On the way to Mt Giluwe

COVER STORY

By NATHAN LATI
I was not thinking of tourism when building my house. I needed a space to live after retirement. I built my house without knowing that this place will have more space to accommodate visitors. Now my intentions for the house have changed into tourism business and the Piambil Faith Missionary Home is a home away from home for visitors. – Rev Wane Ninjipa

ONE of the oldest serving missionaries of the PNG Bible Church, Rev Wane Ninjipa has turned his newly built retirement home into a comfortable haven for visitors into Piambil Village in Southern Highlands.
The village is located near the foothills of Mt Giluwe, the second highest peak in the Pacific after Mt Whilem and located in Imbonggu District.
Rev Ninjipa’s idea was to renovate and do extensions on his old house and he started gathering materials since 2013. However, he changed his mind one morning after looking down to the swampy area at the edge of his garden.
Armed with a tape measure and a bush knife he went to the swampy area where the current Faith Missionary Home stands and asked his brothers to help clear the area to build his dream house for retirement.
The foundation work was very challenging, recalls Re Ninjipa. They had to dig ditches that were backfilled with stones from the nearby creek to drain out the water and make the surface dry.
With the local expertise and skills coming into play, the area was cleared, water drained out and the foundation was made suitable to build on.
The home comprising six bedrooms upstairs with a shared bathroom, three rooms downstairs with a master bedroom, bathroom and a modern kitchen, has been well-designed to appear like the work of a professional architect.
Surprisingly, it was the creative artwork from one of his tribesmen and a secondary school principal.
Rev Ninjipa is a skilful man himself and when it comes to practical work in his area or elsewhere he lives for his missionary duties, he has proven the worth of his technical skills. He was taught by the early PNG Bible Church missionaries at Piambil and Pangia to do painting, build houses, farming and other technical works that are useful to his life.
The Piambil Faith Missionary Home stands out to reflect the technical skills Rev Ninjipa learned during his early days with the missionaries.
His desire to serve as a missionary never stopped. The carpenters needed his presence at the construction site. By the time the foundation work was in progress, Rev Ninjipa was on duty travel to United States in early 2018.
With the support from their four daughters and only son, their mother turned to his tribe to look for local carpenters when Rev Ninjipa was away in the United States on missionary duties.
With things working right and in favour of Mrs Ninjipa and her family, the local carpenters were willing to help her build the proposed house. When the local carpenters saw the plan and the foundation work, they could not believe that the design was for a building that was going to be very big, recalled Rev Ninjipa.
“There was no doubt I will stop or delay the building so I asked the carpenters to follow the design drafted by the local secondary school principal with my input,’’ added, Rev Ninjipa.
The structures of the house were completed between 2018 and late 2019. The house took the desired shape as expected by Rev Ninijpa himself and it was finally ready to occupy.
Towards the end of 2019, the house was ready for official opening and the name for the house was tossed around among the families, the carpenters, his close friends and relatives.

Piambil Faith Missionary Home was selected among the other names suggested and it was carved into the grandstand of the car park with colourful native flowers to be unveiled during the official opening.
What was intended as a family home opened its doors to the first guests from the PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) who were conducting tourism awareness and doing product scoping in the Imboggu District following an invitation from the Imboggu MP and Minister for Inter-governmental Relations Pila Ninigi.
It could be curious to know why someone like Rev Ninjipa converted a new family home to allow visitors to stay. It is no surprise nor chance for the Ninjipas to call their family home a home away from home for visitors.
With Christian principles instilled in the family and working with people from all walks of life and backgrounds around the world, Rev Ninjipa had met many people and made friends who would one day visit where he lives and

Faith Missionary Home at Piambil will service the needs of his visitors away from their homes.
And it is inspiring to know that one of Rev Ninijpa’s daughters is an avid Imbonggu basket promoter and marketer. She has a tourism background and interests which will complement the interest to open the family home to visitors.
The Piambil Faith Missionary Home is an added value for the family to promote and support tourism in the area.
There are greater effects in tourism expected in the area as the marketing and promotion of tourism products in the area continues.
When PNGTPA officers chatted with Rev Ninjipa, the home stay concept was discussed and he was interested to ensure that he would provide the best for his visitors to Piambil who stayed at Faith Missionary Home.
Undeniably, Mt Giluwe is currently the centre of attraction in the area and Faith Missionary Home, ideally located near the foothills, provides ease of access to trekkers. Such facilities are part of the tourism product support amenities and services that are required to support the core tourism products like the Mt Giluwe and the initiative by Rev Ninjipa will make way for better returns in tourism for the community and the district.
Piambil Village is not known to many people and the area near the foothills of Mt Giluwe is still unexplored and home to the New Guinea singing dog as well as unique flora and fauna species. Now the options have been open to overcome hurdles in trekking Mt Giluwe with an accommodation midway to the summit.
Within the same fringes, many might never know that, the oldest Highlands Highway that once connected Southern Highlands (Mendi) and Mt Hagen via the Tambul District and Piambil is still serviceable by four-wheel drive and whoever takes on the road gets to see the scenic beauty of the area which words may not express better than cameras would.
It is indeed certain that PNG has some of the wonderful and unexplored places like Piambil with many interesting sites that are still sacred and connected to the people through legends and myths like the Wabu cave where the mythical Wenewene lives.
The legends are fascinating as evidences like footprints, creeks, trees and plants near the cave have significant signs and marks to confirm the legends.

We Papua New Guineans are still captivated by the interest to travel overseas for holidays when we have not yet explored our own beautiful places or trekked some of the rugged terrains to fully appreciate the wonders of our country.
The experiences are not matched even by world heritage listings.
Such PNG locations are where you get to unleash into the freezing cold streams of the mountains and breathe the fresh air with a sense of renewal like I did near the foothills of Mt Giluwe.

• Nathan Lati is a product development officer at the PNGTPA.