21st March

Got woken about 3am this morning, I thought the roof was going to collapse, but it was just a bit of rain. Sometimes we get rain that looks and feels like rain, other times it is like the heavens have opened and all the Angels are flushing their toilets at once.

Apparently I’m a couple of months late, David told me yesterday that the river occasionally floods over the banks, and across the level parts of the gardens. I think when it gets like that forget the white water rafting.

I’m slowly getting organised at work, after 6 weeks of doing the urgent stuff, it’s settling down to where I can actually start planning things and see them happen. Up till now it’s been Crisis Management 101, thankfully I’ve got my work diary and this to go back over and use to get thoughts on future ways and means to handle what at the time are disruptions and confusion.

The work crews always come back to the Gardens for lunch, even when they’re working at Henderson Field, about 45 min away. Consequently, they leave in the mornings about 9am, the stretch convertible Limo drops off various crews through town doing the Median Strip/roundabouts/gardens, and continues onto Henderson Field with the lawn mowing crew. Then they start coming back about 11.15, picking up the others on the way back, have lunch till 1pm or 1.30pm, then drive back out again. Total time actually working in a day, 4 – 5 hours.

It drives Adrian crazy, I have to agree with him, but not with the way he tries to go about changing it, all shouting and abuse, without an alternative.

I’ve bought 3 kerosene cooking stoves, and a set of pots for each, so from Monday each work crew stays where they are, cooks their lunch there, and do not need to come back to the Gardens. It’s going to be a bit awkward getting them used to it, there were a few people against the idea at the Friday meeting, but we’ll see what happens. Traditions take a long time to change here, I don’t know how this one started, but we’ll try to change a few habits slowly. Some of the men were objecting because there aren’t any women in their crew, and who was going to cook their lunch for them. It’s a very patriarchal society, I’ve mentioned before about the work habits.

Lunch is always rice and tuna with a soupy noodle mix, which we provide.

Tiffany has picked up a dose of malaria, she’s looking like death warmed up at the moment. It’s fairly common here, especially among the natives. Anti-malarial drugs are too expensive for them, so they tend to get malaria, the ones that live slowly build up some immunity, but still get very sick with fevers and nausea. I’d hate to look at the child death statistics here. The Govt provide free mosquito nets, but as everyone is outside in the mornings and evenings the chances of contracting malaria are fairly high. Add in Dengue fever from the daytime mosquitos and you understand why the tourists stopped coming when the troubles stopped the mosquito spraying and eradication programmes. They had malaria almost totally eradicated here some years back, when we could use DDT, when that was banned, the mosquitos returned with a vengeance, and also a high degree of immunity to conventional sprays. Deet works reasonably well as a deterrent, I’m using RID Repellent, but at SBD$120 a bottle, it’s beyond the price of everyone here. As is the Doxycycline I take everyday.

You still get bitten no matter what you use, some of the mosquitos are persistent little buggers.

Just got back from shopping, it’s Ba’Hai New Year, there’s a concert going on for all the kids here, music, games food etc, the rain has stopped, it’s sunshine, humid and everyone has dark sweat patches on their shirts and clothes. I’ve got my washing to do, sweep the bigger lumps off the floorboards, finally got hot water with the sunshine, so yesterdays dishes and the kitchen cleaned up as well. I have got electric to the hot water, but when you turn it on, you can see the light being sucked backwards into the light bulbs as it drains the power. I try not to use it, it’s SBD$2.78 per KW, and a SBD$1.68 per KWh surcharge for the diesel effectively $4.46 per KWh

I’m not doing too bad, Steve put $400 onto the meter when I got here, still got about half the credit left in 6 weeks. About all I use all the time are the ceiling fans, and about 2 hours of light at night. Gas for cooking, solar heater for the hot water.

I need to get some more plastic containers, large size, my last couple of kilos of rice in the bag have got weevils, I forgot to tie the bag up the other night, just screwed the top over, wasn’t enough, luckily not many, sifted the bigger ones out, put the rice in the freezer to kill the smaller ones, and I’ll wash them out later. They float to the top in water, which is handy.

Meant to be full of protein, I’ll give it a miss if I can at the moment.

