Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

This article was first published in the Stevens' Winduo, The National newspaper earlier this year! A death happened in the hamlet right after ours in the village. That was soon after Christmas that the relatives had to set up the ‘house cry’ right up the first week of New Year 2014. The deceased was a woman of standing in the community that when her body arrived on Monday afternoon a lot of the surrounding community members paid their last respects that evening. The night went smoothly for most of the mourners until the morning when a commotion began with some of the relatives accusing others of using sorcery.   The problem was that instead of participating in the laments and mourning in the night some of the youths decided to drink ‘steam’ in the night. My father who had gone over early for the burial returned dismayed that there was a fight early in the morning.   He asked me if I can help him with some money to sort out the customary restrictions that the relatives

Papua New Guinea has contributed to the world knowledge in science, literature, anthropology, medicine, law, and music, arts, and culture. So often we are slow in acknowledging our intellectual and knowledge contributions to the world, perhaps because we ourselves have been slow in saying so or we just don’t care. In so far as I am concern we need to acknowledge the contributions our societies and people have made to world knowledge and development of our understanding of the world, as we know it today. As a Papua New Guinean writer I have such a responsibility to tell the world about Papua New Guinea, its people, its social and cultural way of life, and its knowledge systems. With it comes also the responsibility to make Papua New Guineans become aware of the importance of their own societies and the contributions each society has made to the world. It is often said that Papua New Guinean societies have been ‘overwritten’ or ‘over-described’ in the books, analogues, a

It is good to have an online presence with a blog that is under one’s own name. The strength of it is that it provides the connection I need with the rest of the world. It is indeed the best thing I ever did to myself in the age of electronic media technologies. The weakness, however, is that I have not updated the blog entries for months. I feel terrible for neglecting the blog: www.stevenswindow.blogspot.com . The blog has given me an excellent presence in the electronic media world since 2008. In her book, The Wow Factor (2010), Frances Cole Jones makes an important point about internet presence in our lives. “Even a few years ago, having a personal presence online was seen at best a luxury and at worst an eccentricity. These days, it’s essential. If you can’t be Googled, you don’t exist. Given this, as you begin to think about technology, it is critical for you—whether you work in a corporate environment or not—to have a blog or personal website of your own; not doin

A nephew wanted to know how I could send my articles to The National newspaper every week from the village where there are no modern amenities or electricity. The curiosity of the nephew made me realize that many people think of using mobile phones for ringing and text messages only. Others use their mobile phones for music, radio, photos, and even as torch light in the night. The conversation I had with my nephew revealed that many people are still learning about the power and impact the mobile phone and other media technologies have on their lives. We live in a society that is already saturated with media technologies. The choice is ours to make on what technologies to use and for what purposes. ‘We need to take advantage of the technology at our disposal’ as the adage goes. Indeed, the willingness to select the technologies relevant for our purposes is the first step on the road to advancing our goals and broadening of our visions. There are many different r