Well I’ve been in Arawa now for three and a half months and I am still smiling! Lots to smile about today – the Grade 10s finished their national exams last week and have headed off home until their graduation on 7 November. These exams are very important as they decide who comes back for Grades 11 and 12. All the Grade 10s sit seven exams – English, Maths, Science, Social Science, Business Studies, Agriculture and Personal Development (a mixture of Health topics such as food hygiene in the village). In Grade 11 they go into three subject streams – Science, Social Science and Business Studies. This week the Grade 12s are sitting their exams. They have already had to apply online to which tertiary institutions they want to attend next year.
Me between Mrs Valerie Memora and a former Miss PNG and Miss Pacific who has finished university in Hawaii and returned to Bougainville to attend the Tamatama Festival – and give a very inspiring speech to our students. NB: All the boys were queuing up to get their photo taken with her!
Mrs Memora (deputy principal and one of the two teachers I am mentoring to be a school counsellor) and I have also been busy ensuring that two Grade 12 young women get the opportunity to sit their exams next week. One girl (aged 23) has been living with her auntie and uncle since her mother died and they don’t want her to sit the exams. They have refused to pay her school fees and want her to marry a man in their village. She wants to become a science teacher but may have to opt to go to Tinputz Polytechnic and study to be an electrician or another trade as she won’t have financial support to attend university unless a local Member of Parliament gives her a grant. We will be writing letters for her. She has also offered to remain at school after the exams to work for the principal around the school so she can pay her school fees. The other Year 12 girl is a second-chance student who has left her child with her bubu (grandmother) in Buka and returned to school. No, there are no school nurses here in Bougainville who can assist with access to contraceptives for students. Unfortunately, she is now in an abusive relationship with a Year 11 student and may need to move into the Safe Meri house to ensure she gets to sit her exams. She is a very bright student and really deserves a chance at tertiary study.
ASEC debating team – Christian, Belinda, Margaret and Sammy with me and teachers from the English Dept.
Ruphy, a young artist and ex-Arawa Secondary student showing her work at the Tamatama Festival (above) and Jo, a master carver and longtime friend of VSA (below).
Other exciting things happening at school have involved a marvellous pre-Independence Day Celebration with all classes dressed up in the various regional PNG costumes and dancing the particular region’s dances. Another highlight was our debating team (comprised of two Year 11 boys and two Year 9 girls) which I supported alongside the English Department in coming first equal with Asitavi (a girls' Catholic boarding school) at the Chocolate Festival Inter-School Debating Contest. Christian also won the prize for best speaker at the competition. Another way Arawa Secondary shone at the festival was by singing a waiata (Tūtira Mai Ngā Iwi, complete with actions) alongside the NZ Police contingent and VSA personnel in support of the NZ High Commissioner to PNG, Peter Zwart, after he gave his speech during the opening ceremony. We were even on national TV! These young people all show tremendous leadership potential – Bougainville will be in good hands in the future. And I am sure Belinda will be a Member of Parliament one day!
I had a great weekend away visiting Sister Lorraine at the Nazareth Rehabilitation Centre in Chabai which she founded along with a chain of Safe Meri Houses. She is a human dynamo who I had the pleasure of getting to know on my first assignment back in 2011/2012 when I helped to start the Family Support Centre at Buka Haus Sic (for women and their pikinini experiencing domestic violence). The first photo above is of the indomitable Sister Lorraine and the other is of me taken at Chabai with Dolly, a woman from Buka that I used to go early morning walking with when I lived there. Dolly is now one of the senior counsellors at the Safe Meri House near Buka and she and other senior counsellors (both men and women) were at Chabai for the week to undergo training in how to supervise their more inexperienced counsellors. The training was run by a Nepalese psychologist working in Bougainville for the International Red Cross. Fancy meeting another psychologist in the bush in Bougainville!
Another great weekend was spent at Asio Bay Eco Bungalows with an ex-VSA volunteer, Joanne from Taranaki, and a local lady Domitila whom Joanne mentored in her role as Busar of Arawa Secondary way back 18 years ago. We had a fabulous time island-hopping and snorkelling the reef. We also came across a young couple fishing from their dugout canoe. So our hosts cooked us fresh fish for our lunch – yummy! The bungalows are very beautiful and all made of traditional sak sak materials. Domi’s granddaughter, Clementina, is our head girl and I enjoy spending time out of school with them both. This weekend they are taking me to their church in their village at Tunuru on a PMV (public motor vehicle which everybody here uses as few people except rich cocoa farmers or MPs have cars). I’m keen to go there having read a book of Domi’s about a young priest from NZ who came from the small place my father’s family came from in Taranaki, Pihama. Fr Emmett McHardy established the Catholic Mission at Tunuru way back in the 1930s. Sadly he was only in Bougainville for three years before he got very sick and died back in NZ. He wasn’t even 30 years old.
Domi and Clementina at the Tamatama Festival.
Women dancing with fans to a traditional bamboo pipe band augmented with drums, guitars and electric keyboard. The band had great singers too – I wish they could come perform at WOMAD sometime.
Women dancing with bamboo poles used for pounding tamatama at the Tamatama Festival (Tamatama is the traditional pudding made of tapioca, coconut cream and banana – and used here in Arawa at their welcome ceremonies). This group were placed first in the cultural group competition.
My weekends are fairly quiet and relaxing so I do some gardening – have planted out tomato seedlings I grew from seed, cucumbers, watermelons and pineapples. I got to eat my first pineapple from the VSA patch planted long ago by another VSA Vol who lived in this house when I was in Buka, Nora from Whakatane. I am lucky that I get paw paws regularly from 2 trees plus the occasional bunch of bananas that the neighbour and I share. It’s almost mango time too – I saw a boy with one at school today and saw another boy climbing one of the huge mango trees to try and pick one. I was was my dirty clothes (in a twin tub washing machine if PNG Power is on or by hand if it's off) and might make pancakes or focaccia on or in my gas stove. I get to read a lot too and watch Netflix if the internet is behaving. Life is pretty sweet here. I hope you are enjoying spring in NZ.
Lukim yu behain,
Beryl