I’m now a degree man: my university journey realised a dream

LEONARD FONG ROKA

IT was the coastal trawler MV Solomon Queen which took me away that February afternoon in 2011.

 

I was carried away from my Solomon island of Bougainville across the Solomon Sea to the New Guinean town of Rabaul in East New Britain.

Then, after a few hours catching up with relatives from Ragunai village, I left on the ill-fated MV Rabaul Queen for Kimbe and on to Lae.

In 2013, the Rabaul Queen was to sink in bad weather with heavy loss of life.

From Lae we hit the highway through the Markham Valley, over rugged terrain into Madang Province and thence to Madang town’s Divine Word University.

It was a three day journey from Bougainville to Madang that finally had me stuck to the university for four years.

And today I can claim to have undergone a rite of passage for a Bachelor of Arts Degree in PNG Studies and International Relations. The testamur will be handed to me next March.

When I left my Bougainville, I had a vision. But that vision was not a university-stirred dream, for that was born in 1997 in the classrooms of Arawa High School when a few bullets were jetting around me.

I carried my vision in two exercise books and a binder of some 200 pages of A4 paper. Beyond that my vision was silent in an unheard struggle for realisation.

With my dream burning in my heart at the University of Papua New Guinea in 2004, I faced a number of academics and showed them my bound leaves of paper. But would not win the struggle through them.

My destiny was to wage a lone war through the system; and, in time, this led me to Divine Word University and its resources.

The university gave me the key on my 2011 registration day and it was up to me to open the door and choose from the treasures within.

 

I came as a self-sponsored student and felt ashamed in the company of scholarship students and talked little.

But I struggled on with my dream. A dream even my course mates knew nothing about.

Then in mid-2011, my Communication Skills lecturer, Mrs Aiva Ore, introduced us to social media and showed us blogs and websites.

Thus I was at work checking blogs and reading them when, by chance, I caught sight of Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG Attitude.

I looked at the professional writings therein and did hesitate at first; but the vision took off and infiltrated PNG Attitude.

So I began doing assignment essays for submission to the lecturer and another version to PNG Attitude. And on every moment I saw my writing in PNG Attitude I was dancing somewhere high in the skies.

Once shy, writing earned me a reputation and some form of status over those first two years amongst my university mates. Now I felt free and I could talk freely.

I debated without fear that I was a self-sponsored student; but even this was eradicated in 2012 when I returned as an assisted student flying on a government ticket just like those I once feared to look in the eye.

As I progressed with PNG Attitude, my dream came to fruition piece by piece in the Crocodile Prize competition. When a few of my writings appeared in the Crocodile Prize Anthology 2011 I felt that I was now an author.

Through 2012, my writing was consolidating with nurturing from Keith Jackson, Philip Fitzpatrick, my Divine Word University lecturers and the free DWU internet service.

It was now beginning to contribute to my academic advancement, and the proof was in that academic transcript that secured me government assistance.

2013 was the greatest year of my life both positively and negatively.

Positively, because of freelance writing I began meeting with people of high stature in films, writing and academia.

Negatively, I began receiving a handful of threats because of the same writing.

Threatening phrases like ‘you in Madang means you under my control’, ‘you need to be death, ‘your writing is your coffin’ and ‘you will do nothing positive under the sun and die useless’.

I felt powerless under these threats and was contemplating withdrawing from university but my Bougainvillean course mates Daphney Toke and Ancitha Semoso helped me back.

But overriding these threats a dream was realised. There was my name on the front cover of a book. Pukpuk Publishing released my first book, a collection of poetry, The Pomong U’tau of Dreams.

Then my dancing heart received the 2013 Crocodile Prize award for short stories. Following rapidly was my second book, a collection of short stories, Moments in Bougainville.

My happy heart half-regretted that I was attaining such significant achievements after so many years. But all I had was this life and I had no right to question it and its ways.

Thus I grasped another life’s desire and decided to settle down. I met my partner, Delpine Piruke, who is from Nakorei village in Buin, South Bougainville, when she was a student at Madang Teachers College, In June this year my daughter Dollorose came into my dreaming life.

But my dream is still dragging me to write more. I have loved calling myself a keyboard politician for Bougainville using all the resources Divine Word University has given me.

In January 2014, I completed by Bougainville crisis memoir covering my experiences with the conflict from 1988 to 1997. That book, Brokenville, is the only book written about the crisis by a Bougainvillean.

I was so proud when, in the 2014 Crocodile Prize, it was awarded Ok Tedi Book of the Year.

Such a life of writing in Divine Word University had taken me from bring a backward little known Panguna man out to the wide world.

Today I am often a focus of discussion in the Bougainville political realm. I have met and chatted with great Papua New Guinean figures like Brigadier General Jerry Singirok and Sir Paulias Matane, who were once just illusions. I travel to give talks away from where I am based. And I feel more is in the pipeline.

 

Universities overseas used my writings. Organisations are being moved by what I write to do research on Bougainville. And I am still dreaming.

With three books published and a fourth book coming later this year there is a fifth done and snoring in my laptop.

My goal is to reach further in writing where no fellow Bougainvillean has yet reached.

For I am still dreaming. I am dreaming to attain more that life has for me.

My life as a Bougainville dreamer at Divine Word University from 2011 to 2014 is over. That key was given to me in 2011, but it was me that decided whether to open the door or sleep with it.

At Divine Word University, in four solid years, I feel I have written my name into the history books.