Enarotali City in Paniai Regency

Awetako Enaa Agapida (Tomorrow Better Off  Than Today) that’s the motto of Paniai. I read that sentence in a poster near a Puskesmas (public health center) in Enarotali, Paniai. 

Paniai is a regency which is located in mountains area, about 1000-3000 meters above sea level and has surface area about 18.104,63 km. Paniai has a famous lake named Paniai Lake, originally known as Wissel Lake because it was found by the Dutch navy pilot Frits Julius Wissel on 31 December 1936. Ekari tribe, also known as Mee tribe is an original tribe from Paniai. Enarotali is the main city of Paniai Regency.

To reach Paniai, we took a flight from Nabire by using Avia Star (a Cessna plane) to the main city  Enarotali. This 20 minutes flight cost 1 million rupiah (100 USD). Wow… it was expensive for me. My baggage, oooh my baggage was too overload. The maximum allowed baggage was 10 kg but I had 27 kg so I had to pay 170.000 rupiah (10.000 rupiah per kg for extra baggage). 

It was the first time I ever flew with Cessna. It was so amazing and a little bit weird at the same time. I looked at the beautiful view outside, and as the Cessna passed the rainy cloud, suddenly the Cessna fell down quickly and then it flew constantly again. What an nice experience!!

Enarotali has a very small airport and it looked unwell, a bit dirty, messy with some broken windows.  There was something different in this city. The air… yes the air was so cool and fresh although the sun shined too bright. The first thing to do was to reach our house in Enarotali. 

Here we had a house for doctors in Enarotali. We called it pink house because the color is pink. It looked like a doll house. There were 7 bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and 2 bathrooms. We had a pretty big yard in front and on the back of the house.On the back yard we had chayote trees (Sechium edule) with many chayotes.

After we arrived in Enarotali, we went to see the head of health department, Mr. Yunus Gobay, in Madi (a small city near Enarotali). The head of health department said that I’ll be placed in Obano together with Grace, while Komet will be placed in Pasir Putih and Hasyrul will be placed in Komopa.

Before we went to Obano, we still had time to take a look at this city first and took some pictures too. We went to see the beautiful Paniai Lake, the traditional market, the Aikai harbor, Catholic church, Protestant church, Mosque, Puskesmas, Schools, Banks, Police Office, and Post Office. There were many interesting things in Paniai like, saw the fog in the morning and had a cold water shower and saw the kids with runny nose. Hahahaha...