Reflections on the significance of birthplace this Christmas
1. Introduction
My adopted son Pandawi Paia has been to Randupi, my birthplace this morning to cut timber to build my father’s house which has been burnt down in a tribal conflict last year. He sent me photos of my avocado tree, my pandanus trees, my rock caves, my garden fallow land, my Rivers Randupi and Hituku, and the bush overgrown hamlet on the hilltop where our houses used to be. Tears of longing the belonging flowed freely as I carefully scanned through the photos sent as I had requested. A sense of awe, simplicity, and sacredness overwhelm me. I believe I have missed out on so much basics. My horizon on the Gospel itself, where Jesus born in a manger, on hay come to life. From hay to hero, Jesus is the truth, hope and the peace this and every Christmas, for me at least. I just feel like writing about my photos!
Randupi is the perfect, lushly flourishing Eden. We were surrounded by an untouched celestial beauty even before we were born in our cave birthplace. The ecstatic, silent yet lively cave that became a clinic for bringing about life after life, seven times for the seven of us siblings. All of us seven siblings were born in Cave Randupi. This cave was formed to its perfection by nature itself just for giving birth. It is located right in the middle of the divine Randupi River on the west and the calm Hituku River on the east. The huge naked rock stand tall and firm like a mountain range. It occupies a huge area across the Randupi range itself. The cave is as big as a house sufficient to fit a family of seven siblings with rooms smoothly carved into the rocks with limestone on its edges. The cave isn’t too deep, neither too shallow. It is the perfect size and height. it is carved with perfect shelter. The walls, the roof and the floor, all of stone. It is unusually elegant because it isn’t dark, the doorway opens eastward so that the morning sun shines through the entire cave giving it a bright warmth which sustains this natural shelter. It is perfectly a divine handiwork purposely made a birthing place. Every now and then during the full moon season we would camp out in our cave. We felt protected and safe. We would also have picnics which were mostly of mumu. We enjoyed making mumu’s even though our food was small because we didn’t have big saucepans to cook meals for many siblings. We were rich in firewood, stone and mumu leaves which meant that mumu was the easiest and most convenient way to prepare our food. By the way, mumu is a way of cooking food in the earth covered in special leaves with hot rocks.
We made a huge garden at the base of our cave. We planted sweet potatoes, pumpkin and many taros. This piece of land has never been cultivated before. When father and mother realized that we grew in numbers, they wanted to make sure we had lots of food. This piece of land was especially very fertile with all the goodness from both the Randupi and the Hituku Rivers on both sides. When it rained, both of our rivers became inundated, but never covered our garden. Both rivers had a way of swelling to their shores and then draining into a natural tunnel. During drier seasons we would clean out these natural tunnels from debris, logs and stones so that when it flooded, waterways was kept clear. Father built a huge fence right around the garden. Our cave was also included inside the fence. This was to keep both domesticated pigs and wild boars out of the fence. So we owned the entire package. Our garden flourishing with food, our two rivers and our cave birth house. We were the only ones in this big world, whole and complete lacking nothing. Simple and happy. Safe and nurtured.
Both Randupi and Hituku Rivers are very long and winding. Randupi runs only on rocks. These rocks are carved naturally in all their beauty and perfection like the Egyptian pyramid blocks. Their numbers, their size, their shapes, and their layout are a work of art. And the river flows from the mountains down to the entrance of the underground tunnel on these wonderfully laid out rocks as smooth and disciplined. Its length goes for several miles to its origin up the mountain. In many of our expedition adventures, we would explore the origins of our two rivers. And it would take us one whole day flowing upstream until after several miles we would finally arrive at the mouth of the river. Randupi oozed through an artistically carved opening in a hidden underground rock on the mountain. It was beautiful. It was pure. It was healing. The Randupi River never ran dry on drought and dry seasons. All peoples from nearby parishes would come to collect water, shower, do laundry and hunt for tree frogs during severe drought seasons in our River. Along its banks grew fruit trees, herbal trees, eatable wild fruit trees, and specific scrubs that provided a habitat for tree frogs and tadpoles which were often our source of protein. Randupi rains often. And when the river floods, the current is mighty sweeping the huge rocks downstream. We could hear and see Randupi flow from our house. It would take us less than one minute from our house to Randupi River to draw water.
