Tuesday 30th June

Jocelyn has the gardeners position for NZ Aid, so she is happy. It’s 3 months trial, 20 hours a week, $5 per hour, and $30 per week transport allowance. After tax etc she’ll get about $80 of it, plus her bus fare, not a great amount, but it’s a start for her. After 3 months she goes onto permanent and a pay rise as well. $80 will buy 10kg of rice at the discount shop, or 5 kg of rice $55, and 5 small tins of shredded tuna to go with it.

Without their own gardens the people here would starve with the prices for food in the shops.

You can get a lot at the markets for that, some of the food like cassava, I’ve tried but I’m not that hungry yet to try it again. Well, not without a lot of spices to liven it up. And taro is ok, but really starchy and I have enough weight problems without adding to the problem.

I wish there were more newspapers like the Solomon Star around the world, there probably wouldn’t be the problems with politicians. Another one is being questioned in the letters section over where $9.7 million of development funds have gone. It appears his wantok got the majority of it, and haven’t started the work yet, after 7 years. But I assume they have a good house, tv etc in it while the rest of the villages are still living **customarily** as it’s put here, without anything. It’s really hard to comprehend just how deep wantok goes in society here. If you don’t support your family, extended out as far as possible, you get ostracised for life.

David has the problem of his wantok at work, we’re finally getting rid of him this week for poor attendance and work, but it’s taken a long time for David to be able to explain it to all his family. I have the same trouble with it as well, William is a good worker, when he wants to be, but has a slight problem with kwaso/marijuana/alcohol/betel and we catch him wandering all over town instead of being with the work crew. And he is well educated, just fell off the rails a bit and without the wantok system, he’d be on the streets with nothing. But he is a disruptive influence at work, with the rest of the crew having to carry the extra workload when he doesn’t turn up, or just wanders off on them.

6 more weeks and I’ll have clocked up 6 months here, and not done a damn thing on what I’m meant to be doing. And the way it is going, it’ll be another 3 months till anything gets started. It’s bloody frustrating.

Friday – Monday 29th June

I think it’s been the slow accumulation of little aggravations. Friday I just gave up any semblance of working, and spent the day goofing off with David, scrolling the net, reading pages of stuff about snakes in the Solomons, in general just goofing around. It must have been David as well, he bought a dvd into work for the crew to watch after lunch, it was about 35*C and dry, and the road crew were swimming in sweat. It was The Mummy 2, for the umpteenth time for me.

The heat here is really sapping the energy from everyone, I find I miss the humidity already. It’s like a really dry oven, all the road plantings are wilting, even the bigger trees and palms are suffering already, and we have another 5 months of this until the rains normally arrive. If the el nino takes hold, it could be February till we get significant rainfall again.

Saturday I spent cleaning up the house, couldn’t be bothered going into Honiara for shopping, so just went to the local Barack Enterprises shop. Everything is as cheap or cheaper there as in town anyway, just not the range. They still insist on getting the Papua New Guinea low bicarb Coke, it’s disgusting. No bite to it, and there is nothing worse than flat coke, well, there may well be, but for the moment flat coke is the top of the disgusting drinks table.

Our funding proposal finally got sent to Japan this morning, now it’s just waiting to see if they approve it and we can finally start moving ahead on what I’m meant to be doing here.

Barbara from NZ Aid contacted me a week or so back, looking for a gardener for their property. I took Jocelyn along today, she is the tiniest lady from the last course, barely 5’ tall, if that, and built like a match with the wood shaved off. But, she can work and carry huge loads all day and still be smiling at the end. It’s a fair sized garden for her to look after, I’ll go there again Wednesday morning, and draw up a plan for her to follow for trimming and planting, and maintenance. I have to take her into the NZ High Commission tomorrow to fill out the security papers and employment contract, hopefully she’ll get a good wage, plus one meal a day, and bus fares to and from White River.

One of the forums I belong to, 419Eater, one of the members has had a huge emotional shock. His parents, both in their early 70’s, are off to Nigeria as Missionaries for the church they belong to in the USA. He is a bit at sixes and sevens over it, and is worried about it all. Being as they talk about it as being the final thing they will probably do, they are both looking forward to spending their final years there. He was asking for advice, all I offered to him was my experience with VSA. We often forget that our parents had a life before we came along, and had dreams about what they wanted to do at some stage in their lives. Then usually all that gets put aside to raise a family, and it isn’t till later on that the old ideas or desires manifest themselves again. I, and others in the forum weren’t probably as sympathetic about it as he might have wished. We were all for it, and wished his parents well in whatever they do, it’s certainly better than spending your life in a rest home with the endless rounds of bingo and arguing over the tv.

We had another snake in the nursery over the weekend. I have no idea what it is, venomous or not, but it is very aggressive, and fast. It made a few lunges at me when I was trying to take a pic, so I gave it a wide berth and didn’t bother trying to pick it up. I’ll post the pic in here, if anyone recognises it please let me know. I haven’t been able to find any identification for it yet.

Our big boa from last week is settling into the lily pond area, it took me a while to find it this morning, but it is peacefully settled amongst the ginger and helliconia plants there. I was thinking it may be pregnant, the body looked too large for what I think is normal, that or else it had just eaten a large cat or cuscus.

Monday 29th June

Sorry, it's been one of those weekends, when nothing got done, and even less got planned I'll try to catch up tonight when I get home

In the meantime, here's Andrew cooking the barbque

Wednesday 24th June

Kukum Market

Kukum Market

The saga of the Police commissioner and the “lady” just gets more extreme each day. I had it wrong a bit yesterday, it was after the Queens Birthday celebrations, not the football, but other than that, the facts have changed a lot more.

In todays Solomon Star News, the Commissioner was with 6 other police officers, having a few drinks in a secluded spot, when a group of masked and armed men held them up, raped a female police officer, and took their uniforms. And also trashed their car. Luckily they had civilian clothing to put on, it is a very confusing story, I’ll stick with the one I heard a week ago just after it happened before it spread out of control. That he was with a female junior officer when her wantok arrived and dealt to the car and him.

http://www.solomonstarnews.com/

It is proving to be an interesting thing to follow in the paper anyway, along with all the other bits and pieces. More letters in there today about the sewage enhanced fish in the markets, asking why it is allowed to carry on instead of protecting the health of everyone. At the levels of contamination, the fish would have had to be caught in a sewage pond, 7,000ppm E-coli is high by any standards. Then there is the continuing saga of the electricity blackouts. SIEA (Solomon Island Electricity Authority) are saying that their highly skilled and trained technicians are working around the clock to repair the #3 generator, and as soon as the parts, which have been coming by boat arrive finally, after 4 months, from Japan, it will all be well again. The best they can offer is that it will be all restored by the end of July.

I sent Jennifer and Imelda out with the truck today, to get as many cuttings of Bougainvillea as they could find around the town. I’ve found several we don’t have and gave them directions to find where they are. Hopefully in a couple of months we’ll have a bigger range instead of the dwarf purple, standard purple, and orange. Somehow they lost the mother plant for the variegated pink, and the other colours.

Mendana Ave is slowly getting back to pothole alley. Another month and it will be almost as bad as it was before they patched the holes. And this is without a lot of rain. All the roading machinery was destroyed in the troubles, so if it can’t be done with a road grader and a roller, then it will just be a patch up job. All they do is scrape the surface with the grader, then roll over it, spray tar and spread road gravel. No compaction or base course, it goes straight onto the coral. Again it comes down to the cost, too many fingers getting back handers along the way to leave anything for the actual job.

