PAPUA NEW GUINEA

After a two-year stint in Singapore, Paul accepted a position with Air Niugini, an airline based in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, the nation's capital city. Paul moved to PNG in June 2013 and I joined him in mid-July. While we have not been in PNG long, we look forward to learning more about our new homeland. Here are a few of the basics points:

LOCATION
PNG is an island nation located north of Australia in the Southern Hemisphere. While many people in the U.S. refer to PNG as "New Guinea," New Guinea is actually the name of the island that contains both Papua New Guinea and Indonesian provinces. PNG is located on the eastern half of the island with many islands located offshore. We live in Port Moresby, a city located on the south shoreline.


LANGUAGES
While PNG has nearly 850 recorded languages due to the numerous tribes inhabiting the islands, English and a local language called Tok Pisin are the most commonly spoken languages. Much like our Singaporean experience, English is sometimes hard to comprehend, especially since the local people speak in incredibly soft tones, making it difficult for us to hear, let alone decipher accents.

POLITICS AND RELIGION
PNG is a unitary parliamentary democracy under constitutional monarchy, which basically means that the nation falls under the British monarchy (Queen Elizabeth II is Head of State) as a commonwealth realm while maintaining a local government lead as prime minister, Peter O'Neill. We also have a governor general who acts as the Queen's representative.

Christianity is the primary religion; missionaries are present throughout the nation translating bibles, preaching to the locals and teaching in schools. Though some people reportedly mix Christianity with indigenous tribal practices, there are many Christian churches present.

MONEY
Our local currency is the kina, which can be broken into 100 toea, like the American pennies. Coins are found in 5, 10, 20 and 50 toea as well as a 1 kina coin. Kina are available in 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 and 100 notes. Unlike Singapore dollars, the kina are all the same size.


1 comment:

Mom said...

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