Tag Archives: children Papua New Guinea is not the easiest place in the world to get to. I was starting from Australia, a near neighbour and – for almost 60 years – the former administrative head of PNG. Even so, limited flight options into and out of the capital Port Moresby are only available certain days of the week, making travel […]  I love driving into Thailand’s green, jungle-draped mountains, where the clouds hang so low they look like snow patches, and the sun traces the outlines of dark post-afternoon rainclouds and glints off the golden Buddhas and bejewelled temple rooftops. If you turn off the highways, however, it is not long before the ornate temples – and […]  The remote, mountainous corners of northern and western Thailand – and neighbouring Laos and Myanmar – are home to countless small villages of “mountain folk” (ชาวเขา), or ethnic “Hill Tribes”. These Hilltribes/Hill Tribes are not a unitary group. In Thailand alone, there are six major distinct ethnic minority groups – the Akha, Karen, Meo or Hmong, Yao, Lahu, and Lisu, plus a few […]  Family. A word that entered into English in the early 1400s, meaning “servants of a household,” from the Latin familia “family servants, domestics collectively, the servants in a household.” The original definition includes the estate, the property; the staff, and any relatives. How things change! When I was growing up, “family” generally meant a nuclear family of two […]  It is dark inside a wattle and daub Himba wattle and daub hut. As well as being dark, the huts are likely to be noisy with chatter, packed with bodies, and smoky from the fireplace, pipe tobacco, and incense. The huts are built from mopane wood – a local termite-resistant hardwood – plastered with a mixture of clay and animal dung. […] |
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