Tiffany and I both feel like a holiday already, she’s been nearly 3 years without a break, I’ve only been 6 months without doing anything. I think that is what is getting me so depressed all the time, waiting to actually do what I’m here for. All I can do is find fill in stuff to keep me occupied, and it has to be something that doesn’t cost anything because we haven’t the funds for anything. Totally frustrating and pointless.

I’ve measured all the tracks in the Gardens now, 4.6 kilometres in total, which will help the schools when they do the next crosscountry, we can work out some really good routes for them.

101 uses for dental floss

#1 Repairing sandals when the stitching comes apart.

#2 Replacing the eyelet binding on the top of my surfcaster when the tip gets damaged.

#3 Rethreading one of my shell money necklaces when it breaks. And it’s not as easy to get the pattern right as you’d think.

More to come

Further to the post on Sunday about the shell money paid as blood money in the murder feud. It is worth $100 per metre for plain, if there are patterns, or groups of other shells in it, it can go to $200 per metre equivalent. A heap of shell money is usually 10 metres in length, so the 45 heaps given as reparation and reconciliation would be worth a minimum of $45,000 in Solomon Dollars, about NZ$9,000, AUD$7,500, US$6,000, €4,200

And would probably take 1 person 2 –3 days to make each heap. A lot of families on Malaita start making shell money lengths as soon as their son is born, so they will have enough to pay bride price when he is old enough.

We heard back from the Japanese consul today, they have accepted our application, now it goes for translating, then forwarded to Japan for approval. Hopefully by the end of September we’ll know and be able to start doing something.

Tuesday 23rd June

David and Solomon boa

Solomon boa

I finally got my pictures of a snake. Some of the crew were clearing weeds along the river track when they found one asleep in the undergrowth. Beautiful dusty brown Solomon boa, about 3’ long, and well feed by the look of it. I think it’s close to shedding its skin, it had that dry dull look on the back, while the stomach was all brightly coloured and patches of skin were still peeling off in places.

David picked it up, we had people clustered back on the track while I was taking photos, none of them were prepared to come near us. I presumed it was a boa, from the shape of the head and the colour and pattern it looked like the pics I’ve seen of them, so I took the chance it wasn’t poisonous. It was very slow moving, I suppose being woken up in the hot daylight does that.

I took it down to the lily pond and let it go into the ginger and helliconia shrubbery, it’ll be safer there than near the track. And it’s got more food with the frogs there, plus shelter and water.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet day. We cleaned out the garage area, Forestry want to store their fuel drums in it as well, so we had a bit of rearranging to do. I found a lot of ropes, all with knotted ends instead of splices and ends, so spent a while with Andrew showing him how to back splice, join and make loop splices in it. Plus a few knots, bowline etc instead of the usual Solomon convoluted knot that is impossible to untie without using a bushknife.

David has given me the Town Ground roundabout to design and landscape. I will try and get it done with the next class, that way I’m not taking any of the crew away from what they are meant to be doing.

The papers here are warning against a drought happening this year, already the rainfall has dropped, there is a good el nino pattern forming, which brings dry winds here. I’ve noticed already how dry it is, the plants along the road are drying out in a couple of days which has David and a few others out every night with the water truck. Coupled with Solomon Islands Water authority, things are looking dry for a few months till November when the rains come back hopefully.

The Police Commissioner got caught a week ago with a “lady” friend parked up at Henderson, by the airport, presumably by family of the “lady”, and his car was trashed. It was hushed up till today, when the Solomon Star published a front page story about him being suspended pending a full inquiry. His story is that he was out with other officers having a few drinks after the celebrations in town following the football. Unofficially, he was caught with a “lady” in a compromising position. Needless to say, his wife isn’t too impressed.

The fish sellers are still thriving in Central Market, and the roadside fish stalls. You’d have to be stupid to be buying fish from them, but I guess if it’s what you’re used to, then your system can cope with it. I’m just waiting for a cholera outbreak in town soon, with the lack of water, no sewage system, and the general state of the squatter settlements around Honiara. I’ll go through Central Market with the camera on Saturday morning, I wish I had some good rat traps to put in my shoulder bag to catch the fingers of the bloody pick pockets.

Hi Dave in Maryland, good to see you catch up with me again. It’s been a while, Hi to Caleb too.

Monday 22nd June

Rove Prison planting out
Grasshopper on Helliconia leaf

I wish Bill Gates would get all the bugs out of stuff before MSN dump systems on people. IE8 is full of little quirks that really bug you if you have a lot of things you do online, copy/paste is only one of many. I’ve removed IE8, left IE7 on the HD, and installed Firefox. Once I get used to Firefox I’ll take IE7 off completely, do a big cleanup on the HD, I’ve got 45GB used already, ok, 30GB of it is music, and the other 10 is all the pictures gradually filling up the space.

Just got my copy of the VSA magazine, if anyone is interested http://www.vsa.org.nz/ will open the home page, and the magazine is online there. Plus you can read about VSA Volunteers and what everyone else is achieving while I’m here beating my head against the wall.

I’ve been trading emails most of the day, trying to convince people that laying off staff, and expecting the ones left to do the same amount of work is not going to work. If we had machinery it might be possible, but we rely on people power, even the road sweeping is done with brooms and shovels, not a powered road sweeper. It takes the crew 4 ½ days to sweep from Town ground, through Honiara and along the Prince Phillip Highway to King GeorgeVI School. About 12 miles I think. All done with brooms and a shovel and wheelbarrow.

I’m pleased I had the work at Rove Prison to keep me occupied, the guys are having a weeks break, and it’s only Monday and I’ve been trying to find things to do already. I’ve got one more side of the Gardens to walk the track on tomorrow with the Measuring Wheel, then draw a nice map with the distances marked and get it copied onto the Visitors Map Board.

My little corner shop is getting a lot more of my trade, I had a couple of hours off this afternoon, another power cut from 3pm till 5pm, so we called an early day, well I did anyway, Tiffany was going to wait in the Nursery for the truck to come back. I went into Wings, the “supermarket” checked the prices, and also into Ausmart. My corner shop is $2.50 cheaper for milk, $1 a kilo cheaper for rice, margarine, tinned stuff, even coffee is $15 per 250gram packet cheaper. If I shopped around a bit more I could probably do better, but I hate dragging around shops just to save $1 and ending up with several shopping bags half full of stuff.

We’re giving the two night security guys a months notice this week, with Forestry taking over the building we’re getting a container as a temporary home till the Nursery building is completed, and Forestry can take care of the security. One of them has been given a few written warnings anyway, arriving for work drunk, smashing the doors open because he forgot his keys, not turning up for work, all in all, he’s been the architect of his own problems.

I’ve got 2 weeks break coming up at the end of July, my 6 month get out of area break, and I’m totally undecided where to go. I could just about afford to get to Sydney, or Brisbane, Sydney would be good. If Louise Scott and Zambezi have a spare bit of floor, I could just about settle back into Bondi again. Last time I lived there was in 1970, I’ve been back a few times since, it has certainly changed from the seedy surfer full of kiwis lifestyle.
In all probability I’ll end up going to Gizo or maybe Rennel/Bellona. Ren/Bel would be good, I can visit Tiffany and Davids family there, and get really used to the Island lifestyle there. And it’s almost as far from Honiara as you can be in the Solomons, apart from Temotu. 18 hours on the ferry, then two main islands, Rennel, and Bellona, with a smattering of smaller ones around the edges. Rennel has the largest fresh water lagoon in the world, it’s now a World Heritage Listing, or is on the list to be made one, news travels slowly here. Tiffany says the Bellona is the better of the two islands, David argues for Rennel, so it’s easy to figure out where they come from.

