The first time I set foot in Papua New Guinea, I was a new Peace Corps volunteer. It was January 1999, in the capital city, Port Moresby. I was so scared of offending anyone that I managed to do it anyway: the edge of my skirt blew over the betel nuts on a woman's tarp at a makeshift market. The woman glared at me. I apologized: sori, sori. But what I did was taboo: a woman who steps over something pollutes it.
Papua New Guinea RPCV Skye Rhode writes: The first time I set foot in Papua New Guinea, I was so scared of offending anyone that I managed to do it anyway
Breaking with tradition
Caption: Kainantu Market Prime Spots Photo: kahunapulej Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0
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An estimated 70% of Papua New Guinea's population lives in poverty. Men have mostly been the wage earners. But economic opportunities for women are changing traditional gender roles. Skye Rhode reports.
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SKYE ROHDE: The first time I set foot in Papua New Guinea, I was a new Peace Corps volunteer. It was January 1999, in the capital city, Port Moresby. I was so scared of offending anyone that I managed to do it anyway: the edge of my skirt blew over the betel nuts on a woman's tarp at a makeshift market. The woman glared at me. I apologized: sori, sori. But what I did was taboo: a woman who steps over something pollutes it.
Unspoken rules like these have been around far longer than the national government, or even the Christian missionaries.
