A pen picture of Ives (George) Pereira
When Benny DeSouza, my friend in the Uk, asked me to submit to him a write-up about my background, I was humbled by the request. Benny cautioned me that brevity was important and this further set the alarm bells ringing.
For several years now I have been writing my autobiography and with a seven hundred page document on my life tucked in the memory of my computer, I found that it was going to be quite a task to condense it into a few lines. But here it is.
I was born in Zanzibar. My mother Louisa and my sisters, Irene and Yvonne were teachers at St. Joseph’s Convent School. I have two brothers Ignatius and Maurice. My brother Eustace who was closest to me, passed away a few years ago. He features in a few of my stories and it goes without saying that I miss him a whole lot. My sister Yvonne was married to Wolfango Dourado who sadly passed away on March 19, 2012. My sister Irene, a retired School Teacher, lives in Goa,
India.
I worked for Cable and Wireless Ltd. In Zanzibar for eleven years. I was trained as a Radio Operator by Benny’s father Mr. Alex DeSouza who was the nicest man that anybody could ever meet. He was also a great teacher. I quit from Cable and Wireless after eleven years of service in order to pursue my dream of becoming a teacher like my mother and my wife. I entered St. Xavier’s College in Mumbai (formerly Bombay) and did an Honours Degree in English Literature. I then read and trained for a Bachelor’s Degree in Education at St. Xavier’s Institute of Education.
Since Zanzibar was in political ferment when I completed my University work in Mumbai, I went to Uganda where my wife and children sought some semblance of security. I taught in Masaka, Uganda for two years and went into another revolution where we were witness to a whole lot of unwanted killings. We then migrated to Canada in 1967 where I was appointed Principal of Allen and Bigwood Public School. While in Canada I read for another Honours Degree in Geography at Laurentian University and obtained various qualifications from York University, University of Toronto and Queen’s University. I was a typical example of life-long learning and still think that I know so very little.
My wife Margaret who is also a teacher and I retired in 1995.
In 1982 we accepted an appointment by the Federal Government of Canada to accept an assignment to teach teachers in the field in Papua New Guinea. (Please read the story attached below)
These are the bare bones of our lives, but there were times when we lived tumultuous lives as do most immigrants, and this will be reflected in some of the stories that you are invited to read.
WELCOME TO MY READERSHIP.
GEORGE (IVES) PEREIRA
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INTO THE LAND OF THE HEAD HUNTERS
By Ives (George) Pereira
As I was nearing fifty, there came upon me an uneasiness that gave rise to a multiplicity of emotions that somehow I could not explain. I put this down to male menopause, a simplistic way of explaining it away.
This could not go on forever. One day, however, I thought that I hit on the best solution to my problems. I thought that I would take leave of absence from my teaching responsibilities in Ontario University of Toronto
The Canadian University Service Overseas organization was very happy to receive my call and declared that it had not hitherto had applicants with our qualifications and experience and that it would not be very difficult to have us placed. Two days later, CUSO came up with an offer of jobs in West Africa . I explained to them that I was from Africa myself but that I would prefer to be placed in another culture world. Within a month they got back to me asking whether we might consider going to Papua New Guinea
We learned that the people of Papua New Guinea were Melanesians. They were short in stature and had long heads, large noses and kinky hair. There were about a hundred different tribes, and each tribe (a tribe could be ten or fewer than ten people) spoke a distinctly different language. The most common language spoken by most Papuans was “Pidgin”. It was the cement that kept the diverse cultural groups together.