Monday 22nd June

For some reason copy/paste isn't working yet in here. 2 pics of the cuscus to go on with while I sort the problem out.

Sorted, IE8 has a glitch that won't let you copy/paste, I'm downloading Firefox and swapping over. Removed IE8 and gone back to IE7 in the meantime till I get used to Firefox.

Friday 19th June

Another week over with, and still no further with what I’m actually meant to be doing. Tiffany and I took the final copy of the proposal for Japanese Grass Roots funding into the Japanese Consul this afternoon. If it’s accepted here, it then gets translated, and sent to Japan for approval, which could take 3 months from today. Then we can start working on the Nursery improvements.

I’ll have been here 9 months filling in time with other things, watching the time go by and getting totally frustrated. Everything we’ve done so far was all meant to have been finalised before I arrived, but the insistence on a truck being part of the funding cancelled any hope of the original proposal going through. And now that we have to have a building as part of it, both from our own necessity, and the Japanese insistence, a lot of the nursery equipment has had to be sacrificed to allow for the cost of the building. I still get the irrigation system though, and most of the security fence. So it’s not all bad.

We’re still being pushed to cut the wages down to $17,000 per month, and lay off staff. I’m going to wear the wages bit, I can be a bit bolshy about that, but if we get told to lay off staff I’ll be re-evaluating the role VSA should have with the SEB. We’re meant to be building self sufficiency and self determination, job skills etc, and putting people out of work doesn’t come into the equation.

I’ll go through the work book again Monday, sort out the contract work we get paid for, and all the unpaid work, thankfully it’s all on spreadsheet, so there’s not a lot to do, and we’ll go to a minimum work week, do the paid work only and any other work up to the wage limit, then stop. Keithie can’t grasp the concept that people still get paid, even if the work we do isn’t part of any contract. And the number of people on the crew is the minimum we need to cover all of the work. Ok, there are a couple we can get rid of and we’re working through the dismissal process with them, but if the crew get below 18 people, we won’t be able to cope with the paid work.

There’s a nice big editorial in the Solomon Star today, almost exactly what I wrote yesterday in here, about the fishmarket. Asking why it isn’t closed down, the threat to everyones health from the E-coli count, warning about typhoid, cholera etc, and putting peoples incomes before the majorities health. As Tiffany said, everything here is upside down, the fishmarket people are telling the Government and Health Authorities what to do, instead of following what the law says.

It’s a strange country to get used to. On Makira, there is no power now, because the land owners where the power generator is, have got a dispute with the power company over payment for the use of the land and river for the hydro generator. So they cut off the water supply to the dynamo. And because a lot of their wantok work for the ferry boat, they haven’t allowed any diesel to be delivered to run the diesel generators. Which cuts out the tourist places there till it’s all settled.

The guys who put the water flow meter into the stream at the Gardens ran into the same problem. All they put in is a pipe about 400mm diameter, about 2m high, into the stream bed. They can’t get to a few rivers because the land owners wanted SBD$1 million a year in rental for the use of the stream. About NZ$200K, AUD$175K, €100K, US$125K.



Sunday 21st June.

It’s Sunday evening, I’ve got over my anger about the Friday meeting, almost. Steve called in Saturday afternoon, I was in one of my anger displacement moods, the washing machine was going, I had bread rising, the floors were mopped, the music was on LOUD, Jonny Lang and early Jefferson Aiplane.

It took about 2 hours to get it to sound rational, I’m convinced now that SEB is not what VSA should be involved with. I’m meant to be doing all the catch phrase stuff, capacity building, promoting independence, strengthening employment, self determination, put the rest in whatever.

Instead, we have a situation where the person in charge, for all the good work that has been done, still considers the locals to be slightly deficient in ability, and totally incapable of being left on their own without the benevolent guiding hand of a white fella to keep it all under control. Oh for the days of Empire, when Britain ruled and the cute little fuzzy wuzzies were happy little children. I’ve been stewing all weekend over it, trying to write out something to give Steve for VSA.

I’ve got a work meeting in the morning, to let everyone know the current situation, by Friday I’ll have next months work roster drawn up, no free work, unless we have enough to cover the hours.

I’m trying to be positive about it all, caught up with David at work this morning, I know, it’s Sunday, but we both go in at weekends unpaid anyway, and told him again to talk about forming his own company with Tiffany and taking over the contracts next year when they come up.

On a more positive note, the scout camp at the gardens the weekend went well, they caught a small cuscus and kept it for me till this morning, so I finally got some pics of one. Very similar to a NZ possum, but with a log naked tail. Cute little thing, if it hadn’t bitten me as I was putting it back in the breadfruit tree I’d probably have liked it a lot more.

Another tourist got robbed in the Central Markets again last week, well, not in the Market proper, but the thieves ran into the Market, and when she caught up with them, they just laughed at her and walked away. Her watch and bag had been long disposed of or passed around before she caught up with them, so the Police couldn’t do anything without any real evidence. American student here doing a wild bird study for Dept of Conservation. Needless to say, there is another nail in the coffin of the fledgling tourist industry here.

The beggars and petty thefts are getting worse lately. I had another beggar track me for 3 days till he found my house. I’d seen him at the corner shop about Wednesday evening on my way home, then Thursday he was at the top corner of the road, waiting to see which way I turned I guess, then Friday he was further up the road at the Ba’hai turnoff, and Saturday he was doorknocking on my house asking for money for his sons school fees. With the usual story about how the last white person that lived here used to give him the money for carvings etc, and wanting $700 for this terms fees. I finally got rid of him, but he’s not convinced I’m here on volunteers income, and not RAMSI or Consultants wages. It’s becoming worse in town now, I try to get my shopping done and get out as fast as possible. Too many people just standing around watching where your wallet gets put, what goes into your bags etc. The good thing is being without a haircut for six months, I don’t look like any of the RAMSI or Consultants, and there are a few people I recognise on the streets as well. Still doesn’t feel safe though, especially Central Market.

To counter that though, the ANZ hole in the wall swallowed my card on Saturday morning, and refused to give it back, after hitting all the buttons, and saying a few choice words in pijin and english, with a bit of the gaelige thrown in, I walked off, got the truck and for some reason went back to see if by chance it had regurgitated my card. About 5 – 10 minutes I guess. I got there, and a woman who had been in the que came up, with my card, and said it had spat it out a little while after I left, and if I hadn’t come back, she was going to drop it into the bank on Monday. Restored my faith in everything again.

Steve feels it is only a matter of time before it all turns upside down again, next years elections may be the catalyst, or it may happen sooner. Unemployment in Honiara is 80% for the people under 25, no one has done a survey on the older people, the schools track pupils for some time after they leave, then it all get lost in the paperwork. Having continual power cuts, a dodgy water supply that isn’t always available, no real infrastructure, roads etc, and a lot of misused or ill advised aid provinces away from Honiara. It’s a lot safer out there than in this dysfunctional town.

If anyone reads the Solomon Star, www.solomonstarnews.com there is a good front page story about what happens here with intertribal murders for Saturdays edition. There was a man killed in Kabia Heights in Honiara last month, kwaso related, and the two families have been feuding ever since. It’s been settled with the payment of 45 heaps of shell money, and $20,000 cash from the Manafiu tribe on Malaita, to the Saena’a tribe of Kwara’ae as blood money to buy the debt of the murder. The person who killed the man is still in Rove Prison awaiting trial, but the feuding has stopped without anyone else being killed.