There was one time when I went down to fetch water. Water containers are made from dried and cleaned gourde and bamboo. This particular time, there was a rainfall up in the mountains which we had missed as the rain didn’t reach our house. When it had rained, Randupi had started flooding from upstream without us having any knowledge of the rain and the flood. I went down to the River to draw water with many containers. As soon as I was bending down to draw water, I had a mighty roar which shook the nearby rocks I was standing on. I heard my aunt Gambuli, my uncle Poroli’s wife, screaming down at me from the top of the hill looking down the River where I was about to draw water. As soon as I looked upstream, I could see a cloud of yellow pile of huge flood water shedding down in all its power and force down the rocks. I grabbed my water containers in no time and ran for my life back up the track. I sat on a rock up on the hill and watched the river swell in my eyes with ferocious flood water. Had I delayed one more minute, I would have been no more. Even my corpse would not have been recovered.
The Randupi River flows on almighty towering rocks down from the tops of the divine hills for miles and then dives into this underground tunnel at the bottom too deep and narrow. Randupi also was our safe haven and security. Hituku is calmer, shorter river. Although Hituku flows like Randupi where it also dives into a tunnel downstream, most of it flows on land more than on rocks. We explored that Hituku is a small arm of a beautiful lake further up the mountain ranges. The lake is clean, fresh, and deep. It does not dry up in drought seasons. A mystery.
4. Randupi our childhood resource
Randupi and Hitiku Rivers brought nourishment and fertility to this scared Eden. Both of our rivers are in abundance with tree frogs, tadpoles, and tiny crabs. We could listen to beautiful frog sounds all night long. In dry seasons, we would invite other children from neighboring hamlets and go hunting for tree frogs and tadpoles. We would plan few weeks well in advance. We would prepare everything we would need for these hunting trips. Usually, frog and tadpoles hunting is more productive at nights. Therefore, we would collect bundles and bundles of lengthy dry bamboos and pit-pits. We would wrap them into manageable bundles. And we would dry them so that when lit, they would give lingering effective light. We would also prepare special bilums to carry our catch. Then we would get into groups of three and four. We would divide the tracks along the river ways among the groups and each group would go separate ways. There would be clear instructions on how to make certain noises to attract our preys and certain noises to communicate with each other. We would hunt until our lights exhausted and we had completed covering our specific tracks. We would gather at a central place and compare our catch. If one group had not been lucky enough, we would bring all our catch together and made sure everyone had the same share. Then we would return to our house. Our parents would approve of these children’s night frog and tadpole hunting expeditions. Our friends from the neighboring hamlets would be encouraged to go home the same night with their catch to show to their parents. We would have a feast next morning of our catch. First, intestines are removed and dehydrated on leaves along the fireplace. Once dehydrated, a special cooking leaf is knitted together to form a waterproof base. Dark green leaves are placed at the base of the knitted leaves followed by the dehydrated catches. Then covered with more leaves and eventually wrapped by a touch robe made from canes. Once a firm bundle has been created, the bundle is then placed in a hole dug in the center of the fireplace. Which is covered with hot ash and charcoal and left to cook for several hours. Parents do not usually share children’s catch with them. Children have these meals which gives them joy and a sense of fulfillment. Our rivers not only provided us with important protein sources of food for our growth and development.
The Randupi Forest is beautiful and virgin, filled with a diversity of trees, plants, mushrooms, canes, herbs, caves, and wildlife. There were species of their own kind. Cassowaries, fowls, birds of paradise, cockatoos, parrots, rainbow lorikeets, wild boars, possums, tree kangaroos, pythons, tree frogs, tadpoles, bandicoots, echidnas. The trees were especially beautiful, handsome, steady, gracious and grounded. There were many different kinds. They gave us firewood, mushrooms, timber and bows and arrows. The caves gave away lime for salt, house for birthing and space for exploration. The herbs gave us medicine, food and pleasure. Wild life gave us protein and skills. Our hills and mountains gave us so many explorations and curiosity. Our many bedrocks towering over our foot tracks, the canes that climbed endlessly. The bush itself rain-forest in all its richness and prosperity. The rivers so fresh and crystal clear. Pandanus trees, remedial plants, orchids, robes, all full of their own fragrance and beauty. We collected mushrooms, hunted for wild animals, fished for tadpoles and frogs. We hunted for flying foxes in our caves at nights.
