While Loujaya’s Self-Advertising Lalalala Sign Boards Start To Fall Apart, Madang Secures Bigtime Funding To Build a Modern Outdoor Market for the People
BY A LOCAL TOURIST
On a recent trip to Lae, I was wanted see one of the newest PNG wonders of the world: the now notorious Las-Vegas Style Lalalala Sign Boards erected by the Queen of Attention, Ms Loujaya Toni Kouza.
The moment I saw them with my own eyes, the first reaction was how much did those damn things cost? Coming out of our tax money of course! I studied the 2 electronic Sign Boards, one at Top Town, the other at Eriku for some time, struggling to get what I felt was my taxmoney’s worth of absorbing the colourful lalalala. After considerable thought, I concluded that Loujaya’s Lalalala Sign Boards reflect her subconscious desire for change: ever changing hair styles, ever changing dresses, ever changing yakityyak authoritative sounding talk with the goal of making her the highest profile kokonas stail meri in PNG.
To be perfectly honest, though, none of this is funny. In fact, it borders on disgusting. The people’s money could have been used on so many better things to help the public. Loujaya has misplaced priorities and that’s a fact. Whether that’s caused by screwed up brain wiring or her pressing desire to become the Big Kokonas is not so clear. What is certain is that Loujaya is easily distracted and swept away by overseas glitter, whether it’s a new overseas hairstyle, new overseas clothes or lalalala signs she must have seen overseas. Brain logic immediately shortcircuited when she sees any of this and it doesn’t matter to her how expensive, irrelevant or ill timed the technology might be for PNG. This is why so many politician’s ideas become giant embarrassing failures, so many of their programmes collapse, and so many of their projects fall down soon after initiation. They start out trying to do something Irrelevant to the people’s immediate, pressing needs. Irrelevance then produces nonsustainability and nonsustainability results in collapse. As the whole process unfolds, Loujaya is no different than any politician. They all think they’re brilliant in mind and know everything, no need to listen to criticism or sound advice. So they go their happy way and the people’s money ends up being wasted.
After I left Lae and was thinking about writing this article, I wanted to put in something that might show the Honourable Toni the fallacy of her ways. Or at least give her something that could distract her from wasting any more money on lalalala projects. I settled on including some photos of the kind of fancy lalalala that has always grabbed her attention, I’m told, from the time she was a little girl. Something to feast her eyes on and freeze up her brain so she won’t be thinking of wasting K100,000 or more on lalalala notice boards or their equivalents. So here you go, MP Toni, focus you attention on this:
A nice dress you might want to buy instead of another Lalalala Sign Board……..
Or maybe indulge in some sparkling Lalalala fingernail polish…….
Hope that diverts her attention for a little while from even more foolish things.
Unfortunately I must end this article with some bad news. Apparently a few weeks ago, the first indications of pending collapse of the lalalala signs appeared. After hearing what had happened, I went out one last time to verify. There it was, on the top town sign, a small but annoying square in the lower left hand corner of the lalalala signboard. A verrrry unpleasant and annoying distraction to whatever Loujaya is using the lalalala board to educate us about.
Does this starting bagarap on the lalalala represent a software glitch or is Lae’s rain already leaking into the hardware and causing power shortage? No one in Lae knows. Of course it will take a mighty expensive repair trip by a specialist from Australia to figure things out and restore the top town lalalala board to its former glory. All at taxpayers expense, of course!
In Lae, the bookkeepers are taking gambling bets as to when the lalalalas will be completely out of action. Wagers are trending heavily toward them being lifeless before the 2017 elections. That’s not good, of course, since this would deny MP Toni Kouza Yada yada what she was hoping to use the lalalala boards mostly for all along – as a sneaky election campaign device. It was a brilliant move, to be honest. Who will be able to compete with the flash flash flash images of Lae’s Kokonas Stail Meri Loujaya entering people’s brains simultaneously at top town and eriku? If anyone else wanted to put up lalalala signs, she could probably stop them because after all, she IS the queen. Anyway, the real bonus of the lalalala signs is that it allows her to campaign on daily basis from now all the way up to when the 2017 campaign starts and beyond. If the sign boards still work, of course. So sneaky! So cunning! So clever! And so deceptive! Just like her mentor, Peter O’Neill!
