Thursday 30th July

Almost another month gone by, and still no nearer to having my Nursery set up. I’m really having serious doubts that it will ever eventuate, it’s all a lot of smoke and mirrors, sleight of hand stuff. Fudging with dates, numbers, areas of responsibility, all in all, it’s just a scam to get hands on the money.

Vincent and I got the base runners onto the little truck today, he’s never used a power drill before, nor done much measuring and fitting so we had a bit of fun. It’s looking good so far, I have to take off one of the runners and shift it a bit, about 10mm out of line, but no big worry. Adrian is coming down in the morning to help put the flooring on, I can tolerate him if the work crew aren’t around, it’s when he starts his shouting and abuse at them I feel like burying a hammer into his head.

The next year is going to be interesting here. The guys at work are getting a bit worked up over the MPs and their entitlements, as they say, they threw one lot out in 1998 with a coup, it will happen again if things don’t change. I doubt that the RAMSI people will be able to stop it, short of forcing the Govt to resign en-mass. If a coup is all that happens it won’t be too bad, the last one degenerated into a lot of tribal and inter island conflict for 10 years.

The next election is due July/August next year, I’m pleased to be here watching it all happen, and seeing why, rather than reading the edited and biased reports.

I finally got some sun on me today, now my shoulders and back feel stiff from it. The modesty codes here take a bit of getting used to, you don’t take your shirt off if there are women who aren’t your family around, so working in the sunshine in shorts is frowned on, unless like today it was just Vincent and I at work. Very few of the ladies at work wear trousers or shorts, depending on which Island they come from. Some of them have strict rules about dress, so they wear skirts all the time, but they can get away with overalls but not shorts.
Then you see some of the women from the AID Agencies and tourists wandering around Honiara in really brief shorts and wondering why the locals treat them like tramps.

Wednesday 29th July

It’s been a few days, and still no further along the road to getting anything sorted. Will arrived back from Western Province yesterday so he’s been busy today getting the EU proposal written up, and Tiffany and I have got the costings done for him. It’s been a very stressful week, neither of us feel like doing anything till the tenure over the gardens and nursery is settled, and all of the proposals have to be completed by Friday, with us not knowing if all the work is just for nothing.
We still don’t know what is going to happen with the Japanese Grass Roots Funding. Chie has been ringing every day asking for the Letter of Tenure, and we keep putting her off. It isn’t a good look.

The dry season ended Monday night, it’s been raining continuosly since then, steady rain, not the usual tropical downpour, but it is steadily adding up. The river is slowly rising through the Gardens, and there are a lot of birds coming in to shelter among the trees. Saw my first white cockatoo yesterday, screeching in the treetops, hopefully there are a few more to come once all the nut trees are ready.

We finally got all the bolts nuts, drills etc for the little truck, and now we have to wait for the rain to stop before we can get to work on it. It’s sitting outside at work, the rain is good though, it’s washed all the dirt and crud off the chassis, and most of the oil and grease has gone as well, so it looks clean for once.

Back to the conflict over the MPs wives allowance, the PM Sikua denied any political involvement, then it turns out the Committee that decides the MPs perks, has 3 MPs on it, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of State Services, plus another, on a 5 person committee. The newspapers are full of it the past week, it is absolutely stupid. $50,000 to each MPs wife at the end of each 4 year term, the Prime Minister gets a new house and car at the end of each term, or the rental equivalent if he already has a house he wants to stay in. Plus a long list of extra payments for the MPs covering everything from taxis to food allowance. The total according to what has been printed so far is over $10million to be spread around the 50 MPs and family. On top of their normal payments. The base rate for MPs is $135,000, with extras taking it to nearly $200,000 with allowances and province payments.

Average hourly wage for the locals who have work is $5.00, $200 per week. Tax doesn’t start till they earn $320, although NPF payments at 5% are deducted from the first dollar. NPF is like Social Security pension fund.

I’m still walking into work in the mornings, I’m down to 45 minutes, and can’t quite manage to get under it enough to say I’m going faster. Even in the rain.

Saturday 25th July/Sunday 26th July

Tiffany and I have just had the two most stressfull days since I’ve been here. The MID Contract cheque didn’t clear the bank by Thursday night, and we had the crew wages due Friday. I had enough to just cover enough for them to pay debts in my personal account, and was about to clear it out, but we finally had enough cash to pay them Friday afternoon.

David arrived back Friday morning, from his bush trek to get timber. He’d carried a pregnant lady from her village way back in the hills to the road, found transport for her to #9 Hospital, then stayed with her and her husband till the baby was born, then walked back to White River and home at 3am.

You really have to see the conditions here to understand what all that means, it took 6 hours to carry the lady to the road, along bush tracks through the hills, then another hour or so to find someone with a vehicle to get to Honiara. From what David has said, I think they are going to call their son after him.

