The Death Of Mark Worth

On January 15, 45-year-old Australian journalist and documentary film-maker Mark Worth died in Sentani, Indonesia, a small town one-hour from Jayapura, the capitol of Papua province. At the time there were all kinds of rumors that a foreigner had been murdered in his bed when in fact it turned out that he'd drunk himself to death.
Like most people, I let my prejudices color events and thought no more of the incident until I met a Pakistan-based journalist friend of mine passing through Jakarta who told me she was greatly upset by Mark's death, that he'd been a great talent and a fine human being. There were others out there that crossed my path between mid-January and an unrelated return trip I made to Papua earlier this month.
On March 13 I met for three hours with Mark's widow in the house they shared in Abe Pantai (also called Abepura). The following is a slightly edited version of what she told me. I have sent it to some people who knew Mark and have decided to re-print it, with the intro I penned, on my blog. I have not included the photos mentioned in the intro.
For those interested in learning more about the issue which consumed Mark's lifework, find a copy of "Land of the Morning Star", an hour-long documentary he produced that first aired in December.
For my part, I'm embarrassed by my knee-jerk reaction: "A drunk passes out and dies. Big shit."
I'm still hoping to evolve to the point where I'm not going to simply write people off the way I did this fellow.

Cover Letter:
Hi all.
I wanted to on-pass a couple of photos I took last week of Mark Worth's widow Helen Ronsumbre, 29, daughter Insoraki, 3, and his grave site. They're not very good quality but I hope they'll give you at least a bit of an idea of the lay of the land.
Not many folks who knew Mark have been able to make it there on account of on-going troubles getting visas for Papua so feel free to send these out to whomever you feel might be interested. Steve, I've lost Ben's e-mail so maybe you could take care of that for me and send my regards.
I've also included a narrative based on a three hour-long talk I had with Helen and members of her family at their home in Abe Pantai on March 13. My apologies if exact dates and times turn out to be slightly off: I was translating for JB (ex of the ABC and now employed by ****** in Jakarta) who knew Mark, and so I was too busy to take detailed notes.
I never met Mark, didn't know of his work until after he died and have only the smallest inkling about the kind of man he was. I also don't know what exactly the doctors told him in Australia at the end of November - I'm not sure he told Helen precisely what the diagnosis was - but if you ask my opinion I would tell you that Mark returned to Abi Pantai to be around family he loved, in particular his wife and daughter, in anticipation of his death.
There are painful details in this (edited) story and it may not be for everyone but if it were me, I'd want an honest accounting to my friends. If you feel it is appropriate to share with others I leave the decision up to you.
If you have any questions about what I saw and heard in Abi Pantai please feel free to contact me by e-mail and/or at the phone number below.
Best Regards,
PD
Jakarta, Indonesia
21-03-04

