letters

Lament of

two travellers

(1) Nauru

Warning: Travellers from Au stralia and Solomon Islands to Micronesia are now charged $8 an hour, without food, to sleep on Nauru.

Air Nauru no longer flies from Honiara and points south to Ponape in one day. You are required to change planes in Nauru, and use one of the beds in their Hotel Menen. You are supposed to arrive in Nauru at 9 p.m. Tuesday (in my case actually midnight), and the flight to Ponape boards (but doesn’t in my case depart) at 7 a.m. the next morning.

The Nauru Consulate in Mel bourne now demands you obtain a visa for “one day”, and has the audacity to charge $6 for their stamp. The bed at the Menen Hotel is $3O; the airport departure tax $10; so you are charged about $8 an hour to stay on that island.

Air Nauru does give a sand wich to passengers boarding in New Zealand, but “dinner” on the Honiara-Nauru flight is one glass of fruit juice. I don’t know if their hotel has a restaurant, or what the island of Nauru looks like, and never will.

Robert Sperry

Adelaide SA Australia

(2) Png

It has been my good fortune to visit Papua New Guinea several times in the past few years. Is the national government, or the national airline, interested in bringing tourists into the coun try? Evidently not, judging by the airfares charged for the last leg of the journey from New York to Port Moresby.

I recently researched airfares for a possible holiday in PNG, and came up with the following: New York to Honolulu return (approximate one-way mileage 5129) SUS4SO: Honolulu to Port Moresby return (4000

miles) $ U 51350. New York to Manila return (10,335 miles) $US1100; Manila to Port Moresby return (2442 miles) SUSISOO. New York to Bris bane return (11,794 miles) SUSI6OO; Brisbane to Port Moresby return (SUS7OO).

As can be seen from the above, the major cost of going half way round the world to visit PNG is the last leg of the journey. Are the air fares charged for flights into Port Moresby set at an artificial high to protect Air Niugini?

My first stay in the country, 1943-45, was all expenses paid . . . Please, whoever is perpetrating this fare inequity, help us New Guinea buffs. We would like a more affordable holiday in your beautiful country.

Roger F. Sykes

Elmira Heights N.Y.

Usa

Tichborne?

Tlchbourne?

Tui Garnett inquired (FIM Oct. ’B3 p 9) who was “Sundow ner”, author of Rambles in Polynesia, Wild Life in the Pacific, etc. He was, according to our catalogue, one Herbert Tichboume. Regret no further biographical details available here.

Lan Knights

Information Officer Royal Commonwealth Society Information Bureau, London UK Mr Knights’ information gen erally confirms that of reader Rod Ewins (FIM Jan. p 7) ex cept that Mr Ewins replied to Mr Garnett’s inquiry by saying that “Sundowner” was the pen name of “H. C. Tichborne” (without the “u”).

A misplaced

high point

Thank you for the offprints of my brief note on “The First Fijians to Meet Europeans” (FIM Oct. ’B3 p 23), and the most unexpected cheque which I have donated as a subscrip

tion to the Ono-i-Lau school.

Unfortunately, I made a rather serious error in the arti cle: the highest peak of Doi is not Naisoyaga but Naisogovu la. Naisoyaga is a high point on Onolevu but not Doi. Do you think it would be possible to correct his with a brief note?

Incidentally, but of much less consequence, there is a typeset ting error in the next column; “Two sand bays ...” should read “Two sand cays . . .”; there are no bays in this area, sand cays being sandy islets.

With my very best wishes to all who labor at FIM.

Garth Rogers

Department of Anthropology University of Auckland Auckland New Zealand

CUSO by no

other name. . .

Recently your publication printed an article mentioning our organisation. Unfortunate ly, it used our former title instead of the new one. In 1981 we changed our name; CUSO is no longer an acronym but the full title of the organisation.

For years we have fought against an image of a students’ organisation. Oftentimes, our acronym was even wrongly spelled out as Canadian Uni versity Students Overseas rather than Canadian Univer sity Service Overseas. This served to perpetuate the image.

CUSO is not and never was a students’ organisation. Our workers have always been pro fessionals or skilled, qualified people. They have ranged in age from the early 20s to the mid-70s, the average age today being 30. Many are taking a mid-career break or early retire ment to join our organisation for two years’ service in the developing world, and they have years of experience to offer as well as paper qualifica tions.

Because our workers have been known as “volunteers,” this has apparently suggested

that they are unpaid and unskil led. They are neither the overseas government or agen cy requesting CUSO’s services pays their salaries (admittedly lower than in Canada but ade quate for a reasonable lifestyle in the Third World), and our workers are not accepted for placement unless they are qual ified.

Having labored for 20 years under the misconception that we are a students’ organisation, we decided to change our name simply to CUSO in the hopes of setting the record straight in the public mind. The fact that the name-change has not registered with some mem bers of the media is now begin ning to hurt us.

Slater St.,

Barbara Malone

Ottawa, Director Canada Public Affairs

Cuso.

An elusive

broadcaster

I am very taken up with the hobby of shortwave listening.

In March last year a broad casting station calling itself “Radio Tropical, the Voice of the Nuclear-free Pacific” made a very brief appearance on the air. No location of the station was given, and the only clue seemed to be reference to “Pacific Magazine”. I eventually was able to find an address for a Pacific Magazine in Honolulu and wrote to Radio Tropical care of the editor. I have had no response from either the radio station or the magazine.

It has now been suggested to me that the “magazine” men tioned was not a publication but a radio program of that name.

However, I have not been able to discover which if any of the Islands broadcasters carries a program of that title.

I am writing in the hope that perhaps one of your readers will be able to help me.

T. C. L. Symes

Wellington New Zealand