Covanee Journey – Nafian Saremo

Nafian Saremo

As our Journey continues, we cannot help but to introduce one Mr. Nafian B. Saremo (uncle Nafian). A close friend of ours since our days in Papua New Guinea as missionaries from 1986 to 2002. He is one of the integral part of what makes Covan’ee possible.

In the early stages of our inception, we attempted in establishing a physical base within Papua New Guinea (PNG). In our attempt in doing so, we made multiple trips into PNG from late 2006 to mid 2009. However, the extraordinarily high property price caused by the country’s land regulations (will explain in a later post) and the complicated bureaucracy, ultimately forced us to abandon our hopes of having a physical base within the country.

Nafian with An Family

As we were leaving the country, uncle Nafian volunteered his services in being the contact point within PNG for us. From then on, it took uncle Nafian, the better part of two years until he was able find the time within his Bible translating work with the Madi people on the coast of Madang Province to start on the Vanilla Project.

From his first dabbling into the business world, then a 56 years old PNG native, with countless phone calls of instructions from us, took uncle Nafian over two years to get his hands on his very own business license and PNG Spice Board’s Vanilla Export License. With these two documents finally in hand, together we were able to realize the goal we first had when we arrived back in PNG in 2006.

Now with Saremo and Sons LLC, and the Gwahatike Project Team on board, we are hoping our journey continues to move forward.

Though we do not advertise ourselves as a ‘Christian business,’ below is a short video of uncle Nafian and the Gwahatike Project Team. We hope it helps to put a face, a person, the people behind the vanilla we provide.

We hope we can also change the lives of the Gwahatike People.

Our story continues.

Cocoa, Vanilla and Coffee

Covan’ee…