Profiles in Life.
A Series of Profile's from our farmers in Papua New Guineans:
Shina, my neighbour in Marawaka with her son.
' Good coffee prices really help support me to not only to pay for food such as rice and other essentials but also to help pay for labour to help me with other things like building a new house, making a new food garden etc' she says.
Her husband left her to stay in the village in search of a job to be a cutter in the Oil Palm fields of West New Britain and hopefully a better life. From time to time he sends money to support his family in Marawaka. Many men from rural places do this.
Once in a while the husband will send money as much as K100 or even less to buy essentials of soap, salt and rice. Most times she is left to provide food for herself i.e tend to the food garden and the coffee garden which is a good hike away, tend to livestock, tend to customary obligations as well as defend her husband's land from his brothers or other people.
Most women live in hope for their husbands return others return to their own villages resentful of the
Women like Shina are more numerous now as rural urban drift blossoms, more young men lured into towns and cities, mothers and children left without husbands and fathers to support them.
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