Hitting the town

Well, what a weekend I’ve had! I think yesterday was the most action-packed day I’ve had all year here in POM – one event rolling on after the other – totally unlike my usual quiet existence out here in the sticks.

I was abandoning my quiet Bomana Saturday night after being offered a spare ticket to a fundraising Ball in town at the Crowne Plaza, and I spent the week in a flurry of preparation, trying to figure out how I’d get into town (go with Neil to the POM Grammar market in the morning, get dropped at Ela Murray to meet up with Lea for her Women’s meeting, do a round of shopping and then head back to her place, and then crash there again after the Ball), and where exactly I’d manage to locate a ball dress and all the paraphernalia that would be needed for a night of glitz and glamour. The other teachers took on the task with excitement as we searched through the 2nd-hands for something to wear that wouldn’t make me stick out like a poor little volunteer (!) – and the choices they came up with were certainly interesting… And Lea and Heidi and I had another shot at it on Saturday afternoon, but by the time we were hitting the stores it was getting a bit late. We’d been at a Business and Professional Women’s Club meeting at Ela Murray International School (I was green with envy staring in those classrooms, BTW… I’d forgotten what teaching with resources looked like – paper cutouts and artwork and laminated wall signs - and SPACE, and a sign on the door with only 18 student names… sigh…), where I succeeded with my intention of securing scholarship forms so some of our girls could apply for assistance with school fees, and we listened to a song by Carol Kidu (the great Dame’s niece), a presentation on the PNG budget (1 car for a civil servant or 2000 students receiving a year’s elementary education… how do you think the money should be spent???), watched part of a play by a PNG woman playwright and had a cooking and clay pot demonstration by an Oro woman. Very interesting, and good to make contacts – especially if I’m going to try flogging our up-coming fundraising calendar to them next meeting…

Anyway, I digress. The continued search for a ball gown was unsuccessful, but luckily I had 2 stand-by outfits – my beautiful long pink sari-sh--material dress I’d brought from home in case the girls had a formal at the end of the year, and a more slinky red number I’d found with Pia at Labels the previous week, which I wasn’t sure would fit when I bought it but figured for K1.50 I could take the risk. So, once we got back to Lea’s I was under orders to try them both and let Lea and Heidi (who’d tagged along with us to the shops to giggle at me) judge which was the one to wear. So, in and out of the bathroom I paraded and we ummed and aahed over the choices – both red and pink got a nod, but as Heidi wisely pointed out, what I had to ascertain in order to make the appropriate selection was what kind of impression did I wish to make? Pretty (the pink), or sexy (the red)? Both were good, but what was the look I was going for?

Easy choice.

And then once that decision was made (I took Nev’s opinion over the girls’ immediately), there was the issue of shoes, and matching nail polish, and what jewels I could borrow, and a handbag… And finding matching thread so Lea could stitch up the hem that was coming down (a bit crazy that the cotton cost 3 times the price of the dress itself!). Do I try and fix my hair up in a french roll, or leave it down? Do I need to take a mobile phone in case the dress really works and I change my plans about coming home (?!! Thanks for that, Heidi!!)

Well, 6.30 soon came and off we went. Lea and Nev would drive me down and have a cocktail while I waited to see if I could find Graham and Nelini (who’d so nicely asked me to come) – the only two people at the event that I would know, and racing around being hosts to everyone. As we were waiting at the cocktail bar we were checking out everyone’s outfits. Lea and Nev are going to a Ball for Independence next week, and she wanted to see just how dressed-up people were. It was a bit of a mix, because it was a Rock n Roll Ball - quite a few people in fancy dress costume, and a lot more just fancy. I had thought I’d be the youngest there, but there were quite a few people my age, although not on our table.

Graham introduced to me a group of lovely people he thought I’d be sitting with, but then it turned out I was on another table, so he then deposited me with a new bunch of boys and told them to take care of me. One was his flatmate who I’d met briefly (over Shania Twain!) a couple of weeks ago, and the others were friends or colleagues who were there without partners. So I think they were happy to have the job of being my chaperones, and I was happy to be looked after and entertained. Nice guys, and it was interesting hearing about their various jobs and lives over dinner. The music was great – Graham had organized for a pianist/singer and a rock n roll band from NZ to come over and play (all were staying with him) and both the dinner and dancing music were terrific. I even managed to convince Steve (who told me he was George but I thought looked more like Bruce) to get up and do the twist with me after a while.

Then around 11ish, the boys decided they wanted to head down to the Ela Beach Hotel to Ozzie’s Bar where they were having a 70’s night. I was a bit reluctant to leave, being there at G’s invitation, but after some persuasion figured it sounded like fun – so off we went. Totally different scene! Drop the average age by about 20 years, and instead of cumber bunds and pearls there were jumpsuits and printed polyester shirts. This was definitely more my age bracket than my companions, and in this place I ran into quite a few people I knew, but the most surreal event of the night was going to the ladies’ room, running into one of the Youth Ambassadors I’d met once before and exchanging names again, and on hearing my name having a girl I’d never seen before tell me she recognised me as soon as I walked into the room… I was trying to figure out how I knew her when she told me she’d been reading my blog the last few weeks, and so knew all about my sister coming and all the day-to-day events I’d been writing about on here!!! Omigod, I was so embarrassed!!!! I think I turned the shade of my dress in about 2 seconds, but when I went out and found her later it turned out that she was none other than IslandBaby, whose blog I had just stumbled across about a week ago from a link from Jeremy’s blog. Very exciting! As totally weird as it was to be recognised from this site (seriously made me re-think the whole open-identity I’ve created on there – never really thought about anyone other than family and friends back in Oz reading this, even though I have been getting some local comments lately which has been fun) it was so cool to actually meet her, and find out that we must have crossed paths about 11 years ago too back in Sydney… So, hats off (and now your mask too), ricebag – hope we meet again!

It was pretty late (by my quiet Bomana nights standards) by the time my slightly-mad (just saying that to see if you do look this up, tattoo boy) Pommie escort dropped me back at Lea and Nev’s, and even later when hours after not being able to sleep (lots of screaming-cat type noises going on nearby) I realised somewhat too late that, oh crap I was going to regret this in a few hours when I have to run the P&C meeting I called, and even more on Monday morning when I have to get up at sparrow’s to start my week of boarding duty…

Still, it was fun to come back and report to my mates here at mville that I’d had a big night on the town, as promised, and hear them shriek with laughter as I gave them an example of my glamour-girl catwalk and told them I’d been living the quiet life too long – the last 3 months would be all about getting in on the action…