Hi folks I may be posting in the wrong section here so somebody correct me if so. Just wondering has anybody ever worked in PNG. There are talks of the company i work for doing a couple of jobs there and my name has been mentioned for going to operate and do repairs. Iv heard stories of it being very dangerous and stuff just wondering if anybody on here has any first hand info it would be appreciated.
As in a lot of cases the correct answer would be "it depends where you're going". Do you have any idea? I've never been there myself but know loads of people who have, mostly on mining jobs but some were doing oil & gas work. PM me if you want more information.
This is correct, it also depends how you conduct yourself. If you go looking for trouble you will generally find it wherever you are in the world. I have done a bit of work there and never had any close calls.
Yair . . . I did two contracts (four years) back in the 'seventies and things have changed since then. I believe one thing remains the same . . . it is best not to drive yourself in country and village areas Sub it out to a local. Skittle a pig or a chook or a pedestrian and it's big plar trouble more yet . . . things could go pear shaped very quickly back then and, from what I hear even more so these days . . . and do take some time out and make an effort to learn the local creole/pidgin, it makes life easier and earns some brownie points as well. Comments all irrelevant if confined to company town and mine-site of course. Cheers.
I'll second that. In all my travels to some of the Darkest Areas of our fair planet I've never gone out of my way looking for trouble and as a result trouble has never found me. Maybe I was lucky, I prefer to think that I've actually done my homework before travelling. To the OP. If you want some contacts I've got mates who were working in PNG no more than 6 months ago.
I have nothing to offer, just find this topic very interesting as I'm a traveler at heart.
Em tru ya, sapos yu bumpim wunpla pik o dok, em bikpela trabel nogud tru. It's a good idea to keep a couple of hundred bucks in your pocket in case you have to buy your way out of a situation like that. Most of the stories you hear, may be true or have some truth about them, but most likely didn't actually happen to the person that was telling the story. Therefore even if the story did take place, it is probably an isolated incident. Not to say that bad things don't happen, but it just comes back to not going looking for trouble. Actually, learning the pidgin English is one of the best things about working in PNG. I wasn't working in a mine-site, but from what I have heard they are so ruled and regulated that you wouldn't notice much difference from an Australian mine-site.
Dispela em kiwi speakem plenty pidgim when got bigpela spark :drinkup Very descriptive language. Bigpela walkabout spanna; ie large crescent or shifter spanner. puk puk spanner; puk puk = crocodile, big teeth spanner = pipe wrench ! :beatsme was there in the mid 80s. a lot of it was very rough. You want malaria pills in a lot of the places. Very true what scrub says about the pigs. One of the first things we were told, do not run over a pig. Locals work on the payback system. You hurt them, we hurt you. very interesting place. saw one native there, a white man had taught to weld. He was sitting there arc rod in the holder blazing away, another rod in his bare hand feeding it into the molten puddle, just like gas welding, doing this big fillet weld. never ever seen anyone else do this ! He welded a broken pc300 boom back together. was all native drivers there when I was there [we were there to fix machinery] and believe me they could wreck gear. Native truck drivers, miss a gear going uphill. So they abandon ship. truck rolls back into the one behind it. Solution ?? Weld door shut so they have to climb in thru windows. I kid you not, but this was the 80s. They 'may' have evolved since then. Be careful what you eat. I never touched fish or chicken, too much danger of food poisioning, we were in the highlands next to the Indonesian border; I worked for ok tedi mining; tooooo far away from the sea to eat fish for me, and chook is always bad for food poisioning. But am still glad I was there; was a education for a 27 year old ! just my thoughts anyway.
Sounds like New Guinea still has some wild country & old traditions . Caught an episode on Coast to Coast about the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Rockefeller Fast forward to about 44 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkGlUF7dw-M The book telling the story http://www.amazon.com/Savage-Harves...4&sr=1-1&keywords=carl+hoffman+savage+harvest Interesting story & culture of the Asmat people in New Guinea http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asmat_people Probably wont ever be able to visit it but sounds like an interesting place .
Thanks for all your replys. I know very little as of yet but i think some work may be around Port Moresby and more may be on Manus island. Manus is a lot of goverment work for asylum seekers so that would probably be heavily guarded. I have been and worked in a few different countries at this stage and never had any trouble. Was just trying to make sure it wasnt the end of world place some people/stories would have you believe.
Once you get the hang of speaking pigeon, it makes you realise that English has about ten times as many words than are actually needed. One such example the words: timber, wood, board, log, plank, block, tree, bush, shrub, stick, branch, (anything wood related) are all covered by the one pigeon word "diwai" So if you are jacking up a machine and want some blocks to put under it, if you ask the boys to "kisim sumpla diwai na kam" (get some blocks and bring them), MOST of the time they will come back with blocks of wood, but there is always the off chance they might come back with a tree.............. I learnt that trick in PNG as well, it works great when trying to fill a bit of a gap. Haven't ever tried it to weld up an excavator boom though. I don't think much has changed there, they can still certainly wreck gear no worries at all. The old story goes if you give them two anvils, tell them to look after them, come back a hour later they will have lost one and broken the other! I was working in coastal areas and lived on fish, chicken, and pork and never had any problems, but always bought from decent shops not from roadside markets. Fruit and vegetables from roadside markets are fairly safe. It's not the end of the world. (but some days you can see it from there) It can be a frustrating place to work. But it should be a good experience for you. There are lots of great people there.
Working as a expat broadens your mind. I've been doing it for almost 40 years now and as a result my mind is so wide it'll hardly fit through the door ...........
Haha I would have to agree with you on that it opens your mind a lot. Where do you origionate from if you dont mind me asking?
Born in Chesterfield, left there when I left school. I now "live" (or at least I have a house, I don't see it that often) in the Isle of Man.
Nige, then you would be what they call "bikhed" (big head) I first went to P.N.G. in 1958 after a stretch down on the "Snowy Mountains scheme" As D6Merv said, pidgin is a funny-but descriptive language."Get sparkin" is to get drunk" a hangover is "long-long bilong wiskey" a womans pink bits is "bokis bilong meri" but a refrigerator is a "bokis bilong ice". It's a wonderful country, I don't know why I ever left it.
I might as well tell you now, a helicopter is a "mixmasta bilong jesus" and a womans bra is "two pella baskit bilong titi bilong meri"----meri =mary=girl/woman