Thank you for finding this book and welcome to bookcrossing! Bookcrossing is a wonderful place to share your love of reading with people all over the world. You can remain anonymous but if you do, you won't be able to get notification each time someone else journals this book. Following this books travels is very fun. Again, welcome to bookcrossing!

Wow! I've had this one sitting on my bookshelf for a very long time! Since I will be doing a travel narrative bookbox soon, thought this was the perfect time to actually read this book.

Well, I really enjoyed it. I loved the stories of PNG and the travels into Indonesia. It was really opening, as this was the first book, that I can remember, that was actually about someone's travels to PNG.

Sent out in the 2018 thegoaliegirl's travel narrative bookbox to start the box off!

I happen to have a copy of the same book set aside for the travelog book box, and it turns out that I need an extra book for the Indigenous Peoples bookbox. As this title fits both categories, I've decided to let the books have some fun. This copy, Goalie's, will hop off into the Indigenous Peoples box while mine will go into the travelog box.

This is my impression of the book copied from my book, which I read for the 666 challenge:

Some travelogues make you want to visit the places yourself, some make you feel glad that you are reading this comfortably in your home and someone else is doing the hard work. This is definitely one of the latter. PNG sounds too wild for this city girl, although "a chorus of applause from flicking penis gourds" does sound like something worth seeing (and sadly can't seem to find a YouTube video of).

My favorite part is when they visit the Indonesian side of the island. There the natives live a suppressed and impoverished life under the Indonesians. They could hardly believe that in PNG the natives can own businesses, and looked with reverence at the money bills proudly displaying their faces and cultures. On the other hand, the oppression make them hold hardly to their culture, while in PNG modern life erodes away much of the tradition. This reminds me of an article I read about a branch of Jewish who emigrated to China a few hundred years ago. There, without oppression, they merge into local culture and cross marry to the point that they are no longer recognized as Jewish. Whereas, in Europe, the isolation and oppression has kept the Jews a tight knitted group.

This came back home in the Indigenous Peoples Bookbox. Looks like an interesting read.

Putting in the indigenous box

An island that floats

against the depth of an oceans
endless dreaming.