I was very adventurous in my young age. I would lead my siblings to make a platform outside our house where we made sets of draws. There was a huge table as well with wooden seats with posts planted in the ground. We did our dishes, cooked and ate on the table. We used the draws to store our utensils. We had surplus of firewood. Because we were very close to the nearby bush, we would cut down a huge tree and allow it to dry. We would then tie a cane robe around its trunk and pull it down the hill. And then chop it all up at the house. We stored firewood right around the walls of the house both inside and outside. This also provided insulation retaining heat. We were able to learn about fairness and selflessness. We made sure our friends came with us to hunt on our river together and if one was not a successful hunter, we shared our catches, so everyone had the same share. We learnt important hunting and cooking skills. We learnt how to be resourceful. And we found value in everything that nature has provided for us. We developed skills of how to use local resources as tools and equipment to make our hunting trip successful.
In 1992, when I returned for Christmas holidays to Randupi, I took an avocado with me. I then planted the seed in a heap of mulch next to our house in the hamlet. That avocado is now thirty years old and still going strong although I have not yet tasted an avocado from the tree.
Trees have significance in spiritual teachings. Jesus especially in the bible referred to trees to teach about human maturity. Maturity in wisdom, insight, innovation and a deep faith in the supernatural. Supernatural which had to be experienced and connected within oneself, with others and with a higher consciousness.
Our hamlet was located in between the Randupi and Ituku Rivers. It was as big as a suburb with a huge block of land on the foothills of the rocky hilly tracks which led further into the thick rain-forest where we collected all our firewood, mushrooms, robes, canes, bush fowl and cassowary eggs, herbal leaves and hunted for wild boars and possums, and fetched our water. In-front was our birthing cave Randupi. Kamenda and the main road was about five kilometres from our hamlet. We had other gardens and pandanus tree farms surrounding the hamlet. A wooden fence surrounded the houses and gardens to keep the pigs away. Inside the wooden fence we had two large family houses and a small hut dedicated to mumu. Both houses were divided into two units. Our family house was near the main entrance. The first unit had two bedrooms, a huge overlay and two separate beds on each side of the fire place in the middle of the unit. Father allocated the second unit to young girls who were mostly our nieces and cousins from both our mother and fathers’ side of the family. House are all built on the ground to retain heat. In the highlands, it can be freezing cold at night and snow occasionally. During the days it can be hot and cold. The second house was dedicated to Nendege and our uncle’s family. The first unit was occupied by our uncle Poroli, father’s last-born brother and his young family. The second unit was dedicated to Nendege, my maternal grandmother, with whom I grew up with.
In our house, we girls took one bedroom, while the boys took the other bedroom. Father used the huge overlay at the posterior end of the house while mother used one side of the fireplace. The other side of the fireplace was used for cooking. We had decent amounts of belongings. Our father had gone to Port Moresby and was away for a few years. When he came back to the village, he was engaged with an exploration project in Kialoro. He managed to accumulate a few basic goods through his travels and labor work with the companies that came to the area. So, we had one huge saucepan for cooking our family meals. We also had a few utensils, blankets, and tools. When our friends would come to hang out with us, they would normally brag about the things we had. This meant that we were a well-off family compared to every other hamlet in the village.
There were three houses outside the fence built for pigs. The pig houses were subdivided into minor compartments to keep pigs according to their age, size, and sex. That means male pigs would be kept separately from the females and the piglets kept with their mothers. The pigs knew which compartment they belonged in. Pigs would be fed twice a day with sweet potato from the gardens. During the daytime they would be released from their compartments and allowed to freely roam in the thick rain-forest feasting on earth worms, scrubs, and leaves. We had so many pigs, each of the three pig houses were occupied. People would often say my father was a wealthy man because of the number of pigs we had.
In the Yuna culture, father of the household would be due all recognition for the number of pigs a family had in their possession. I had a mother pig given to me as a gift from one of the village leaders when I was about doing grade three at Haredege Primary School. Mother pigs a very rare gift because that is the source of wealth. It can only be given to someone with high status or a special guest, for example a foreigner. This mother piglet was given to me in recognition for how impressive I would mourn for the dead. Mourning over the dead is a cultural ritual. The ritual involves mourning for weeks where a special mourning song is sung by a female who is gifted in the mourning songs. The immediate relatives of the deceased would hire the gifted woman to conduct the mourning song at their funeral. The mourning song is a ritual where the songs are composed connecting the spirit of the deceased to the nature. This has been recorded by anthropologists who studied the Yuna cosmology for decades including Stewart and Strathern. And the hire is usually of pigs and money.
Mourning songs wasn’t my gift, but I would contribute in the mourning by doing exactly what the older ladies did. At my age, this impressed the village, especially the leaders. My mother pig grew and started giving birth to over ten piglets at a time. And that is how we had so many pigs and how father gained his wealthy status in the community. Every so often when the piglets are some months old and tender, we would kill one of them and have a nice mumu at cave Randupi.