There’s a good pic of the heaps of shell money in the paper, I have no idea about the $ value, I’ll ask at work what each heap would be worth or could buy on Malaita. I know bride price can get to 100 heaps of shell money and over $30,000 in cash.. Weddings there if they are tribal, have “red” money payments. The Solomon $100 dollar note is red, and they get pinned up around the feast area for the wantok members to help themselves to, as a gift from the grooms family. The last wedding I heard about, about 2 months back, cost the groom $30,000, in “red” money alone for the feast, as well as the bride price paid to start with.

We had a group of Temotuan people go missing early this month. Eight of them, a couple of priests, and others sailing a traditional catamaran from Utuapa to Anuta when they lost a steering oar, and drifted under sail to Vanuatu. Good sized catamaran though, sleeping and cooking room on board, so they were reasonably ok for 15 days till they arrived in Vanuatu yesterday. It’s always funny to read about it here, it’s such a common occurrence, that there isn’t much written about it, no headlines screaming “Survivors of Ordeal” “15 days Lost At Sea Victims” etc. When you see the distances they sail or paddle in dugout canoes and the totally casual way of life here, they could be missing for months and still not get more than a slap from their partners for being late home with the fish.

I noticed on Savo how easy it is to sail to the other islands here. Although the islands proper are mostly below the horizon, even more so at sea level in a canoe, there is always a tall cumulous cloud over each bit of land, no matter the size. It’s just a matter of heading in the general direction using the current or wind, and you’ll strike land eventually

Thursday 18th June

Further to yesterdays fish and E-coli story. The fish sellers are now asking the Council and Government to provide them with other work, or let them carry on selling the fish as they won’t be able to support their families otherwise. Anywhere else I’ve lived, if anywhere had E-coli counts similar to what they found in Central Market, it would be closed and the proprietors hauled into court fairly quickly. Needless to say, the fish market is still flourishing, no signs up anywhere, and no evidence of a clean up.

But! Everyone is wearing face masks in Honiara because there might be a flu case in the hospital. Talk about panic scare tactics, it’s the flu, just a variant on the usual one, which kills about 10% of people anyway. It’s going to spread rapidly here though, everyone spits, shares cigarettes, betel nut, hygiene is noticeable by its absence.

I’d be more worried about cholera and typhoid spreading here than flu.

All the letters in the Solomon Star this week have been about the possible flu case, and how poorly prepared the Government are, and full of hearsay statements. One person was writing about the 100 people who have died in New Zealand from swine flu, and the hundreds in hospital in Australia, and the thousands killed by it so far. And there is no checking any “facts” given in the letters, so everyone here now thinks it is going to wipe out civilisation as we know it, and the stories get taller each day.

The initial description of it when it first broke out was that it was a combination of swine fever, avian flu and human flu, which makes me think someone with too much time on their hands in a lab somewhere decided to have a play with a petri dish and combined all 3 to see what would happen.

As Arthur Dent said, you could put a big red button in the deepest most remote mine shaft, seal the entrance, paint a huge red sign with “Danger, Pressing this Button Will Cause the End of the World” and the paint wouldn’t have a chance to dry before some idiot was pressing it. Or it may have been Ford Prefect, I haven’t got a copy of Hitchhikers Guide here.

I remember when SARS was the big scare, I flew out of Heathrow back to NZ in 2003, had a shower in Heathrow before leaving, got back to NZ 30 hours later with a bit of a temp. Finally went to the Doc 2 days later, and got quarantined at home for 2 weeks. It wasn’t SARS, they figured it was most likely Legionnaires Disease from the water or the airconditioning in the bathrooms at Heathrow. And I felt like death warmed up at the time.

I’m up to the bored and depressed stage again with everything here. Despite all the good intentions, the Rove Prison Garden still isn’t finished, due to a dispute between the people at Rove, and the ones at the Prison Farm in Tetere. Rove has a mix of people from every province, and somehow the Prison Farm has ended up with only Gualies (people from Guadacanal) there. And there is still a bit of a feud going on. Trying to get soil for the gardens at Rove is turning into a lesson in Island politics. We can’t send up anyone that isn’t a Gualie, Guard or prisoner, and David is trying to juggle staff and trusted prisoners around to get up there. Another day of waiting, I’m getting used to it slowly. I’d like to get the front garden finished finally, so the guys can have a week off, and I can get back to my own work. It’s been a good job, interesting and funny, and talking to the inmates has been interesting.

The power cuts are still happening, more sporadically this week, no set times, or length. There was a letter in the Solomon Star today about a UN Aid Meeting with some overseas investors at King Solomon Hotel. All set up, projectors, computers, all set for a 2 hour power point session, when the power went off. One of the locals was asked if this was common. He had to answer and say it was everyday, for unspecified times, and had been like this for a couple of months now. Needless to say, the investors will be having second thoughts about any business set up here.

The power went off at work at 12 today, till 2.30 pm, then off again at 4 pm. I’d hate to have any manufacturing business here, you’d have the staff just standing around for half the work day.

I need to find more positive stuff to write about! Reading back over the last few weeks it sounds like a whole lot of gripes.

The weather is still good, hot, dryish mostly, a few showers, but not the heavy torrential stuff from a month or so back. It’s dusty and dry through town, the guys have been out with the water tank on the truck 3 times at night this week, watering the tubs. Our bamboo climbing frames for the bougainvillea have been a bit depleted, we’ve lost 4 so far this week.

Wednesday 17th June

No motor, they paddled about 4 miles to get back to Savo

I should really get used to deadlines and schedules meaning different things here. The soil never arrived for the Rove Prison Garden, the power kept going off for an hour at a time every hour, so we haven’t managed to get the Japanese proposal readjusted. The truck had a flat tyre, and of course its the front, and we don’t have a spare for it since the last one was stolen.

Maelyn and I walked into work this morning, sent the work truck back to collect the wheel and get it repaired, which took all day as the tyre was split, and the only similar size was at the other end of the island.

If I’ve been sceptical about buying fish at the markets, I’m even more so now. The Health Dept here finally went through the fish sellers area, testing for bacteria. The average E-coli count on the fish was 7,000ppm and up to 8,000ppm, the water in the ice bins was over 10,000ppm, on the tables it was about 8,000ppm. It would be safer to get fish out of the toilet bowl than from there, add in the constant 30*C temperature and it’s a wonder we don’t have more typhoid and cholera cases in Honiara. And being typical Solomon Islands bureaucracy they haven’t closed the fish sellers, just issued a warning about cooking the fish as they don’t want the market people to lose any money.

It wasn’t just the fresh fish, the cooked smoked fish, and a lot of the other prepared food there was the same.

I’m waiting for a sea water test to be done on the beaches around Honiara next. There isn’t any sewage treatment here, it’s septic tanks and the overflow goes into the streams, then into the sea. And some of the poorer squatter settlements don’t have septic tanks, just straight pipes into the river or seashore.

But we have enough development money for a bloody rugby stadium, 3 new shopping malls being completed now, and plans for high rise retail and office blocks in the centre. Which highlights the problem when countries want their development money to go into what they think we want here, with the Japanese it’s buildings, and the bigger the better, the Chinese are the same, millions of dollars going into retail shops and offices, not into stuff we really need like a water supply that isn’t contaminated, sewage treatment, and rubbish collection and disposal.

A really good earthquake is what we really need, so we can start all over from scratch again.

Rove Prison Garden is looking good, the part we have planted so far. All the Duranta are still standing up, not wilting. In another month or so it will gradually fill out and be really good. I have no idea what colour the hibiscus will be. Going off the leaves, there are a few rosa sinensis, which should come out red, possibly a couple of yellow, and a white in the others. I’ll be making a few changes once the nursery gets upgraded, we need to have the hibiscus and the bougainvillea sorted so we know where each cutting is taken from, and also work out what variety we have of each.

