I was very bright at school but lazy and often found some lessons boring than others. I enjoyed reading a lot and my writing skills were exceptional compared to my fellow students who struggled with English vocabulary and grammar.
As time passed, I went to High School with expatriate children of mine workers. Although we attended same school they attended separate classes from us nationals, but we played sports and attended debates and quiz programs together. I made friends with quite a number of them. It was through this kind of interaction with born English speakers that my grasp of English improved. I continue to read and take part in school debates in which I shone out. I was member of the school team that won the province's grade 10 quiz competition run by National Broadcasting Corporation in 1977.
In 1978 and 79 I went to East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea to do my grades 11 and 12 at Passam National High School. There I met a lot of students from other parts of the country. Some of these were exceptionally talent in such things as sports and music, neither of which I were beyond me. They took their studies seriously while I scraped through somehow to the university in the nations capital in Port Moresby. I lasted a year there and went home to wandering around the mining towns of Arawa unemployed for two years. With a stroke of luck I found a job at Loloho on the coast as a cadet power station operator with the mining company BCL in 1983. The pay was very good but the work environment was dirty, noisy and I also hated shift work. In 1985 I transferred to a office job at the mine site in Panguna. I was working there as a personnel officer when disgruntled landowners at the mine site close the mine starting what later became know as the "Bougainville Crisis."
I will term my crisis years as my "dark" years because of what I went through and because it was the door was shut on us by the National Government in its efforts to beat us to submission. However, the economic blockade had little effect on the food situation there were however shortages of medical supplies and people died in numbers of preventable diseases. I survived by adapting to the change. I learned how to fish in the sea although I was not a coastal and I cultivated the land to grow my own food. I sometimes enjoyed my little accomplishments and achievements.
When peace was finally established, I went to work with the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) which was comprised of Australian and New Zealand military and civilian personnel stationed on the island. I worked as a translator and transcriber, and cultural adviser at first. Then I began to write articles in the peace newspaper I helped to translate to English and vice versa. It was here that I first discovered my knack for writing and a nose for smelling out good stories.
I am now working on a dull government job and this poetry thing has come to occupy my time which otherwise would have been dull and boring in the National Capital.
As time passed, I went to High School with expatriate children of mine workers. Although we attended same school they attended separate classes from us nationals, but we played sports and attended debates and quiz programs together. I made friends with quite a number of them. It was through this kind of interaction with born English speakers that my grasp of English improved. I continue to read and take part in school debates in which I shone out. I was member of the school team that won the province's grade 10 quiz competition run by National Broadcasting Corporation in 1977.
In 1978 and 79 I went to East Sepik Province in Papua New Guinea to do my grades 11 and 12 at Passam National High School. There I met a lot of students from other parts of the country. Some of these were exceptionally talent in such things as sports and music, neither of which I were beyond me. They took their studies seriously while I scraped through somehow to the university in the nations capital in Port Moresby. I lasted a year there and went home to wandering around the mining towns of Arawa unemployed for two years. With a stroke of luck I found a job at Loloho on the coast as a cadet power station operator with the mining company BCL in 1983. The pay was very good but the work environment was dirty, noisy and I also hated shift work. In 1985 I transferred to a office job at the mine site in Panguna. I was working there as a personnel officer when disgruntled landowners at the mine site close the mine starting what later became know as the "Bougainville Crisis."
I will term my crisis years as my "dark" years because of what I went through and because it was the door was shut on us by the National Government in its efforts to beat us to submission. However, the economic blockade had little effect on the food situation there were however shortages of medical supplies and people died in numbers of preventable diseases. I survived by adapting to the change. I learned how to fish in the sea although I was not a coastal and I cultivated the land to grow my own food. I sometimes enjoyed my little accomplishments and achievements.
When peace was finally established, I went to work with the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG) which was comprised of Australian and New Zealand military and civilian personnel stationed on the island. I worked as a translator and transcriber, and cultural adviser at first. Then I began to write articles in the peace newspaper I helped to translate to English and vice versa. It was here that I first discovered my knack for writing and a nose for smelling out good stories.
I am now working on a dull government job and this poetry thing has come to occupy my time which otherwise would have been dull and boring in the National Capital.