ANNIVERSARY

Family still sore from loss

By JACK AMI
TODAY, Friday, Aug 6 is the first anniversary of the death of a promising young Gulf man in a faraway land.
Edmund Michael Ipai passed away in Honolulu, Hawaii, United States of America last year in a car accident. A possible bright life ahead was snuffed out and the hopes of a doting family were crushed.
This is a day Edmund’s parents and sisters will always remember as the pain of losing a son so young who had a lot to offer to the family and PNG, is simply unbearable.
He would have turned 28 today and his parents Michael and Roselyn Ipai, sisters Sonia, Ruby and Delma, as well as other immediate relatives will get together to remember him and recall the times they had spent together as a family at Sabama, National Capital District.
Edmund was the third born in the family who are originally from Aravaa village in Baimuru.
He graduated with a degree in political science in 2018 from Brigham Young University in Honolulu.
For the Ipai family this was a huge investment and they had all looked forward for the returns in future but now all has gone to dust.
Edmund was buried at Pari village grave yard in NCD which is close by to Sabama where the Ipai family live so they can visit and clean the grave from time to time.
“His death is still fresh in our hearts,” father Michael said.
“We spent 22 years with Edmund at Sabama and in 2015 he departed for Hawaii and that was the last time we saw him and it was terribly heart breaking when he passed away.
“For four years we did not see him growing up to be a man among his three sisters Sonia, Ruby and Delma and mother Roselyn,” he lamented.
Michael has grown his beard to mourn the death of his one and only son.
“I don’t know when I will shave my beard and his mother will remove the black clothes; his passing is still fresh in our hearts.
“We are planning for a funeral feast. Invitations have been extended to his immediate relatives, school mates, close friends and other people who had supported us during our period of grieving.
“After the feast, the family will also erect a headstone at the graveyard.
“We are still mourning and are at loss for words since our son passed away in foreign land, and returned to our shores in a casket. That is something that family and relatives still find hard to believe and accept.
“This has shattered our future as Edmund had not said thank you and good-bye and death has robbed us.
“My son was the only boy among his three sisters and his passing has put a lot of pain in our hearts forever. He is very disciplined, humble and cheerful in the community unlike other children who grew up in the settlement. There was something different in our son because he was a strong Christian since a teenager and had maintained that into adulthood.”
To repatriate Edmund’s body the immediate family had raised and sourced funds for a proper funeral service and burial.
When the casket arrived at Jackson Airport, Port Moresby it was taken to the Funeral Home in Erima to await funeral arrangements.
The father said the body was in good care at the funeral home for two weeks which cost the family K8,000.
“Because of the love we had for our son we had to give him the best from our hearts for the last time.”
Mother Roselyn, still wearing her mourning clothes, cannot get over the loss.
“For me he is my only son that I gave birth to and as a mother, his death has left a very big scar in my old heart for ever. It will be there until the day I meet him again.
“Edmund was such a big investment and treasure to me and my immediate family in the village that we were all hoping to harvest from his degree and employment but this has all gone to dust,” she said.
“Because he was so humble and cheerful I cannot stop thinking about him and visions of him bring tears to my eyes. My son always called on Mondays to check on how we were and when we were short on funds he deposited money into the father’s account to keep us going.
“This was why we say that Edmund was a huge investment and treasured all of us like we treasured him,” she said.
Edmund’s elder sister Sonia said: “We are all heartbroken as Edmund was our only brother and to lose him was like a brick wall has fallen on us so suddenly and shocking the entire family. We will miss his smiling face but his memories will still linger on in our hearts.”
Dad Michael, a trade unionist, was fortunate that thePNG Communication Workers Union had assisted in arranging Edmund’s visa and travel allowances to further his studies in Hawaii.
Following his death workers unions in Port Moresby also contributed cash for the haus krai.
Police Union general secretary and National Gaming Control Board chairman Clemence Kanau who also invested in Edmund was shocked by the death.
Kanau is from East Sepik but treats Michael like a blood brother.
Michael also thanked all the ‘good Samaritans’ who had contributed to help repatriate the body to Port Moresby.
“I thank the PNG embassy in Washington DC and the Foreign Affairs department for helping the family to repatriate the body back to Port Moresby.
Ipai said without their support during the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions the body would never have returned home.
He thanked the good Lord for His intervention.