What David has said so far, the husband arrived at their bush camp in an advanced state of panic, his wife had been 2 days in labour at that stage, and was crawling along the track behind him. David, who keeps telling me he is not a supervisor/leader/chief, organised his work crew to go back, find her, and carry her out on a make shift stretcher, then once he was satisfied it was organised, ran ahead and found someone with a car. He hasn’t said if it cost anything, but I get the impression that there was no cost involved, David can really pull the doing good for everyone and don’t expect to be paid for doing this dialogue.

Then I had to tell him that everything he and Tiffany have been working towards for the past 10 years has been for nothing unless we can find a site to move to.

I am so really past the BS I hear from people here about the “locals”.

I had a laugh this morning in town, I’ve blown my budget for the month at Wings and bought wine and beer for a dinner invitation from Barbara at NZ Aid for tomorrow night. As I was walking back one of the buses pulled up at the stop, and the change collector calls out, “hey, white man, you got light for roll?” So I answered “ hey, nem blo me Warren, iufala savvy? He just about fell out of the bus laughing, and I’ve got another person here that knows me.

Honiara is really the dirtiest, grubbiest, filthy place I have seen. All the aid money is going in to things we don’t need, shopping malls, stadiums, and there is no sewerage system, reliable and safe water supply, electricity, and the parliament is in the process of approving $2.5 million in payments to MPs wives, plus a house and car in perpetuity to the Prime Minister, and all those that follow.
I’d misheard Steve, not an uncommon occurrence, I do that with everyone, hearing aids aren’t 100% accurate. Adele isn’t the Adele I’ve been dealing with in Wellington, she’s a NZ lawyer from London and specialising in international law that relates to what is happening here. Nice lady, she’s had a huge adjustment to make this week with the change in temp from London to here, plus the language.

I walked down to Panatina Ridge this afternoon and asked Barbara if I could bring a guest tomorrow, so Adele is coming along as well tomorrow evening. She’s in a house just along from me at Ba’hai.

Dinner with Steve, Gwen , Bruce and Adele on Thursday was good. Back to the Taj Mahal, the food is good, I’m not a fan of of the place because of the acoustics. It is just an open large room, concrete floor, hard surfaces, and echoes from everywhere. I can’t hear properly under those circumstances, so a lot of what was going on I missed. Add in a party of Australians with Sydney accents that can cut corrugated iron and it was a bit noisy. Plus the tv on Sky Sports and the ones watching it.

Gwen and Bruce are having fun on Matira, they are getting used to the land disputes that are a way of life here, and watching their neighbours arguing over a strip of land behind their house. Someone cut down a tree that was a boundary marker, so the disputes over a row of banana and cassava trees has been going on for a while now.

They have a shop there, but it stocks the very basics, rice, flour, sugar, salt and not very much else, so they look forward to coming to Honiara once in a while to stock up on necessities, soap, toothpaste, spices, tinned food. From what Gwen said they have 3 cartons of stuff to take back with them which she hopes will last till they can get back to Honiara.

I was a bit overly optimistic about the water in the house. Sunday and it’s been off since 6am this morning and not looking like coming back anytime soon.

Back from dinner with Barbara and Terry, we had a good evening. Terry used to be involved with Search and Rescue in NZ, and he’s been to a few places in the North Island I’ve gone through around the central North Island plateaux. Ratehi, the Bridge to Nowhere, some of theUreweras. He was based more in the South Island, and worked around the Homer Tunnel when that was being pushed through, so we had a few stories we could relate to with each other.

Adele has her first day at work Monday so that will be interesting for her. She’s already been told that the person she is meant to be working with won’t be available till Wednesday, so she has an office all to herself for a few days, and not alot to do yet. Similar to my situation.

Wednesday 22nd July

It isn’t easy explaining how I feel right now. I have never felt so frustrated in my life, well ok, there have been times, but that has been over personal stuff, this is over sheer stupidity and ego massaging.

Council have decided not to let us build the Nursery, in line with what Forestry want. And for us to be out of the Botanic Gardens as soon as possible so Forestry can move in and build their 2 story building after they cut down half the trees.
We’re still trying to find somewhere to move to, the Japanese Funding is now looking like it won’t eventuate without us having tenure somewhere, the town is looking more and more like an open rubbish dump each day, and stupid petty minded little ego-centric idiots in Council and Forestry keep playing stupid games.
Welcome to the Solomons.

Tiffany and I feel like moving to Bellona, building a bush house and spending the rest of the time fishing and growing food crops for the family. We haven’t told David yet, he’s still in the bush cutting timber for their house and we won’t see him for another week at least.

