About me in a nutshell

I don’t blame you for wondering how dare I write about me first.. Sincerely, please don’t take me wrong.. It is not my intention to drive you out from reading what I write. It is also not my intention to be not modest or boastful.

I would like to tell you about my authentic self. There is so much to tell. From childhood to education to arranged marriage, to cultural violence. Then the coincidences of to falling off the tree and a cliff to, near death car accidents to faced with gun point to developing a profession to building SoilChild. Oh dear it goes on for many lifetimes over.. I will try to be brief.

Childhood

I am the oldest sibling of seven children. I was born in a café. I called my oldest son after the stony hill on which my mother buried my afterbirth. I was born small for dates baby and mostly not welcome. I grew up with my maternal grandmother who fed me with rungia juice earlier on. I grew up in Randupi and Kialoro parishes. I loved gardening, hunting, and dressing up in traditional regalia on odd days.

My parents called all my other six siblings using English names (James, Billy, Betty, Cathy, Leonard, Daniel). I was odd. Very different early on. I was the only one who had a traditional name. Yukuli. Yukuli is cordyline in English. I love the Cordelia plant too..

Special gifts

I was noticed to have special mourning gift in funerals, so I was therefore given a mother piglet as a community appreciation which grew into a huge pig. And she bore me 10 piglets every year (I have to find out from mother what actually happened to my pig). I was hardworking child. I was skillful gardener, hunter, gather, adventurer. My maternal grandmother with whom I grew up into a young woman was called Nendege. Her name means friendship. She thought me how to make salt, how to preserve food in famine and frost, how to trade, how to cook delicious traditional delicacies and how to dress attractively. I admired her tall stature. She was beautiful and smart. She was admired.

My immediate family

All my siblings never completed their primary nor secondary education like I did. The first ever primary school was introduced to our very remote village in 1982 when I was about school entry age of 7 years old. When I had completed six years of primary education, the school had closed due to lack of basic teaching and learning resources as well as basic livelihood for the teachers who sacrificed from other provinces of Papua New Guinea.

To this day, my second last born brother Leonard is serving a life sentence for murdering 3 men during a violent episode of psychotic schizophrenia in 2020. My sister Cathy is married with a boy child in our village. My second born brother James is married with 2 sons and lives in Port Moresby. My sister Billy is married with 4 children. My sister Betty is a widow since the third man killed by our brother was her late husband. And my last-born brother Daniel is single and lives and works in Kiunga, Western Province. Both our parents are still strong and healthy and in the village. My father was a skillful hunter. He inherited these skills from his own father, Sir Embetayea, the figure most often admired and well-spoken of by our entire community.

Education

I walked 10 kilometres return trip each day to attend primary school every day. I walked two days with all my other colleagues carrying our small belongings to attend boarding high school in another district. I ate brown rice with no protein as my only main meal for four years while completing high school. I had one dress and one towel given to me by my maternal distant uncle.

One day, while I was in year eight, I was called into the headmaster's officer while I was doing work parade. I had a registered parcel with clothes from Port Moresby. It was sent to me by my paternal uncle, my father’s cousin.

My father would visit me at least every quarter with wild pandanus and possum meat. My father is my rock and king. If it wasn’t him, I would not be here today. I graduated from high school in 1995 and received an offer to attend Balimo School of Nursing in the Western Province. I received a scholarship to study nursing for four years. I also received a small stipend which allowed me to meet my daily needs. I was only 16 when I enrolled in First year.

I then was successful with an Ausaid Scholarship to complete a Bachelor of Nursing in Victoria University in Australia. Following that I received another scholarship to study Master of Health and International Development at Flinders University. And I proceeded onto to doing PhD upon completion.

Professional development

I worked mostly in rural hospitals in the Gulf Province as a nurse in my early days. I worked as a public health officer, health promotion officer and children’s project coordinator with non-governmental organisations in the Gulf, and Port Moresby. I also worked as public health coordinator with Oil Search in Kutubu, Kikori and Samberigi areas.

In my professional career, I attended many trainings, seminars, conferences, and workshops. I developed my communication and networking skills. I managed to forge many lifelong connections, made many friends and learnt a lot of things beyond my own field of nursing and public health. I became a better manager, leader, communicator and advocate. My love for the work, for the people and for change grew and slowly overtook my life.

