Cathy Levitt – I wanted to share a couple of things about customs in Australia, for those who will be buying keepsakes from Pok, or Gideon. The customs people will take apart any necklaces that have seeds on them. They keep the seeds and give back what is left;

I will need to restring my two kina necklaces, as well as the beautiful necklace I bought from Gideon. I lost the bow I bought from Pok; it had fresh bug activity, and there was no negotiating that one. Also, on the two drums Todd and I bought—mine had bore holes in it from insects, and for some reason the customs’ guy I had let me take it, but ordinarily they would have kept it and those items get incinerated. I did have to take the skin off of Todd’s drum, and then the guy was satisfied. There wasn’t anything we could have done about the skin on Todd’s drum; no animal products, period. I believe if I had known ahead of time, I would have put them (the drums and the bow) in a plastic bag and fumigated them for 60 hours. Customs wanted to charge me $90 to do this (then, for some unknown reason, he changed his mind), and I think they would have been satisfied to let the bow go through if it were in plastic, and smelled like it had been fumigated. Also, on the Nativity pieces from Gideon, they took the moss off, that was around baby Jesus. They, of course, pounded the baskets, and we all had done a great job of cleaning them, so no one lost a basket. However, two of the baskets in my trunk were green, and he wanted to take those, but didn’t. He said the baskets need to be made out of seasoned materials, and not out of green materials. He did tell me that if someone purchases a green basket, they can put it in a microwave for 3 minutes, and that will cause it to turn brown, and the customs dept. would not give it a second glance. They don’t look at the bilum’s at all.

If the W&W teams stop in Sydney on the way home, Cairn and Marilyn and I discovered a fantastic market place in China Town (on George St) that sells the same souvenirs we had looked at all over town, for about 1/3 the price. If they do stop, and are looking at boomerangs, bull roarers, and didgeridoo’s, have them take a good look and make sure it says “Authentic Australian”; there are a lot of look-a likes that are souvenirs, but not authentic pieces.