Madang Market during Haus Kuk Weekend

Going to the Madang market can be an adventure in Papua New Guinea especially if you are living on top of Nobnob mountain. Several of my friends and I decided to go to the market on Saturday. It was our second haus kuk weekend. In other words, we were in charge of cooking our own meals usually over an open fire. We could get fruits from the ladies on top of the mountain, but vegetables were just not available. So I checked with my other friends to see what they might like from the market. I made a list and collected a little money.

My friends and I had heard that a car would be heading toward Madang on Saturday morning. We could not just get in the car on top of the mountain. We had to walk a little down the mountain or they would not pick us up. Around 8:30 am, we began walking. It was a nice day. As we walked, a pick up truck passed us. We didn't ask for a ride because we knew there would be a car from POC coming along soon. It wasn't long after that that the POC car came zooming down the mountain. We quickly realized from their hand gestures that they were not going to be able to stop. There had been some sort of medical emergency and they were heading for the hospital. We said a quick prayer for the person in the car and kept walking. We started to get a little worried, because its a 4 kilometer hike down the mountain.

Fortunately, the pick up that had passed us had stopped around the next corner. We were able to catch a ride from them down the mountain. At the bottom of the mountain, we arrived just in time to catch a very full PMV into town. We were dropped off right outside the market fence.

We entered the market and began our selection of various fruits and vegetables, but mostly vegetables. Saturday market is the biggest day for the Madang market. It seems that everyone that can comes to the market to either sell or buy produce, artifacts, and even fish. The three of us had to work hard to stay together as we ventured up and down the various "aisles" of the market. I had to be careful that my skirt did not accidentally sweep over food that was on the ground. Papua New Guineans believe that if a woman's skirt goes over food than it is contaminated and not fit to eat.

After we bought all the food that we wanted, we walked to the PBT office in Madang. We had brought our laptops with us to check email and I had heard that I had a package waiting for me there. The internet connection was extremely slow at POC and I had not been able to check email for a couple weeks. We spent the rest of the morning in the air conditioned office. We left our vegetables, laptops, and my package in the office to get our lunch.

For lunch, we walked to the Kranket Fish Market. There we were able to buy fresh tuna and have it fried for only 2 kina. It was served on a banana leaf and it was delicious. Then we walked to Papindos and purchased ice cream cones for a kina each. We went back to the office to collect our stuff and then walked back to the market to catch a PMV back to the bottom of the mountain.

We, quickly, found a PMV to the bottom of the mountain, but there was no car going up. We began our journey up the mountain on foot. We prayed that a vehicle would come along soon. We traveled about an eighth of the way up when a van appeared. We signaled that we wanted a ride. The driver said that he didn't have any seats, but we were welcome to ride in the back. It was a cargo van. We all bounced around in the back of the hot and stuff van for the rest of the way up the mountain, but at least we didn't have to walk and carry our heavy bags of vegetables. We arrived at POC tired, but successful in our trip to the Madang market.