It was believed that there still were tribes that had not yet been discovered deep in the rain forest that covered most ofPapua New Guinea Papua New Guinea
But this was not the place where help was most needed. Foreign help was diverted into less developed provinces and that made a whole lot of sense. Unfortunately, these were areas where there was scarcity of a whole lot of things. Specialized medical care was not easily available and one had to travel hundreds of kilometers if there was need for it. Furthermore, the roads were mere dirt roads and the rains were known to wash out sections of the road making passage nigh impossible. There were places where one had to drive through “wadis” (shallow streams) to get to the other side. If there was a heavy rain miles up the wadi, it became a torrential river and far too impassable because of the depth and strong current. The driver of the vehicle had to sometimes wait for hours until the water receded before crossing over. Our posting was to be in the East Sepik Province
We did not know this until one fine day I received a call from an officer in the Federal Government in Ottawa. I was informed that our files were transferred to Ottawa Canada
I found this quite amusing since CUSO never received my approval to transfer my file to Ottawa Papua New Guinea Guinea
It wasn’t difficult to get three years leave of absence from the Peel Board of Education. At that time, there was a surplus of teachers on the market and consequently it was not going to be difficult to find a replacement for me or for my wife who was also a teacher with Dufferin and Peel Catholic Separate School Board. As we had predicted both the School boards were happy to grant us the leave that we requested. It would also go well on their resume. We were now ready to make our move.
There were a few things that we had to settle before we left. We thought it best to sell our house, rather than keep it locked without any supervision. We knew that when we returned from our trip, we could always buy another house. Within a couple of months, the house was sold to Melad and Georgette Shoufany, new immigrants from Israel and who were destined to be our closest friends after we returned from our overseas assignment.
Before we left, we were to attend a three-day seminar on what to expect in Papua New Guinea
The first leg of our journey was to Vancouver Hawaii island of Hawaii Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea East Sepik Province
When we got to Wewak, we deplaned and sat waiting for the School Principal. We could not help noticing a short bearded gentleman dressed like an arrogant colonial officer, complete with a distinctive moustache march up and down past us several times apparently expecting someone to deplane. In a short time, we were the last people left at the airport, and so was this white colonial officer. Finally, he walked up to us and asked us if we were the Pereiras Canada
The journey took us five hours and by the time we got to our accommodation it was quite dark. Loud music blared from speakers with Ann Murray (our Canadian “snowbird”) singing her heart out. This was the students’ way of welcoming Canadians to their habitat. Shortly thereafter the music came to an abrupt end, and darkness descended on the campus. It was one of the hiccups of the Electricity Board with its very poor service to the hinterland.
The house was perched up on steel posts about ten feet above the ground. There was no electricity when we entered our house. On entering, we got a very strong smell of mildew everywhere. We lit a candle and walked to the bedroom. The mattress was all mouldy. The bathroom and the walls were threateningly black and mouldy too. Here was I in an environment that I was mortally allergic to. Between the roof and the living area there was a false ceiling. We could hear, what appeared to be, hundreds of little feet run up and down above the ceiling. We soon learned that they were large mice that took charge of the house when left vacant for a few months. Both Margaret and I looked at each other but knew that we were going to have a sleepless night in addition to the many that we had on our long and tedious journey to Maprik. We could not possibly sleep on the mattress so we placed on the floor a bed sheet that we had brought along with us. We made a makeshift pillow out of some of our clothes, kicked off our shoes, and tried to get some sleep. The noise in the ceiling kept getting louder and this was punctuated by screeches as though the mice were having an argument over us. As we slept on the floor, a mouse ran over my face. For the first time I realized how cold the feet of mice were. We gave up sleeping as an illusion under these conditions, so we sat up and talked about the comfort of home in Canada . We were also very angry and disappointed that the Principal would not have had the common decency of getting someone to clean the place and airing it a bit before our arrival. It immediately told us a whole lot about the sensitivity, or lack of it, of this man who should have known better. Privately, I had pangs of conscience that I would subject someone I loved, my wife, to the indignities that I was putting her through. Typical of her character, she did not complain and merely said that the following day we could iron out some of our difficulties.
The following morning, we got dressed and walked to the School. Maprik Secondary School
We approached the Princpial, and complained in the most restrained fashion about the condition of our accommodation. We were given two senior students to wipe down the walls and floors and anything that was attacked by mildew with bleach. How amazing! The almost black walls turned mysteriously into white walls. Once we were satisfied that we had beaten the mildew we made a list of things that we needed. First of all, there was no way that we were going to use a totally stained and stinking mattress. We needed a replacement. We had no pillows. We added that to our list. We asked the very cooperative students how we were going to get rid of the mice in the ceiling. They assured us that since the house was now being lived in, the mice would find another place to do their thing. We hoped that they were right. We had a refrigerator but without electricity that was very erratic at best, it was a white elephant. There was a large water tank outside that held a few hundred gallons of run off rain water from the roof and that was to be our only source of water for drinking and other purposes.
