Nambawan Pikinini Meri

Well there was much excitement at Bomana this morning as the girls started arriving early, ready to welcome nambawan pikinini meri bilong missus qwin, Princess Anne, to our part of the world. She was coming out to Bomana this morning to lay a wreath at the Australian War Cemetery, as part of her 22 hours of duty in PNG (a week late for the Independence Day anniversary, but better late than never, I suppose).

The girls had been asked, along with the De La Salle boys and the students from Bomana Primary, to come and be an honour guard to welcome the Princess as she traveled down the road. Being school holidays, we didn’t get a huge number of girls, but the ones who came were excited to be showing the orange and white while waving their PNG and British flags.

We had been told to be ready and waiting for the car at 8am, but at 2 to 8 we were still waiting for students to get changed, standing around Mrs Andrew’s house. I was sure we were going to miss the whole thing, but it seems that the organizers took PNG time into account when telling people when to be where – either that or they were suffering from it themselves as we were still by the side of the road at 9.30, waiting for the sound of sirens to let us know the moment was finally here.

The firetruck had been by a bit earlier, spraying the road with water in an effort to reduce the dust, but it dried again within minutes, and every time a car sped down the road it sent up showers of dust, accompanied by loud yells from the honour guard of “esi, yah!” Everyone was covering their face with their flag, and people were starting to get impatient when finally, we heard the sirens.

It took about 20 seconds for the police vans and motorbikes and official cars to pass by, and we were left wondering if that was all there’d be when we saw the people further down the road rushing to get to the cemetery gates. We decided to hurry too to see if we would be allowed in before they shut them, and I had to giggle at the students chattering about “yah, I saw her white gloves”, and “she was really smiling, yah!” Luckily the uniforms got us through the gates, so we moved on up to the lawn to watch from a distance the officialry and ceremony – though not much action – as the girls strained to figure out which one was the Princess.

The best was yet to come though – just when it seemed like that was as close as we’d get, the police pointed us in the direction of the pathway down from the memorial, and the girls and boys formed a line that would soon be a real honour guard because the Princess would have to walk by them to get back down to her vehicles. They were so excited to see her coming, and had their flags waving, and were not sure whether to clap or sing or stand still!

Again, it was all very quick, and she didn’t take long to walk by, but she made a brief stop at each new set of uniforms, and afterwards you should have seen Gloria (our new school captain)’s face – “I spoke to the Princess! She spoke to me!” She’d asked when the holidays would be over, and Gloria told her next week. Wow - I think that made her year! To have spoken to a real live princess would have to be a huge moment in any kid’s life – and what an amazing coincidence, that the girl she chose to speak to just happened to be the one who’d been elected Head Girl for 2006. Couldn’t have picked a better representative.

A big moment in the life of Bomana, and even though I’m no monarchist (at all!) it was fun to be a part of and worth the wait, if only to see the reaction of the girls and how excited they were by all of it.

Reminded me of my father-in-law’s story of going to see the queen when he was a little boy in Australia – waiting with the huge crowds to line the streets of the official cavalcade’s route through the city, and being excited even though all he saw was a few seconds of a car and a wave through the glass - then walking home later on in the day, to see the car passing by him again, all alone, and to see her face with a wave and smile just for him… (or so he says)