Hagen Show Day II

I will keep this short since what I saw today is frankly indescribable. We will err on the side of extra photos in this post instead and perhaps a video or two.

Feathers in a Hagen lady's head-dress

Superlative adjectives have been cheapened in their use and are therefore incapable of giving true description to the events we witnessed. I have cheapened them myself and therefore struggled to even correctly put words around what we witnessed in my head.

The photos should do the talking, but we would like to sincerely thank our friend Angelle who encouraged us to come to PNG to the Hagen Show. We had long wanted to come to PNG but she was the one who really pushed and showed us it was possible. The PNG Tourism Promotion Authority, located on the first floor of the below pictured building according to the adjoining sign, certainly was not responsible for our getting here.

Even more groups showed up today than yesterday, and we were able to go early and spend time with the people as they dressed and prepared. We made friends with Rocky from the Morobe sing-sing group and Joseph, a Mt. Hagen local, who is a student wanting to study law and just comes to the show because he enjoys seeing his culture in such vivid display. The people were nice and welcoming beyond description and the incredible pride that they take in their unique and distinct cultures is evident not just in their dress but in their performances and, more than anything, in their smiles. They practically beg you to take pictures of them and all they want is to then see the image of the photo on the digital camera and if possible give you their address so that you can send the pictures on to them.

I’m going to leave it at that. Maybe once I have had more time to process everything I will be able to put more verbiage around it. As everyone reading this knows, words are not normally a problem for me, but, for now, we hope you enjoy the pictures. I think we took (no exaggeration) about 1000, but we cut it down a bit.