Narrative:
Mark Worth's widow Helen Ronsumbre, 29, and her family in the oceanside village of Abi Pantai outside Jayapura give an emotional and troubling description of the period between the time of Mark's arrival back in Papua on Dec. 13 and his death in a Sentani hotel room on the morning of Jan. 15, 2004. Here are some of the things they mentioned.
Mark called from Australia in late November to say that he'd visited a doctor there, that he'd been told he was very ill and that he was coming to Papua to see her and their daughter three-year-old Insoraki. He was pale, sick but sober when he arrived in Jayapura from Bali, where he'd spent several days.
That lasted until his birthday, Dec. 23. A simple, brief diary he kept in a yellow steno-pad between the time he returned and the end of December when the shakes got too bad, indicated he was thinking in general terms about future projects while obviously wrestling with his thirst. What set him off this time is unclear. On Xmas eve he was taken to a pharmacy in Jayapura where he bought what looks like cough medicine. He was also taking pills prescribed in Australia with his whiskey every evening but the cover of the case is too smudged to read what they are.
Although exceedingly ill and consuming a minimum of three liters of local whiskey each day, Mark repeatedly and vehemently refused to be checked into hospital or to return to Australia in the three weeks prior to his death.
Late on Christmas day for example, having lost control of his physical faculties and apparently incoherent, he was taken to a Jayapura hospital. The following day he insisted on being returned to Abi Pantai, arguing he didn't trust Indonesian hospitals and would get better care at home. The family felt it was better to agree to his wishes than to have him try and leave the hospital on his own, something they felt he would certainly attempt.
Helen said she and Mark settled into a pattern over his last days in Abi Pantai. He would wake up after noon but would rarely be able to get out of bed, drinking steadily through the day and eating very little until evening when he got up long enough to cook large pots of spaghetti and meat sauce for the entire extended family, upwards of a dozen people. He seemed to really enjoy this.
Although most in the family are teetotalers who strongly disapproved of his drinking, there was always someone who could be badgered into going to town to pick up a few bottles. Later, he and Helen would sit out on the porch talking into the morning hours, Mark repeatedly steering the conversation back to the issue of Papuan independence. And, like a ritual, they'd wait until dawn when the Morning Star dipped below the horizon before going to bed.
If I have the time-line right, he remained at home, being ministered to by the Ronsumbre family, until early January at which point he checked into the Pacific Hotel, a haunt he'd shared with other Australian journos in the past.
He said that he did not want to be a burden on the family and felt it was best if he stayed away from the village. While Mark was never abusive to members of the Ronsumbre family, he was not so understanding with other people Helen said and he may have sensed that his presence was disruptive.
He remained at the Pacific Hotel, cared for by Helen, her younger brother (with whom I understand Mark had a strong bond) and other members of the family who visited every day, until shortly before his death.
The family, Helen in particular, repeatedly urged him to return to get further medical treatment in Australia, something Mark refused to do. In his final days he was exceedingly ill, completely bedridden and sometimes coughing up and urinating blood. A guy named Dr. Budi, who treats the foreign missionaries and was well known to Mark, became a regular part of his life through the last weeks, sometimes visiting a dozen times a day.
Several days before he died, Helen's family pooled their money and bought him a airline ticket home. Mark didn't fight the decision and slept as they drove out to Sentani airport. He was very weak and Helen was wiping fluid from his mouth and nose even as they pulled into the airport parking lot. Given his condition, Garuda staff on the ground refused to allow him to board the aircraft ("They tore up the ticket.") which would have seen him traveling unassisted to Timika and Bali before proceeding to Australia.
Mark was then checked into a second, star-rated hotel (it might have been the Hotel Semeru), beside the airport, where he remained until his death two or three days later.
Helen said that during his conscious hours he occasionally asked that they pray together. She recalls that at one point he described to her a vision he'd had: he'd seen Jesus and there were three angels preparing to come and take him (Mark) away.
In the early afternoon of January 14th, as Helen slept, Mark appeared on the front steps of the family home in Abi Pantai. He'd convinced a hotel driver to take him there. He embraced his father-in-law on the front porch and together they walked through the small home, briefly examining each and every room. He then asked to speak to his daughter. Insoraki, who was with a family friend, was sent for and father and daughter spent about 15 or 20 minutes together sitting on the porch talking and looking at the sea.
Before leaving the house Mark stood up, stretched his arms out wide and told the family (it may have been only the old man, the narrative broke down somewhat at this point) that he was leaving Papua the following day on a special airplane with very wide, light wings but that he would see them again one day.
He then got back into the hotel car, withdrew money from an ATM, bought three bottles of whiskey and returned to the hotel. By the time he arrived, one of the bottles was almost completely empty. Helen was furious and hid the remaining booze, which made Mark very angry. Eventually he slept.
Mark woke for the last sustained period shortly after dark. Helen said they prayed together for some time and that he seemed calm and lucid. They held hands and he told her repeatedly how much he loved her and their child. He tried to explain himself and how he felt. At one point he slowly drew his hand out of hers until just the very tips of their middle fingers were touching. As he did so, he told Helen that while they had been very, very close, now the physical line connecting them was going to be severed, but that they would meet again in heaven. As he said this he drew his finger away from hers so they no longer touched.
A short time later, Mark fell unconscious for the final time. In the early hours of the following morning, Helen and her brother called Dr. Budi (Mark may have had some sort of convulsion) who urged them again to take Mark directly to hospital. It was 5:30 in the morning, there was no traffic in Sentani and no vehicle to take them to the hospital. Ultimately, it didn't matter: Dr. Budi arrived a short time later by which point Mark was nearing the end. Together, he, Helen and Helen's brother watched and prayed as Mark pass away 30 minutes later, 6:30 am, Jan 15.

