Pia Some photos that may disturb you. Today the wind was blowing the ash down the streets into choking clouds making it so depressing.
Working your way down the photos - the top one is taken from the Mataput end of Mango Avenue looking back towards Malaguna St
The next photo is what is left of the old market on the corner of Mango and Malaguna. The new market is now at the other end of Malaguna St.
This is Malaguna St looking back towards the main wharf and Tunnel Hill.
Not sure whether Sacred Heart School was there in your day. The piles are ash that have been swept up from the carpark. Imagine what the kids play in every day in the school yard??
25 comments:
Dear Jules,
What a wonderful thing you did for me, those photos are really helping me lay some old heartaches I can tell you. Gordon says you can never go back and I do agree with him. I am coming to the conclusion that I MUST live in the Rabaul of the 50's and 60's when it was at its most vibrant and it is from this perspective that I'm setting down the structure for my next piece of writing. I only wish I'd been as industrious as you and taken pictures of those halcyon days. But this blogging with you is so inspiring. I'll most definitely give you a ring in the coming days to exchange private contact details. Once again the internet connects people; such a mix of the personal and the impersonal
Hi Jules,
I had a spot of bother with the gmail so I posted a shorty.
Yes, the Sacred Heart Mission primary school was my school for most of primary. In those days the girls and boys were segregated with an imaginary line seperating the playing fields into boys and girls zones. As God was the head prefect, judge and jury no one crossed that line. On one day of the school year we were allowed to play with each other and that was great fun!
The main school block ran in an East/West fashion with a verandah walkway running down the side on the left as you walked towards the Cathedral. My parents worked very hard as did the rest of Rabaul's Catholic Community to raise the money to buid it and buy the specially ordered carillion bells from Europe. Boy was my daddy proud of those bells. Mum and he sang in the church choir under FR Rieschel. The father especially loved my mother's voice as it was a "pure soprano". I have the vouce of a bullfrog but am not bad at Blues backup when I'm in my cups.
One year as they were digging the foundations for the cathedral they came across the skeletal remains of a dead Japanese soldier and we all got to see it inour individual classes. Sooo creepy because no one one knew ever got to die in Rabaul; there were no really old people and if you got seriously sick you were off "down South" where you usually died or you came home if you got better.
We used to do sewing in the church hall but got to do our preparation for 1st holy communion in the BOY's classroom, oh wow!.
I'd initially gone to the junior school in Matupit Farm campus but being the only white kid there, I got picked on seriously so the parents put me into the state primary school. THAT only lasted a year cause I came home and asked daddy what a barstard was. Back I was rushed into the pious arms of the nuns. Mum and dad's biggest threat was to send me to the boarding school in Vunapope and that had the desired effect though how naughty could I have been. I had to think for hours to come up with venial sins for confession; poor old Fr Franke must have been bored to tears!!!!
I made up for a lot of supressed sinfulness when I left for uni I can tell you but those were the days when us adolescent girls would have truly serious and meaningful discussion about saving ourselves for the man. We would have been better off putting that energy into getting killer marks and doing coporate law.
Mumused to donate a giant economy sized tin of Minties to the winning team of the school sports but my team NEVER won. It was only until years and years later that I twigged to the psychology of her ways, she knew that the nuns didn't pick on the kids of generous participants in the school community; it's a bit like you know as a teacher which kid in a class is a teacher's kid. They're the ones you have to dot the T's for!!!!
Is the grotto to Mary still behind the alter end of the cathedral. I used to like that spot very much. I often nursed my bruised knuckles after piano lessons with Mother St John the Baptist. All gone now I guess. If you can, get a book called "Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood", reading it made me ache with laughter.
Anyhow cheers and thanks for now Pia
Pia - I hope you get your book written - it is sooooo important to record these amazing memories!!!
I have just written a book (based on food)with all my family history and travel & PNG stories
Jules: ??? Why have I missed this before...
Jules and Pia, watching your posts to each other as been a joy, it is so nice that through blogging a friendship as blossomed. I wish you both well with it.
I have learned so much from reading the post about PNG, and I have enjoyed it very much.
Hi old wom tigley,
Where do you hale from? I've noticed your name on the site regularly. Isn't Jules a treasure! She's helping me lay a few heartaches re my beloved other home. I come from a colonial family and I'm the first to settle down in a country from which I and my kids will never have to leave if we don't want to. After about thirty years in Melbourne I feel I'm coming to terms with this. Jules is filling in the gaps that I needed to know about Rabaul after the '93 eruption.
Cheers Pia
Friendship is ;o]
Imagens bonitas e sugestivas do local.
nice photos
Hope all is well now!
You have an interesting site..beautiful photo's!! So much culture!
Enjoyed my first visit!
Cat
That is both very interesting and very scary. I would never have know about the existence of Rabaul and its volcano if you had not set up a blog :-))
(Jules, maybe you should remove the silly ad posted by "crescenet")
Have a nice Sunday (I guess the day is almost over in Rabaul)...
There is so much dust in this place. Almost arid to an extent. I wonder whether people could even open their eyes!
Very instructive the photographs.
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o wow! telephone lines on overhead cables... man! i haven't seen those for DONKEYS years!
how on earth do they get broadband around there if the phone's strung on 19th century style telegraph poles~?!?
... seriously!!
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Excellent!
Your photograph is kind of depressing because all of that ash must surely shorten the lives of a lot of people and wildlife from breathing it in. I assume life insurance is something not being sold there by the big name carriers?
Still you have managed to make it most interesting to read and the photography is very good.
Abraham Lincoln in Brookville, Ohio now playing the part of Mrs. Zac Efron's employee.
Is there any productive use for the ash I wonder? I (lazily) had just assumed that the place would have bounced back after the '94 eruption.
As you can no doubt imagine, heading into ANZAC Day again we are hearing a lot more than usual about Kakoda, our relationship with PNG and the way forward. There was an interesting little piece on the Sunday program this morning about perhaps getting more directly involved in the financing of clinics and schools, to try and get around the siphoning of aid money.
It's a black eye to Australia that it was only 1975 that PNG got independence and we've failed so often to show better regional leadership to help produce better outcomes.
Hello Jules,
- at the end of the world-, Wonderfull to see your photography...
Graatings from JoAnn (Holland)
Your write ups are always full of times gone by and so it would seem are Pia's. Great images.
Hi Jules, this is from Ocean of Island Rambles on Vancouver Island, but I read your comment on my site and thought I would tell you I have another site specially for those on dial up or slow internet...it is called Ocean and Forest Walks and will load in very fast in any foreign country or slow upload. I just wanted to be able to stay in touch with you. cheers. You can just click my name and it will take you to the easier site for you.
this is pretty amazing - makes you think twice about complaining about the school system where you are...
Pia and Jules, thank you for our ongoing dialogue! Pia, your stories read like the book you have in the works. Please save me a copy!
OMG!!! It´s amazing how many ashes you found on the street!!
Hello Pia,
Long time no look-look
Warren Young
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