Inside the Crocodile

Inside the Crocodile: The Papua New Guinea Journals (2015) is a travel memoir by Trish Nicholson. Nicholson spent five years working on a social development project in an isolated province of Papua New Guinea, and the book describes the challenges she faced and the obstacles she overcame to complete her work. In 2015, Inside the Crocodile won the Wishing Shelf Book Award. A social anthropologist, novelist, and travel writer, Nicholson is best known for her extensive travel writing and her informative news columns. Her work has featured in major UK and Australian publications.

Nicholson begins Inside the Crocodile with a brief description of why she traveled to Papua New Guinea, and what she hopes to accomplish in the book. She first arrived in New Guinea in 1987, working on a development project funded by the World Bank. She traveled to the remote border town of Sandaun, West Sepik, planning to find out more about the local tribes to build their infrastructure.

Nicholson finds New Guinea diverse and complex. A culturally rich nation, there are at least 800 indigenous languages. It’s safe to assume that we haven’t met all the native tribes living in New Guinea, and it’s unlikely that we ever will. Native tribes typically avoid the outside world, and Nicholson urges us to respect their boundaries.



Although tribes traditionally live independently, there are huge generational shifts taking place in the country. Younger generations are leaving their ancestral homes, moving to big cities where they engage with the wider world and build successful careers. Although population movement is not the focus of Inside the Crocodile, Nicholson touches on the tension this migration causes between the generations.

When Nicholson first arrives in New Guinea, she is under no illusions. She knows that she can’t suddenly solve another country’s problems, especially a country that is so different from her own. She also knows that many locals will resist her efforts to bring prosperity and order to their territory because she is an outsider who doesn’t understand their culture. Unsurprisingly, finding the experience very daunting, she’s not sure that she is the right person for the job.

Nicholson describes the unique role she plays in the overall development project. Though the project covers the entire area, she is joining the “institution building” team. She must teach the locals to manage the new infrastructure so they can run their own businesses. Aside from Nicholson’s team, there are expats working on health, education, fishing, and agriculture. Together, they hope to modernize West Sepik to make it profitable for locals.



From the moment Nicholson reaches West Sepik, she faces one hurdle after another. As expected, the local political leaders refuse to offer her assistance, but the locals are more helpful. She struggles with the intense temperatures and the dense jungle surroundings, admitting that she doesn’t feel safe. When she writes letters home to her family, she censors how she truly feels because she doesn’t want to worry them.

Nicholson notes that surviving in New Guinea is all about understanding the local social hierarchy. Most importantly, she quickly learned their unique “grace-and-favor” social system. Put simply, whenever a local resident helped her out, she offered them a favor in return. If they asked her for a favor, she couldn’t say no without falling down the hierarchy again.

Among the chaos, Nicholson finds allies—including a dog, Frisbee. She meets likeminded people who want to improve this underdeveloped area to help it thrive. Admitting that she could not complete her project without their support, Nicholson is very grateful to these project expats for welcoming her. For example, with their help, she builds a school for the local children, and she challenges their troublesome politicians.



Nicholson describes the native environment in detail. She describes what it’s like to travel in a tiny, rickety airplane through the mountains, and how terrifying it is to trek over flimsy bridges that could snap at any moment. She also talks about illness and the harsh realities of life and death in New Guinea. There’s limited access to medical assistance, and people often die from causes such as malaria, bites, and stings.

Nicholson wants readers to feel as though they are walking through the jungle with her, because this is the only way to genuinely appreciate New Guinea. She describes sleeping outside some nights because it’s too hot indoors, and how she often fell asleep to the sound of tree frogs and other forest creatures. Although she struggled to adjust to New Guinean jungle life at first, she embraced it by the end.

After working with the locals for five years, Nicholson hopes that they continue to thrive and implement the new skills her fellow expats taught them. She is realistic, however, knowing that she can’t cure New Guinea of corrupt politicians and other influencers who don’t want the country to succeed. All she can hope is that her work brings us closer to these extraordinary people and that she at least inspired some of them to reach their full potential.