Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

This year I went to Airways Motel in time to meet Drusilla Modjeska before her departure to the fjords of Korafe in the Oro Province. Whether Drusilla comes up here from Sydney on her way to Tufi or on her way back to Sydney I usually catch up with her for breakfast at the Airways. On her way from Sydney she usually brings me books that I could not get hold of here. In turn I would bother her with my manuscripts. Drusilla is always patient with me, which I appreciate and acknowledged in my book The Unpainted Mask , presented to her in her recent trip to Papua New Guinea. This year I received her first novel The Mountain set in Papua New Guinea. She had worked on this book for a number of years. There were occassional mentions about the book in some of our conversations. I was honored to have received a signed copy of The Mountain (2012). The book is a wonderful book that is spellbinding, gripping, and yet entertaining to read. I was thrilled to read the book on the w...

A pledge honoured is an important value of leadership. Last year the Prime Minister Honorable Peter O’Neill promised the Waigani Primary School that he would give money for the construction of a Science classroom.   On the 20 th of July that promise was delivered. A cheque of K150,000.00 was delievered to the school.   The Chief of Staff for the Prime Minister’s Department, Mr. Gideon Oli and a delegation visited the school and presented the cheque to the joyful students and their teachers. The occasion was witnessed by the Department of Education Representative, Mr. Steven Lapan. As the Board Chairman I was on hand to receive the grant on behalf of the Board, the Principal, and the School. Mr. Gideon Oli presented the cheque to the School on-behalf of the Prime Minister. It was the commitment of Prime Minister O’Neill that took a while to process, but was eventually completed just before his reappointment as the 9 th Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea...

Last week we celebrated the National Book Week. To prepare for the week I spent the weekend reading, my friend, Drusilla Modjeska’s new novel: The Mountain , published by Random House Australia. The novel by one of Australian leading writers is the highly recommended Random House Australian book of the month. Its entire setting is in Port Moresby and Collingwood Bay. The story began in the late 960s and works itself to the present time, mostly around characters associated with the UPNG It is a wonderful story written with such fluidity and excellent narrative style that readers will resist the putting down the book. A book with so much psychological drama to physical dramatization of national events in Papua New Guinea seen through the eyes of the main players in the story.  It is one of the best books on PNG to have come out this year. I will do a full review of the book in a future article. In the National Book Week I was invited by the PNG Paradise High School to share...

At one point I could read 300 pages or more a day. I wish I could return to that period in my life to increase reading up to 500 pages a day. It was the only way I could get through graduate studies in the United States. Serious! No kidding.   So it seems. Even if I am no longer the master of the habit I still read what is required of me to remain alive, intelligent, and above the challenges before me.  I am the master of my habits. The reading habit has been on my report card for sometime now. I need to do something about it. It remains my chief responsibility to direct my reading habit to work for me. I am the master of my own reading habit. No one can tell me that my reading habit has failed to deliver what I need.  It is National Book Week. A time we remind ourselves about the importance of books, literature, reading and writing in our lives. It is a time for us to reflect on our experiences as readers and writers of books. Often in this week schools did ...

Last week I talked about the importance of Asia Pacific Rim. This week I follow up with a discussion on the importance of Pacific Studies in the Asia Pacific region. It took me a while to really understand the three rationales of Pacific Studies that Terence Wesley-Smith, the current Director of the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawaii proposed some time ago. These are the (1) pragmatic rationale, (2) laboratory rationale, and (3) empowerment rationale. The pragmatic rationale is for metropolitan countries to know the places they were dealing with soon after the Second World War. This rationale is still used for funding of Pacific Studies centers in the region and throughout the world: “With the possible exception of Britain, all the imperialist states that formerly colonised the Pacific have established centres of Pacific Studies, according to late Emeritus Professor Ron C Crocombe (1987: 120–121). Both the United States and Australia, after...

Oceania, as we know from Epeli Hau’ofa is not just a sea of islands, it is also home to millions of Indigenous peoples with different cultures, histories, and experiences that define them as a unique group of people occupying an imagined geography known as Oceania.  Movement in and around or outbound are constant and necessary experiences in the lives of Pacific Islanders. Using interconnected networking Islanders are able to move between their homelands and metropolitan centers such as New Zealand, Australia, and USA to participate in global social, political, and economic activities. These movements form new alliances, strengthen existing relationships, and promote peace, goodwill, security, and protection against destabilizing forces. These are best described as imagined geographies and cross-cultural fertilization in Oceania. Rob Wilson, author of Reimagining the American Pacific (2000) offers a striking perspective that reaffirms the observations we have about the...