Smoking...

Smoking is a big part of PNG, and especially in the bush.  It's kind of like all those old movies set in the 20's where everyone has a cigarette in hand.  However, these smokes are all hand rolled with wet leaves and scraps of paper that happen to be around.  Even the old cardboard boxes that aren't any good are taken and stripped apart to be rolled.  The leaves they use are green, but usually placed over a fire to dry them out a little bit but they still have to relight the smokes several times in order to burn the whole thing.

There's a running joke that they'd even smoke pages of the bible if we gave them such things...  Sad, but more truth than fiction.  Between all the smoking, the smoky houses and malnutrition, tuberculosis is a huge problem for many people in PNG.  From the records that Anton has kept it looks like close to a quarter of the population in the Kaiam area have been put on TB drugs at one time or another.  The biggest problem isn't that it's difficult to find the people with TB, or administer drugs, it's a problem of keeping them on the treatment.  After the first few treatments they feel a lot better and then they leave the area so that they can't actually eliminate the sickness from their body.  Complications...  Another interesting side affect of the TB treatments is when someone with HIV/AIDS (huge problem in PNG) gets sick and takes the treatment and recovers.  Others look at this and say that the TB treatment cured HIV/AIDS... no... it cured the TB, that's all it was going to do in the first place.  Strange to think that people still don't know that there is no cure for HIV/AIDS...