The Rugby League World Cup 2017 began with a bang for the Papua New Guinea team last Saturday. As co-hosts of the tournament, Kumuls fans settled into the National Football Stadium with a great deal of anticipation. Previous meetings against their opponents Wales had not been promising, but with many of their side having achieved great things in the NRL and a home advantage they were aware that the odds were different this time.
Since the start of 2017 I've been setting myself a variety of monthly challenges to encourage me to get into good habits, try something new or improve my skills. I've had a varying degree of success, but I've mostly found them a positive exercise.
I've decided for November I'm going to post something daily on this blog, to get into the habit of blogging regularly. Some will be scheduled but I'll still be working on producing lots of content throughout the month. Expect more Time Beyond Tumbuna stories, commentary on the Rugby League World Cup 2017 and at least one food post, yum!
If you can think of any PNG subjects that I can write about, then please let me know in the comments or on Twitter at @PNGEmmy.
I've had six months away from writing this blog and I have to say I've missed it. I've still been learning about PNG (I hope never to stop!) but things had slowed down somewhat.
However, not deterred, here are three of my favourite sports-related PNG things that have caught my attention whilst I've been away.
This September Wantoks and friends around the world will be celebrating 40 years of Papua New Guinean independence. It's obviously a significant time for all those who have links to PNG but my British family are also linked to this in a surprising way.
Forty years ago my Dad (and for a time, my Uncle) were taking part in a caving expedition to West Sepik (or Sandaun) Province. I will write more about this at another time as it was a record-breaking trip at the extreme limits of world caving. Despite the significance of the trip, all the expedition team returned to the town of Telefomin to watch the tribes from around the area gather to celebrate independence. They had a cameraman called Sid Perou who was documenting the trip and he captured these scenes from the day. (Warning: Contains scenes of animal slaughter)
As a Papua-phile (or should that be New Guinea-phile?) I follow various Wantok and PNG groups in the UK and recently I decided to look into whether there were any celebrations planned in Britain. I expected to find some London-based events and was fully prepared to consider a trip to the capital if my budget allowed.
You might imagine my surprise when I found that the main celebration event in the UK this year is happening at Headingley stadium, which is practically on my doorstep in Leeds. This sort of coincidence shouldn't really be ignored, so I bought tickets for me and my parents too. We may not be Papua New Guinean, but we're still really looking forward to this party!
If you're interested in attending the event on 19th September 2015, please visit www.png40.info for more information.
This time of year is a hectic one for me as I work at a university and our annual cycle of work is often dictated by the arrival of students in September.
Although I've been pretty busy, out of curiosity I asked one of my colleagues if they knew how many Papua New Guinean students there are studying here. We certainly see a lot of international students but I had no idea how many (if any) were from PNG.
I was disappointed to learn that over the last few years there have been no more than 6 people from PNG registering and only some of those actually arriving to start their studies here. It is certainly a long way to travel, and to be so far from family and friends would definitely put me off.
