BY BARNABAS MANEBONA
MS Ender Rence the Managing Director of Imperial Travel Service would like to thank everyone who contributed to the success of the recent 2018 Independence Cruise Pana Festival.
The Imperial Travel Service Managing Director and her team appreciate the help of the Haroro community in Ngella for their hard work and desire to deliver such a great show from the root vegetable locally known as Pana being significant to their culture.
“We would like to thank the Tulaghi Police who made sure there were no incidents as well as ensuring all of our guests’ safety.
“A big thank you to the media outlets continuous support who reviewed our product and took the time to come along and witness it firsthand starting from the beginning.
“This includes Telekom (the only business house that had a stall at the Pana Festival venue) for their bearable coverage for both visitors and Imperial Travel Service to promote the Festival via social media. Without their fantastic services we would not have been able to reach all of our sponsors as well as sell our tickets through their coverage,” said an appreciating Ender.
“Second to the last, thank you to all of the volunteers who helped on board the cruise ship, without them, this cruise would have never happened. They gave up their time for nothing more than the experience itself.
“Thirdly, to business houses namely Solomon Star for giving us special offer promoting the Pana Festival, 8th Note printing for their service, Sunday Isles newspaper for endless support, Tropical Aluminium and Glass, Solomon Islands Chamber of Commerce for promoting the Pana Festival to their members and Fair West Shipping for giving us their best boat for our cruise.
“Finally, we’d like to thank all of our guests including locals, the Korean community, Philipino community, Chinese community Fijians and the Ethono Australian Team who were also here for the MACFest.
“This cruise would have not been so successful without you all. We appreciate the proud behaviour you all displayed. We hope to offer another cruise next year, and we are sure with the help of all those mentioned above, it can be a greater success than this year! Thank you all.”
It is the first time for such event to take place at Ngella, an island that has a unique cultural style of extra cultivating Pana process from one main garden to another reaching four stages, making Pana usually being harvested almost every month compared to the usual one way process of waiting for it to be harvested after every six to seven months practised in other provinces of Solomon Islands.
The soil in Ngella also plays a significant role to the root crop’s fast style of harvest. Each family gardens of Pana from Ngella’s traditional style of extra cultivating it will only be harvested after three months. But because all gardens are not made during the same time is why Pana is harvested almost every month throughout Ngella.
Because of the nature of how Pana provides food and other areas of support for the people of Ngella more than Kumara or Tapioca in comparison is why Pana is treated with very special respect by indigenous Ngellarians. They handle and treat it as their baby being the most valuable root crop to present culturally in occasions such as visitations by high ranked people or paying bride price.
From this reason is why Ngella people see that it is important for them to showcase the significance of Pana in their culture as well, with a vision in contributing to Solomon Islands showcases of unique diverse cultures for the outside world knowledge.
