25th March

Met the Japanese Consul, or the lady who handles Grant applications at any rate. A few more things to tidy up with the application before Monday, then it will be finished and ready to go for acceptance and approval.

Will has done a huge amount of work on it, I don’t know where he gets the time. He is involved with the coffee/cocoa/vanilla orchid trial farms as well, plus different small farming ventures in Thailand/Indonesia. He has a lot of good ideas, one for eventually getting the Nursery to become a training ground for his coffee growers so they can learn propagation and general plant maintenance. Once the nursery is complete and we’ve got the existing contract work out of the way I’ll get that underway next year.

Our cheap mulcher is looking further away each day. Keithie isn’t keen on spending the money in the account, regardless of the cost saving, I’ll have to work on that a bit more, but I get the impression that once the money comes in, it never goes out. In the meantime, the ladies are still sitting patiently hand rubbing about 2 – 3 wheel barrows of husk a day through the mesh.

And the pile of husks gets bigger each week as we clean up around Honiara.

The funding from Japan is for the production of 2,000 trees to be planted around Honiara, streets and parks. I think I’ve mentioned before about how no-one in Honiara is actually from there, they all come from different islands or provinces, so there isn’t any real sense of belonging. Any trees planted get ripped out, hacked with bush knives, used for firewood, including the cages used to surround the trees to protect them. We’re getting steel re-bar cages made, that have to be cemented into the ground in an attempt to stop the trees being damaged. I asked Tiffany and Shirleyta could we make wooden surrounds, to be told they had tried that, most of the surrounds didn’t last the first weekend before they were used for firewood. It takes a while to get used to life here.

David came in this morning, his arm is going to take a long time to heal, and he’s now been bitten by something on his foot. His foot up past his ankle is twice the size of the other, but is he going to the doctor? His answer is that it doesn’t hurt as bad as it did last night, so it’s going to be alright, in the meantime, he’s hobbling about barefooted, obviously in pain, but being a MAN from Rennell Islands, you don’t let anyone know.

I’m 2 more trees up on my list in the Gardens, Ngali nut, (Canarium harveyii) and Mussaenda glabra. I keep asking Tiffany and Shirleyta about the trees, they keep saying “oh we don’t know” but when you ask a bit more, they know the island name, and from there it’s easy to research from all the different botanical surveys that have been done here over the years.

Ngali nut have an almond like nut inside, on a few of the Islands, Isabel is a good example, the local people have slowly altered the nut size by selective breeding so that it is now classed as a separate sub-species, although as Shirleyta said, it might be a bigger nut, but it doesn’t taste as sweet as the small ones on her Island off Makira. And the trees on her Island are a different sub-species again.

Mussaenda is a medium sized tree, several different colours to the flowers, actually the bracts surrounding the flowers, a lot like Bougainvillea have colourful bracts, and insignificant flowers. The tree at Bekikama is a white/green colour, the bracts look like tissues floating in the breeze, I was reminded of Magnolia stellata by it, the same floppy white flower forms. Nice trees, the foliage stays on all year here, it’s possibly deciduous in a more temperate climate. We have a red one in the nursery, totally different flower shape altogether, just a species variation.

I’ll have to go back to Bekikama soon, the Ravenala madagascariensis (Travellers Palm) there that Ben has had trouble propagating, found out that because he has been trimming the leaf and stem shrouds, he’s also been cutting off the flower heads before they form. I’ll have to have a closer look at it next week and see if there are any flower heads still tucked away in the leaf sheaths.

I’ve a meeting with the Works Clerk from the Honiara Council this Friday, I’ll put the idea that we get a couple of small carts made with a rubbish bin mounted, and provide a daily street cleaning service through Honiara township. It’ll be 2 or 3 new jobs, and it’ll help tidy the township up during the day. Hopefully we’ll be able to work out a contract price and get it underway before the next tourist season starts fully.

It’s shows how desperate people are here to work, I’ve talked it over with a few people in the work crew, and I have more people willing to push a cart and broom, shovel around town all day than there will be positions available. I’ve mentioned previously about the status people get if they have a job here, it’s a source of self esteem, pride, whatever, even though most jobs pay a pittance it’s better than not having any employment.

Having the people with RAMSI, and the outside Consultants and UN observers here has really distorted the local economy. Rents, hotels, food, are all way beyond the levels that the local people can afford now. The fishing charter prices out of Honiara are just one example, SBD$10,000 for one days fishing. Ok, it’s AUD$2,000 but even that is pushing the limit. Spending 2 ½ months worth of my living allowance for a day out isn’t worth it for me. I’ll wait till Shirleytas brother gets organised with the boat, and I’ll pay for the diesel for the day. Or half it, depends on what arrangement we can come to.