PEOPLE

Embrace challenge, retiree says

By ENAMYRA ANI
UPNG Journalism student
FRANK Tunduwa was one of three long-serving staff of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General who retired on Dec 10 after clocking a total of 125 years between them.
Tunduwa, Benjamin Metio and Peni Keris were farewelled by their colleagues in a small gathering on the day.
Tunduwa, 59, from Pambal Village, Poroma District of Southern Highland was described as a very dedicated, humble and hardworking man who spent 36 years with the public service.
Tunduwa was born on Oct 28, 1960 and started his education at a nearby primary school which at that time was run by the Catholic Church.
“My journey to Port Moresby was not an easy one. I come from a remote area where there was no school.
“When the Catholic people came, they were looking for people to teach. None of us knew what education was and what it did and the worst part was, my parents and I didn’t know how to speak in English or pidgin.
“I wanted to be educated so I carried my kaukau bag and walked for seven hours from my village to the school. I walked through mountains, rivers and jungles just to get to school.
“I had my bag of kaukau for one week and on Friday nights, I would go back to my village to spend weekends and return to school with the next week’s supply of kaukau on Monday morning or Sunday afternoon.”

After completing primary education, he attended Mendi High School in the 1980s.
After grade 10, he was selected to the University of Papua New Guinea to do what was known then as the foundation year. Towards the middle of the year at UPNG, he gave up to seek employment. He started working in 1983 when he found a casual job with the Magisterial Services headquarters in downtown Port Moresby.
In 1984, Tunduwa became a trainee assistant coordinator and assisted in the training of magistrates. He was involved in the upgrading of older magistrates’ qualifications which made it possible for all to acquire law degrees at the UPNG law school.
“I was the one who made sure that the magistrates where qualified, got their diplomas and degrees.”
Tunduwa joined the Probation Services of the Department of Justice in 1987. The unit was newly establish therefore it needed new recruits and he was lucky to be promoted to the position of senior probation officer in the National Capital District office. He was a pioneer officer of that branch.
In 1989, Tunduwa was moved to be the executive officer to the Chief Probation Officer Leo Tohichem. He assisted the probation offices in the provinces.
Again in 1993 he was moved to establish the Parole Board secretariat, after the Parole Act was passed in parliament. He was involved in setting up of the office and the appointment of the board chairman and members.
“My important responsibilities that reflected some of my commitment to the organisation and department is the establishment of the office of the Parole Board, improvements in the provinces where the offices were provided furniture and equipment, and vehicles for some provinces.”
Then in 1987, he reverted to being the regional secretariat officer for the Highlands and in 1998 he moved to the Legal Policy and Governance branch to initially assist with setting up of the Release on License and Power of Mercy committees. The following year Tunduwa was taken back to the JLSC secretariat to set up the office which now continues to deal with the NJSS and Magisterial Service appointment and discipline matters.
In 2013, Tunduwa was the acting director who worked along the human resource management branch on the major re-restructure of the separation of the CBC branches into three, (probation, parole and juvenile justice) giving them administrative autonomy.
He was then deployed to the Restorative Justice Coordination branch but he did not stay long because he was moved back to Probation Services to assist as the deputy CPO Policy and Standards until his retirement.
He said at the farewell gathering that the challenges over his career have actually made him better at his work in serving the public.
“That’s how the challenge was for me to be educated, to be here and serving the people of PNG and working with very good intelligent officers that I have met up with over the years.
“I took challenges really seriously rather than getting annoyed. When the boss says something don’t turn away. You are given a challenge. Every human being should take the challenge because as government servants, we are serving the people.”
“You have to have the strength, energy and focus to make sure what you are tasked to do is completed because you have chosen the journey to work.
“I am happy that I’m exiting and I’m very thankful that some officers, especially when I was affected in some ways, supported me morally.
“Now our mission is complete so we are about to depart so we are leaving it to you young ones to take over. Never give up because of obstacles that come your way.”

