A wind of joy to see Bougainville

Leonard Fong Roka

Away from home for almost 9 months in the Madang Province of Papua New Guinea has being too much pain of home sickness for Timothy Poroda, a 21 year old student from Malasang village on the Buka Island of Bougainville.

Mr. Poroda completed his secondary school at Hutjena Secondary School in 2012 and currently is a first year student in the Department of PNG Studies and International Relations at the Divine Word University on a degree programme that goes on for 4 years. This means Poroda will be flying in and out of his Bougainville for almost four years till 2016.

Timothy said he really enjoyed the year making new friends in the school. ‘Divine Word University is a small university thus everyone nearly knows who is who here,’ he told me. ‘I know most students here like every boy-girl relationships here is a public knowledge; nobody hides.’

He said he enjoyed the year from the start but in the middle of the year he began to turn lazy at school work. ‘That is the trend,’ he laughed, ‘we are humans and tasks like studying for example makes us weak and turn lazy. But we need to work on for that is why parents exhaust themselves sending us here.

‘We got no choice, when the Bougainville government cannot build us a university, we will forever run to universities and colleges in PNG to be educated.’

The student body of Divine Word University sat for their examination since last week and this was the last week of the two weeks. Most were looking forward to going home next week but the university surprised them over the week end that they were now going home.

Timothy was roaming all over the dormitory area with the Bougainville flag attached to a stick.

He packed his belongings and traded the rest for other goodies to bring back to Bougainville.

Early yesterday at 6:30 AM Timothy Poroda and other Bougainvillean students left Madang transited at the Port Moresby’s Jackson Airport and arrived in Bougainville’s Buka airport at 10 o’clock.