They’re Happy to Do It Themselves
p. 71 · Read in the full issue
Do It Themselves
Once it was roads, now it’s air strips.
The Hube people, from Pindiu, in rugged mountain country near Finschhafen, New Guinea, in June turned up in force to see Morobe District Commissioner H. NiaLl officially open a brand new airstrip which they themselves had built so they could get their coffee to market easier.
Previously they had a two day walk to carry coffee to the nearest road.
There was a small Cessna airstrip at Pindiu, but the Administration located this and laid it out to take larger aircraft, and the Hube people set to work. t In the photograph below (taken by K. Vellacott-Jones) Mr. Niall on the new strip, which is at an altitude of 2,800 ft, is telling the Hube people that due to their ex tensive planting of coffee in the last few years they were now out of the classification of a “backward bush people”, and the new strip would mean even more accelerated develop ment.