?" Many of the people present started to boo. One women stated that while there is poverty and they don't live the way that we do, they do not need a lot to live. Yes, it is cultural shock when a person is not used to it. Then the captain came on the P.A. system saying that, "This is the bridge. This is for exercise only. Man overboard." Frankie commented that he hoped it wasn't the man who made the comment about the Hell holes, because he was not sure anyone would rescue him.
3. Frankie asked us not to wear our flashy, shiny jewelry in the ports in poor countries because we were only looking for trouble. (Sara did not bring any flashy, expensive jewelry except her wedding, engagement and anniversary rings.)
4. To look at the people and to talk with them is to learn from them. The whole cruise is an education.
5. A passenger who was interested in WWII complimented the ship for showing films about the battles.
6. One passenger reminded us that we are ambassadors for the USA. We should treat the people like we would like to be treated (the Golden Rule). The more we talk to them, the more we will learn and the more we will benefit. In fact, he got a beer for one dollar at the local bar.
7. Rabaul has an Australian influence while Chuuk has an American influence, even in the supermarkets.
8. One passenger said that this information would have been so much more valuable if we had it before arriving in Rabaul and Chuuk. Frankie said that the Pacific Princess had no organized tours on Chuuk because the tourism business is still developing. But wasn't it refreshing that these islands were not prepackaged?
9. Frankie asked why the islands were poor. Some answers were the government, need for good leadership, corruption, not on tourist routes, living off the land, and those that became educated moved to more affluent countries, which continued the cycle of poverty.

RABUAL
1. In Rabaul, some passengers encountered a truck load of girsl who were there for hospitality purposes to learn from us to enhance tourism in Papua New Guinea.
2. One passenger suggested carrying a hand full of coins to stick on the forehead and then give to the native children. Frankie commented that the next group of tourists that watched the children rubbing the coins and sticking them on their foreheads would claim that it was an ancient tradition carried on by the children in Rabaul.
3. Bob, our table mate from Williamsburg, Virginia, went to the cemetery in Rabaul and was impressed by how well the grounds were kept.
4. Mary thought that it was her duty to try local foods in places that are new to her. She tried the beetlenuts in a supermarket. The natives told to spit but never swallow. Once her jaw was numb and she was sweating profusely, a person gave her the mustard and lime mixture that allows the psychoactive ingredient to be absorbed into the cheek. Mary had the orange tongue and photograph of it to prove it. Janie, who has been everywhere, even on land in Antarctica, related that her taxi driver was a medical student who claimed he chewed bettlenuts so that his teeth would be stronger. A native of India stated that Indians chew bettlenuts but now scientists are finding that the nuts may be a cause of cancer.
5. Frankie told us that Rabaul was the cleanest that he had ever seen it. The wind was blowing in the opposite direction, and the volcano had actually stopped smoking, a first.

CHUUK
1. A passenger was distressed by his entrance into the Blue Lagoon where he saw poverty and rusted cars. His taxi drive said that there was no employment and that the people live off the local fruits and vegetables, such as bread fruit.
2. One of the locals told a passenger that typhoons start in Micronesia and then head west.
3. Several passengers were surprised to find the shelves well stocked.
4. Frankie and Chuck agreed that the whole soul of Chuuk was the children who sang in the church. Chuck said that Austin, a small boy, was fascinated by Frankie but then who wasn't?
5. One woman got a $5 haircut when she was in Chuuk two years ago on the 2008 World Cruise and replied that her hair was just now growing out.
6. The math teacher who won the Sudoku challenge said he had been invited into the youth center, where they were teaching about the spread of AIDS. Australians were providing the money for this education.
7. On woman felt two soft taps on her back. When she turned around, she saw two little girls who put their heads down and smiled shyly. She asked to take their picture.
8. The signs in Chuuk are in Filopino, not Japanese. However, the older residents speak a form of Japanese because the island was occupied by the Japanese during WWII. But this language has been so corrupted that today's Japanese people cannot understand it.
9. In one yard was a half-buried, rusted-out car with flowers sticking out of it and gravestones in the back.
10. There had been a funeral in Chuuk that day in which the deceased was taken home to his island in a boat to be buried, and the mourners went in other boats to help bury his coffin.
11. Passengers could mail packages back to the USA at the Post Office at US rates. However, the post office did not have packing tape so one couple went to a store where the owners helped them wrap their package. Part of the UGLY of Chuuk was the American passengers pushing to get ahead in the post office. Unfortunately, we did not mail anything back because the post office had only medium packing boxes by the time we went there in the afternoon after our exciting adventure.
12. The choirs had no CDs of their music for sale. One passenger is being sent a copy of the arrival and sailaway music for free. He promised he would let us know when it arrived, probably in a decade or so.
13. Chuuk grows some of the best bananas in the world.
14. A sign in the supermarket in Chuuk stated "No chewing or spitting bettlenuts."
15. Sara related the story of our tour in Chuuk and Jerry and Ken's excellent adventure of climbing the hill to see the big gun.

16. This is a long story about the ship's environmental officer's experience in Chuuk but it deserves to be told. It is ironic that we are relating this story while the feature story on Headline News is about the riots in Philadelphia.

John, the environmental officer for the Pacific Princess, went for a walk in Chuuk. He turned left when the road forked at the huge mud puddle and walked to a church when he decided that there was not much more to see and started back. He noticed what seemed to be a college on his left when he sensed movement behind him. Three or four young men wearing blue bandanas (the Crips) ran in front of him. When he looked behind him, he saw a larger group of young men wearing red bandanas (the Bloods). One of that group threw a boulder that started coming toward John. Fortunately, it fell and bounced several times on the ground. Then one of boys in the front group made a face and gave the finger to those in the back group. Next he took out a catapult (known to us in America as a slingshot) and started to load it.

A woman, who was a lecturer at the college, beckoned to John to come in through the gate, which she had the security guard shut after John entered. The students in the school ran toward the gate to watch the action while the security guard called the police who apprehended as many of the gang members as they could. The lecturer told John that these incidents were happening quite frequently. When she thought it was safe, she opened the gate, and John returned to the market that had been set up near our ship. There he related his story to the ship's doctor who told John that he had listened to a paper presented by a surgeon about the weapons used in the slingshots. If this type of ammunition hit the victim's heart, it could kill him.

Later that day a passenger who was not feeling well had to be taken to the hospital and was accompanied by the ship's doctor. There the doctor told the story of the environment officer to a doctor at the hospital who was from the Philipines. That doctor told our doctor that he was the person who had made the presentation at the conference. The ammunition used is a small, steel spear with barbs on the tip. The hospital doctor gave a spear that been extracted from the heart of a young man who had been murdered two or three weeks ago to the ship's doctor. This is such a common occurrence that the police do not even keep the spears as evidence any more. The environmental officer passed around the spear that the doctor had sealed in a plastic bag.

The environmental officer thought how ironic this incident was. He had been a policeman for 30 years and could have been taken out on a sunny day in Chuuk while minding his own business because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.

It really is a small world, in many good, bad and ugly ways!