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.