Ignorance is a dangerous thing in a country like Papua New Guinea. But sometimes it can keep you from losing your pants, writes the ABC’s PNG correspondent Eric Tlozek.

Ikundi is a village perched above a lush mountain valley, the houses set amidst virgin forest, a waterfall tumbling through a gorge below.

The people have very little contact with the wider world. Many still wear grass skirts and cloaks made from the bark of a tree.

I thought it must be normal for remote highland villagers to welcome visitors with painted warriors and a fierce display of aggression.

So I was more fascinated than worried when men crept out of the cane at the edge of the airstrip, carrying clubs, bows and arrows and wooden hatchets.

They were hissing as they crept towards us, then ran suddenly, weapons raised. I had a club waving in my face before I knew it by a man with his face painted all in black.

“He’s pretty good,” I thought, enjoying the show and grinning broadly.

He yelled something guttural and lunged at me with the club again. I did not move and kept grinning.

I was still grinning like an idiot when the man with the club went to mock strike me again, then, catching my eye, gave me a quick grin back.

He turned his attention to Care International’s Blossum Gilmour, my chaperone on this aid distribution to Ikundi.

“Hunngh!” he yelled, flashing the club at Blossum’s face. “Eeeyah!” said Blossum, letting out an uncharacteristic squeak of distress and jumping backwards.

The club had stopped about an inch from her face. “That’s strange,” I thought, “Blossum (who has worked in trouble spots like Aceh, Sudan and West Papua) is a pro at this stuff. Maybe this is not normal.”

Another man rushed forward with a different club – a stick with a heavy ball on the end. He smashed it into the ground at my feet, yelling.

The string holding the ball broke and it rolled over past me. A bunch of watching kids laughed. The man was outraged and turned to run at the kids, cursing them as I tried hard to not laugh.

One of the men came forward. He began yelling in tok ples (“talk place” – a name for any one of the hundreds of localised PNG languages), listing a number of grievances the community had.

They had been left, he said, for the worst months of the drought without any government assistance. Children had died. Their garden foods had grown scarce and they were eating things from the forest.

The community had no health clinic, no roads, no access to any services of any kind.

He grabbed my shirt. “We want this shirt,” he said, then grabbed my pants. “We want these pants.”

“What, literally?” I asked the turnim tok (translator).

“Yes, he wants your clothes,” he said.

“I will pay you for them,” the painted man said.

He handed me two shells, one for the shirt and one for the pants. I’m not sure of the exchange rate for a shell to the Australian dollar.

I was actually willing to give this man my shirt. I was fairly determined to hang on to the pants though, and I did not want to strip off in front of about 100 curious highland villagers.

“What will I wear if I give him the clothes?” I asked the translator. “

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Well, what should I do?” I said. “I don’t know,” he answered. “Maybe don’t give them to him now.”

The man looked hopefully at me for a while and I stared back in what became a long, awkward pause.

Eventually, he handed Blossum and I some fire-cooked kau kau (the local sweet potato).

“Have you eaten garden foods?” he asked. “We have to eat these all the time. You must eat them to see how we live. Take one bite.”

Both Blossum and I have eaten plenty of garden foods in villages before. But we obligingly bit in.

I had gotten up before sunrise and had not eaten breakfast, so was tempted to eat the whole thing. I actually like kau kau. But I handed it back after a bite.

The man was nonplussed by my reaction. I am not sure what he expected. But then his companions began smiling and shaking my hand.

I had made it through a highland village welcome with my pants on and dignity seemingly intact.

Care International were delivering a load of water collection and purification supplies to the residents of Ikundi.

The villagers told me several people died there during the height of the drought from drinking contaminated water.

After the aid had been delivered, we went to see the village school. The teacher there had written me a letter asking for the “International Journalist” to visit and film the facilities.

The school was a collection of huts with earth floors and an impressive array of makeshift learning materials on the walls.

The teachers at Ikundi had seemingly gathered every piece of printed material that had ever been brought to the village, and had either written on it or used it as a teaching aid. The kids were also writing on bark and bits of wood.

I was so impressed by the teachers’ ingenuity and ability to use anything available to help the kids learn, and I wished I had brought some books and paper with me.

At the school, there was a small ceremony to welcome us and Blossum and I were given traditional clothes. The head teacher tied a cloth made from local tree bark around my waist, so it covered my bum.

“This is to protect your, uh, private parts when you sit down,” he said.

I posed for the kids, who were not sure what to make of fully-clothed white man also wearing traditional dress.

If only I had received the village clothes earlier. I could have swapped them for my shirt and pants when I arrived. Then I could have done one heck of a piece to the camera. - ABC