Teacher walks for two days to get to the road

By LUKE KAMA
A teacher from Kavo Primary School in the remote Mt Koiari area of Central says it very difficult for children in that part of the country to receive education because of transportation problems.
Teacher Gordon Hawaine, from Kerema in Gulf, who was posted to Kavo last year, expressed concern that the lack of transportation made it difficult for teachers to live with their families in the schools around the Kokoda Track catchment communities like Mt Koiari, Efogi, Kagi, Menri.
Hawaine walked for almost two days following a sketch map given to him by a colleague at Kavo to reach the Manono section of the Edevu-Mdlogo Road last week. He was lucky to get a lift to Port Moresby from there.
“It took me two days to reach here (Manono),” he said.
“I cannot go with my family and teach there because life there is very difficult without access to any mode of transport – air or land. There are only bush tracks that we use to walk.”
Hawaine said he used to walk using the Kokoda Track to Owers Corner in Sogeri but that track was difficult to walk and more suitable for adventure.
“I heard that the track using the Mdlogo-Edevu Road is okay and a bit shorter and so I told one of my colleague teachers to draw me a sketch map which I used and walked. I don’t think I will go back,” he told The National.