There was one time when our maternal grandmother and I planned to kill and mum one of my tender piglets. We took a fatty one out of the flock and took it to Cave Randupi with bags of vegetables, sweet potato and firewood for a nice mumu. Tragedy however got the better of us when the mother pig heard its piglet yelling and ran after us until we had to surrender. I tried climbing a tree with the piglet in my hands. I was too late. I dropped the piglet and ran for my own life. The mother pig chased me close. Our mumu plan was cancelled that day. When the pigs were the acceptable size for slaughter, it was father who made the decisions on how the pigs were to be used. We would have some slaughtered for ordinary consumption feasts with our friends and neighbors, others for helping our boys get married, others for further multiplying. Most consumption pig killings occurred in Christmas and Easter seasons. Pig killing events were always organized systematically. Firewood, ferns, garden food and everything needed for the mumu had to be well prepared a few days before the actual pig killing day. Every neighbor and relative had to be invited from their different hamlets and parishes. Usually, father and mother would slaughter more than five pigs at a time to make sure all our friends, neighbors and relatives had satisfying pork share. Not only that. Father had to make sure that people talked about how big the pig killing feast was, which is usually a cultural acknowledgement of wealth and prestige. Father inherited hunting skills from his father Embetayea. He was a well-known butcher too. Butchering is a specific skill. When there was a pig killing feast in the entire village, the initiator of the feast would invite the butcher to be in-charge of the pig butchering. Hence father had many invitations. And when he came home from a butchering role at a feast, he would come home with the best pork meat which we would enjoy the next day.
The different parts of the pork have different meaning significant to the social fabric. For example, the head of the pork always belongs to the woman who raised the pig. This means that even if the pig was looked after for someone else by a woman, the head belongs to the woman and not the owner of the pig. The usual social norm is such that someone who owns a pig can assign another person, mostly woman to raise the pig for the owner. When it comes to making decisions about how the pig is to be used, the owner and the one who raised the pig usually make a collective decision. The significant of the head of a pig is based on the idea that the head is somehow the source of life and giving back to the woman who raised the pig means returning the favor of life and good will to her for doing a favor in raising this pig in the first place. It is a way of expressing gratitude in a form of ritual. And everyone knows this ritual therefore there is no disputes. If the head is given to someone else, it is often disputed by everyone present at the feast that such is against established social norms. And often this sort of contrary act is argued to be associated with evil and bad luck in the future.
It was my ultimate responsibility to make sure Nendege had firewood, always more than what she needed. Nendege had special firewood preferences. She would refuse certain wood and prefer the strong, light ones which gave off brilliant heat and ash for her elegant cooking.
Grandmother had a way with cooking. She was the best cook in the hamlet. She also had special skills for food preservation, cultivation, trade and innovation. She would preserve dried pandanus in sewn pandanus leaves on a huge platform made of wood above her fire place. These she would store for long years, until there was no more pandanus season. Then she would trade them for other goods from other tribes and clans. She would preserve pork meat, especially raw meat in the similar way through smoking. Nendege had her own ways of cultivation. She did it unlike the usual way of making sweet potato mounds. Instead of making round mounds down the hill in equal lengths and sizes, she often did hers like a terrace. And she planted sweet potato leaves not only on the mound but also on the terrace. This meant that when it was harvest time, she would renew the sweet potato vines on the terrace so she always had harvest all year round. My grandmother Nendege also made salt. She taught me how to make mine too. There is a special herbal plant in our forest Randupi. It has huge, beautiful, lush leaves. She would gather lime stones from the nearby divine caves. She would make packs out of the lime, shape them into manageable round sizes. She would dry them on the heat of the sun. Then she would wrap them with loads and loads of the special herbal leaves. She would wrap it up and tie it off with cane robes. And she would dig a huge hole in the hot ash and mumu the wrap in the ash for hours and hours until the cane robes are completely burnt off. She would remove the pack from the ash, dust off the ash and wrap it again with more new leaves and repeat the process for over ten times until the whole pack turns into salt. This form of salt was the best tasting salt with fine and tender crystals. Nendege was famous for salt making. People traded her salt from all over Yuna with pigs, bilums, clothes, paints and money. She would open a new pack of salt whenever we had a visitor in our hamlet, whether it be a relative or friend. Everything she cooked was flavored with her divine natural tasty salt. Everyone would want to eat her food.
