I came across your blog and site - GREAT!
I was a child in Bougainville from 75-78.
Dad - Bede Dowd was the manager at the number one haus moni bilong papau new guinea first in Arawa then in Panguna from that time.
Mum - Pat Dowd - worked at the high school then ran the Loloho Correspondance School.
My only claim to fame was I was the Pharoah in the school play of Joseph's Multicolor Dreamcoat at Arawa ;-). Only girl to have a 'boy part'-yikes! All the boys were taken up as being all the brothers.
Sadly, they both passed away last year - mum in Aug of 2010 and dad in March of 2011.
I live in California, but when I would visit them in Melbourne, I don't think a day went past that one of them didn't reminisce about the days on Bougainville.
A weird and amazing thing - one day last year I was visiting dad in hospital in Richmond Victoria and came out to the car and saw a woman who looked familiar - honestly hadn't seen her since Bougainville - Liz Cooper. Name came to me immediately. Liz and I think her husband Peter were friends of Mum and Dad's. Shows how much of an impact that time had on all of us!
I love your photos - i think we probably all have similar ones of Loloho - the big tree we would climb out on and jump off.
I have all our shells we collected from Loloho and the islands- great memories of boating.
Thanks for getting this site started
Loretta Dowd (now Donovan)
email lcdonovan[AT]gmail.com
