6th March

I’m a bit like Sam Vimes*, when I hear the phrase **these people** I start looking for sharp bladed objects. No names, I had to put up with closed lips for a while this morning while someone who probably doesn’t know any better talked about everyone I work with. Or more likely, doesn’t want to know any better.
I’ve had no trouble getting anyone at work to do stuff, there is a bit of male/female bias, I mentioned it a few days back, where the women do the majority of the work, the men do just sit around expecting to be waited on, I’ve got one or two men doing the course that I’m working on about that, but I’ll do it my way. I won’t be told that **these people** only work if you shout at them and you have to watch them all the time. Bit like Dwarves, the little buggers are everywhere, and you never see their women. Shiftless lazy lot, working all day and night, quaffing** and fighting all the time.

Yesterday was chaotic, the class in the morning was fun, we did grafting, using branches from a few hibiscus that were cut out, Sandy constantly amazes me. He never says much, he watches, listens, reads my propagation manual, then just goes and does beautiful grafts and splice grafts. Then comes up after class at lunchtime with questions that are so far above a Level 2 certificate. I need more gardening magazines, horticulture books, anything to do with gardening! Everyone here is so hungry for learning.

Wills called in after lunch. He’s one of the people here that work with Aid agencies writing up Funding proposals, to be submitted to the different countries and organizations that provide aid here. He can write sentences like

**It is envisaged that the positive outcomes derived from the input of capital will enable the indigenous people to determine and ascertain independence, and that the infrastructure of the governing bodies will enable all stakeholders to be active participants in determining positive and ongoing future developments that will ensure equality without race or gender affecting the ideal predetermined input and outcomes that will provide for employment opportunities available to every stakeholder.**

I just wrote that and I haven’t a clue what it means either, but it looks good on the proposals, and the UN and Euro Aid, etc all love it.

I’d have written,

**Give us some money so we can get organised and get everyone working, and stop bloody well interfering**

Anyway, I had to write up my wish list for the Nursery by tomorrow, with reasons for purchase and how I thought the equipment would increase both the ability of the Nursery to produce plants efficiently, and also how the equipment would give more skills and work opportunities to everyone here.

It was fairly brief, 4 pages of explanation about what we have now, with the ladies hand rubbing coconut husk through a hand sieve as an example, and how a heavy duty mulcher would speed the process up, and also help remove waste from the Honiara township.

Then a page of equipment, from mulchers, to water systems, pumps, hand tools, training manuals and educational aides.

So about 1am this morning I had it finally edited and printed out.

2pm we had King George VI School 6th form students arrive for a guided tour of the gardens, emphasis on the ecology, preservation, native plants, rain forest habitat. 40 of them, all with a list of questions they wanted answering. I was pleased to get away from them at 4pm, not that they were a nuisance, but my head was spinning with having to think so fast about everything they asked.

Thursday

We finally got our compost made today. About 2 cu. metres of it, layers of wood chippings, with chicken manure in between. I worked with the ladies for the morning, they’re a lot more fun to work with anyway, always laughing and working steadily. We had to bag the wood chips, and carry them a few metres to where we made the heap, still no wheelbarrow, they worked steadily at the heap with rakes and shovels, carried the bags over, I got the easy bit, shovelling chicken manure between the layers with Jennifer and Doris.

I had the men down the river, digging out river gravel and spreading it around the pathways in the Nursery, so we won’t be walking in mud when it rains.

There is a War Memorial Garden by Henderson Field Airport that we are responsible for. About 250 Carallia brachiata trees, beautiful trees, they grow straight with weeping branches.

About a year ago someone got the idea to try to prevent the bull ants that are everywhere here from getting into the trees, and they obtained some form of tar/glue that is meant to deter ants. I haven’t been able to find what yet, or even the tins of it, but it is constricting the tree trunks, and has killed 26 trees so far in the Garden, some are surviving by growing adventitious roots out above the glue, others have inarched over the glue. I’m trying to find out how to either wash it off, which is the ideal solution, or else I’ll be there with the students cutting branches and they can practise inarch grafting on about 100 trees.

If it works well and good, if it doesn’t the trees will die anway.

Shirleyta at work, her brother is looking after one of the numerous cousins boat, while the cousin is working in Australia, and she is trying to find out when they can organise a fishing trip. I am definitely going to Turtle Beach this weekend, probably Sunday, shopping Sat, and Kukum Market on my way home Sunday.

I might not catch anything, but it looks better to be sitting there with a fishing rod, than just staring out over the water, and gives me something to do, I have a very low boredom threshold.

*Sam Vimes, read Night Watch, or Men at Arms, Guards Guards, from the Discworld series, Terry Pratchett is a brilliant writer
** Quaffing is like swilling, but you spill more.

Pic is the USA War Memorial Skyline Drive