We have wild and domesticated pandanus of different varieties. The wild ones are only grown in the thickness of the rainforest starting from Kewane range which further leads to Kialoro down towards Juha and Strickland. These are like the ones that grow in Ambua of Hela Province. The wild pandanus nuts are bigger, juicier, and crunchier and the shells are much tougher to shell compared to the domesticated pandanus. The domesticated pandanus are grown in groups according to their variety. Pandanus bear in seasons. In Yuna pandanus are special and embraced for exchange, celebration, and feasts. Pandanus can be harvested and consumed fresh, cooked in mumu, roasted, or smoked or stored for many years. My maternal grandmother was expert in smoking pandanus after shelling them. She sewed a special case with the pandanus leaves in which she packed the shelled pandanus nuts. She would then dry the pandanus packed cases above her fireplace to keep them dry and crunchy. She often traded them for pigs, salt, money, and clothes. She taught us how to tell when it was season for the pandanus trees to bear fruits. Often, she would relate cold and flu symptoms as an indication that new pandanus shoots had begun flourishing in preparation for fruiting. This meant that when anyone had flu and cold symptoms in the family, we would get excited to look forward to a pandanus season. It usually took up to six months for the pandanus fruit to mature, longer for the wild ones as they are tougher and bigger than domesticated pandanus. In times when so many pandanus became productive, the whole village would come together and have a pandanus feast. Pandanus feasts were also like pig killing feasts. Everyone who had a pandanus fruit would bring their share to a central location where the pandanus feast was held, usually someone’s uncultivated land. Everyone would bring certain number of pandanus and would cut them in half. Sometimes there was a long pandanus mumu, at other times they would share them raw. Whatever way they decided, it was always filled with a sense of community and commonness. Everyone seemed to care for each other. Pandanus harvest and consumption had become a social bond and glue that brought people together and close to one another. This is one of the things we enjoyed about pandanus seasons and always looked forward to them.
Randupi is a Yuna hamlet, located in Pakura village of the Lake Kopiago Koroba electorate of Hela Province, Papua New Guinea. The Yuna, (Duna in the Huli dialect) occupy the western end of Hela Province. Yuna is a culture, a people group and a language spoken by a population of about 100,000 people. The Yuna lands extend from the headwaters of the Pori and Tumbudu Rivers in the south-east, through the river valleys to the Strickland River in the north-west, lying within the Koroba-Lake Kopiago district of the province. People in the Yuna territory live in family groups in hamlets spread through the Pori and Tumbudu valleys and clustered in the low-lying wetland area around Lake Kopiago (the Kopiago Basin). Other settled areas include the Aluni Valley, the Strickland Gorge area, and locations at the headwaters of the Logaiyu, Urei, and Wanika Rivers in the eastern region. Hamlets are subdivided into parish territories. Each parish has an esoteric history of its origin transmitted as an oral tradition among alien descended from the parish founder of founders. Residences and gardens are typically established in very high altitudes of 1600m. The territory covers the peaks in the mountain ranges that mark the extent of Duna country to the south and north-east. With an average rainfall of 4500mm, the area is wet and dry and cold at nights. Frosts, droughts, and inundation are inevitable in these geographical conditions. Subsistence farming is the main source of livelihood. Sweet potato like in other parts of the highland’s region is main staple food while beans, pumpkin, peanuts and pandanus are also grown seasonally. Domesticated pigs are not only a source of protein. Pigs are social and economic wealth used for compensations, bride prices, ceremonials, and funerals.
Nicholas Modjeska did his doctoral thesis on the Yuna while based at Aluni village near the Lake Kopiago station and records beautifully about Yuna cosmological perspectives, landscape, oral history, production, reproduction, invasion and the Yuna understanding of time and space. The Yuna country and society exists not only as a place located in space, but also as a place located in time. The Yuna have strong links, both cooperative and antagonistic, with several neighbouring culture/language groups, especially the Yeru, Bogaia and the Huli. The Bogaia, Yeru, Hewa, Ok Tedi, Huli, Ipili, Strickland Plains peoples, including the Phebi, and at least some Papuan Plateau peoples further to the south (including speakers of Foe, Fasu, and languages of the Bosavi language family) are identified by the Yuna as having a common primordial origin with them as the Hela ingini (sons of Hela), who came to life in the Strickland Gorge.
