Karlos Sarunic travelled to the remote Carteret Islands as part of a MAF team bringing solar lighting and long-range radio communication to a people blessed with pristine beaches, but who had no ready communication with the outside world.
Story by Matt Painter
Karlos Sarunic knows a thing or two about being ‘out bush’.
For he and his wife Caitlin, a ‘good weekend’ is one where you get in the four-wheel drive and go far beyond mobile phone coverage. You sleep in the tent, sit by the campfire and look at the stars.
This IT manager is also no stranger to epic sea journeys, having accompanied Caitlin to the Coral Sea multiple times from their home port of Cairns, Australia, where she’s been working as a dive instructor and marine researcher.
But Karlos has never been so isolated as he was on the Carteret Islands.
An atoll of five tiny bits of land, the Carterets’ highest point is barely 1.5m above sea level, in this postcard-perfect location about 100km from the coast of Bougainville.
“If something goes wrong whilst you’re camping, you just drive off,” Karlos said. “If there’s an emergency, even if you’re out of phone range, you hop in your car, and you’ve got a means of help.
“The people on Carteret Islands had no help there, now they do.”
MAF installed an extensive solar lighting and high-frequency radio system in the Carteret Islands health centre, bringing an unprecedented level of functional electric lighting and reliable communication to the nursing staff and surrounding communities.
Whilst staying about a week in the village, Karlos was struck not only with the beauty of the tropical paradise around him, but also with just how cut-off this idyllic community really was.
“That feeling of isolation—even though I was perfectly safe the whole time—you feel it,” he said. “I can’t just pick my phone up and say, ‘I want to be out of here’ or ‘I need something’. You’re there. That’s it. You’ve only got the people around you.”
Noah Siso, a hard-working trainee technician on the team, also saw the remoteness that faces Carteret islanders.
“It’s not close to mainland Bougainville,” he said. “It’s a really long way.
“They’ve never had one radio of this type, ever since the island has been there. No communication with the outside world, they live so isolated. And they find it very hard indeed.”
Between two and four thousand people live on these islands, a four-hour boat trip from the nearest town, Buka. Without an airstrip, the population rely on small, open boats and the journey is not without risk.
“Boats go missing all the time,” Karlos added. “If you have an engine that breaks down out there, there is no coast guard. There is no tracking, no phone signal. Nothing.”
Karlos and the MAF team were well looked after by the local people, and especially by Bernice Kumis, the sister-in-charge of the health centre.
“If Bernice had someone really sick, she couldn’t just call up a boat to come do a medevac,” Karlos said. “There was no way of calling vessels.”
By chance, Karlos explained, there might have been a boat that could help, already on the island. But there wasn’t normally, because boat operators habitually return to the main centre Buka to earn their living. Even if the one or two boats that do belong to Carteret islanders were somewhere in the atoll area, there’s still no way to call them over.
When the weather suited, boats would come from Buka two or three times a week bearing news from the outside world.
“Ten years, no communication,” said Bernard Moris, the vice-chairman of the local government. “We would receive information from the boats only.
The work in the Carteret Islands was just one of a series of solar and radio installs in very remote locations across Bougainville. Working closely with church-based health service providers, MAF have been tasked with identifying the most isolated off-grid clinics outside of communications range.
MAF thanks the Pharus Foundation for funding this project to bring light to the Autonomous Region of Bougainville.
“It was real isolation,” Karlos said. “I would say there’s certainly people on the island that have never spoken to anyone off the island.
“But with HF radio, what that means now is that if something goes wrong, Bernice has the ability to call up a doctor and get a second opinion, to walk them through a particular operation, to maybe have a chance of calling out a vessel.”