The tap to the tank had to be locked to prevent pirates from stealing water in the dead of night. Water had to be carried in pails up two flights of stairs when it was needed.
When we assumed our jobs at Maprik Secondary School
I was given the responsibility of teaching the senior students. As a Senior Subject Supervisor, I was also required to monitor the teaching that went on in the other English classes and to report on the effectiveness of the teaching methods being employed. I was able to go through the records that were kept by the previous Supervisor and the records were an eye opener to me. The reports were more of a scathing critic on all the negatives that were observed in the particular lesson offered by a teacher. There was no encouragement offered on the positive aspect of the lessons. If I were the teacher under inspection, I would probably have quit my job after receiving the first report. I thought that I would adopt a more conciliatory and positive approach so that the teacher concerned would be encouraged to improve his effectiveness in the classroom. I also felt that my own effectiveness in the class was of paramount importance. Getting students to interact with each other in the classroom was a novel experience to my students. They were used to being lectured to, and were groomed to look at the teacher intelligently while he “taught” his lesson. I soon discovered that the only way that these students thought that they were learning is when the teacher made intelligent sounds in front of the classroom. I therefore had to bring my methodology in line with what the students felt was the only way of learning effectively and to gradually introduce interactive learning which, it would seem, made learning more permanent.. But I realized that this would take time. It was like attempting to change a culture.
I was inspected by the Superintendent within a month of my arrival, and I must admit that the lesson was a disaster. The students were very passive and did not or “were not” able to answer questions put to them on the content that was taught. It was quite a humiliating experience since it reflected badly on my position as Senior Subject Supervisor placed in charge of making teachers at the School more effective. How could this possibly happen
if I just proved that I was not effective myself? I made an attempt to explain to the Superintendent that I was still feeling my way and that before long, I would hit a happy medium to the satisfaction of all concerned. I am not sure that the Superintendent went away convinced about this.
When we arrived in Maprik, the expatriate Australian community invited us to spend an evening at the home of an Australian couple that was in Papua New Guinea Northern India . The title of the movie was Little Churchill. It took you back to the time when the British were taking control of India and it was nothing more than a continuous war of the British against any opposition in India . Indians were being shot and brutalized by the British soldiers and this was met with much jubilation by the Australians present. Needless to say, we were very humiliated by this movie, and to show them our disgust, we pleasantly excused ourselves when the lights came on and went home. We got a distinct impression that we were invited to the party to suffer some kind of humiliation and we vowed that it was going to be the last time that we ever socialized with the Australians. When the Australians got together it was generally for the insidious purpose of tearing down reputations and talking about the Papuans as though they were a sub-human specie. We found this to be very revolting.
We were fortunate to befriend a gentleman from New Zealand Hawaii Agricultural College
Bill owned his own car. It was a four-wheel drive Suziki that was ideal for the rough roads of Papua New Guinea
“What if I told you that right now we were being watched by a few thousand people?”
“I don’t see anybody here. Whatever made you say that?” I replied.
“OK Ives, I want you to look past my shoulder. Concentrate on one spot in the trees behind me.”
I did as he said, and to my consternation, I noticed hundreds of heads peeping out from the trees. I was petrified and suggested that we jump into the car and take off for dear life.
“Don’t worry, Ives. They are harmless. They are curious and just want to know what these strangers were doing in their territory.” said Bill.
Both Corrine and Margaret became very nervous in spite of Bill’s reassurance so we decided that we would move somewhere else.
