Solwara Meri
The unexpected, unbelievable, but entirely true story of how I became an award-winning rockstar in Papua New Guinea.
There’s a saying in Papua New Guinea: that it’s ‘the land of the unexpected.’
I first went to Papua New Guinea in 2010, and from the very first day I arrived, I was enraptured.
As we crested over the Poreporena Highway leading to the harbour city of Port Moresby, I saw endless hues of blue and green swirling together into the South Pacific and crisp white clouds lining the horizon. It was just one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen.
Of course, at that particular moment, all I could think about was how to fit my broken and bandaged toe into the steel-capped boots I was required to wear.
Only about 10-days before, I had been told by the consulting company I worked for in Durban that I was being sent on a three-month assignment to Papua New Guinea. I was to work with a team of international consultants to design and implement a series of socio-economic development projects across the country, for a much larger, and far more controversial, project underway.
The situation was a bit unpredictable and the security risks were high. There were rules, a lot of rules, and the project required strict compliance.
For example, we weren’t allowed to use real names for anything, and instead each person, location, and vehicle was allocated a call sign, coded with a unique number. We also weren’t allowed to walk on the street, so to get around you had to order a car from dispatch and once you were in the vehicle, you had to radio in so they could track your movements. It went something like this:
‘Charlie Base, Delta 59. Juliette 24 on board heading from Tango 1 to Bravo Foxtrot Whiskey. Ova!’
I was Juliette 24, a name that would become as dear to me as the one I was born with.
There were other rules too, like you weren’t allowed to wear any jewellery, and despite the overwhelming heat, you had to wear long sleeved shirts and pants all the time to prevent getting malaria. Malaria was a big deal, so we had to take a daily prophylaxis and were subject to random urine tests – if you were found negligent, you were fired on the spot and given 24 hours to leave the country.
You also had to wear steel capped boots, which are not so easy to find in a size 4 and even harder to get a broken toe into.
In some ways, the security precautions were understandable: Papua New Guinea remains to be one of the least explored countries in the world and is, by far, one of the most diverse.
With a population of only eight million, there are more than 820 living languages – languages, not dialects – and these account for one third of all recorded languages in the world. There are more than 100 different cultural groups, each with its own unique characteristics and history.
You see, as the biggest bead in the necklace of islands strung across the Asia-Pacific, New Guinea is home to the largest rainforest tract in the region, and a 2,000-kilometre-long central mountain range soaring to over 5,000 metres. Most of the landscape is virtually impenetrable, and the area has been in almost total isolation for thousands of years. ‘First contact’ was only made with the rainforest tribes in the late 1930’s. Hard to believe that was only 80+ years ago, a time when we had planes in the sky and plans to land on the moon.
The environment is equally as diverse. Papua New Guinea is home to more than 21,000 types of plants, 240 species of mammals and 760 species of birds. It is one of the top five countries that harbour the majority of the Earth’s species.
This was the world I was stepping into and it was wild.
I was in and out of Papua New Guinea for about six years. For the first two years, I worked on the community development team, designing projects and coordinating field teams to implement various projects, ranging from agriculture, to education, women’s empowerment and so much more. But for the four years after that, I worked more as a photo-journalist, reporting back on those same projects but this time writing stories and taking photos, and producing a nation-wide publication called the ‘TokTok’ – stories from the field.
The later work was, simply, amazing. I would develop themes for my publications and then plan two-week trips into remote areas of the country to get the stories, using the project’s full set of resources at my disposal.
I travelled everywhere, from the delta in Kikori to the highlands in the country’s heart. I took helicopters across endless spans of virgin rainforest, and small motor boats up twisting rivers. I drove for hundreds of kilometres in the back of a dusty Land Cruiser and hiked mountains to remote villages. I sat in traditional huts, played with countless children, ate all kinds of strange food, and shared a library of stories with people over the years.
But back in those early days, before the fieldwork began, living in Port Moresby was hard. I felt completely stifled and in order to survive, I knew I needed a creative outlet. So I did some research and discovered there was a local theatre at the Port Moresby Arts Centre. This was perfect I didn’t have a lot of free time, but maybe I could audition for or direct a one-act play.
I wrote to them and a few days later got a reply saying they were holding auditions the following week for a play: Godspell, the musical. I should come along and check it out.
Musicals aren’t my favourite type of theatre, on account of not really being able to sing, but the next week, off I went.
A number of bizarre things happened that day, including me getting both the time and venue wrong and somehow ending up at a freedom rally for West Papua. But I eventually made it to the audition,explained I wasn’t interested in a singing role, but was happy to help in any other capacity. Just audition anyway, they said, and so, completely unprepared, I belted out my finest rendition of ‘Zippety Do-Da’ and went on my way.
A week later the cast list came out: I was one of the leads and had three solos.