The next Level 2 Class starts next month, I’m going to spend the next 2 weeks rewriting all the class handouts, and adding a lot more information. Provided I can get internet access for downloading more info.

Tuesday 16th June

Weaving pattern around post Savo Island
Dolphin jumping

Boy with dugout canoe Savo Island

Boy with coconuts Savo Island

Monday 15th June

Quiet weekend on Savo, the fishing wasn’t all that good, well, not for me anyway. I had the place to myself for Thursday. Alan wasn’t there, he was back in Honiara with the official Government function for Queens Birthday weekend here, so consequently the orchid collecting didn’t happen. Never mind, another reason to go back next month, although I’ll have to watch the budget a lot better till then.

Saturday Eileen and David arrived, retired couple from Australia, Eileen is English, David is pure Australian. Originally from Melbourne, settled just back of the Gold Coast on their farm now. Nice couple, interesting to talk to. They met in Italy 40 something years ago, in a hostel, then David arrived on Eileens doorstep in England a couple of months later, and they were married a short time later. Eileen writes travel articles, they won the trip to the Solomons from an article she wrote.

Remind me never to invite an Australian along fishing. David and I went out Friday afternoon, rather choppy sea, we travelled around the whole island, before we spotted a few frigate birds circling, dropped the lines over, and David hooked up with a good sized Bonito straightaway. It must have been the only fish out travelling that day, I never got a nibble, and David was in the same position. They went on the short volcano walk Saturday morning as well, and the boat boy decided to borrow one of the villagers from there for Sunday to be the fishing guide.

It got a bit full at the Lodge Saturday, 2 ladies from the UN Aids Council, travelling the Solomons trying to ascertain the level of involvement and what is needed here, and Woody, originally from the Ozarks, more lately from New Orleans, travelling around looking for somewhere. Nice guy, he put up with the GWB jokes, and gave as good as he got. David and I tried explaining AFL (Australian Rules) to him, till we decided he was totally confused, so we had a few more beers.

Went out again Saturday, spent 5 or 6 hours drifting the north coast, in 120 – 150 metre water. I never got a single nibble, our village guide pulled up a few red emperor, golden snapper, and coral trout, till I decided it was time to call it a day. I was a tad sunburnt by then as well, about time I got some sun on me anyway, it’s already gone to my usual dark brownish colour finally. Another few days at the beach on this side and it might last me a while.

Sunday we all had a lazy beach day, the 2 girls from the UN went to see the megapod bird nests, David, Eileen and I spent the afternoon making a bit of a space in the SolBrew bottles.

The dolphins put on a display for us early this morning. I was down by the water about 6 am with my morning coffee and cigarette, when the whole pod came close into shore and started jumping and chasing the small school fish. I got a few good pics.

Saturday night had the most terrific thunderstorm right over Savo. It was like having a train coming across in stereo, a long low rumble, then an almighty crack right over head, followed by a slow rumble fading away to the north. It was loud enough to rattle the beds and door frames. From about 1 am till 4 am. The lightning was spectacular from the top balcony over the sea and the Russel Islands.

Tuesday 16th June

I have little recollection of writing the above. I know I wrote it, but I don’t remember. I crashed asleep about 8 pm last night, gave up waiting for a shower, no water as usual in the evening till late. The guys at the prison had the garden beds all ready yesterday, so I spent most of Monday there getting them to re-dig some of the patches where they had only just scraped the soil a bit, and not broken the hardpan underneath. As they found out today when it came to planting, they had to get the iron bar out to break up the hard pan to set the plants in deep enough. Only in one bed, the one I left for them to do on Friday. Now they know what I meant about digging the soil over to start with. Still it was good, it really mixed the compost and farm soil through.

We planted the Gardenias, Hibiscus and Duranta today, all the holes were dug yesterday, and a trench made for the Duranta border, so it went quite fast for planting. David (Prison Supervisor) is really pleased with it, and the guys are more than happy with the result. David is pleased because now he can get some of the younger juvenile prisoners out on work release to the Kukum SICCHE training centre during the afternoon when it is free.

As I said to him today, we’ll end up with people trying to get into Rove Prison soon so they can go on training courses.

We’re getting a lot of secondary school kids up at the Gardens lately, midyear exams are coming up, and they are being sent up to us for information because the schools have no text books, or internet access. I’ve had questions from common weeds to propagating native plants, and geology/soil makeup, ecology, pollution effects on the gardens. I’ll have something to do when I get back to New Zealand if VSA want me to, go around to all the schools and ask for old text books to send here. The few books I bought with me are always out being used lately, the magazines Rose sent are being passed around and read by everyone, which leads to more questions about what other countries look like. Then everyone wants to go visit or work in them.
I’m pleased I put all my pics onto disc and bought them here, everyone now knows what Ireland, Australia, parts of Virginia and Alaska look like, plus a lot of New Zealand. It’s a good way of keeping everyones attention for a couple of hours.

I’ll have to start working on a set of pictures of the schools here to use for presentations.


Tiffany and I took the Japanese Grass Roots Funding application back in today. Tiffany has spent a huge amount of time on it as usual, and we’ve still got more to alter again in it. Because the building has been altered to take an office and classroom, it pushed the cost over the limit, so now it’s a matter of going through, taking out everything we can make do without, just to keep the building. We’ll go through it all tomorrow morning, and try to have it back to them by Thursday. There’s a meeting with Keithie on Friday, and she’ll be wanting us to get the UN Funding application started straightaway. As well as asking why we haven’t got the British High Commission application done and in. It would be nice if that was all we were working on, but the normal work still has to get done inbetween all the running around getting quotes and invoices.

This wasn’t posted yesterday, I couldn’t get internet access all day, when I was in the office, so hopefully it will improve tomorrow morning. If you’re reading this then I had success.

Wednesday 10th June

Thunder clouds behind Honiara

Work crew family swimming in the river

Another day, sunshine and busy for a while. We’re almost up to planting stage with Rove Prison. The truck load of soil Wilson got this morning was barely enough for half the garden area, but never mind, another load tomorrow.

It’s going to look fairly good when we get it finished, green duranta with gardenias in the front, duranta border with hibiscus for the side gardens and a palm at each end. In the words of Stupid Bloody Johnson, it may look a mess now, but just you come back in 500 years.

I spent another frustrating afternoon trying to get internet pages to open. I want to contact Carann Agencies in New Zealand and get prices for good planter bags for the nursery. After nearly 2 hours I finally go the home page for them to open, then the power went off for an hour, so it was start over again and finally giving up at 5pm,

I’ve managed to send 6 photos to VSA so far this week, ok, I know they are huge images, 4.5 MB, but they take an hour to load, then email times out just before they load fully, next time VSA want pictures I’ll send them on a thumbdrive so long as I get it back by return post. 1GB thumbdrive here is $800, 4GB are over $1200.

We’re having a lot of lightning and thunder storms the last couple of days. No rain, just the crackle and flash of lightning followed by the multiple car crash sound of thunder. It’s very impressive to be looking at a blue sky and over the hills behind Honiara are black cumulous clouds rolling and crackling with lightning.

The weather for the weekend is looking good, I’d like 4 days of calm on Savo, both to collect orchids, and also for the fishing.

Tuesday 9th June

View along the waterfront towards Honiara, rubbish, wrecked freighter

Caesalpinia in flower Mendana Ave Honiara

Had a busy day finally with the inmates from Rove Prison. Well, it’s always a busy day with them, I meant finally a day when I felt like I’d done something.

