Bridzette's+English+page



My home is located in one of Papua New Guinea's state which we call the Southern Highlands Province. It is a two story family home. There are four rooms down stairs, a kitchen, lounge room and a bathroom which comes with a toilet.

The house had been built by my grandparents from my mum's side of the family in 1995. Down stairs is for the boys and the upstairs of the house is for the girls where my grandparents reside. Up stairs have three rooms, a lounge room, a kitchen and also a bathroom with a toilet. Both parts of the house are simple yet provide comfort from the cold weather outside.

In my room there is a bunk bed which I share with my younger aunty. We have a little radio and a stack of CD's to listen to while we go to sleep. The house does not have electricity, so we usually use candles and lamps. We don't have heaters to make the house feel warm, but we have a small fire place. We go there when we feel cold, and also to do the cooking. Sometimes we cook from the gas, but most of the time at that little fire place. The down stairs lounge room has a shelf of books and a long table with chairs, while up stairs has three cushions, a long table with chairs and also shelves of books. My mum and younger sisters' room have so many cute dolls and a king size bed with big cozy doonas.

My grandparent's room is so warm and also decorated with our Papua New Guinean bags which we call (Bilums) that have beautiful and astonishing colors.

Click to see the PNG bags

One thing I like about their room is, about 4am in the morning when you look out to the blue mountains you can see the sunrise. It is so eye catching. The bathroom is always gleaming because my grandmother is so into cleaning. We have a tank filled with rain water and we have to pump it every morning. This enables the water flow up, and let the water out when we want to have a shower, or even use the tap.

The color of the house is mostly white, light green and sky blue. It's not expensive paint but it gives an outstanding appeal to the house: we don't have any glamorous paintings or portraits, but we appreciate what's there for us. We also don't have a flat screen TV, a fountain, a refrigerator or even other communication set. Yet still we have a waterfall just near our house; the cold weather to keep our food fresh and the nearby forest to play in. We have a beautiful waterfall just near our house and a fish pond with little fishes swimming in it. Our home would sound like a farm, but to us it's not. It's complicated and very different from the 'Australian' way of living. We look after sheep' and we build their little home near the sweet potatoes garden.

In front of the house we have a large sprawling land and gardens of sweet potatoes, sugar cane, corn, beans, etc.... all the way down to the swamp and through the bush. At the back of our home there's a little home, which was built in 1988 or so. That is where all the boys meet; they like to sit up there in at night. It is made from bamboo. It is so nice but some of the boys don't sleep in it most of the times.

Near our family home lays a great big wall. It is designed to the enemies when war arrives of to keep out unwanted people. It's really not just a wall, but the men at the village dug drains that were 12 or 13 feet high and our house were built on top of the higher grounds/land. It's not only for us but all the Southern Highlanders who need to separate their land from others. The lower part of the wall is what we call our foot path. Every morning you can hear birds singing at the top of their voices as they sit on the trees. Just beside our home is a Seventh Day Adventist church which has been built by my grandparents in 1998.

I really love my family home because it takes my mind away from the troublesome world outside. There are no traffic lights in Southern Highlands, not many car or trucks. Yet we all consider ourselves as equals, in our home.

One thing that I'm looking forward to is going back home, to see my family, wash in the waterfall and to go exploring in the bush.