“The moral of the story,” said Bill as we drove away, “is that there no such thing as privacy in a place like Papua New Guinea
The local market was held just outside our School once a week. It was here that we bought our vegetables and fruit. Most of the vendors were suffering from all kinds of skin diseases such as grille. We were very traumatized by this in the beginning and generally bought our vegetables from someone who did not exhibit such diseases. However, after some time we overlooked the problem but made sure that the vegetables were washed and cooked well. On one occasion, I saw a vendor with a bowl of white worms, each one as big as one’s middle finger. I was quite curious and asked the vendor what she did with those. She looked at me questioningly and declared that it was a food and that everybody ate those worms. In fact she assured me that they could be eaten live or cooked depending on one’s preferences. This made my insides constrict a bit, and I seriously thought that she was putting me on. Sister Maura, a nun from Australia Canada
If one asked the Papuans how they cooked their meals, the pat answer was that they boiled it and ate it. They did this with their meats, vegetables, and any other food types. Food was never marinated with spices or salt. Perhaps their way was a healthy way of eating. Margaret had taken a whole lot of Indian spices intended of course for our own use. One day she hit on the idea that she would invite all the teachers’ wives on campus to a cooking session where she thought she would introduce them to food cooked with spices. It was an attempt at cross-cultural education starting with the adults in the community. There was much excitement on campus and the attendance on that Saturday was electrical. Margaret had bought a couple of chickens and demonstrated how the chicken could be cut. She then described each of the spices that went into a curried chicken recipe. The wives were all eyes and ears. Finally, the dish was ready and she invited the wives to partake. To our consternation, none of the wives liked what was before them. They obviously felt that this was an abomination of two good chickens that were best boiled and eaten. I need hardly say that Margaret was quite mortified and disheartened by the experience, but we had learned one important lesson and that was that culture is a strange thing. We were partly happy about gaining these insights into Papuan tastes for shortly after we were privileged to have been invited to the home of a Papua New Guinea School Principal. When we got there, there was perhaps a whole tribe present. For dinner we were going to have a “Lua” (it sounded like that anyway). It much resembled the Lua that they have in Hawaii
Strange experiences were a way of life for us. Bill and Corrine had a neighbor who was affectionately named fearless John. John loved snakes. We were mortally scared of them. John was known to stop his motorbike on the dirt road that he was traveling along whenever he spotted a snake. He would catch hold of the snake( usually a python) by its head, allow it to wind itself around his body and then proceed to take the snake on his bike to his apartment. There he would let it creep where ever it wanted to go. He would keep the snake for a few days until he noticed that it was getting nervous (perhaps hungry) and then let it free in the bush just next to his house. We actually say a ten-foot python in his apartment one time. Needless to say, we never accepted any invitation to visit him even if a cold beer was most inviting proposition in the hot and humid climate of the country for we could never be sure what kind of vermin was boarding with him.
In Papua New Guinea Iraq PNG . (Papua New Guinea
Another warning to drivers in PNG is that if they were driving and by accident hit a Papuan on the road and even if they were at fault they were to drive away as quickly as possible. It was not uncommon that drivers in an accident were lynched and killed.
Roads in Papua New Guinea East Sepik were dirt roads at best. Payday was not for sane drivers. One kept off the roads during that time. Papuans loved to drink, and many of them would drink heavily and drive. As a result the death toll around payday rose by leaps and bounds. The emergency department at the ill- equipped hospitals around the Province were full to capacity with accident victims, with serious wounds and broken limbs. A large number of the injured Papuans sustained serious wounds from fights precipitated by drunkenness.
On the professional front, I noticed that the teachers were at a considerable disadvantage since much of the teaching had to be done in the classroom through talking and chalking. This was very time consuming, but in the absence of electricity and the hardware that makes teaching so much easier in the West, one had to become very creative in ones teaching methodology. Here, I’ve got to confess, I learnt more from my Papuan counterparts than I had to offer. In addition to this, it was my job to monitor what went on in other classes. On our English Staff we had a teacher from England . Jim Black (name changed) was his name. As an Englishman, he could draw the wool over anyone’s eyes because he could articulate the language in a coherent way and masked by a strong English accent which I thought was sometimes overdone. However, his writing skills were non-existent. I learnt this when he approached me to look over a letter written by him to the Ministry of Education in Port Moresby . While scanning through his letter I was shocked to discover that every second word was a spelling mistake, and the sentences employed were either sentence fragments or run-on sentences or no sentences at all. I passed the letter back to him and assured him that all was ok and that he should mail the letter as is. If anything, it would be an eye opener to the Ministry of Education as to what kind of teachers they were recruiting. On the face of it, this might sound very insensitive on my part but in Papua New Guinea at that time, as a man of colour, it would have been considered arrogant on my part to show up any white professional’s inadequacies, and it would invite the wrath of the administration. Of course, I felt that the English Department needed some reshuffling since Jim Black was given senior classes where, I was sure, the students had a better grasp of the written word than did their teacher. This was important since the students were to face a Government examination on which depended whether the students would go to University or not. As you can imagine the situation was to be handled very diplomatically since the Principal was a white man and I was sure that he was not about to do anything drastic to his white counterpart.