I had 2 of the guys up at the Nursery again feeding compost through the mulcher, they put through about 2 metres of compost, hopefully it will keep Imelda happy for a while potting. I only have them for 1 ½ hours a at a time, and they work flat out. It was getting close to 11am, and they were due back at Rove at 11, but they decided to finish off the heap first. The 2 wardens didn’t mind, they were busy chatting to Imelda and Dorisse, so it was closer to 11.15 when I dropped them back. David (Prison David) didn’t mind, just so long as we don’t make a habit of it initially while the programme is being trialled.

We tried to mulch some of the coconut husks, but they’ve got really wet sitting in the shade, and the mulcher just clogged up continuously, so it was back to the next compost heap for a good hours workout. The guys back at the prison have got the garden beds ready, we’re waiting on some good farm soil from the prison farm to arrive, then we can plant the area out.

It’s funny walking up to the Nursery with them. They have one warder for each guy, no guns, batons, chains etc, but they walk up holding hands. The warders are about half the size of the inmates, at times I wonder who is leading who in the work party. The guys have no intention of stuffing this trial up, I’m pretty sure they would suffer inside if they stopped it being a permanent exercise.

I’ve been really slack the past few weeks, not having classes doesn’t help, and the work crews are organised, there’s nothing there for me to get involved with. David has the work organised, he’s been doing it long enough to not need me telling him what to do. About all I do is make suggestions about the timing of jobs, so we don’t have the truck running all over Honiara needlessly. If we don’t have the soil arrive at Rove Prison tomorrow, I’ll take David and we’ll go stealing bougainvillea cuttings from around town. I’ve found a lot we don’t have in the nursery double white, double reds, apricot, so Imelda can do cuttings and we can grow them up. The same with the Hibiscus.

I think next year will be interesting politically here, the papers are filling up with a lot of mud slinging, it may get interesting as time goes by. So much wasted money by politicians supporting their wantok, instead of the whole village or constituency. They claim to have found the $10 million from Taiwan, now it’s a bun fight over who is going to get any of it. I’m just curious to know where or how they found it, was it in a briefcase or trunkbox under someones bed?

The humidity has dropped a lot the last week, it’s a lot drier, I don’t feel as though I’m in a sauna all day, another month and it will be a nice time to visit here. David said the fishing improves from now till November, with the tuna and marlin appearing. I’d love to catch one, but I’ll be happy with the kingfish or a good size grouper. There were a few small bluefin tuna at the market Sunday, about 30 kg size, selling for $70 and $90 each. If I could be sure they were reasonably fresh, and kept on ice, I’d be tempted to get one, and have tuna steaks and sashimi and salt cured fillets. I know I’m going to weaken one Sunday morning down there, the fish all look good, well, as good as you would expect at 7 am, before the sun gets onto them. Shirelyta was telling me off the other day for going early to the markets, you get cheaper prices towards the end of the day, the growers don’t want to take produce back. I know this, but I’d prefer to get stuff that is fresher than what it is after all day in the heat and sunshine. The fruit doesn’t get as badly wilted, but the bok choy, lettuce and cabbage all looks wilted by midday.

I’m getting better at bartering, or else they are starting to recognise me there each week, and I’m getting local prices, not the whitefella prices. Giving out prints of the photos I took helps as well.

I’m trying to help put an article together with VSA for publicity in New Zealand, the article isn’t a problem, most of it has been written by Adele, based on my rambling thoughts, trying to get photos sent is a different matter. They need full size jpegs, 4MB size, it takes me an hour to load one pic, then 15 min to send, then I can start uploading the next one. So far this week I’ve managed to send 5 photos starting at 7 am and checking progress every hour or so. I was hopeful gmail would let me send a couple at once, and load quicker than hotmail, but nope, 1 photo at a time, and as slow as hotmail to upload. I get rather frustrated with broadband here. As you may have noticed.

I’m away to Savo, I know, I keep mentioning this, on Thursday, 1 pm from the Visitors Centre. 4 days of not very much to do, collect orchids, go fishing, drink beer and sleep on the beach. I’m taking a lot of spices with me, if I catch any decent fish I’m cooking them myself on the barbque there. The food isn’t much there. Imagine a foreign cook who has been told of European food, but missed a bit in the translation, and everything is almost what you recognise, but not quite. A bit like Arthur Dents cup of tea on the Heart of Gold in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s almost exactly not what you expect.

They don’t do toast there either, as Rosalee found out. I guess that is too hard to translate into toktok.

I almost feel like suggesting my daughter comes up here for 6 months and teaches them how to cook, but that would probably go down like a lead balloon in Brisbane. I know Sir Alan at Sunset Lodge would welcome the idea. It’s never been particularly well known for the food there, the setting is gorgeous though, and close enough to Honiara to make weekend trips quick and easy.

Central Market Entrance
Central Market

Central Market

Monday 8th June

Had a funny sort of conversation with David this morning. He came into work with the work truck and everyone riding on the back, got everyone sorted with work, then settled himself into the office, looked at me and asked if he could ask me a question. He wanted to know why I haven’t dived into landscaping and told him what to do with the plantings etc through town. All I could say to him was that for the first 3 months of being here I’ve had the Level 2 Course to run, the nursery to change a few things in, and apart from the area outside the Post Office down to Telekom, what he’s been doing is perfectly good, and until we get a better selection of plants growing in the nursery, he’s done a bloody good job with few resources, and I doubt I could have done any better.

He’s got so used to advisors coming in, making changes to everything, then once they go it all falls apart because none of the changes or methods really work here. I told him I don’t break things that are working just to fix them, there are things we need to change, and we are slowly, one thing at a time, which works better here than expecting everyone to instantly alter how they do things.

My main focus is the Nursery, and getting more variety in the plants we produce, then we can start adding to the landscaping. It’s hard to do much with the selection we have at the moment, 2 varieties of Duranta, 3 colours of bougainvillea, 5 or 6 colours in hibiscus, rowea, and some prostrantha, allamanda, palms. What we do get done actually looks good, they are all hardy street plants, so other than trimming, we don’t have to be constantly tending them. Other than when some idiot drives over the roundabouts or crashes through the median strip.

I’d like to get some Nandina, for the burnt reds and orange colours, and maybe some of the hardier Australian brachyscome and erigeron for ground cover.

We’re going back up to Mt Austin again this week, hopefully, to see the committee from Kakabono. They are planting flowers furiously through the bare patches on the hillsides, I’d like to see them also plant fruit and nut trees to attract the birds back into the area, and some of the flowering nectar trees as well.

Our stakes in the tubs have lasted nearly a whole week, without being pulled out, so it may work. The longer leaders on the bougainvillea are clinging to the stakes, so another couple of months they should be up to the top and starting to bush out better.

Booked for Savo Island today. 1pm Thursday from the Visitors Centre for the weekend. There’s not a lot to do there, I’m not into the touristy things like village visits and volcano walks, done that in New Zealand and other places, and after one volcano another one is just more steam vents and bubbling hot pools. Definitely going fishing though, that never stops being interesting. Some orchids for the Orchid House, and a lot of fishing, some Sol Brew in the afternoons, a lot of pictures as usual.

It’s elections here next year, I’ve mentioned that before. The Solomon Star and the Island Sun are running hot with letters castigating various MPs and their faults. The big thing at the moment is the suggestion that women be given 10 reserved seats in Parliament just for them, without having to contest in the main election process. I’m not in favour of it, where do you stop with it? 10 reserved seats for dwarves, 10 reserved seats for gays???? It may take a while for women to get accepted in Parliament here, it’s a very patriarchal society, and has been for all its history. Change by legislation never works. And there are women who do stand a chance working for election in the provinces now.

