Respect my decision

DEAR dad Papua New Guinea, I am your eldest son.
I will always remain your eldest son even if I get married and live a separate life.
As your first born son, among 21 siblings, I did everything an eldest son would do.
I fed you from my garden.
I fed my 21 siblings.
I helped you pay for their school fees.
I helped you pay for their medical treatments.
I helped you build your own house in Waigani.
I helped you build my sibling houses in their provincial centres.
From 1975 to 1989.
But one day in 1989, I said: “I can’t continue to provide, provide and provide.
“I can’t provide and provide when I have insufficient food on my table, not enough medicine for treatment, not enough fees for my own education, bad road to walk on etc”.
I wanted to stop you from continuously harvesting food from my garden. You got mad at me when I tried to stop you.
One day you came home angry.
You shot at me.
You had me wounded.
You tortured me.
You wanted me starved to death.
When I tried to retaliate and caused some harm to me.
You hired other outside men to kill me but that did not happen.
Thanks God that some of my siblings went against you.
We fought and fought. I lost many of my toes and fingers.
You lost only a finger or two as a result of my retaliation.
The scars from my wounds still remind me of your past brutal conduct against me.
I told you to leave me alone so that I could depart from you and get married.
To leave on my own. You did not want. We talked and talked.
In the end we both agreed that after 20 years’ time, I will be at liberty to make up my mind.
That is to decide whether I should be separated from you, get married and to live on my own.
This agreement was signed. We decided to stop fighting. Finally we made a temporary peace.
The 20 years after we both agreed for me to make up my final decision – whether to leave you and get married or whether to stay with you, has finally arrived.
Thank you dad for helping me decide my final decision on my future journey.
You are now 44 years old – old enough to let your first born son get married in order to start a new family. If I choose to leave you and get married to start my own separate family, will you respect my decision?
Please respect my decision if I choose to get married and to live on my own.
If I get married, I will not depart from you for good.
I will still live next to you. I may help you if you need help in future.
Neighbours will still see us as the father and son even if I get married and live on my own.
You may be concerned that I am not really financially prepared to get married.
But dad, I am not so worried about money. I have the seas to fish and to sell those fish to get money.
I already have sufficient land with forests and minerals in it. I can cut tress and sell them for money.
I can plant coconuts, cocoa and other cash crops and harvest them to sell them for money.
I can still dig the minerals and sell those minerals for money.
The money I will earn from the resources found on the land and the seas will be much more than the number of my children that I shall have.
I promise to support as supporting you from monies collected from those resources is not new to me.
So if I decide to get married in three months’ time, please respect my decision.
Your son, Bougainville.

Weko Tantanu
Siwai Village