Terrified, I started practicing all the time. I sang at home while getting ready in the morning, listened to the music over headphones at work, and even burned a CD to play in the vehicles as I was being carted around the city.
0ne day, I was running errands downtown and started playing the CD in the vehicle, singing along as we went. At the end of a song, the driver asked me if I was a singer, to which I laughingly replied: no. The driver said that he was a musician and his music was famous across the country – he was Robert Oeka.
‘Really?’ I asked. ‘If you’re such a famous musician, then why are you a driver?’
Times were tough, he explained, the music industry slow. But, if I was interested, maybe we could collaborate on a song together.
was a funny moment for me. I remember thinking the whole situation was just so unlikely. But at the same time, I thought, why not? Imagine if it was true. And so, going against all project rules, I gave Robert my phone number and told him to give me a call.
After that, I started asking my Papua New Guinean colleagues if they knew about Robert Oeka. Robert? They would say. Papua New Guinea’s music king! So it was true – Robert was a loved and respected musician throughout the country.
A couple weeks later, Rob phoned me up. He had a written a song and wanted me to come to Tokorara to record it. Tokorara was one of the roughest slums in Port Moresby but I said I’d see what I could arrange. So I called up dispatch.
‘Dispatch, it’s Juliet 24. I need a vehicle to Tokorara.’
‘Ah, no, 24… it’s a no-go zone. You need a QRF and sign off. Why you want to go to Tokorara?’
‘I’m recording a song with Robert Oeka,’ I said.
‘Robert Oeka?! No problem,’ they said. ‘We will get you there.’
Twenty minutes later, two vehicles, four dogs, six security guards, and me, pulled in to Robert’s ‘recording studio’, a small room built beneath a stilted house where thin mattresses were literally sticky taped to the walls.
Robert said he had written a song called ‘Solwara Mangi’, a remake of an earlier song of his called‘Solwara Meri’. Solwara Meri translates to a ‘mermaid’ in Pigin English: solwara, salt water, or ocean; and meri, girl. Because I was singing the song, I was singing for my ‘boy’ or mangi.
He explained how it would work he would sing the song, I would just know it, then I would sing ,and they would record.
‘Um, ok…’ I said. ‘Are there words?’
Oh yes, he replied. The verses are in Toaripi, the local language from his village in Gulf Province, and the chorus is in Tok Pisin. Should be fine.
Over the next two hours we recorded a very mangled version of the song. I was writing down words phonetically with no idea what I was saying, I barely got the tune right, and when I left, totally discouraged, I couldn’t imagine that anything would come could from this.
But a few weeks later, Rob called me up and said the song was done: they had mixed the music, added in his part and a rap, and it was ready to be released. I needed to meet him at the newspapers to do an interview.
So off I went. The interview was hilarious. They were surprised that not only was I South African, but I was white, and that I had collaborated with a local musician to produce a local song. After six years out of the music scene, Robert had come back th a bang. The article came out the following day, and there was a photo of Robert and I , him in his drivers uniform, and me with a cheesy smile. ‘Kiara from South Africa’, the article said, and I wondered what the project would say about this.
The day after the article came out, we got a call from the local radio station who said they wanted to air the song. Off we went for another interview and ‘Solwara Mangi’ made it’s big debut.
Much to my surprise, the song became an overnight hit. They had aired our interview during theafternoon commute home and by the time I got to work the next morning, everyone had heard it. People greeted me with huge smiles and hugs, shaking my hand, calling me Solwara Meri.
Within the next week, the song became number one on the Papua New Guinea music charts and Robert and I were doing interviews all over the place.
Now, bear in mind, I’m working on a high-security project and rule number one is to stay below the radar. A little concerned about my sudden notoriety, I met with the head of the project, who had seen the articles, and explained why I thought they should just let this play out. One of the challenges on the project was its lack of integration into society, and this song, I justified, was a perfect example of the cross-cultural connections we were all about. Thankfully, they agreed.
Over the next few months the song continued to do well and it became a regular track on the radio.
It’s important for me to point out: I am honestly not a good singer and my recording is really not very good. In the broader sense, the song is good it has a local-island-reggae vibe but it certainly doesn’t have much musical talent from my side.
But despite this, people loved the song. A couple months later, Rob called me up and said that because the song was doing so well, we neededto make a music video. No problem, Rob, I’m in.
Port Moresby is hot, hot and humid beyond anything you can imagine and everyone hangs out at the beach – Ela Beach, to be precise. Rob decided this would be the perfect location for the music video, and we would record it over the weekend.
When we arrived, me with guards in tow, Rob was there and explained how it was going to work. They would play the song on a cell phone, I should pretend to sing along to it, dance around and make it lively, and they would record on another camera.
