Yesterday was a lucky day for 72-year-old grandmother Caludia Laki. Last night, for the first time in 30 years, Laki slept with joy and peace in her heart. Even the “kokoroku” at dawn could not move the old sleeping beauty from her sleeping mat.
Yesterday, all her worries as a landless peasant were washed away when she finally received the title to her new land to settle on permanently at Gelegele in East New Britain. The atmosphere at the newly opened Gelagela Mini-Stadium was charged with emotion. The Sikut Talvat community sang with joy, their voices rising in a procession of traditional singsing as they danced toward the stage to receive the 199 land titles.
These titles represented more than just pieces of paper; they symbolized hope, security, and the future they had longed for. “I had seven children when the volcano erupted in 1994. It was the first time I had ever experienced anything like it, and my children were just as terrified,” Caludia recalled.
“We fled to the Vunamami Care Centre, where we lived for two years before being moved to Sikut. But even there, we never really had a place of our own.” For 30 years, Caludia and her family lived in limbo.
The land at Sikut Talvat wasn’t theirs, and without ownership, they felt like outsiders, just surviving on borrowed ground. “We lived with other families, all displaced by the eruption, and we struggled. It wasn’t easy,” she said, her voice heavy with the weight of those years.
“We faced land disp.