Meanwhile, across the plains that was once the Lae airport and slightly beyond lies Lae’s old open market, still doing a bustling business in a mass of humanity scattered across bare dirt. My buddy Malum Nalu on his blog has run pictures in the past illustrating what we know all too well about the Lae Market, sellers sitting in the mud or being baked in the hot sun in very uninspiring and almost inhumane conditions. The horrible conditions of the market discourage buyers and vendors alike although there are plenty of struggling grassroots who will tolerate almost anything in order to make a bit of money and stay alive.
Miss Loujaya doesn’t worry about any of that, of course. She’s shown the people of Lae long abgo that she’s incapable of shedding any genuine tears at the struggles of the Lae market women. The wretched conditions under which people labour to sell food are irrelevant to her because she prefers fancier eating.
I do a bit of traveling and Madang was my next destination after leaving Lae. My goodness, what a difference from Loujaya Land! No Lalalala Sign Boards in Madang and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Madang has its issues, of course, but one thing about Madang shines at the moment. One or more politicians or city leaders obviously have a different mindset from Loujaya Toni Kouza. Unlike Loujaya, they concluded that Madang’s town market was an important resource.
The Madang market was actually in much better shape than the Lae market. But while Loujaya is content to let women sit in the mud over in the Lae market, good wasn’t good enough for the Madang administrators and leaders. That’s why they’ve done the groundwork and will end up with a top class market, funded by overseas donor money coming from the Japanese. Meanwhile over in Lae, residents will soon be passing by broken Lalalala Sign Boards beckoning passer by people with one big black blank stare.
I was thinking about what my parting words of this article should be. Like what did I learn from my trip to Lae and Madang. I guess the biggest lesson is that when people have an ego problem and think only of themselves, their projects will reflect that. Think of the people first, and quite different results will be seen. Lalalala Sign Boards in Lae compared with a new modern outdoor market in Madang.
I considered that and a last thought came to mind: poor, pathetic Loujaya Kouza Toni.
The moment I saw them with my own eyes, the first reaction was how much did those damn things cost? Coming out of our tax money of course! I studied the 2 electronic Sign Boards, one at Top Town, the other at Eriku for some time, struggling to get what I felt was my taxmoney’s worth of absorbing the colourful lalalala. After considerable thought, I concluded that Loujaya’s Lalalala Sign Boards reflect her subconscious desire for change: ever changing hair styles, ever changing dresses, ever changing yakityyak authoritative sounding talk with the goal of making her the highest profile kokonas stail meri in PNG.
The
messages I saw displayed on the lalalalas are information that I reckon
everyone in Lae must already know. Not too educational or
informative, actually. And lest we all forget, again and again and again
for those who gaze upon the signboards, they are treated with the
darling Loujaya’s unnaturally red face and the giant word HONOURABLE in
front of her name. Good thing she keeps reminding the people of Lae
about that. My Lae women friends especially keep forgetting the word
“Honourable” when they talk about her. I had to remind them more than
once to at least give an impression of respecting her.
To be perfectly honest, though, none of this is funny. In fact, it borders on disgusting. The people’s money could have been used on so many better things to help the public. Loujaya has misplaced priorities and that’s a fact. Whether that’s caused by screwed up brain wiring or her pressing desire to become the Big Kokonas is not so clear. What is certain is that Loujaya is easily distracted and swept away by overseas glitter, whether it’s a new overseas hairstyle, new overseas clothes or lalalala signs she must have seen overseas. Brain logic immediately shortcircuited when she sees any of this and it doesn’t matter to her how expensive, irrelevant or ill timed the technology might be for PNG. This is why so many politician’s ideas become giant embarrassing failures, so many of their programmes collapse, and so many of their projects fall down soon after initiation. They start out trying to do something Irrelevant to the people’s immediate, pressing needs. Irrelevance then produces nonsustainability and nonsustainability results in collapse. As the whole process unfolds, Loujaya is no different than any politician. They all think they’re brilliant in mind and know everything, no need to listen to criticism or sound advice. So they go their happy way and the people’s money ends up being wasted.
