the travellers at the bus stop

chased the thief away and Bus-crew was going to ask another passenger to give up his place on the PMV to get me away from the Top Town depot but I said maski or no ken wori or liklik samting and I got on the PMV behind where the people too had seen the thief in action and they were relieved that he had got nothing. They feel badly about themselves when their countrymen give them a poor reputation.
To make up for their feeling badly, I was embarrassed to hear about the "interesting" range of pay scales for haus meris. I am a volunteer so my wage is more "modest" in comparison with most ex-pat contractors in the private sector. I pay K20 per day - say K4 per hour? which is not much but it is still higher than "average", and for the sake of offering a job (which is sort of the way I look at it - at least when I go back home I can hold my head up high and say I helped buy groceries for a PNGn's table) a wage at K2 per hour strikes me as "unusual" or "interesting". I don't think I'm complaining. I am simply writing about the "interesting" or "unusual" object side of life which I experience in PNG. For an egalitarian such as most Australians are, the concept of a haus meri resonates awkwardly on account of a previous association with "servant". Most haus meris take pride in their work because their work says a lot about their values which they like to demonstrate and pay is a reward for having values. If you know what I mean? I think?