DAY 10, continued: (Brian) Papua New Guinea is a place of wonder, for sure. When we landed, our State Department contact, Brian Asmus, greeted us with an amiable smile and several locals to help us with our gear. All the Papua New Guinea fellows were friendly and seemed eager to help. They had broad grins revealing bright red gums and teeth that I assumed, at the time, was bad dental care. We later found out it was the red juice from chewing the betel nut – a pervasive local habit which gives one a dizzying, quasi-nicotine-like rush.
All of our performances and workshops were in and around Papua New Guinea’s largest city, Port Moresby, and the drive into the city went past a scary, ramshackle market that Brian A. said was quite dangerous and even off limits to security personnel. In stark contrast, our hotel was quite nice and in the most modern part of town. In Port Moresby, this consisted of a small cluster of 10-story high-rise buildings but you could see this city is about to undergo a major building boom with Exxon/Mobil moving into town in a big way after a major natural gas discovery here.Like any port city, we were advised on what parts of town to stay away from but we never felt unsafe at any time in our five-day visit. All the local people were warm and friendly. After a night of time-zone adjustment rest, we had a performance at the U.S. Ambassador's home for State personnel and a good time was had by all including the Johnny Rodgers Band. We played against a gorgeous backdrop of the Port and Papua New Guinea’s hills with cooperative weather. The State people were great and appreciated some genuine American entertainment from back home. Next event had us at the Port Moresby International School, a private high school with kids from all over Papua New Guinea and some from Australia. We worked with some very sweet kids from the music department and their teacher was an Australian jazzer who later joined us on trumpet in our performance there. The kids and the very international faculty were welcoming and gave us the impression that this really was a great place to go to school. Extremely well-mannered students, rugby players and trees laden with ripe mangoes around the amphitheater made it all idyllic. Our show went over big time and we were inundated with kids wanting autographs.
Next day was our day off and I convinced Joe, Danny, Shana and even our rest-conscious Johnny to get up early and go for a trip to Loloata Island Resort for a day of snorkeling, boating and animal watching.
Everyone thanked me (later) for waking them up at 6:00 AM to make the 8:30 AM reservation because we all had a fantastic time snorkeling on the remote island at a reef rich with tropical fish. 
We had a ball frolicking with and gawking at the island's little pets: mini wallabies, parrots and an old tree kangaroo named Monte.
The van ride back to our hotel, however, was sobering as we passed through shanty squatter villages with striking poverty. Like many places around the world, people flock to the city trying to find work and cannot afford the rent due to inflated real estate prices. The result is a proliferation of these villages without basic utilities or sewage. This is a nation of truly stark contrasts between the rich biodiversity, ancient indigenous cultural traditions of the highlands and coastal provinces all crashing suddenly into 21st-Century technology and new corporate investment money that we pray makes its way down to the impoverished children and unemployed residents of this fast growing city. Our good State Department people are helping with AIDS and domestic violence prevention programs here and we much admire them for their efforts.
Our final day started with an unforgettable workshop and performance with some local students and adults at a very modest parish stage. Inside the hall there was a cache of incredible totems expertly hand carved by artisans depicting indigenous iconography and animals of all types. 
We did our Ain't No Sunshine workshop with the very shy onlookers/participants and Johnny did not give up, did not let them escape his coaxing. His persistence was rewarded when he shrewdly let a group of young men pass the mic back and forth to each other on their own in a vocal call and response over our bluesy vamp. This really brought them out of their shells in a big way and our following show had them all gathered 'round the stage as they genuinely seemed in awe of our playing.As in Fiji, I again held “Bass Court” after the show with demos of my solo playing plucking and bowing, up close and personal, as I truly was taking the double bass where no one had taken it before! I'll never forget the experience. Wait 'til my buds on Talkbass.com hear about this! It's (kind of) every Double Bass player’s dream to expand the world's knowledge and appreciation of our noble instrument and I feel great pride in having done this in both Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
The apex of our trip culminated with a performance, open to the public, at the Ela Beach Amphitheater complete with the Governor of Port Moresby, the U.S. Ambassador, State people, an opening act: The Sing Sing Tribe (an incredible, young acapella group!),
the teachers, and some of the students and people we met during our wondrous week.
Time to get some shut eye on this flight to Singapore. What a month we're having! Somebody pinch me...
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