WHERE IS BETTY? Part 1

 

A Beautiful & Bubbly KEROWAGHI BUTTERFLY 🦋 

 

Johnson Agua (orange shirt) with other relatives and two security force members at the spot where Betty was buried.

By VICKY BAUNKE of Post-Courier 

BETTY was bubbly and beautiful.

Harmless as a butterfly. Friendly and always smiling, she grew peanuts, aibika, kaukau and tomatoes and sold them at the market down the road.

Her market friends loved her presence. The Kerowaghi woman exuded the friendship that is common among Simbu girls.

Ambai Betty was 30, loved her daughter and often brought her to the Henganofi market.

Then a month ago, she stopped coming. Her friends thought little of her absence. With Covid emerging in a new strain in 2022, like all mothers with little kids, she may have left for her Simbu hamlet as a precaution.

But something just did not seem right. Where was Betty Agua Bill?

The answer came like the chill of the Henganofi night, slicing into the hearts of her market friends, a shocking reminder that marriages made among the wild flowers of Henganofi and blessed with the cool Wara Simbu can sometimes pass with fatal consequences.

Had it not been for the curiosity of a passing relative, Betty may not have been found.

But one day last week, a Kerowaghi relative returning home from Lae, decided to pay Betty a surprise visit.

The road trip from Lae to Kerowaghi is long and tiring for the itinerant roadie.

But the beautiful scenery of misty mountain passes, green valley’s comfort the travelling soul.

Johnson Agua was feeling good. He even felt goofy as the vehicle ascended the famous twisting Kassam Pass.

Ramu, the sweetener of PNG lay below in the valley, its sugarcane fields stretching as far as the eye could see.

The sudden burst in elevation from the Markham Valley into the Kainantu heights can be dizzying and mind boggling. 

His ears lightened as the bus approached Kainantu town, he realised that Henganofi would be the next stop. At Henganofi, Johnson decided to disembark and visit his sister Betty, who resided just along the roadside before Henganofi station.

As Johnson approached, he noticed something was not right. The house seemed deadly quiet.

“I checked at her home and asked her husband’s relatives but they told me she was not home," Johnson recalls.

He was perplexed. Maybe he was overreacting. Then he remembered his sister was an excellent woman with a spade, something she had endeared to as a child growing up among the kaukau fields of Kerowaghi. 

"So I then went to the usual spot along the highway where she usually does her marketing, but she was also not seen there,” said Johnson.

This raised his anxiety level. Calm down, he told himself.

Maybe she had gone ahead of him to Kerowaghi to be with the family.

It was school starting season. But Johnson walked with a shuffle. He was troubled. The stones held his feet like a weight.

Something was not just right. The demeanor of his in-laws troubled his heart.

“I was troubled and traveled on to Chimbu and discussed the matter with our relatives that Betty was missing.

"We continued to check but there was no sign of Betty anywhere," a tearful Johnson recalled.

Their inquiries must have touched the guilty heart of someone. 

One dark night, when hopes of finding Betty were fading fast as the wara simbu flows, a phone call came.

"One night we got a phone call from an unknown number telling us that a woman from Kerowaghi who had been married to Henganofi was murdered and buried in the area."

The family was deeply shocked. At first they did not want to believe the words that had been relayed.

They remained hopeful it was not Betty. The kind of hope that daylight springs forth with morning dew, and would bring them some positive optimism.

But optimism is like a forest funnel, it does evaporate over time.

“These message made us very suspicious that something bad must have really happened to our sister who has been missing for over a month now.

"So we reported the matter at the Kerowaghi Police station.

"The Simbu PPC reported the alleged crime to the Eastern Highlands PPC to consider an investigation.”

Henganofi Rural Police Commander (RPSC) and Detective Senior Constable Henry Sagu was informed through the Eastern Highlands PPC Superintendent Michael Welly to investigate the case. 

Part 2 of BETTY tomorrow. 

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