As a trained drama student, these are the kind of moments we live for and I didn’t hold back. I starteddancing and pretend–singing on the beach, and found the whole experience to be unbelievably comical. Apparently, so did everyone else. Within minutes we were completely surrounded by people watching the white meri sing with the legendary Robert Oeka.
When the video came out a few months later, it was just about the most amazing thing I had ever seen. There were these scenes of me doing a goofy dance while all these Papua New Guineans stood dead still in the background, staring on in total disbelief. There were fake trees, a scene with a superimposed moon, and even a windmill. It was so bad that it was great, so random and authentic that I’ve never known if I should be deeply embarrassed or remarkably proud.
By this point, I had already started doing my trips into the field and was travelling in and out of Papua New Guinea on a monthly rotation. One day I was doing a trip into Komo, high up in the mountains, and when the chopper landed, three guys came to greet me.
‘Solwara Meri! We saw you on TV!’
As it turns out, a week or so before, there had been a big rugby match between Papua New Guinea and Australia, and, astoundingly, they played our music video before the opening game, so it had been seen across the country.
By the time I got back to Port Moresby, Rob said he had finished a number of other songs and had put together an album – Sunflower – and he wanted to do a live concert for its launch. Of course, I said yes.
Now, It’s one thing to perform on stage in a play, or even in a musical, but just to stand up and sing? Terrifying. But Rob had a plan. We would do six songs: Solwara Mangi, two of his most famous songs, two songs of my choice, and one Bob Marley cover for good measure. I would need to join theband to put it all together.
To be honest, I have never felt more part of a community than during those weeks of rehearsal. We would meet in the afternoon at Robert’s, that same stilted wooden house in Tokorara, where the band was set up in the shade of the tree outside. Rob would teach me lyrics, George the guitarist giving me cues for when to start. Oscar was on the base, Steve on the trumpet, and Freddie on the keyboard. We would practice for hours in the heat, have smoke breaks, laugh, all the while with my guards close by.
And then it was performance night. The concert was at the Country Club, one of the roughest spots in Port Moresby – even my security team said I was on my own. We were supposed to start at 8pm, but only performed after midnight and by that stage the club was drunkenly packed with probably about 400 people – my friend Kevin and I were the only white people there.
Just to give a sense of how rough it was, at one point while I was on stage, Kevin was standing at the bar and some guy came up to him and said, ‘Hey man, are you with Solwara Meri?’ Kevin nodded. ‘Good. Well, don’t worry, tonight you won’t get stabbed.’
There was some kind of truth to it though – from that day forward, no matter where I was, I always felt like I was protected, that people were looking out for me. A great blessing to have in a place like Papua New Guinea.
The concert went as well as could be expected and the audience was the most forgiving I have ever had.
I had been to Gulf Province a few times but only for work and after that concert, I told Rob I wanted to do a road trip . I wanted to go to his village of Iokea and visit the places we sang about. And so we did.
We went over a long weekend, spending more than 10 hours driving in the Land Cruiser to cover only 300km. We went to Kerema, stayed at an old Catholic Mission Station, and did a boat trip through the mangroves. We then went to Iokea and stayed with his mother and family in their village home.
It was one of the most beautiful and authentic trips of my life. Their hospitality was overwhelming and I felt like I was part of the family. We made coconut sago on the open fire, drank tea and ate dry biscuits under the stars, and fetched buckets of water for makeshift showers by torchlight.
On the way back to Port Moresby, Robert got a call and found out that we had been invited to attend the PNG Music Awards that Saturday night we had VIP tickets. Unfortunately, I was leaving the country a couple days before, so I said my friend Kevin would go on my behalf.
A couple days later, I was back in Cape Town and got a text message from Kevin saying, ‘Kiara, you weren’t just invited to attend the music awards, you and Rob have been nominated for Best Duet of the Year!’
And an hour later I got another message: ‘Kiara, you won!’
And so, to culminate what was an already unbelievable story, Robert and I won the PNG Music Award for Best Duet of the Year, making me a bonafide rockstar.
When I went back to Papua New Guinea on my next trip, we had a huge party at Rob’s place to celebrate. Rob handed me the award, which in true Papua New Guinean fashion was broken at the time we got it and had a big piece of silver tape holding it together. But there were our names: Robert Oeka and Kiara.
Rob said he wanted me to keep the award, that he wouldn’t have won it without me and he was just so grateful for everything that had happened. We all gave emotional speeches, we laughed and I definitely cried, and we sang songs late into the night. It was one of my most favourite nights in Port Moresby.
I always wondered what had made the song so successful, because I really wasn’t that good, but it all became clear to me that night.
People didn’t love the song because of its musical skill or even its performance. People loved the song because of what it represented: this merging of different worlds, of people with radically diverse backgrounds and cultures and experiences coming together to create something new. The song symbolised how human connections can be formed across a sea of differences, and that when they are, anything is possible.
Papua New Guinea. Land of the unexpected, indeed.