Day 65: After a smooth 9-hour boat ride over the Sepik river, we made it to Sisimagung, Northern Papua. This is the 65th day of my no-fly trip from Italy to the Solomon islands. The coastline is beautiful, what you could describe as paradise on earth. Coconut trees gently bend over sandy beaches and the sound of the waves quietly resound among villagers busy with their fishing nets or cooking earths. It is then all the more upsetting that this beauty is slowly but incessantly being destroyed by sea level rise. This is what Jeffery Bae, a local resident, tells me in the few hours I have here before getting on a truck to Madang. It seems impossible that a sea so quiet can become the agent of destruction, but this is precisely what happens, as Jeffery shows traditional houses made with sago and bamboo leaves having been dismantled by the latest storm surges.
"We will have to relocate", tells me Jeffrey with an empty, "but we don't know where, because right behind our village there's a swamp".
Once more, I hear the same story: no help from national, regional governments, and neither from international organisations.
How many million stories are similar to Jeffrey's, and I wouldn't hear were it not for my slow travel.

Check interview here:
https://youtu.be/hk4Vr9p5ZFc

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