Rulino’s tale of life

By HENRICK YAMO
THERE are many things in PNG that go unrecorded.
People’s individual experienceof the war is one.
Experiences from taim bipo is another.
There are also old people who would have made it into the Guinness Book of Records for being the oldest living person on the planet but don’t know how to.
Up in the Southern Highlands, at Koromi village to be exact lives a sprightly old woman who says she was about 19 years of age when WWII arrived in PNG in 1945.
She is still active and a joy to be around. Rulino Aiyo is now about 90 years old.
One of the first things that you notice about her height.
She jokes that she was a lanky young lass and was not short suitors from all over Ialibu who tried to woo her into marriage.
She surely must have cut quite a figure in her younger days.
I briefly visited her at her Koromi hamlet on a cold morning in the third week of last month. She was at her eldest daughter’s home in Koromi.
Her daughter Maria James Yali is a pastor.
She vividly recalled interesting times of her journey through life. Rulino, once a heavy smoker, said there are taboos that she still sticks to as well as traditional cures and remedies that she thinks helped her live this long.
She has four children, 19 grandchildren and 20 great grandchildren.
Although skin now hangs from her frame, her voice is still audible and she believes that God has had a hand in her life till now.
Here are some suggestions she has for others;
a) Positive mind
“Be optimistic at all times and avoid being pessimistic about matters or in any activity you are engaged with.”
Avoid anxiety and be happy all times even no one closest bothers to care for you!”
b) Diet
“Not every food, tasty and tempting or otherwise is good for your body.
Be selective and avert fatty stuff and dwell on dry local foods, particularly garden foods. She insists bush dark greens and sweet potatoes [kaukau] are the best balanced meals and perhaps keeping close to a lit fire for warmth daily is what kept my bones strong and active”.
c) Social Interactions
“Be friendly and respectable as you interact among peer groups and older people and avert getting engaged in illicit activities as there is someone undoubtedly watching over you even in the most unseen closet”.
d) Maintain a good heart
“Smile at all times and give freely and never expect in return – leave all unto the hands of nature and let it work around the clock as it will certainly reward you in its own time. .
Filter your heart with healthy deeds and be a positive thinker and player of life at all times, in doing so certainly keeps your heart pure, active and alive”.
e) Be a friend to all
“Learn to be friendly and comforting to all animals both domestic and wild and share the same love and warmth as you would offer to humans both in deeds and words”.
With a relieved breathe, she finally discloses with a commonly expressed motto;
“Be a friend to all and an enemy to none!