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.
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