The Melanesian country of Papua New Guinea ("PNG") occupies the eastern half the world's second-largest island--just a bit north of Australia--which it shares with Indonesia's West Papua. Unlike Australia , with a dry, open landscape British colonizers committed to tame, PNG has ample rain which feeds ample, dense rainforests that amply intimidated German, British and eventually Australian colonial forces into staying on the coast.

PNG's rugged terrain and general lack of transportation infrastructure continue to make it a challenging place for international visitors to access, though international corporations find a way to extract resources that are important in the West such as oil, copper and gold.  PNG's cultural resources are "gold" to us; people in PNG  speak over 800 indigenous languages. Though many of these languages are highly local, boast less than 1000 native speakers and are in threat of extinction, a good number are still viable and active. The one most widely-spoken is Tok Pisin, which blends English, German, Malay, Portuguese and local languages categorized as "Austronesian."