Reconnection after Rupture: A Journey Home to The Autonomous Region of Bougainville-Papua New Guinea

Words by Angela Kampah Matthews | Baitsi Clan, Bougainville | She/Her

I invite you for a moment to journey with me to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville-Papua New Guinea (PNG). Perhaps you’ve heard of it…

of the Indigenous land owners who shut down what was the largest mine in the world at the time; of the ensuing ten year civil war which took the lives of 20,000 people; of its historical peace agreement facilitated by New Zealand and the Bougainvillean women who paved its way; or perhaps most recently of its long awaited 98 percent vote in favour for independence.

It’s a complex story too big for this moment. This is a glimpse into my mother and I’s most recent journey home, a moment in a story of reconnection after rupture, and grief over lives, families and lands forever changed.

I was born at the beginnings of the conflict and the closure of the mine in 1989, known as the Bougainville Crisis. Indigenous landowners took action against the Australian mine amidst growing grievances over empty promises, lack of compensation, social disparity, detrimental impacts to the environment; and the growing wealth and development of PNG at the expense of the land and the landowners. A month later, my family said their goodbyes, unsure of when they would see each other next. We left for safety to Australia, before a military blockade by the PNG government would stop the transportation of people, goods and medicines on and off the island.

Fast forward to 2019, Mum and I begin another journey home to PNG. Flying into the tropical atolls scattered out at sea, the green lusciousness of jungle and coconut plantations is a heartwarming sight. On arrival in town we stock up on supplies to gift to extended family, who come to visit with generous gifts from their gardens. Generosity is shown in large stocks of bananas, small child-size papayas, leafy cooking greens, baskets of smoked fish, watermelons, creamy coconut cassava dumplings and more. Loaded with our supplies, we cross the channel between Buka island and mainland Bougainville. The ocean flowing powerfully between the two. It humbles me how our islands lie in the middle of a massive and powerful ocean. It’s places and moments like this that make it so real to be in Oceania. I think of Epeli Hau’ofa’s words that “we should not be defined by the smallness of our islands, but by the greatness of our oceans. We are the sea, we are the ocean, Oceania is us.”

It’s a short but exhilarating three-minute trip. We arrive into the vibrant and crystal-clear water taxi intersection, which is full of the noise and movement of high-speed banana boats. People are constantly coming in and out of the government, business, and NGO hub that Buka has become.

If you ever find yourself here you’ll quickly notice the pride people have in being Bougainvillean. Flags adorn banana boats and car aerials. Bougainvilleans proudly wear T-shirts printed locally with the Bougainville flag and slogans like ‘Black is Beautiful’ or ‘Straight Outta AROB’, which is fitting for the post-Crisis warrior-like attitude and style in Bougainville. It’s no surprise or shame to be caught wearing the same shirt as numerous others. The WWII relics all over the island are also testimony to what Bougainvilleans have endured since before the civil war. This land and its people have been through so much, yet hold great resilience, pride, hope, and persistence for independence.

Bougainvilleans have a unique hand clap heard at churches, schools and large public events. It’s interesting to see the nationalism displayed by Bougainvilleans and that exists in such a diverse region with 20 distinct language communities and subgroups. Within PNG’s immense diversity, Bougainvilleans are distinct for being predominantly matrilineal—land is passed down through women. They are also the darkest-skinned peoples in the Pacific. Despite being mapped and administered by PNG, Bougainville is geographically and culturally more related to the Solomon Islands, where our ancestors migrated from. Similar to the Bougainville clap that developed across the island post-Crisis, Bouganvillean nationalism feels like a natural coalescence, sparked by what people endured as much as by what they are reconciling and building together. There is celebration and pride in resistance, as well as unity and persistence in achieving independence and honouring the peace agreement. The Bougainville Peace Agreement is the longest standing peace agreement in history, and Bougainvillean practices and efforts of reconciliation have been pivotal to achieving and maintaining this.

Off the boat and into a Land Cruiser equipped to cross rivers and rough terrain, we settle in for the five or more hour journey to our village. We begin by sitting in the open air amongst the cargo, speeding and bouncing along unsealed coconut-tree lined roads. Finally on this land, and worlds away from Canada where we had started, peace and relief settle in. The roads are lined with Avatar-like trees with large buttress roots and draping vines, banana trees, cacao and coconut plantations and jungle. Villages adorn the roadsides with hibiscus bushes and flowering ginger plants. The island is abundant in flowing rivers that make their ways all the way down from the cloudy mountaintops to the sea. Many bridges have been washed away due to the power of these rivers and a lack of funds to maintain infrastructure. If the water level is too high after heavy rainfall, you may have to wait until the next morning to cross. Children play in the rivers and wave as we pass by. Roadside markets sell drinking coconuts, bunches of sweet rambutans and fresh peanuts. Knowing my love for fresh peanuts, my uncle Francis has warned me against eating them with fish…unless you’ve accidentally drunken kerosene from an unmarked beer bottle. The peanut and fish mixture is a purgative elixir that probably saved him serious internal damage.