During our stay at Maprik, we had the good fortune of meeting with a young twenty-five year old Australian called Walter. He was young and single and was doing some contracting work in Maprik at the time that we met him. Walter spent much of his time with us, and had a free run of our house. He had a girlfriend in Australia Australia and issued him with an ultimatum that if he did not return in a week’s time, she would be terminating the relationship. I remember the mental turmoil that Walter went through and although he turned to us for advice, we had to throw the onus on him to make a decision. He finally decided that he would return to Australia . We never did hear from Walter again, and over the years we wondered what had became of him.
After a year or so in PNG , I found myself despising the Principal. There were several reasons for this. His treatment of the students was that of a tyrant. On one occasion, one of the students from my hostel came down with Malaria. I naturally headed for the infirmary only to find it locked. It was believed that someone had absconded with a pair of scissors and the Principal declared that nobody would enter the infirmary until the scissors was returned. I thought that this treatment was rudely Draconian. In other words because one of the students had stolen the pair of scissors, ( and this was yet to be proven) all the students had to suffer. I was beside myself when I heard this. I walked across to the Principal’s office and demanded that he give me the keys and if he did not, I was going to break down the door to the infirmary. Of course, the Principal handed the keys to me immediately but said that he would have me reported to the Federal Government. I got hold of the medication that the sick student required and then returned the key to him. On another occasion, the students were summoned to an assembly. Apparently a student had thrown a rock at one of the louver windows to attract the attention of one of the girls. In so doing, he broke the glass. The Principal stood in front of the students at an assembly and shouted quite angrily:
“One of you BASTARDS threw a stone at the window in the girls’ dormitory and broke a pane. I would like for that BASTARD to own up or there are going to be serious consequences.”
When I heard this, I swung around and asked Sr. Maura who was standing next to me whether I had heard right. Her response was:
“Isn’t that a shame?”
After the assembly I asked the Principal whether I could see him in his office.
“I was pretty shocked at the language that you used today.” I cautioned him. “We are supposed to be an example to the students, but you obviously overstepped your authority.. I just want you to know one thing. If I ever hear you abuse the students as you did today, I will have you reported to the Federal Government immediately.”
I naturally became enemy number one as far as he was concerned. He then embarked on a systematic harassment and sabotage of everything that I was attempting to do, and even disconnected the telephone that was our only lifeline to the outside world. As a result we could not contact our children in Canada Canada . We had not quite made up our minds when I was struck by a virus that made walking or even sitting up a very difficult and painful task. The doctor in Wewak told me that it might be best for me to go to Australia Canada Australia Papua New Guinea
We flew to Melbourne Africa days. After a week or so, we decided to fly home. I was in a wheel-chair all the way to Toronto with memories of our experiences in Papua New Guinea which were bitter-sweet but which led to a greater appreciation of the wonderful country that we were returning to.
What is more pertinent is that on my return to Canada, none of the uneasiness that caused me such unhappiness before my departure to Papua New Guinea was present. I guess that was what I really needed ,,,,,,,, a dose of reality.
I certainly got it the hard way!!!
I have also added a "TABLE OF CONTENTS" where you can select any of the published stories by just one click on any of the titles below.
As it is always difficult to find links of interest on your PC or Laptop, and hard to remember the Link addresses. It is recommended you save useful links to your FAVOURITES List.
To make it easy to remember where to find my stories, I have a new page titled ClickGeorgePereira or on the link below
Best Regards
Ives (George) Pereira
Ex Zanzibar
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CLICK ON ANY OF THE TITLES BELOW TO VIEW STORY.
CLICK ON ANY OF THE TITLES BELOW TO VIEW STORY.
ZANZIBAR STORIES
CANADA STORIES
GOA STORIES
See What's New Link above for future updates which will have a date stamp.
Regards George