Caught up with Keithie at the kids concert. My advisors role seems to be forgotten, and I’m more of an administrator than advisor. I get the impression she doesn’t want too much responsibility being passed down to the locals, there’s always got to be a white person in charge. I’ll work on it from the bottom up and get Tiffany, Shirleyeta and David doing a lot more instead of expecting me to run the office and Gardens. I have to do a 6month report for VSA on what I’ve done, seen, and think, so it will be interesting to go back over this and my work diary and put it all down on some logical pattern.

My bread making attempts are improving, it’s mostly edible, I’ll have to spend a bit and get a couple of baking trays for the gas oven, and a couple of tins, then I’ll be back into bakery mode again. I’m using the recipes off www.joepastry.com, plus what I learnt in the bakery in Schull. It’s a really good blog for bread making and other bakery stuff. Remember to drop Joe a note and say I sent you. I’ve been following his blog for a couple of years now, all good advice and a lot of information, unlike this collection of random thoughts views and drivel.

Talking to my Sister yesterday, she was going to our School Wine and cheese evening last night. She was really good at college, cricket team, sports, academic etc, I got expelled. Any reunion we go to, Rose gets, “oh, you’re Warrens sister, hello” after 45 odd years it’s surprising what people remember. They never remember her name, but mine seems to have stuck. Hope you had a good time Roses.

300 kids running on a sugar fix through the settlement here at the moment. I think there is some sort of organization, well, there are adults with them, but give the kids here any sort of entertainment and it’s like Christmas, Birthdays, everything all thrown together. There isn’t much for them otherwise, so anything is appreciated.

I was watching some of the students at the school practising football earlier today, got talking to a couple, their training wasn’t till 10o’clock, but they come early to practise for a couple of hours first, then have 2 hours training, then play among themselves for another couple of hours before going home. No wonder they are all good players.

I’ll be pleased to get another camera, it’s the first time since I was a kid I’ve been without one, there’s a lot to get pics of here, well, that is true of anywhere, but I can tie them into the stuff I write here, to give a better picture of Honiara and the Solomons. A few more weeks, Rose arrives the 17th April for a week hopefully with the new one. I’ve got the Pentax, but with the disastrous results from the local idiot, I’m not keen on spending money for film just to have it ruined.

7pm, it must be going to rain soon, there’s 6 geckos scuttling over the ceiling, and it feels like a sauna inside, and worse outside. All the ceiling fan is doing is moving the warm air across me and drying the sweat.

The young pickinini next door, about 4 years old, hates going to bed, he starts screaming about now every night, for about an hour, till he finally drops off to sleep. I see his father walking around cuddling him for ages, to no avail, as soon as they put him down he starts off again. The joys of close living. I think there are 7 kids next door, from the 2 girls about 16/17, the eldest son, Christopher, about 15, then a few assorted ages down to the 4 year old.

I’m giving the neighbours a mixed set of music today, they had Janis Joplin Essential Double CD, earlier, a bit of Neil Young, After the Gold Rush, now it’s Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense. Tomorrow it’s trance/reggaedub and techno with Salmonella Dub, The Nomad, and Pitch Black

As a side note, the Solomon Star had an article last week about the Prime Minister being shown around the Customs and Immigration section at Henderson Field. They had a large display set up of confiscated articles, in the prime position was a large collection of vibrators, sex toys etc, at which the PM expressed shock and horror that people would be trying to bring these in with them. No matter that they were for personal use, well duh, not for sale is what I meant, all found in peoples suitcases and carry on bags. So a word of caution, leave your toys behind when you visit here, it’s a Christian Patriarchal Society. Tampax applicators included.

I’ve some stuff to do tomorrow at work, so I’ll post this, photocopy everything I need for Monday, and go to the beach for the afternoon.
Woke up at 6am, sweaty, hot and feeling like I was inside an oven. The power went off sometime between the dogs barking at 3am and 6am so I had no water, or ceiling fans. Rainwater tank is full, no surprises, and the gas stove is fine for making coffee. It’s now 9am, and the power is back, I’ll have to wait a bit for the water to start, then I’ll clean up and go to the Kukum Market, then work for a few hours. It’s raining again, so there goes the beach idea for the day,