My uncle is full of practical hilarious advice, bush medicine knowledge, and is one of the best storytellers I know; Pacific Islanders generally are. He takes his time and knows exactly when to give the right intonation, or pause to cause a fit of laughter. At night on my aunt’s porch, we sit in the darkness and sounds of the forest, with fireflies floating into the night while he tells his stories. Knowing time is limited, he visits numerous times a day to ‘stori’ with us. He shares many stories, from our chief Baitsi who led us to this land and is also the origin of the name of our clan and mother tongue; to journeys through the bush hunting crocodiles; to stories from the Crisis years. He recounts carrying my grandma and running for cover from PNG Defence Force helicopters spraying their village with bullets. Just like this land, this man is full of stories, our histories.

Though most of our family usually only speaks in Baitsi, my uncle makes the effort to talk to me in Tok Pisin, PNG’s most widely spoken official language, which I learnt living elsewhere in PNG. It means a lot to me, as it is isolating to be the only one who can’t understand and join in conversation. Last time I was here, I was with my siblings and cousin who had also missed out on learning Baitsi without family or community to speak it with. This time it’s just me. Mum translates briefly for me when it’s polite to interrupt the conversation. Not wanting to be a bother asking too often, I let it go and hope that we remember to translate later. I’m aware that it is nobody’s intention at all and that most have no idea how much I care, but there is pain in being reminded of how disconnected I and some of my family are. There is much cultural knowledge we’ve missed and continue to miss out on by these instances. I’m trying my best to learn.

Alongside the shared grief of Bougainvilleans, there is personal grief for our family that I have been processing. Displacement from our ancestral land and each other brought a lost connection to land, family, culture, language, and to some degree—identity and belonging. Legally we can’t even be here for more than 2 months, as our PNG citizenship was nulled when we became Australian citizens. PNG has recently opened up dual citizenship applications accompanied by a significant fee. I know Mum finds it hard, wishing she could have stayed with her family and community to help them. My grandparents passed away before we had the chance to return. Being here, though confronting at times, is where our hearts always long to be, to re-establish these connections for us and future generations and to be a part of the recovery of the people and land. In all of this I also always hold the tension, complexity, and awareness of the privilege in being able to leave during the Crisis, and of having both an Indigenous and foreign parent who both worked for the mine and the other privileges I was afforded with that. Tied to this is a sense of duty and responsibility which I hope to live up to.

Continuing on the road to reach our village we pass by the mine in Panguna, still guarded by a boom-gate checkpoint guarded by local landowners. Driving through the ghost mining town is eerie. Machinery and building structures stand rusty and decrepit, the rain eats away at them and nature reclaims with creeping vines. The mine is a deep open pit where there once was a forested mountain. Few things will ever grow there again. I admire the abundance of small purple orchids growing amidst the mountains of gravel. The juxtaposition of these seemingly delicate flowers powering through the rubble is a strange and hopeful sight.

Mum points out where she used to work as an accountant. A relative tells me when she was a child seeing my young mum marching through the building on a mission, and, unbeknownst to her, making her presence known to everyone with her clicking and clacking heels. We both laugh and agree Mum is still always on a mission. I’ve also learnt that Mum was fairly well known to people for her athletic achievements and a cow—yes a cow. Mum went to the all-girls boarding school run by missionary nuns on Bougainville. When the school received their first cow, mum was the only student who would milk it, so they named it after her: Lembo. It is also the word for a small tool that is both a hammer and axe. Mum is indeed a small but powerful hammer and axe of a woman, as many Bougainvillean women are. Mum started boarding school at 8 years old, since nearby schools weren’t equipped for higher grade instruction. She loved it, together with her old classmates they reminisce fondly. Many of them are now leaders in their communities. Mum’s schooling even taught her to drive a tractor and do repairs on it, which would later lead her to driving her softball team around the island to games in a bright yellow van. Though she was equipped with many unique learning opportunities, compared to my uncle who did not continue to higher grade boarding school, she missed out on sitting with elders and learning many of the stories my uncle knows.

Six hours later, as nightfall quickly approaches, we pull up to the village with bodies slightly achy from the adventure. Due to the remoteness and weak network reception preventing texts and calls from being received, our family greets us in surprise. In this dream-like moment, a swirling of joy, excitement, anxiety and relief fill me. The body and the heart know the land. Familiar and foreign. We are home.