clips. I have no idea how to find them now – she was your ‘70s Melanesian princess with her perfect big Afro!” For Lele’s upcoming trip to POM, only Mitch will accompany her, but she would love to bring their daughters again – “just to experience life in Papua and see how progressive it is, you know when I tell them the stories my parents told us it has changed a lot since then!” She recalls her parents telling her stories about the wonder of arriving in POM in the late 70s from much less developed at that time West Papua. “They stayed with my father’s Biak family who were also West Papuan refugees living in Hohola. My parents spent around 4-6 months there. I remember my parents saying their first experience of PNG was very different, almost not what they expected. We are one people, one race, similar culture with a colonial border that separates us, but Port Moresby was a lot more advanced in those times in terms of roads, shops etc. The language barrier was a big thing to deal with as well, but knowing they were from the same land made them feel at home and everyone they met welcomed them with open arms. “My father became lead singer and lead guitarist of the Black Brothers soon after that.... three of the Black Brothers band members left the band soon after the PNG trip.” Lele has visited PNG three times now, the first in 2012 when the Black Sistaz performed at Lamana Hotel providing backup vocals to acclaimed PNG musician George Telek, who she refers to as ‘Uncle’. “ We also performed with him at a village which was special. It was an incredible full-circle moment for me when George shared that when he was a teenager, he loved to watch my dad’s band
On their second visit to Port Moresby in 2014, the Black Sistaz performed at the Governor’s Christmas celebrations in Jack Pidik Park
awareness. “I share my story – not just my West Papuan culture, but how important it is for the kids to know that Australia is really diverse and full of different cultures and people from all different walks of life and different backgrounds. “I tell them there are a lot of refugees that moved here to Australia and we need to be loving and kind and accepting of them because you just don’t know where they’ve come from and the things that they’ve experienced to get here. “And I say that obviously from the place of someone who’s been there.” Lele’s last visit to Port Moresby was during the 41st Independence celebrations in 2016 as the lead singer of the Black Sistaz, the band she formed with her younger sisters Rosa and Petra. The three sang at a Black Brothers’ ‘Legends Come Home’ reunion concert at Sir John Guise Stadium where their late father was honoured as
lead singer and lead guitarist. “That was a special moment and I was humbled by how many people said that they remembered my father and loved his music, it actually moved me to tears a couple of times,” she said. Particularly special was that her mother Antomina joined her on that trip, along with two of her daughters, Ofa, who was then eight, and baby Kalani, at that time only six months old. “My beautiful mama is now 65 years old, she was 18 when she married my dad, and not long after they had to escape out of fear of persecution by the Indonesian authorities. She comes from an island paradise called Rumberpon, a small island off the coast of Manokwari, West Papua. “Interesting fact about my mum, she was the first Indigenous West Papuan model in Indonesia! She was on some magazine, modelling her big Afro and also in some video
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