Just a couple of weeks after the Ravensthorpe project, its resulting exhibition for the Brave New Works festival and 2 weddings squeezed in, I set off on the adventure of a lifetime to the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. My travelling companions were festival director and music manager/producer Peter Keelan, ABC Radio Australia presenter Isabelle Genoux, and fellow photographer Simon Neville.
We were headed for Oterama, a remote village on an island called Malaita and home of the Narasirato Panpipers who Peter had brought to Australia to tour in 2006. For many of them, at that time, it was the first time they'd left their village and their first experience of the Western world including motor vehicles and electricity. Now it was our turn for a culture shock.
But first a few days to acclimatize in Honiara.
Then the journey to Oterama. And what a journey! A small plane from Guadalcanal to Malaita, a 2 hour ride down the coast in a 'tinny' with an outboard on the open seas then an hour through the Are-are lagoon. As we approached the village we were met by the locals and transferred into their dug-out canoes to travel through the mangroves. And finally a 20 minute walk through the jungle to the village itself.
It was the most extraordinary few days. We were the first ever white visitors to this part of the Solomon Islands so people, including all the tribal chiefs, had walked for up to 4 hours, through jungles and over mountains, from all around to welcome us. We were completely overwhelmed by the warmth and hospitality of the people we met - I spent the entire time on the verge of "happy tears"! They seemingly had so little - their lives are very primitive - yet they're far richer and their lives so much more real than ours will ever be. A reality check in the truest sense.