I keep thinking of the disaster Helen Clark proved to be in New Zealand by the end of her term, the whole socialistic Mummy Gov knows best attitude. All it did was make everyone dependent on the Government, and stifled any innovation or willingness to just get up and do it.

I’ve been telling a lot of people for the past few years to buy gold, and store it, instead of getting sucked into shares and property schemes. Gold is now just under the $1000 per ounce mark, I’m picking it will hit $2000 per ounce by the end of this year at the earliest, or by May next year. The US economy is heading south at a great rate, if China and the Asian countries start dumping the reserves of US currency they hold, it will drop the bottom right out of the US $. I can’t see that throwing more money at everything as Obama is doing now will help, it was having cheap credit and too much money available that lead to this whole thing, more money floating in the system isn’t going to help stabilise anything. I saw a report last week, the US has borrowed or printed 4,385% of currency above what gold it holds in storage. I know no one uses the Gold Standard anymore, but it’s a bit like Terry Pratchett wrote, we mightn’t actually use gold, but we need to know it’s there. (Making Money, Moist Von Lipswig). And given the lack of manufacturing in the US now, the US $ is backed with promises and not very much else. Buy Gold Now!

It was a quiet weekend in Honiara, only 3 stabbings, 5 burglaries, 16 yr old student got caught with a couple of others burglarising (?) a house, big shock headlines in the Solomon Star about it, wondering where his parents were, what were they doing while he was out at 3am robbing houses etc. And also should he be allowed bail to sit his 6th form exams, who will guarantee his behaviour etc. The stabbings were all Kwaso related, drunken idiots fired up playing with bushknives.

The burglaries were all ex-pat houses, RAMSI or consultants, with laptops, cameras, stereos etc taken. My laptop travels with me all the time, I never leave it in the house if I’m not here, or if I’m going away it stays at work locked up. Same with the camera.

We had a terrific thunder storm today, no rain, but great lightning and thunder. A lot of crackle, and crashing noise, several long rolls of bookcases falling over sound effects, and lightning dancing everywhere. It’s certainly the start of the dry season, we can expect a lot more of it for the next month or so till the weather pattern settles. The report for this years El Nino isn’t looking good, it’s starting to affect the ocean currents now, with warmer water moving closer already, so we will be a lot drier than normal. The usual rubbish about stop CO2 emissions in the paper, save the sea ice or we’ll all drown, and what will the polar bears do without sea ice. As Archimedes demonstrated 3,000 years ago, if it’s floating in the water now, it displaces an equal volume, so melting the sea ice won’t make a damn bit of difference to sea levels, and all that the polar bears use the ice for is to hunt seal pups, and if the ice isn’t there, the seals will be on land like they are everywhere else there isn’t ice, so the bears will have an easier time getting them without the ice.

And my plants need CO2 to grow, so what’s it going to be, a desert without plants, or more plants sucking up the CO2?

We need more sunspots, the current sunspot cycle is the lowest on record since the Maunder minimum, when the Thames used to freeze over and ice fairs were held on rivers and lakes in Europe.

That’s my Monday gripe session over with.

Friday 5th June

Kennedy and Tiffany
Shirelyta giving forth fo rthe TV News

SEB Work Crew World Environment Day March

WED Parade Mendana Ave

It’s World Environment Day. We had a street parade through Honiara, up to the Cultural Park opposite the Solomon Island Bank. Mix of music, the obligatory speeches from the politicians about “Climate Change” and how we can prevent it happening. I keep thinking of King Canute whenever I hear that. Although all he was doing was proving to his courtiers that the King was not omnipotent, and he could not control the sea or nature. It would be nice if the present bunch of scaremongerers would realise it as well.

The music was good, started with a bit of Island style gospel, well, sort of like gospel singing, then the reggae boys came on and it improved considerably. Very heavy on the Bob Marley RIP, and a bit of homegrown music. Most of the work crew stayed on for the day, listening to the music in the sunshine.

Caught up with Keithie there, she’s confident Honiara Council will back and support us more now. There is a new Mayor and Town Clerk who are easier to work with, so we may get more work, and funding from them for the work we do on their behalf through town. Add in the training as well, and it looks like Forestry jumped a bit too soon.

The local tv crew were there, trying to get me in front of the camera talking about environment issues, climate change CO2 etc, but I managed to keep away. I’d probably say everything they didn’t want to hear. Shirelyta had a bit of a say though, the trouble they had wasn’t in getting her to talk, it was more trying to get her to stop.

Kennedy was there, the tourism office is happy with having a statue by him there, but as usual, it comes down to price. We’ll keep working on it. I really want more art work around town, but it’s going to always be a risk at the moment till people start to appreciate stuff more.

Someone drove through the ANZ roundabout last night, not too badly, well, the driving was atrocious, but the damage wasn’t too bad, just a few plants around the edge. And only one of our stake sets in the bougainvillea has been damaged so far, which is better than I expected. I didn’t think they’d last one night, but we still have the weekend to go yet. If they last this weekend, they should be there for a while.

I finally told David today about the Forestry ultimatum, we’ve put off telling him until we had some good news to go with it. Now it appears we won’t be evicted, I took him over by the river to our toktok seat, under the breadfruit tree on the riverbank and gave him a copy of the letter from Forestry. I let him read it, then said we have good news as well, and we have Council backing us finally. He’s very upset over it all, he’s been working for SEB for 7 years now, and really tries to do his best for Honiara, and making the town look good with the parks and gardens. In a way he’s pleased about it, it gives him a reason for letting the 2 night security guys go, they do a good job, but spend too much time with Robert the Forestry employee who lives next to the nursery, feeding him stuff about what we’re doing, and believing the rubbish Robert tells them about what SEB are doing.

I’ll be pleased when things settle down, it’s been one crisis after another since I’ve been here, not major ones like this till now but stuff that suddenly comes up and disrupts everything for a week or so.

One more week, then another weekend on Savo.

Wednesday 3rd June/Thursday 4th June

It’s been one of those days when nothing seemed to matter much, a bit of goofing off, a bit of work, more goofing off, fun.

My guys from Rove Prison couldn’t get permits signed yesterday, so another day before they can get day release and come up to the Nursery. Not to worry, they have done a great job so far, and tomorrow will be digging all the stones out of the garden beds, and deep digging to break the soil up. Then we’ll add in the compost and some fertiliser. It’s looking like Monday before we’ll be finished now, I was hoping for Friday, but this is the Solomons.

We had a couple of young guys plastered on Kwaso hanging around the Gardens this morning, one of them was one of the crew that put the water flow meter in last week, and was becoming a bit of a nuisance with his mate, so I put them both into the truck and ran them into Point Cruz, hoping they’d not find their way back. They arrived back this afternoon, considerably the worse for wear, I had Andrew cracking up. We were building some steps for the meter readers so they can get to the flow meter for readings, and the 2 drunks were on the river bank opposite us, singing, and being nothing more than a mild irritation. I said to Andrew that that was what he looked like on weekends when he goes out chasing girls with his mates, all drunk. He gets so embarrassed, he doesn’t drink, and he and Imelda are usually together at weekends, but he’s just fair game for winding up.
Anyway, the drunks got to the stage where they were starting to harass some of the schoolgirls studying at the tables, David was doing his best to ignore them, he doesn’t like dealing with trouble very much, so I wandered over, managed to get them away from the students for a while, but it didn’t last. Then it got a bit aggro, one of them started with the whitefalla/black falla burble, which didn’t impress me at all. After a few cheap insults going my way, managed to get things under control, and got them started on the road out of the gardens. Both of them too drunk to be much of a physical threat, more bluster and bravado, but still not pleasant. Kwaso is like meth with the effect it has on the locals, totally unpredictable, all of the murders here lately have been after a kwaso session, no wonder the police are really cracking down finally on the distillers. Since the murders in Central Market, there’s been a more visible police presence through the town, I still don’t go out at night though.

