TUTUVATU

By   Dr. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka Dr. Ishmael Togamae in Hawai'i From a humble beginning in a village in the mountains of Santa Isabel, Dr. Ishmael Togamae has walked paths  no other Solomon Islander had previously trekked. And it has taken him a long way. He and his family now live in Portland, Oregon, in the west coast of the U.S. where he works as a medical doctor. But the journey to Portland has been long and arduous.              Ishmael remembers, as a child having to walk for miles five-days-a-week, from Gurena, his childhood village in the highlands of Maringe to attend school at Nareabu on the coast. “I recall walking down slippery slopes of rugged bush tracks. I was the youngest kid from Gurena going to school at that time, and so I was often left behind.   “I cried many times because I was scared; and worse because the track traversed through a cattle farm. I was scared of the cattle,” he says meditatively, as though captured in his childhood memories.

Dr. Ponipate Rokolekutu       By Dr. Tarcisius Kabutaulaka It was a beautiful day on 16 th December 2017. The Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa was packed with excited graduates, relatives, friends, faculty and dignitaries. It was the University’s fall commencement ceremony. When his name was called, Ponipate Rokolekutu walked up to the podium, was hooded and then presented with a piece of paper acknowledging his achievements. It was a gesture welcoming this Fijian lad from Vunimono in Tailevu into the global community of academics. Rokolekutu received a PhD in political science, making him the first iTaukei to have been awarded a PhD in that department at the University of Hawai ʻ i. He looks sober and dignified in his graduation gown. But behind his sober demeanor and the infectious smile that beams through his spectacles are stories of struggles. Growing up, his parents struggled to look after him and his five siblings. Being the e