An Emotional Story of Muana Primary School

A view from Patuboma mountain looking across to
Kolomola village (behind the green hills)
Photos: Courtesy of Osborn Cains.

By Harold Maesulia. Follow me on twitter.

If you had a hard time feeding on a dry piece of cassava (a kind of local root crop) when you’re at boarding school, rethink the idea that that’s when one gets to experience life at its worse away from parents because that’s the very life of primary school children at Muana Primary School-a remote highland boarding school in the Hograno district of Santa Isabel, the longest island in the Solomon Islands.

Seven communities that sourced the school with children have to send their kids for boarding as early as pre-school as the distance of the school is stationed to be at the centre where all the communities will have equal walking distance to it.

Because of the distance, children are sent to be housed at the school throughout the week for classes. There they are subjected to be trained the hard way with an aim that appears to be a move to mold the children into independent individuals who’ll fear God and rely on hard work to earn a living.

Hicks Bule, whose late dad taught at the school when he was in Primary school and part of his secondary life, recalled his experiences at Muana in a moving story.

Life at Muana Primary School for children around the area started when they reach pre-school age. Sad and bitter as it sounds, they have to leave home and become part of a new life at a boarding school, undergoing discipline suggested to be of good to them.

Class 5 and 6 students are expected to be leaders and some are chosen as prefects to look after the little ones.

And looking after the flock of kids is as mandatory as being the one who must sleep close to the door so that whenever one wants to visit the Lo in the night, he or she will accompany him or her.

And apart from that they do have the duty of following a roster which they have to cook for the little ones in their different bush hats, which consist of children of the same community. Everyone is expected to be obedient and coming to church services is a must.

And so when Fridays come, lunch no longer finds a place in the minds of the children, because that’s the time they’re going home to spend the whole weekend with parents.

Some villages are well into the interior and one can get there by night fall if he or she starts from Muana at 1 pm.

But these robust kids sometimes travel in group of friends to meet their parents in their food gardens where they would travel home together later in the evening.

Spirit of Independence

A sight of a little kid armed with a bush knife bending down to trim the grasses in the huge school campus as part of a morning work session can wear you out of your imaginations. In fact, questions like, why does life has to be experienced at such an age which tender care and love should be offered at home by parents should have rightly toppled the rest, but one thing became eminent in the kids.




Hicks Bule, a living example
 of Muana

  When a group of mandated girls wake up at 5:30am on selected days to do a motu (a traditional food oven) for that day’s lunch, one can clearly pick out the spirit of self reliance from the innocent hearts who have to leave home at a young age in the name of classroom education.



When the Kaipito river floods and they have to cook using the dirty water to boil the Kumaras (sweet potatoes), a diet which appears to be what they have daily, perseverance can be clearly isolated from the young hearts.

Sometimes emotional stories of these kids finding their own way through the bushes along the river to find Kasume (a type of wild fern that can be eaten) to make an evening meal tasty can be too hearty to hear but strength and acts of self reliance are again shown in class there.

A spirited choir sprouted from the Muana green hills recently and earring oneself to these young voices will steer one’s soul in admiration. Innocent and childish as they are, the young hearts carry their innocence in the hymns that are perfectly curved by their unworn voices showing the Christian upbringing that they are mandated to bend themselves to.

Parents and Students



Children of Alualu village (one of the catchment areas of
Muanaschool) in the Farigae river.

 It is easy to guess what a young age kid would feel like being away from parents and when it comes to the Muana kids, the scene on Wednesdays is an emotional one. That’s the day of the week when parents are allowed to bring food for their children. It’s sad to witness the departure of parents after delivering food, “the little children sometimes cling to their parents crying and sometimes its hard to console them as they watch their parents depart in tears,” recalled Hicks, who stayed at the school when his dad was a teacher there.

According to him, parents had a hard time thinking about their children, “At such a young age, you just don’t know what will happen to your kids.”

But what could be more inspirational as the heart of the parents, despite the pain they feel inside, the desire to see a future for their children cost them that step of faith to give their kids to the care of a place like Muana where a child is never too young to be taught like an adult.

The quest of good things in some areas, said Hicks, is a trade en route in style and comfort but when it comes to my area, it is difficult and overwhelming.

The 23 year medical student from Kolomola, one of the villages that is served by Muana, said that struggle is always part of their lives, but it has turned them into hardworking people.

 So much has happened at Muana recently but it is still a boarding school.

Major changes like the addition of a secondary school at Muana is a mile stone which has been a benefit for the locals around the area. But perhaps the biggest milestone of all is seeing former Muanans ending up in tertiary institutions like Hicks Bule. It must be a great sigh of relief for the locals. Perhaps, parents of those who made it to that level, have at last acknowledged the role played by Mauana in the life of their children.

But on the other side of the coin, the silent cries of the little ones at Muana must not be forgotten. Perhaps the task for the current government is to ensure that these children have access to education close to their homes where they won’t be deprived of the daily loving care of their parents.+