I understand that preparations for the funeral took at least three days. The church in Abi Pantai is a modest affair with an extraordinary ocean view when you step out into the sunlight. I was told literally thousands of people attended, and the two kilometer stretch of road between the village and the graveyard was a sea of people that brought traffic to a standstill.
The grave itself is the finest in the area, set back behind a stand of native trees perhaps 100 meters from the road, and a similar distance from the bay. In the evening the simple bottle-lamps around the grave are lit. And every night since his death, Helen sits on a simple wooden bench to the right of the grave talking to Mark, telling him about what's going on in the village, how the family is coping, what's happening with the Indonesian election campaign and how she is dealing with his death and her new pregnancy (which was hardly showing when we met). I understand Mark found out in December that he was going to be a father for the second time. She is hoping for a boy.
Helen says she really appreciates the many phone calls and letters she has received from abroad. I understand several people in particular have made an effort to stay in regular contact in the two months since Mark's death and I'll just say that during the entire course of a very emotional afternoon, the only time I thought Helen was going to break down, was when she described what it means to have people continue to call. I would encourage you to continue doing so.
She also said that the family's doors are always open to Mark's family and friends.

Sprung Spring, The Kampung Bomb And Matters Of The Faith

Just off the phone with Mum. Temperature soared to 8C in Montreal today where folks in shorts and Ts wandered through puddles with goofy smiles on their faces.
“Wore my office jacket to work and sent the winter jacket to the dry cleaners,” she says.
Some people wait for the robins to return before declaring winter over. In our family the ritual dry-cleaning-prior-to-packing-away-of-the-winter-wear is the surest sign that spring has sprung.
Of course it’s an illusion. Spring doesn’t sprung until the Sunday nearest St. Patrick’s Day, March 17, the day of the annual parade along the length of St. Catherine’s Street, which always coincides with the last, vicious right hook from the allegedly departed winter.
I’ve never seen a St. Paddy’s Day parade that didn’t require full winter battle wear: it was one of the few days during the course of the winter that I actually wore a touque. The main shopping boulevard is one of the city’s finest wind tunnels. The gusts ricochet off the stone facades of Simpson’s, Hudson’s Bay and other classic Montreal grey-stone edifices (where one watches movies or plays arcade games these days) built on the back of 200 hundred years of the fur trade, plunging a relatively balmy minus five to a bone rattling –28C.
Later the Old Dublin would morph into a sweathouse as once-a-year Irishmen of every hue peeled out of half a dozen layers of wool and synthetics for a day of fully sanctioned drunkenness, bad jokes and endless recitations of Dirty ‘Ol Town.
Mum’s an optimist. I expect she’ll be digging out those woolies at least once more before it’s safe to stick a spike in the winter of 2003-04 and call it ‘done’.
Mum tells me we’ve just celebrated another anniversary of some significance. 36 years ago Feb. 28, Dad arrived in Toronto, a bold first step onto terra incognita for the Dillon clan. Mum, Clare and I followed about three weeks later, before boarding a train for the nine hour ride to Thompson, Manitoba and our first Canadian apartment.
And here I am, huddling behind the closed doors of my Jakarta home wearing a balaclava against the noxious fumes of the dengue foggers who’ve just bombed my backyard. Ten folks in this little kampung alone have come down with it during the current epidemic. Over 340 people have died, mostly here in West Java, and thousands are hospitalized. It’s so bad we treat every little cough and ache as though it were a sign to head for the hospital. Others in the kampung are having the insides of their homes sprayed but I’m not sure the cats will last long gnawing on insecticide-soaked toys. As it is, I’m worried about the fish, though they’ve proven themselves resilient to poison, brackish water and neglect in the past.
Different worlds, eh?
Speaking of which, a day has been chosen for The Grinch to shed this moral coil, emerging after the incantation of sacred words and the blessing of the religious, as a fully formed follower of Mohammed. And, what more appropriate time to do it than on the aforementioned Irish holiday. Two weeks tomorrow, freshly back from a week-long stay in Papua (first day of the national elections will be spent in Wamena!) I’m off to Istiqal Mosque, the largest mosque in Asia, for the day-long conversion process. J’s brother will witness and Juliana will attend as well.

Have to practice getting my mouth around a couple of Arabic formulas, the most important of which is the declaration of faith repeated five times a day in a hundred million mosques worldwide: “There is no God but God and Mohammed was his Prophet.”
Not sure how many uncircumcised-Moslem-Irish-Scot-Canadians there are out there but I vow here and now that if I add another hyphen to my socio-genetic profile, I’ll explore the possibility of federal funding to help me deal with my complicated, conflicted emotions. And then found a support group for others like me.
The whole thing should be quite interesting. I’ve read heaps (so as to avoid being a spectator in my own life) and will try my best not to trouble the revered Imam with too many spurious questions: no point in overturning the mango cart now when I’ve got the rest of a lifetime to poke and probe.
Have to pick Jihan’s brain afterwards over a celebratory St. Paddy’s Day pint o Guinness…