"I'm on John Howard's Team" - Alan Cadman

Spent an interesting day up at AT Projects on Sunday. 4 Federal politicians from Australia are visiting PNG for a few days, and AT Projects was one of their stops. AusAID put a TINY bit of money into AT Projects at the moment, but hopefully the positive impression made will send some more of Australia's money their way.

The pollies were:

• The Hon. Alan Cadman MP, Liberal, Member for Mitchell (NSW) - delegation leader.
• Glenn Sterle, Labor, Senator for Western Australia - deputy delegation leader.
• Anne McEwen, Labor, Senator for South Australia.
• The Hon. Kym Richardson MP, Liberal, Member for Kingston (South Australia).

Steve Lleyton from AT did a great job showing them the place. His colourful description of toilet design was especially memorable. Miriam (Steve's wife) and various emplyees (workmates of Di's) did short presentations. Unfortunately they ran out of time and were not able to take part in one of Di's initiative games.

The CRMF team was all up there as well, showing off a 'World First' VHF Internet connection that they have set up from AT Projects to CRMF Base in Goroka.

Lunch with the pollies was traditional PNG food - 'Greens', Sago, KauKau (Sweet Potato) and Di's banana cake.

Di and I stayed up at AT after the circus left and walked up the mountain to Mt Gahvisuka National Park. Some of the lushest rainforest I've had the privelege to see! The walked back was especially enjoyable as we were joined by 3 mankis (little boys) who gave us flowers and showed us lots of edibale plants and continuously demonstrated their skills by trying to shoot little birds with their shanghais...

We spent the night in one of the houses at AT enjoying the mountain grandeur and especially the LACK of rooster crowing from 3am in the morning. (The rooster has been a part of our month in Goroka that we will be happy to forget...) If only I had a mountain bike for the trip back down into Goroka the next morning...