Remembering to forget
Written March 13, 2017
As the rain falls softly outside, bringing with it a welcome drop in temperature, I’m marvelling at how quickly hours have slipped into days have slipped into weeks. How the unfamiliar is quietly untangling and coalescing into a new routine.
My work
For the next ten months I will be volunteering at the Bureau for Public Affairs, Media and Communications. It is a government department, responsible for disseminating information from the Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG). But its role is so much more than that.
The signing of the Bougainville Peace Agreement in 2001, stipulated the need for a referendum to help determine Bougainville’s future. This will allow the population both at home and abroad to voice their opinion on the fate of their land, including the choice of independence from Papua New Guinea. Much of the work taking place here by both local and international organisations is to spread awareness of the referendum that is due to take place in 2019. This is a challenge in country where access to television and online media is limited, where illiteracy rates remain high and where much of the population live outside of the island. The Bureau engages in many different areas to try and reach as broad a population as possible.
Last year a previous Univol volunteer helped the Bureau to launch a government website. (You can check it out here: www.abg.gov.pg.) They have a mobile radio station, Radio Ples Lain, as well as a mobile cinema that can go to different villages throughout the island, broadcast to the community and provide an opportunity for feedback. During my time here I will be contributing to the website as well working with the rest of the team to create content for a new multimedia information centre in town that will spread information about the government and the referendum.
I work with a small team who are motivated and willing to teach, particularly when it comes to the lingua franca, Tok Pisin. An English based creole, there are many similarities. However, any smug confidence I may have as I follow the thread of a conversation evaporates when I try to respond. I throw in the few words I can muster peppered with a generous amount of English and a wide please-accept-my-linguistic-butchering smile. My repository of Tok Pisin vocabulary is only liklik tasol (a little bit), with, in some strange definitional reversal, forget (lustingting) being the one word I can so quickly remember.
I have been in Bougainville for almost two weeks now. I’m learning to leave behind simple things that we often take for granted in New Zealand, like 24/7 access to electricity, an endless supply of water, hot showers, consistent and fast internet access and systems of recycling. I’m learning to live life at a slower pace, and find new ways of filling my time, with a growing awareness of how lucky I am that this is where I will call home for the next ten months.
Lukim yu!
