Saturday afternoon – at long last we arrived in Buka – our home for the next two years. Andi S., who is also working for the Diocese of Bougainville, his wife Margaret and their two children, Hapea and Franz picked us from the Airport.
Bougainville is a really beautiful Island if you have passion for nature. Unbelievably long palm trees and Cocoa plantations, plenty of trees which provide all kind of fruits as well as sweet potatoes, yams, cassava and much more.
Flowers and any plants are just growing all over. For beauties like these you pay a lot in Austria or Africa, but here they are just growing wild and you have to cut them down every two weeks. Orchids higher than 2 metres are just normal!
And the people! Wow! Friendly, everybody is greeting you even if they don’t know you and they are so curious and very respectful. There are no beggars around and when you are walking around nobody will disturb you. Sometime they just ask questions and want to know more about you, where you are coming from, what you are doing, …..
We even had good luck as Bishop Bernhard Unabali was around and invited us for supper together with Andi and Margaret.
The next step cleaning the house and do some shopping. This was the time when we got a real shock. The prices are just extremely high – everything costs much more than in Austria or Kenya.
With the help from Andi, his wife and Andre and Ute (also HORIZONT3000 TAs) we were exploring the town. They really gave us a very nice and warm welcome.
MTA’s first days in Buka went well though she was tired of all the travelling. She was really fed up and happy at the arrival in Buka. She said: “Yeah, now we are here – no more flying!” Marie-Therese became immediately friends with the three children – Hapea, Franz and their cousin Nana. It’s good that they just living around the corner. But much more children are living around the compound. They are all friends now and meeting and playing at the big grass field just in front of our house.
The children here are very open and have no fear to new children. They just took MTA in and she was part of the group and playing with what the nature provides, no toys!!!. Nobody is an outsider here, or others are laughing about others. They are playing very peaceful together.
