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.