Mrs Ihi Jeibi from Papua New Guinea visited some MLC classes recently to speak about life in her remote Eastern Highlands village, Arau. Some of the things that the students learned from Ihi:

• some primary school children in PNG walk barefoot three hours (one way) to school (stopping at the last river-crossing to wash their face and clean their teeth)
• a child’s daily school lunch is one boiled sweet potato which they carry with them
• if the river floods before a child can go home from school, he/she will sleep by the river until the water goes down
• a baby (up to three months) is placed in a bilum (string bag) which the mother carries on her head.

The students also saw photographs of coffee trees (which Ihi described as ‘the bank of PNG’) and scenes from PNG highlands village life in general.