After that episode I felt like some light relief, so I got the short bits of bamboo offcuts from the lengths we are using in the tubs and made some throwing darts with them. About 30” long, cardboard fins, and a length of string to throw with. I don’t think anyone had seen them before here, spears and stuff yes, but not the short throwing darts. I was a bit worried about the first throw, I usually stuff it up, and hit the ground about 3’ in front of me, but I must have got everything right this time. Drifted the first dart about 100 yds across the gardens, put the second one about 5’ from it, then everyone wanted to have a play. I’m pleased I wasn’t in competition with anyone. Jacks first throw was about 20yds past mine, then it turned into a competition amongst them all. I’ve got to make about a dozen more tomorrow for all their kids now. Some of the guys would be great javelin throwers, the girls weren’t far behind the guys in distance either.

I missed Les at Council Works, he’s away on holiday till next week, so I hope Keithie has better luck with the Council Head of Works tomorrow. There’s space at SICCHE for us, it’s a bit cramped, but will be ok, and we can probably steal a bit more as we need it if we go there. Although the Nursery site isn’t required to be close to town, any land within 30 minutes of Honiara would be fine. We’ve got warehouse space at BJS Agencies as a stopgap for the tools and equipment, and hopefully we can get a lockup building somewhere close.

Steve called out today with my CARE parcel from Rosalee, (Thanks Sis). Filters for the camera, good china cups, 2 for Tiffany and Shirelyta, t-shirts, and gardening magazines and books. The magazines and books kept all the crew quiet for a couple of hours while we had the afternoon rainshower. Any more magazines always gratefully accepted. Tiffany was all through them getting landscape ideas, and Imelda was after all the plants from them. I’ll try to visit the Plant Quarantine people next week, and see what we can import into here. Where the money to import them will come from I’m not sure, but I’ll cross that when it happens.


All the crew were asking if New Zealand was like the pictures in the magazines, with the gardens and street design. It’s a totally foreign concept here, having parks and gardens full of flowers, shrubs etc, after looking through the magazines, everyone is keen to do the same thing here, if we can get the plants or seeds. As I’ve said repeatedly, the crew I work with are really keen, hard working and hungry to learn everything.

Another morning spent waiting for internet access, I’m getting used to it, still bloody annoying, but ok, I get to post 2 – 3 days at once eventually.

Most of the trees around the Gardens now have bamboo darts stuck in the branches, while the guys practise aiming and throwing. I’ve been busy a few times making up new ones, till I told them to make their own from now on. There is now a severe shortage of cardboard and bamboo around the office and garden. All of the cardboard has gone into tail fins.

We finally had all the “t”s crossed and the “i”s dotted and 2 of the guys from Rove Prison were allowed out on day release to work up in the nursery making mulch for the garden beds at Rove. They had a long lecture from the Prison Admin about behaviour, then got a brief one very similar from me. I mentioned that if either of my 2 ladies in the nursery felt threatened or harassed by them, they would be back inside so fast it would all seem a dream to them. It probably wasn’t needed, the guys are really quiet, and polite, like everyone in the Solomons. They worked really well feeding compost through the mulcher all morning, we’ve got another day or so to go yet, and David the advisor there is keen to get them outside the prison more often, especially the ones coming up for release.

I may have another job there in a while as well, running Level 1 and Level 2 Horticulture for the inmates, which will be another interesting experience.

It appears that Forestry jumped a bit too soon with trying to evict us from the Gardens, Keithie managed to have a meeting with the Honiara Town Clerk today, and the decision from Council is that we stay, Forestry can wait for us to get the Nursery buildings done first, then they can have their building back. And that is all, we stay in the Gardens, and carry on doing what we have for the past 7 years.

I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall at the Forestry/ Council meeting. The Council own the land, and they have been more than happy for us to manage the Gardens and maintain everything.

David had the crew out late last night, putting bamboo stakes in the tubs along Mendana Ave while the traffic was quiet. We’ve staked the bougainvillea, I’m trying for tall spires of flowers from them, rather than close cropped bushes. It’s just wait and see now how long the stakes stay in without some drunken idiot pulling them out.
Once we get more plants growing in the Nursery, we’ll replace all the crotons/duranta with bougainvillea.

The weather continues hot and dry now, it’s no wonder everyone walks here, and not at a fast walk either. I still end up way ahead of everyone if we are going somewhere, I’ll gradually slow down I think, but it will take a while.

I’m going to Savo Island definitely again next week. We’ve got a 3 day weekend, Friday 12th is Queens Birthday weekend here, so I’ll pull an afternoon off Thursday, collect a few orchids over the weekend, do a bit of fishing finally, and come back Monday.

Tuesday 2nd June

Paving at Rove Prison
Formwork being put in

Paving formwork

Well, it finally happened. Forestry have given us till the end of June to vacate the Botanic Gardens, office, nursery and all. It’s going to be an interesting time finally. I thought Keithie would be going to fight it, but other than the usual letters expressing indignation etc, we’re looking at this as a step forward, and a chance to call in all the favours, and get our own area away from the conflicts that happen here when you have 2 or more Government Departments dealing with something. It’s a bit like the mafia turf wars, a lot of internecine fighting and personality conflicts.

At least it gives me something to really do, and something I’ve done a couple of times now, starting a nursery from scratch. I’m meeting Les at the Council Works tomorrow to see if Council have any land we can lease, or work in with Council over. If I can sell him the idea of working alongside us, and getting the Council plants from us, with training for the Council staff as well, it may work.

Failing that there is land available at SICCHE, the Solomon Island Training Centre on the Kukum Highway.

Pity, I can see the Gardens falling back into a wasteland again, Forestry haven’t the staff to keep up with the maintenance, and the few that are meant to be working with us, at the moment, are the ones cutting the trees and clearing spaces in the forest.
Tiffany and I haven’t told David yet, he’s going to really stress out about it when we do tell him, so I’m hoping we can have an alternative in place quickly before we do tell him.

The job at Rove Prison is going really well, all the paving is done, we start getting the garden ready for planting out tomorrow, digging all the stones out, and adding good compost and mulch to it on Thursday, then planting on Friday. I’ve got 3 of the guys coming up to the nursery tomorrow to run the mulcher, I need about 2 metres of mix for the prison, and they can do enough for Imelda and Jennifer as well, to pay for it.

It’s taken a couple of days to get permission from the Head of Corrections here, luckily there’s a couple of Kiwi advisors working at Rove Prison who are really good to work with, and keen to get the guys outside working. It beats sitting around inside looking at concrete walls for sure. I’ll have to get inside to see the job they want done in the recreation area. From what the guys say, it’s just concrete floor, walls and bare of anything.

Paul my local betel nut seller, stopped me tonight on the way home, and he wants some more pics taken for his family. I’ll have to charge him for them this time, I’m out of paper and nearly out of ink, so I’ll work out a cost per print for him. He was really pleased with the one I took the other day, even though it’s not the best, too much blue in it, and I needed a flash to bring out the shadow detail more. Not to worry, I’m getting used to the camera, and can only get better with it the more I use it. Getting used to the dark complexions here is taking me a while to adjust for, shots I would never usually use a flash for, if it was a European person, I need it to give some detail and lighten faces.