'Life is good here on Karkar. Things here are basic, tranquil and the most unexpected things can happen.'
Barbara Goodyear, 42, pictured with her daughter Hanna and husband Paul, ended up living on the little-known volcanic isle called Karkar in Papua New Guinea
There is no mains electricity or water on the teardrop-shaped outcrop and there is just one pothole-riddled road to get around with a 4×4 required to navigate the other steep muddy tracks.Visit our live blog for the latest updates:Barbara, who runs several shops and a cocoa and coconut plantation with her husband on Karkar, told Metro.co.uk: ‘Here on the island there have been no coronavirus cases, we are all fine here and life is pretty much normal.
Barbara says that the small numbers could be down to the fact that there are ‘not enough tests’, adding, ‘so if there are more people dying because of the virus or with symptoms nobody would really know this’. ‘They then started to worry if our stores, which sell food and household goods, would stay open but we have kept running things. Social distancing hasn’t been done here on Karkar.’There are currently around 20 schools on Karkar serving the various villages and these started to close in mid-March.
While the schools have been shut, Barbara has been homeschooling her three children. Her youngest, Christopher, nine, and Sophie, 11, do their schooling online anyway, but her eldest Hanna, 14, had to return home from a boarding school in Cairns, Australia, as the travel restrictions started to be enforced.
Barbara and her family were not allowed to run their cargo ships, which are the only commercial passenger ships operating to and from the isle.
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