No husband but cans to turn to

By ENAMYRA ANI
BEING an unemployed single mother supporting a family through selling odd items including empty aluminum cans is not easy. There are struggles that will really bring you down to a point that you will feel like giving up.
Such is the reality for Madlyn Mondo, 48, from Biga Village in Rigo District, Central who has been living as a single mum for more than a decade after her second husband left her.
Mondo who lives at Kwikila has been selling cans to earn an income and provide for her children.
She started her education in 1981 at Ruatoka Elementary School, Kwikila, and then from 1983-1986 she did grades three to six at Ruatoka Primary School.
Unfortunately she did not make it to high school because she was married.
“When I finished school, my marriage was arranged by force with a Chimbu man. So I married him and we had three children. We were living in Port Moresby.
“After acouple of years, we had marriage problems because my husband was seeing another woman. I had no place to go because city life was really hard so my only chance was to go back to Kwikila.
“When I went back to Kwikila, my entire family hated me and didn’t want me to live with them but I did not care because that’s the place I grew up in.”
While living at Kwikila for some years, she met a dozer operator from East New Britain who later became her second husband.

They had a child who has completed grade eight last year in Rabaul. When they got married, they moved to Edevu in Kairuku-Hiri district where he was posted to work there.
After few years, something happened at his work place so they returned to Kwikila. In 2008, Mondo’s father chased her husband out due to some family issues and he never returned.
Then in 2016, her house got burnt down by her elder son, which made life harder for Mondo and her children.
She struggled to find a home to take refuge but no one helped. She had no one to run to so she spent at least a night at the Kwikila market.
Luckily, her neighbour Ebena Gabi and his wife approached her around 11pm and told her to live with them for a while. She was happy and sad at the same time that at least her neighbours had the heart to help her while her family didn’t.
She said she was thankful living with them but she wanted to be independent and also do something productive rather than expecting Ebena and his wife to provide for her.
“When Peter’s (her son) father went away and then my house got burnt down, life was really hard for me to look after Peter because he was doing grade one at Ruatoka Elementary School.
“But I thank Ebena and his wife Tau for taking me into their home at that time when I had no one to run too. My family didn’t show any support or help towards me and my son and not even my church members.
“While I was living with them, I didn’t want to be a burden to them so I asked one of the boys to build a hut for me and Peter near Ebena’s house.
“The house had no flooring, no window, just canvass around it. We slept on a canvass at night. I didn’t want Peter to live like that so we started collecting empty cans, smashing them and packing them in a 50kg bags.
“We would go around Kwikila station looking for empty cans, bring them home and leave them on the road for vehicles to run over them. We collected them the next day and filled the bags. I filled about 10 bags with cans and took them to Port Moresby to sell.”
That was the start of her new beginning to venture in doing her little business.
When she sold her first lot of cans she made about K180. With that amount of money, she decided to buy food for a fundraising and also managed to buy other food to last her and Peter two weeks. Mondo also wrote to relevant authorities at Kwikila to assist her with housing materials but they never responded to her. This made her sad because she thought they would help.
“I wrote to the district office but there was no response from them. I don’t know they must have misplaced my letter, I’m not sure. So the only way to support myself and Peter was to collect and sell cans.
“I prepared cooked food and sold one dish for K10. It took me a while to continue the fundraising until I came up with K1,500.
“From that K1,500, I gave K500 to some people cut timbers for me and with K500 I bought rations for my carpenters and the other K500 was spent on flooring, walls and also food for the house.”
The only person that assisted her by providing roof sheets for her house was Rigo Central LLG president Fred Silona.
When the house was completed in 2017, Mondo and Peter moved in to start a fresh life. But she never gave up collecting cans.
“We never stopped collecting cans. Those cans you see lying everywhere in the market, I come with my son to collect them and take them to the house. I sold the second lot of 50kg bags and made around K260.
“With K260, I bought some more stuff for my market. From then on I became a regular customer at Erima Lot 60s.
“I collect and sell cans for extra income because now my son is schooling in Rabaul. I use the money I get from selling things to pay for his school fees, buy uniforms and and other things.
“I also use my market money to pay his fares to come from Rabaul to Port Moresby and return there.”
Though she faced many difficulties and hardships in life she never gave up because she put God as her first priority.
“I always put God first before doing what I want to do because He is the one who created us and the one who knows what is in front of us and behind us so whatever good or bad things I go through, I always give him praise or cry out to Him because He is the only one that knows my heart.”
Mondo also said that at first she thought marriage was going to be good and she would enjoy a happy life.
“Some men lie to us women. They only want to see our bodies but as time goes by and we have two, three, four or five children, they go cheating on us and then come back, argue with us and abuse us.
“Only an honest man or woman will stick to their partner until death separates them.”
Meanwhile, Mondo is still collecting cans. She has 10 more bags yet to be filled for sale in Port Moresby.