Port Moresby

Location:
Papua New Guinea

By Brett

For Port Moresby cab-driver Paul Egan, the smashed and spiderwebbed

upper-right section of his windshield is not a big deal.

Probably, he surmises, caused by a stoning after an argument.

Nor is the bullet hole just beneath the handle of the driver's side door.

A car-jack attempt?

He doesn't know.

Sporting a collared plaid shirt and gray trousers, Egan, 46, from Papua

New Guinea's mountainous Simbu Province, pulls his deep blue Mazda 323 cab

from the International Terminal parking lot at Jackson Airport.

"All that damage," says the former restaurant chef as he drives toward the

NCD (National Capital District), about a 10-minute drive, "happened to the

driver who had this car before me. I got it 8 months ago."

That goes for the repaired hole, about the size of a wallet, in his hood,

too.

Manning a taxi in Port Moresby is certainly an adventure, and through his

windshield - cracked as it may be - Egan is offered the unique view of a

nation grappling with lax administration standards and an economy that

relies on a mix of subsistence agriculture and foreign investment.

Just past the Airways Hotel, the most posh accommodation in the city, he

rolls the wheel to the left to reveal "Paul" tattooed on his inner right

arm. The blue air freshener fluid in his oil lamp resting on the dash

sloshes from side to side.

"I've never been in a accident," he boasts.

In a day Egan can earn up to 160 kina (55 U.S . dollars), but more

realistically he pulls in around 80 on average. Sunday is his only day

off.

After subtracting costs for fuel, flats, and the fee to his employer

(Kongo Taxi), he's still doing much better than the national average. (For

reference, a worker in rural areas not engaged in subsistence agriculture

will earn less than 40 kina a week.)

Egan's worst customer is the drunk.

"Sometimes," says the thirteen-year veteran, "they drink and drink and

drink until all their money's gone. Then they cannot pay the taxi bill."

Casinos, of which there a few scattered throughout Port Moresby, are a

common location for a few drinks and a couple dozen slot pulls.

Egan pulls his sedan up along a bus. Two passengers hang their arms out

the windows. Egan hits the accelerator with his dusty black loafer and

zooms past, up to a stretch where razor wire is coiled over concrete walls

filled with colorful graffiti.

"At the drop off point," he adds, continuing with his average drunk tale,

"they say 'oh sorry, no money.'" Then they go searching through all their

pockets."

It is still mid-morning; students in t-shirts are moving along Port

Moresby's dusty sidewalks. Blue uniformed security guards positioned in

front of markets stare blankly at traffic rolling past.

"It is a problem," Egan grimaces.

A lime green Datsun slides up in front of Egan's four-door. He has his

favorite reggae cassette in the player. The thumping song coming through

the speakers rolls on.

The roskol, which is the local Tok Pisin language term derived from the

English word "rascal," is one of Port Moresby's most common conversation

starters. Everyone has a story.

Rascal gangs, which have existed since the early 1970s, are comprised of

mostly unemployed youths who commit various crimes.

Egan says he's been robbed 4 times. The last occurrence was a few years ago.

He makes a turn at a traffic circle whose center is occupied by painting

of prime minister Sir Michael Somare sitting atop a dirt mound.

NCD is just up ahead. But Egan's cab doesn't have a meter. Prices are

negotiated from the outset.

"The situation with the rascals," Egan says, "is this. We taxi drivers are

doing our job. We don't know if the rascal is hiding someplace. We are

just picking up and dropping off passengers in a normal way."

Do they strike in the daytime or nighttime?

"Anytime!"

Egan adds though that they tend to wait in the city at times that are the

most busy, such as Fridays and Saturdays. The assumption is that these are

the times when people are carrying the most cash.

"They are trying to find money to survive," he adds. Egan has had as much

as 600 kina swiped by a rascal gang.

Do they target foreigners?

"Always!"

A government employee at the PNG Waterboard, who has been robbed 5 times,

agrees.

"The mining boys come into town for projects," he says of the industry

that accounted for over 17% of PNG's gross domestic product in 2000. "The

local boys are very observant. They know who is new in town. The mining

boys are oblivious. They then wind up losing their tickets, their

wallets."

The last time he was robbed was three years ago while driving through Port

Moresby with his two children.

"The next thing I knew," he remembers, "my door was open and I had

pump-action to my gut and a factory-made pistol to my forehead."

But Egan thinks the frequency of rascal rampages is on the decline. He

cites an improving economy as the reason.

Treasury Minister Sir Rabbie Namaliu indicated last week that PNG's

economy is taking advantage of higher international prices on minerals

like copper, oil, and gold. He said growth this year is expected to be

3.7% in real terms, an increase over the 3.5% projected in the original

budget.

Sometimes, though, violence is not at the hands of rascals.

A story in PNG's Post-Courier newspaper in the first week of August

reported the shooting and beating of a 36-year-old Australian man at the

hands of drunk police officers.

The report said that after he finished a meal at the Airways and exited

the gated parking lot, an unmarked car of drunk policemen tried to pull

him over. He was then shot, dragged from the car, and beaten by the

officers.

The sun on this day is being held at bay. But Egan's flower-patterned

covers over the back seats and the pair of dolphin caricature screens over

the back window are in place for Port Moresby's hot summers, when

temperatures can reach well over 30 degrees celsius.

He stops his cab along a curb in NCD. A multi-story office building is

having its outer tile removed.

Two men are crouched down at the curb. One is smoking a cigarette with

typed lettering all over the white paper. Another is spitting red betel

nut juice into the gutter.

"I like my customers," Egan says, "because everyday they give me money.

That is very important."