I personally had never been to Rorovana before but quite a few of the others had been. I spend alot of my time with the guards that work at Loloho and alot of them are from the village, so I was looking forward to seeing where most of them had lived their whole lives. Some of these guys, who were to numerous for me to remember every name, (other than a few whom stand out), would, I thought appreciate the fact that I had finally made it to their home. I was travelling with Jimmy, the Loloho Hendrix, who also spends much of his time with the guards and his presence alone would bring out a few familiar faces.
We took the smooth trip in the pleasant morning appreciating the fact that the weather had turned it on for us. It was not long before we had reached the headland which the hamlets had been protected by for possibly thousands of years. As we approached, we could see the scantily clad pikaninis from Rorovana 1 coming out onto the beach to our left. There was about 10 all up and they were about 500m away as we approached the shore at Rorovana 2 where more children were emerging.
The barge ebbed its way up onto the grey sand which stretched for about 2m before giving away to a green ground dwelling plant. Groups of children had gathered but kept their distance and the boaties strutted their stuff, sending the familiar signals back to the cabin. The signal was given for the cargo to make their way onto the land. We piled out in an orderly fasion. There were smiles from every face that was on the beach and smiles from every face deplaning from the ship. The houses that lined the shore were in view and we headed towards one off to out right after being given the go ahead from Spike.
It was about 1030 hrs by now and the most of the village was either at church or preparing to go. As we made ourselves comfortable at the house, a couple of the villagers cameout and chatted with members of the PMG of whom they knew from previous visits or through their work at Loloho. There weren't too many pikaninis around by now as they had been ushered off towards the lotu for their Sunday mass.
A little later one of the family Chiefs and the Paramount Chief James greeted us. We were informed that we should probably wait out until the rest of the village had returned from church and then we would be given a tour. As we were not in a hurry being Sunday and the fact that we were growing used to Pacific time, we were happy to settle in and chat amongst our selves and the couple of locals that were still around. Jimmy, with one of his wives (Talia, purchased on arrival in bougainville (an acoustic)), urged me to pull out a blues harp to accompany, and maybe entertain three young girls who he had heard singing inside the sacsac. They shyly came forward accompanied by their mother and a hymn book and sat down next to Jimmy.