The Yuna people had no direct contact with Europeans until the 1930s. Sturzenhofecker in her anthropological thesis records that first European invasion occurred in 1934, an unauthorised entry by the brothers Tom and Jack Fox searching for gold. Following the Fox brothers came Taylor and Black under the Australian Administration known as League of Nations Mandated Territory of New Guinea before the Second World War which then became United Nations Trust Territory. The pair were accompanied by a team of huge local carriers. They also ventured into search for gold. Taylor later establishing a small gold lease at Pogera which later became the Pogera Gold exploration owned by the Australian company Placer Dome and operated by the Pogera Joint Venture. Since then, was sporadic through the 1960s with missionaries through to 1975 when PNG gained its political independence.
In May 2012, the PNG National Parliament passed a bill that Hela could become a province of its own. Hela therefore broke away from Southern Highlands Province (SHP) and formed a new province with its own administration, governance, public institutions, jurisdictions, and geographical borders. Oral History suggests that Hela was the grand ancestor who had four sons and a daughter from whom a nation was to emerge. Hela’s offspring sons were Huli, Opene, Yuna, Tuguba and sister Hewa. Traditional Hela Territory ranged from whole of Enga Province (Opene) (Mt Porgera specifically Kumbi Para, ipa Yambale where sacrifice to traditional gods took place) to Mt Tundaka (Sacrificial sacred area) to Lake Kutubu to Mt Bosavi to Mt Gigira to the Strickland gorges bordering western and West/East Sepik Provinces.
Geographically, Hela and SHP cover the Central Range and Lagaip Valley in the north. The Tagali Valley runs through the centre. The south of the province includes limestone plateaux, Lake Kutubu and the Hegigio, Mubi and Digimu Valleys as well as the dormant volcano, Mt. Bosavi. Incomes for most people are low, earned from the sale of coffee, food, and firewood. Small pockets of high incomes are earned from oil and gas operations; however, this is limited to the areas near these concerns. The Highlands Highway runs through the province from Imbonggu to Kopiago, and other roads go to Komo, Erave and Pangia. Remote areas in Komo Margarima and Nipa Kutubu, especially near Mt. Bosavi. Hela province is home to the current Exxon Mobil led PNG liquefied natural gas (PNGLNG) and the Oil Search Ltd petroleum project.
With a projected total population of 400,000, the new province is made of three district electorates including; Tari Pori, Komo Magarima and Lake Kopiago Koroba. The National Research Institute of PNG district and provincial profile completed in 2010 record that Hela Province has total of 12 local level government electorates, and 253 council wards. Hela province is known for patriarchy and rich traditional customs where man dominate decisions about social order, leadership, participation in development and sharing of resources and opportunities. These coupled with other institutional and political corruption, tribal fights, and infrastructure isolation is contribution to some of the worst social and human development indicators in the country. Hela currently has the worst inequitable illiteracy rates where women are the worst compared to men, worst under five mortality rates, highest maternal mortality rates and the lowest life expectancy rates in PNG. Many schools and health facilities remain non-operational due to lack of road and infrastructure services, shortage of teachers and resources. Young people denied access to basic formal schooling become stressed leading to involvement in anti-social behaviours such as trafficking firearms, drugs, alcohol and hold ups. Social disorder, violence and tribal warfare are imminent leading to a cycle of mortality and oppression.
11. Conclusion: simplicity and wholeness
Embetaye is our father’s father. The size of land he owned is vast. His land extends from Kamenda, up Randupi and all the way to Kialoro, towards the Muller Ranges. Kialoro is in fact within the Exxon Mobil PNGLNG petroleum project. Today, me and my siblings are very grateful to our paternal grandfather. He was just too kind to place us in this perfect land of milk and honey. We felt we were in the center of the earth. Natural beauty in all its diversity, splendor and serenity. Wildlife in all species. Rivers and creeks so fresh and prosperous. Landscape with all their stories of fertility and origin. Our home, our garden, our life. Simple, happy and whole. The center of our world. Where we were born, grounded and grew up into small adults. We had everything, that is everything in all its simplicity because we lacked nothing, we were happy. The name, the home, the hamlet, the parish, the divine sanctuary of all our childhood memories. We didn’t have to do anything to have this Eden as our home. It just happened that this was our origin, our identity, our land, our village, everything we ever could have asked for. Not only were we physically nurtured by all the abundance it brought to life. We were nurtured to be prepared for life itself here. We learnt our sustenance skills; we learnt our interconnection with our beauty, and it taught us our most important human values. The values we so badly would need. Of respect to self and where we belonged. Of preservation for the future. Of accountability to the beauty itself in all its splendor. Of generosity and kindness. Of fairness and selflessness. For the sacredness which was so complete we lacked nothing. Randupi, Yuna.
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