LOCALadk Magazine

56 Spring 2017 LOCALadk Magazine LOCALadk Many of the artists have no other job and spend all of their time creating art and trying to sell their work on the streets in small markets such as this. Their art included landscape paint- ings, traditional dot paintings, paintings of indigenous faces, handmade wooden masks, knitted bags, and more. The artists representing the work on display, as well as the other peo- ple milling about the area, were inviting and willing to tell us about their art and lives. Alex said a way to remember the true Papua New Guinea, and to represent its culture back home in the U.S. was through an indigenous face painting. He showed me around, and, paint- ing by painting, told me about the ones with the most signif- icance. Ultimately, I bought one of the ones he chose for me. The painting is in the colors of the PNG flag: yellow, black, and red. The people of PNG love and stand by their flag more than anywhere I have been before; for them, their independence is a stepping stone in the country's ability to move forward into the modern era. Also on the painting are faces, each slightly different, representing the various tribes that make up Port Moresby. The way the faces are painted indicates their stat- ure within their village. The passion and pride that the PNG people have for their art brings each of the villages and their people together, despite language barriers. Growing up in PNG is no easy task. The vast separation be- tween villages makes education hard to come by, and private institutions have a weak retention rate. Many children grow up in homes without the sort of water, electricity, or technol- ogy that we thrive on in the western world. A volunteer I met at one of the venues, who goes by the name of Grace, grew up in one of the 20 settlements that make up Port Moresby. She grew up without an education and without the skills or experi- ence to obtain a job until the U-20 World Cup arrived. When I met Grace, she came up to me after noticing that I was wearing United States attire while filming at one of the match- es. She told me that she had always dreamed about coming to the United States. She asked me endless questions about what my life back home was like, and was in awe that photog- raphy and cinematography were even real careers someone – let alone a woman – could have. An unfortunate fact in Papua New Guinea is that it is a country very dangerous to women. A high percentage of grown women have been assaulted, raped, or violently attacked in their lifetime. Grace, however, was de- termined not to be in this statistic. She explained that volun- teering for the tournament had given her hope for a prosper- ing career as a successful woman in PNG. It's one thing to visit a country of equal or similar stature to the United States, but when thrust into an environment on the other side of the world, and into a developing country, it is the people that teach the most. What I saw in Papua New Guinea is that there are hardships, there is unrest, there is violence, but there is also hope. Each and every person I met greeted me with a smile, curiosity, and a desire to learn from everyone they had the opportunity to talk to. These people have lived in a world with no electric power, running water, or access to the technology we take for granted, but that doesn't stop them from dreaming big. The people I met have lived a life without things that most people in the western world couldn't imagine life without. Yet every- day they were smiling, wanting to learn, and wanting to move forward. Perhaps the biggest thing that I took away from PNG is that it doesn't matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you have. What matters is the attitude that you confront every day with.

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