After I left Lae and was thinking about writing this article, I wanted to put in something that might show the Honourable Toni the fallacy of her ways. Or at least give her something that could distract her from wasting any more money on lalalala projects. I settled on including some photos of the kind of fancy lalalala that has always grabbed her attention, I’m told, from the time she was a little girl. Something to feast her eyes on and freeze up her brain so she won’t be thinking of wasting K100,000 or more on lalalala notice boards or their equivalents. So here you go, MP Toni, focus you attention on this:
A nice dress you might want to buy instead of another Lalalala Sign Board……..
Or maybe indulge in some sparkling Lalalala fingernail polish…….
Hope that diverts her attention for a little while from even more foolish things.
Unfortunately I must end this article with some bad news. Apparently a few weeks ago, the first indications of pending collapse of the lalalala signs appeared. After hearing what had happened, I went out one last time to verify. There it was, on the top town sign, a small but annoying square in the lower left hand corner of the lalalala signboard. A verrrry unpleasant and annoying distraction to whatever Loujaya is using the lalalala board to educate us about.
Does this starting bagarap on the lalalala represent a software glitch or is Lae’s rain already leaking into the hardware and causing power shortage? No one in Lae knows. Of course it will take a mighty expensive repair trip by a specialist from Australia to figure things out and restore the top town lalalala board to its former glory. All at taxpayers expense, of course!
In Lae, the bookkeepers are taking gambling bets as to when the lalalalas will be completely out of action. Wagers are trending heavily toward them being lifeless before the 2017 elections. That’s not good, of course, since this would deny MP Toni Kouza Yada yada what she was hoping to use the lalalala boards mostly for all along – as a sneaky election campaign device. It was a brilliant move, to be honest. Who will be able to compete with the flash flash flash images of Lae’s Kokonas Stail Meri Loujaya entering people’s brains simultaneously at top town and eriku? If anyone else wanted to put up lalalala signs, she could probably stop them because after all, she IS the queen. Anyway, the real bonus of the lalalala signs is that it allows her to campaign on daily basis from now all the way up to when the 2017 campaign starts and beyond. If the sign boards still work, of course. So sneaky! So cunning! So clever! And so deceptive! Just like her mentor, Peter O’Neill!
Meanwhile, across the plains that was once the Lae airport and slightly beyond lies Lae’s old open market, still doing a bustling business in a mass of humanity scattered across bare dirt. My buddy Malum Nalu on his blog has run pictures in the past illustrating what we know all too well about the Lae Market, sellers sitting in the mud or being baked in the hot sun in very uninspiring and almost inhumane conditions. The horrible conditions of the market discourage buyers and vendors alike although there are plenty of struggling grassroots who will tolerate almost anything in order to make a bit of money and stay alive.
Miss Loujaya doesn’t worry about any of that, of course. She’s shown the people of Lae long abgo that she’s incapable of shedding any genuine tears at the struggles of the Lae market women. The wretched conditions under which people labour to sell food are irrelevant to her because she prefers fancier eating.
I do a bit of traveling and Madang was my next destination after leaving Lae. My goodness, what a difference from Loujaya Land! No Lalalala Sign Boards in Madang and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. Madang has its issues, of course, but one thing about Madang shines at the moment. One or more politicians or city leaders obviously have a different mindset from Loujaya Toni Kouza. Unlike Loujaya, they concluded that Madang’s town market was an important resource.
The Madang market was actually in much better shape than the Lae market. But while Loujaya is content to let women sit in the mud over in the Lae market, good wasn’t good enough for the Madang administrators and leaders. That’s why they’ve done the groundwork and will end up with a top class market, funded by overseas donor money coming from the Japanese. Meanwhile over in Lae, residents will soon be passing by broken Lalalala Sign Boards beckoning passer by people with one big black blank stare.
I was thinking about what my parting words of this article should be. Like what did I learn from my trip to Lae and Madang. I guess the biggest lesson is that when people have an ego problem and think only of themselves, their projects will reflect that. Think of the people first, and quite different results will be seen. Lalalala Sign Boards in Lae compared with a new modern outdoor market in Madang.
I considered that and a last thought came to mind: poor, pathetic Loujaya Kouza Toni.
