The journey is long for Pacific Islander goods reaching Australia — taking a route involving chartered flights, river crossings, and multi-day hikes.

And that’s before the fumigation they need before crossing the border.

But for the shop owners and customers buying and selling the region’s food, clothing and other goods across the country, it’s all worth it.

“People have food on the table, kids go to school, school fees are being paid,” said Nancy Waffi, owner of Island Friends, a shop in Townsville.

Ms Waffi grew up in the Numboruon village of Yangoru, in East Sepik province in Papua New Guinea.

When the single mother of seven arrived in Australia she decided to take a leap of faith, opening her business in 2019.

“[After I moved to] Australia, for the first three years … I saw that the culture and identity of not only Papua New Guineans, but also Torres Strait Islanders and other Pacific Island countries was slowly fading away as people migrated into the city,” she said.

“I saw that there was a gap that needed to be bridged and I put this idea out.”

Ms Waffi is part of a growing group of shop owners catering to increasing demand for Pasifika goods in Australia.

In the 2021 census, there were 337,000 people of Pacific heritage living in Australia, an almost 25 per cent increase from the 2016 census, and with the introduction of the Pacific Engagement Visa, this number is set to rise.

“We have customers that come here for weddings … we have customers that come here for a funeral,” she said.

Uplifting lives

Ms Waffi describes her business as having a “ripple effect” on the communities where she sources products from, mostly in Papua New Guinea.

“I came out from a serious domestic violence [experience] in Papua New Guinea and I’m here as a survivor of domestic violence.

“Now seeing the hardships and the situations that the women in Papua New Guinea go through, I mostly try to connect with those groups,” she said.

Nearly 5,000 kilometres away, Renik Normeng runs PNG Shop in Perth, selling art, traditional bags called bilums, baskets, and clothing.

“Most of the ladies depend on selling all these bilums, these products,” she said.

“They spend a lot of time, weeks, weaving these bags so if we go and buy the bags, it helps them with paying school fees and buying their everyday needs.”

Like Ms Waffi, because Ms Normeng purchases items from remote villages, she sees the lasting impacts.

“I went to the village and someone came and gave me two bags and she was crying and she said, ‘I can’t give you for free because I need to pay my son’s school fee, he’s in year 10 and I have to pay his school fee because the school is going to remove him’ and she was crying,” Ms Normeng said.

“So for me to help that lady, she’s a widow, it really touched me.”

From knowledge transfer to providing funds for school fees, the effect of these shops is profound.

“We may not be able to help everyone, but at least we are trying to help one person, one family, one community, one tribe at a time,” Ms Waffi said.

Handmade and hand-collected

Across 22 provinces, there are over 1,000 tribes in Papua New Guinea, each with their own cultural fingerprint.

All the items in Ms Waffi’s and Ms Normeng’s shops are painstakingly created.

“The bags are usually taken from the bark of the tree, or it can be from the cuttings of a banana, it can be from vines,” Ms Waffi said.

Once harvested from the jungle, the material is soaked, dried, and twisted, turning it into rope.

It can take weeks, even months for the items, once ordered, to arrive in Australia.

“If I am to get from Simbai, they have to walk two days up to Simbai, walk two days down, get onto a boat at Ramu River, get onto a PMV (passenger motor vehicle), come to Madang town and then take the items to Port Moresby and in Port Moresby it has to go through fumigation,” Ms Waffi said.

“If I get the baskets and the things from Alotau, sometimes they come by plane, sometimes people have to get on the dingy to come to Abau in Central province, and it’s dangerous and risky too.”

Renik Normeng often travels back to PNG, sometimes taking her family, to collect items for her shop.

“I chartered a plane from Kiunga … it’s just a day trip so I paid 26,000 kina for that plane, so it’s like Australian $12,000,” she said.

“I’m from Telefomin in the West Sepik province, it is very remote, there is no car road, we normally charter small commercial aircraft from the nearest government town.”

‘This is a library’

For customers like Gabriel Wamamie, who grew up in East Sepik province, the shops offer a wealth of knowledge.

“I have grandchildren, and I have children that have never been to PNG. One way for me to tell them about our culture is actually getting them clothes or artefacts that are from PNG,” he said.

“To me, it’s not just about the items that are being sold here, to me this is a library.”

Nancy Waffi believes she does not just sell the items; she sells the story that goes with them.

“Our ancestors did not write books, they would draw, and they would weave, and they would paint to tell their stories.

For some Pacific Islanders who now live in Australia, shops like Nancy’s and Renik’s are a chance to connect.

“Just last week a lady from Papua New Guinea, who’s lived 26 years in Broome, came here and then she saw the bird of paradise necklace and she kissed that necklace, and she was crying here in front of us,” Renik Normeng said.

For many customers like Joyce Kambu, originally from PNG, it’s a home away from home.

“It reminds me of back home, that you know, I still have home with me,” she said.

“Far from home but home is here, coming into Island Friends.”