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Back to Bouganville

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 10:19a.m.

By Charles Bennett

After a couple of weeks away to attend a training course and renew my visa, I’ve now safely returned to Arawa.

 I arrived back in Bougainville to strange circumstances, with drummers and dancers in traditional dress greeting the plane at the airport and the air hostesses requesting that the VIPs should leave the plane first. Without realising it I’d flown into the capital on one of the busiest and most important days in recent history – the inauguration of the new President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville. Whilst I was away the vote counting finished and John Momis has been confirmed as the new President.
 
 

As Buka is usually quiet, I hadn’t booked a room in a guesthouse. Everywhere was full with visiting statesman, ambassadors and administrators, all in town for the inauguration. After an exhausting trawl around town in the midday sun I managed to find what was reportedly the last room in Buka!

Having finally checking in, I took a stroll into town to find somewhere for lunch when I bumped into Tony, the partner of one of the VSA volunteers in Buka. He invited me to join him at the leaving party for Leslie, another VSA volunteer who is just about to finish her two year placement and return to New Zealand. It was great fun – a buffet on the beach, then a performance from a local bamboo band, complete with a 10-strong choir. Bamboo bands from Bougainville are famous throughout the South Pacific and it is an amazing experience to see and hear the drummers creating fantastic rhythms out of the bamboo drums, using old flip-flops for drumsticks.
 
 

The next day, whilst waiting for the bus to leave to take me back to Arawa I was having a cold drink in one of the few restaurants in Buka. All of a sudden there was the sound of a cavalcade of police cars and army vehicles, sirens wailing. The Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, had decided to have lunch in the same restaurant before attending the inauguration. As his staff and guests sat down to eat, I jumped on a banana boat across the short Buka passage then finished the journey with a four-hour drive along unsealed roads, splashing through the many un-bridged river crossings.

It’s great to be back in Arawa and I’m looking forward to getting stuck into all the work we have ahead of us in the coming months.

 

Civil Engineer Charles Bennett is a UK native who has taken a 12 month leave of absence from his job in the UK to gain wider experience in water engineering, particularly in the development sector.

 

In April, after finishing his six-month contract with an engineering consultancy in Whanagarei, Charles headed to Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, where he will spend four months working for Oxfam New Zealand as a water engineer on a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) project.

 

Charles has always had a passion for development issues. Whilst studying at Cardiff University he was the President of the university branch of Engineers Without Borders UK, and in 2007 volunteered in Ghana as a water and sanitation engineer for WaterAid.

 

Comments [2]

Phil
13 Jul 2010 12:43a.m.

Nice blogging Chuck, sounds like you're doing great work. It's still your birthday here, but I'm not sure if it will be in Arawa by now. Hopefully you're celebrating it in both time zones. Happy Birthday!

Stuart
07 Jul 2010 04:57p.m.

Loved the description of the bamboo band Charles, but I must point out they are called jandels not flip flops! :-)

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