A road to Yongumugl

The Yongumugl people in Chimbu take on the task of building a road out of their wilderness, writes ZACHERY PER

IN the early hours of Monday this week, Chimbu war-cries resounded throughout the Yongumugl gully, rousing people to rise and take on the task at hand.
Rise they did, and armed with spades, sledge hammers, crowbars and picks, they congregated at a badly deteriorated section of the road at Gaglmabondi riddled with huge limestone boulders.
They lit huge bon fires around the limestone boulders to make them easier to crack. 
And they worked from dawn to dusk, breaking the limestone and building a road to link themselves to the outside world.
The people from council wards three to seven of Yongumugl Local Level Government (LLG) have committed themselves to repair deteriorating sections of the road once a week.
It is what they must do, since a pre-election promise by a politician in 2006 to commit K8 million to maintain Wara Simbu to Mata ring road via Mai in Sinasina-Yongumugl, Chimbu Province, never came true.
Five years on, only three kilometers of the road from Wara Simbu to Kakai village experienced a bit of upgrading. The contractors pulled out leaving almost 20 kilometers of the road to the mercy of nature.
The people, deprived of basic government services, felt bitter and betrayed as they continued to carry heavy loads on foot over long rugged distances.
The hopes of a population of nearly 20,000 living behind the Gaglmabondi limestone mountain range slowly diminished. Access to better services was everyone’s dreams and expectations.
After anxiously waiting for five years to see maintenance work on the road, the people unanimously agreed to take the burden into their own hands to maintain the road that was manually constructed in the 1960s.
The road is the only link for the Yongumugl people to the outside world.
Catholic Priest Fr Joseph Sakitei and Yongumugl tribal leader Boyd Sika spearheaded the move and moblised the tribesmen on to the road. Joining their tribesmen were school children and public servants mainly health workers and teachers.
Over 1, 500 students from Mai, Bogegewa and Parua primary schools, Mai high school and seven elementary schools and their teachers walked out of their classrooms to lend a hand on the road works.
Fr Sakitei encouraged the people to become self-reliant and not depend on free handouts and expect the Government to come to help them all the time.
He conducted a special dedication mass on Sunday towards work on the road. The mass was attended by nearly 2, 000 people.
The Catholic priest from Ghana in Africa who has been an advocate of local community empowerment said important infrastructure like roads will help them bring garden produce to the open markets and facilitates for services to come to them.
“We must learn to take ownership of important infrastructures because only through good roads services will flow into rural areas, you should now start to take ownership of important infrastructures and look after them,” Fr Sakitei said.
He urged them to do away with claim and compensation attitude which kills the interest of service providers and the government.
Sika an engineer with the works department’s Kundiawa branch and a local community leader from Yongmugl told the people that the road connecting their area is for them and not for politicians in Waigani and public servants in Kundiawa.
He said road and bridges are there to serve them (people), they have to take responsibility and maintain them so flow of services into their area is sustained.
“If a vehicle went off the road and rolled down the steep cliff into the river below, the prime minister or the local MP or the governor of Chimbu will not be killed, it is you and I who will be killed.
“It is of significant importance that we must take the responsibility into our own hands to fix our roads and maintain them at all times,” Sika said.
The people agreed to set aside one day in a week to work on the road to ensure it remains passable all year around.
A pioneer businessman and teacher from Yongumugl tribe, Caspar Damien commended Fr Sakitei and Sika for their encouragement to get people to work on the road.
He said under colonial rule, the people of Yongumugl tribe felled huge trees, pulled them down hill and even carried them up hill for more than 15 kilometres to manually build Wara Simbu Bridge to enable people to cross the river.
Damien said their grand parents were loyal to their colonial masters unlike today’s generation who rely on free-handouts and are not independent.
One of the local councillors Nime Gand applauded the efforts of Sakitei and Sika saying for far too long they have carried on foot coffee bags, garden produce and did not receive basic supplies.
Cr Gand called on the people to cooperate and support the initiative which is in the best interest to serve their needs and expectations.
Head teacher of Mai primary school Ludwig Kupus said taking children out of the classrooms to work on the road is depriving their right to learning.
Kupus blamed political leaders and bureaucrats for not doing their jobs and thus depriving the rural population of vital goods and services.
“This is like a protest and petition we stage for the Government and authorities to come out to bail us out of this problem,” Kupus said.