BY JOY OFASIA
Madalyn Flora is a gardener and cleaner at the Doma Cove Home Stay located in the Northwest Guadalcanal region.
As a single mother to five children, it is her passion in doing landscaping.
Her profession as a gardener has helped support her family through the past years.
“Landscaping has been my passion. It all started when I still lived with my husband – when we used to work together doing odd landscaping jobs in certain places.”
Her first experience in doing landscaping was during the preparations towards the Festival of Pacific Arts event in 2012. That time she supported her husband doing landscaping work including the artificial waterfall.
“That was my first experience and I felt really good seeing the finished job, how it looked and most of all seeing the happy faces on peoples face admiring the finished work.”
Now that Madalyn is living by herself, she decided to continue the passion in doing landscaping jobs to help her family survive.
The mother of five from the weather coast in the south eastern region of Guadalcanal currently lives at Aruligo and travels by bus to Doma Cove to work each day. Madalyn had been working at Doma cove home stay for five years – since 2017. Before that, she did the same job at Ginger beach for three years. Ginger beach is located right next to Doma Cove homestay.
Madalyn is the only gardener working at Doma cove.
“I am the only gardener working here since I moved over from where I was previously being employed. My roles and responsibilities here – I do it with passion and I enjoyed every bit of it,” Madalyn said.
She said that one of the best part of her job is making new friends with visitors who come to the beach.
Since the hardworking mother is the only gardener working at the Home Stay, she also played the role in doing housekeeping in the Doma Cove bungalows.
“I multi task alot, which I enjoyed,” she said.
Since Madalyn started working at Doma Cove home stay she managed to attend some short courses in town to support her with her skillful talent which helped her a lot with what she does around the beach.
Doma Cove landscaping was made by Madalyn and is very beautiful. People admire the place and often go there to host events.
Madalyn received positive feedbacks and compliments from visitors which motivated her to work harder.
Now as a usual mother living in the village and has a job, Madalyn loved gardening too. But this is what she described as a challenge. Madalyn also loved gardening; she used to make big gardens to feed her family back then. But due to her family’s situation, she had no other choices but to find job for her family’s survival.
“I loved gardening and also have my own gardens, but the challenge is I do not have the time to visit them,” she said.
She explained that gardening was her main activity she engaged in before she was employed. Now she has very little time to visit her gardens.
But after all, Madalyn is satisfied and says that she is happy even though she faces many challenges.
Madalyn today continues her job as a gardener at Doma Cove home stay and says that she has gained more skills when doing her job through many positive comments, advices and compliments from visitors and she is very pleased.
“I would like to encourage women and girls out there who have the same skills and passion as I do to continue with the good talent. The more you create your ideas and set them out people will admire your work and this will bring you up to the next level,” she encouraged.
Madalyn says that do not overlook the skills that you have, make use of it and it will bring happiness to you.
For Location and Contact details, please click the link to Solomon Directory below: Doma Cove Beach Bungalows | Solomon Directory (islesmedia.net)