That is when SoilChild was born.

 SoilChild

In 2009, I was going through a nasty divorce because I married my boy’s father through an arranged marriage. In the Yuna Culture women often do not have entitlement to initiate a divorce from a violent relationship. In my case, my father came to Port Moresby and endorsed the violent divorce. My boys were very young then and experienced all the violence which robbed their childhood from them.

Anyhow, I invited several women leaders from the Hela Province to come to my settlement home at Erima. And we would sit for long hours and talk, cook, eat, laugh, sing and cry. We talked about how women can equally represent ourselves, our needs and aspirations with the oil and gas development that was taking place in our province. We formed a national non-governmental organisation called Women in Development foundation Inc and registered it with PNG IPA. I formed the organisation structure and constitution. We got our first funding from the department of commerce and industry which enabled us to complete personal development, basic computer literacy and leadership trainings.

In 2011, when I migrated to Australia, I began building my network which grew into an international community of supporters. I forged a partnership with fulcrum Aid in Australia and received over Aud200,000 in donations and grants. With this I was able to complete a model library and resource centre in Dauli De School, Hela Province. I also completed a shipment of a 20ft container with donated biomedical equipment from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, trained over 40 volunteers, and started a pilot poultry project in Manuati Settlement, Port Moresby.

Accolades

To name a few, I received an Australian Prime Minsters Pacific Leadership Award in 2013; a Australian High Commission Women in Leadership Award in 2021; and 3 scholarships to study abroad.

Life in Australia

Since migrating here, I managed to secure permanent residency for my myself and my boys. I managed to work in different sectors such as charity, government agencies, academic institutions and volunteer groups. I also have been blessed with a small puppy from the Eyre Peninsula whom I called Suruye or Tulu which means happiness in my language. Suruye was my father’s dog’s name which I inherited.

Coincidences and mysteries

When I was about 6 years old, I was on the top of a rock which was as high as 5meters tall. I was picking kidney beans to cook for dinner. One of the vines which I had my weight on broke and I fell face downwards onto a very sharp rock down below. I bled from a huge laceration on my chin. I escaped fracturing my jaw and chin by a narrow thread. I did not receive any health care but my wound healed with no big complications. Today I have a deep scar on my chin.

On another occasion, my mother had asked me to look after the pigs while they fed. I left them when they had finished eating. As soon as I arrived at the house from the pigs house, my mother heard them fighting over food. She thought I left them early and threw the wooden tong she was using to remove sweet potato from the ashes at me. The tong planted itself on my right foot and penetrated through the other side. Splinters of it remained inside my foot. In the next couple of weeks, my foot swell like a balloon. I got tetanus and was very sick. There was no health care available.

My father’s cousin began to poke the many holes that drained pus through my foot and took out as many splinters as he can. And it was then that I got better and my foot healed with no serious damage.

My first year in high school was adventurous. I climbed up a walnut tree near the girls’ dormitory to pick walnuts while the branch I stood on broke off and landed with me like 4 meters below. I had incontinence there and then. I managed to walk to the ambulation block and showered out the injury. I escaped having a real spinal injury then.

To cut the story short, on the 10^th February 2023, I was driving with my puppy from Ceduna to Adelaide on Flinders Highway. It was about 4:30pm. I was very tiered that I did not realize I had let my eyes off the road for a spilt second. Before I knew, my car was rolling down the hill. After a few rollovers, it landed on the roof about 400m down the road. Both doors were locked. All 3 glasses were intact, and the ignition was still on with fuel spilling everywhere. I thought I had a dream. I looked around for my puppy. I could see its tail disappear through a tiny opening at the back glass. I followed him and squeezed through.

I came out and stood on the sand and checked my body for bleeding, broken bones etc. I was whole. The SES personal, police and fire all came and were shocked we didn’t have any injuries. The vehicle, Ford Ranger Ute was completely destroyed ad got towed. Survived another near-death experience.

To conclude, I founded SoilChild to tell such stories that are stories of other children growing up in the same society I did. I was given extra opportunity and privilege to get educated and learn. I would like to give back.

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