• Jack Ami is a freelance journalist

Fare collector gets a degree

Self-determination pays off for Dei man

THIS is a success story of a 40-year-old from Dei District in the Western Highlands.
He is Steven Pugla Kuri, a father of four who has defied odds stacked against him to attain a degree in Public Finance and Accountancy.
Earlier on in life Kuri’s dream of becoming someone had been shattered and he found himself dropping out of Grade 10 in 1999. His mother bought him a one-way ticket to Port Moresby the following year in the hope that Pugla would find a decent job.
After months of job searching around the city, life began to turn for the worse so he ended up being a bus fare collector (boskru) before becoming a security officer at a bank.
In 2005, he was recruited by the Office of the Auditor General as a driver and was attached to the finance and administration division. After a while, his immediate boss and senior officers had seen a promising talent in him and so started him off as a trainee finance officer. Later he was further promoted to finance officer (accounts payable and advances).
It was there that he realised the need for a better qualification to get through the upper ranks so he decided to enroll at the International Training Institute and graduated with a Certificate in Business. After that he enrolled at the Institute of Public Administration (now Pacific Institute of Governance and Leadership) and obtained a Diploma in Accounting in 2011.
In 2018, he successfully applied for a scholarship offered by the Department of Finance to do the Bachelors in Public Finance and Accountancy programme and completed the two-year programme at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) and completed his studies in 2020.
Last Monday, he was the proud recipient of a bachelor degree in public finance and accountancy.
He thanks God for His continuous guidance and strength upon his life, and his wife for never giving up on him. Pugla also acknowledges Finance Secretary Dr Ken Ngangan and his executive management team for tailoring the degree programme in partnership with UPNG, the Auditor-General’s Office and UPNG School of Business and Public Policy and course coordinator Panditha Bandara.
He is looking forward to further studies.
Pugla and his wife Regina have two sons Shadrick (20 months), Misheck (7 years) and two daughters Sabastina (6 years) and Natasha (two months).
He did primary education at Kotna and Ambuga Primary Schools from 1990 to 1995.
He then did grades seven to 10 at Kitip High School from 1996 to 1999.
In 2000, he was unable to do Grade 11 at Kabiyufa Secondary School in Eastern Highlands due to lack of funding.
After that, he spent about four months in the village while his classmates were happily back in school.
His mother Martha Mary was never going to see her son miss out on further education so she sent him to Port Moresby on a one-way ticket with nothing in his pockets.
Without academic qualifications, he ended up being a bus off-sider. In the same year, he met Regina Mali Rapdie, his beautiful wife from Bonga in Lower Kagul area in Tambul also in WHP.
His advice

“To be successful in life, choose a good partner because he or she will determine the successes and failures in your life. Don’t choose husbands or wives because of beauty. Choose someone with a good heart, who will back when you are down and stands with you. If choose the wrong partner, he or she can be a burden in your life. Man or woman plays a major role in a man’s or woman’s success.
“To those who dropped out in education, especially the so-called failures, don’t see failures as stumbling blocks. Always put God first in everything. If you failed in one area, try another way or upgrade your failed grades.
“I found myself as a dropout 22 years ago. It was a low point in life. Others looked down on me, some made demeaning comment’s saying that I would never get anywhere in life but I thank God that I never gave up!”
Looking back to those years Pugla said he was humbled and blessed to have graduated from UPNG with a degree.
Pugla’s advice to parents is: “If your children do not make it to a higher institution, don’t treat them as failures. Your cooperation and support are needed to upgrade their grades.
Pugla has “so much” respect for his former colleagues, bus off-siders, security guards and cabbies.
“I can guarantee you that if I can make it from being a simple Grade 10 “drop out” to obtain a degree I believe that you can make it to! I started as a bus off-sider, security guard, taxi driver, office driver and eventually became an auditor with the Auditor General’s Office of Papua New Guinea.
“If your parents, family members, guardians or the education system fail you, believe in God and trust your very best friend – yourself. God never wants any human being to be failure for the rest of their lives. There is always a way out. Only you can make it and don’t expect someone else to do it for you.
Pugla says telling his story is not to boast about his achievement but to motivate others out there who are or may have faced similar situations in life to rethink and take a proactive approach to success as well.

• Story and pictures supplied by the Auditor-General’s Office