It was an amazing experience.
It's one that's probably changed my life a
bit.
I'm currently doing my honours thesis on Human
Development in PNG.
It gave me a new perspective on people, on
culture, on family.
They're a very tight-knit community in Papua
New Guinea and it's really refreshing to go
there and see people bonding so well.
It was a remarkable experience.
It truly was.
My name's Jack Growden, I'm a fourth-year
Urban Planning student.
In April 2016, David King sent me an email
about doing some field work in PNG.
I said yes and then I found out afterwards
that it was part of the New Colombo scholarship
and I ended up going with Rosita Henry up to
Papua New Guinea.
The scholarship took me to Mount Hagen, which
is in the Western Highlands Province of Papua
New Guinea.
So we landed in Mount Hagen and then it's
a short, about half an hour drive up into
the Kuta mountain range to Kunguma, a village
called Kunguma.
The people were very welcoming.
That's probably the theme of the entire trip.
That people were extremely welcoming.
They knew we were up there for good purposes.
That we were up there to learn about them.
To learn about their culture and they're naturally
very welcoming people to all visitors.
I can't fault them.
They were wonderful people.
They really took care of us.
From the New Colombo Plan, the reason we were
there was to research, basically.
It was a field school run by Professor Rosita
Henry and we all went there with an open mind
and then we discovered a topic that we found
interesting and we wrote enthographic essays
about that topic.
Some of the activities we were doing while
we were there, aside from our own research,
were getting mentored by different members
of the group but also building a small men's
house.
Every morning we'd do a piece while we were
there with the villagers and that was a really
good experience.
We also went down to the markets in Mount
Hagen and that was good to see everyday Papuan
life in an urban sense.
Lots of hiking, we played volleyball with
the locals, we went to schools and chatted
to parents.
There was one night where I got to go to one
of the other villages with one of the councillors
and we had a massive feed there that he prepared,
him and his wife, and they showed us around
his village and that was a really authentic
cultural experience.
We got to go in waterfalls and just incredible
natural terrain in Papua New Guinea, so that
was enjoyable as well.
Professor Rosita Henry is remarkable.
She's known one of the deceased village elders
for about 40 years, so she had a tremendous
relationship with them.
She's been doing research in that particular
community for 20 years now and she's a tremendous,
tremendous mentor for us as well.
So another point I'd make to the students
as well is I'm not an an Anthropology student,
my degree is in Urban Planning, but this trip
inspired me to take a different path in my
degree and through my honours degree I've
been able to go dabble, I suppose, in Anthropology
and Human Development and it's taken me to
some tremendous places.
It's a fantastic opportunity.
You're with a beautiful bunch of people.
It's well-run, well-supervised, it's safe
and it's a life-changing experience.