I keep trying to find something positive to pull from it, all there is is the hope that we can find some land quickly, and set up with a clean start. And cut out all the community work till someone comes up with the funding for it. Keithie is still on about us doing it, I’m not going back down that road again, it bankrupted the whole organisation, and while it was a worthy thing to do, when you’re losing $15,000 a month doing it, plus fixed overheads on top, it has to stop.

We’re losing 2 more of the crew to better paying jobs this week, Dorise and Rose. Dorise is going to the oil palm plantation, with her husband, they get a house supplied, $7.25 an hour wages, and as much work as they can do. Rose is going to one of the Hotels as head gardener, which will suit her very well. Not too bad a position considering she’s only been with SEB for just over a year, and got both Level 1 and Level 2 Certificates this year. And still under 20 years of age.
This is looking like being the shortest VSA posting in a long time.

I’m away out with Steve, Bruce, Gwen and Adele tomorrow night for dinner, on Steves card. Bruce and Gwen are settling into their island really well, it’s all a huge adventure for them still, setting up a new school and coming to terms with how things are done or not here. Adele is from VSA Wellington, she does all the environment articles for VSA. I hope she doesn’t mention global warming till after dinner.

I saw Steve this morning by Town Ground Stadium, out for his early morning jog, and mentioned my continuing saga with the water, and he said he’d have a word with the property manager. I didn’t really expect too much from it, but for the first time in I don’t know how long, I had water when I got home at 5, and it’s still working. That gets the dishes done, and a load of washing on as well. And it’s raining as well, so it is nice and coolish for the evening as well.

Tuesday 21st July

Success, we finally got the tray off the little truck, with a bit of hammering and cold chisel work. Then we found the drill bits have gone missing, so it’s another trip to the hardware tomorrow to buy drills, nuts/bolts and wood screws. It may be finished by the weekend, but I’m not saying which weekend

Andrew had a bit of a mishap getting the tray off, and broke the rear window, luckily the glass didn’t all fall out, so I’ve got it all taped up with clear packaging tape till we can get another one from where ever. He came and got me to have a look when he did it, all worried and really apologetic. I looked at it, looked at Andrew, back at the window, then told him he’d be a bit broke for the next couple of weeks when I took the $400 out of his pay for the window. His face was priceless, jaw down to his waist, eyes out on stalks, till I started laughing. He’s slowly getting used to me.

I’m getting used to the pace of life here. 6 months ago I’d have been having a total stress-out over the problems and the time spent on simple things. Now I just light up a cigarette, joke with the crew, wind poor Andrew up all the time, and just accept that it will get done, just not to my arbitrary time frame. Actually even a few months ago, not necessarily 6.
OK Libby, last week.

I’m going to take Steve up about another house, or else he can give the property manager hell about this one. It’s Tuesday evening, 7 pm, and I’ve been without water since Sunday afternoon again. Everyone at work thinks I’ve gone native, swimming in the river every day and walking around till my clothes dry on me. If I let my hair grow a bit more Jennifer will plait it island style, like corn rows then I’ll never fit in with the ex-pats here. Not that I want to anyway, I get annoyed with the attitudes from most of them.

Just had one of my gecko family climb up my back, then onto the laptop, and it waited while I got a few pics. Actually, getting it to go onto the wall was the hardest part, it was quite happy walking up and down my arm. Just a small one, I think the bigger ones eat anything smaller than them, so it’s not a good thing to be a small gecko with no where to run.

Rose is after another job, she asked me today for a reference, I’ll be sorry to see her go. She works well, always happy, and has learnt a huge amount. But with being on a 3 day week, it’s hard on all of them, and if they can get a full time paying job good luck to them.

Monday 20th July pt 2

A couple of pics of the small gardens at Lawson Tama Stadium

I’ve decided that I hate Solomon Islands Telekom. It may not be their fault, although that’s a bit like saying GWB2 was a bit misguided about Iraq. I spent most of the day alternatively swearing (while Tiffany was out of the office) and resetting the adsl box and splitter. It would work for a while then just drop out entirely for another hour or so.
With luck Telekom will be out sometime this week to check the connection. Or possibly next week, it is the Solomons.
We started taking the tray off the little truck today. I wasn’t watching too closely, and now we have one stripped nut from using the open end of the combination instead of the ring spanner. And it’s in the most awkward position, I doubt I’ll be able to get to it with a nut splitter or grinder. Oh well, just another day at the office.
I’m sticking to 45 min for the walk to work, I was trying to beat it this morning, but the heat builds up quickly if you move too fast, so I’ll just stick to a fast walk. I can get into Point Cruz, about 2/3 of the way in 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes past town to Rove, carrying the laptop and shoulder bag is more than enough.
Solomon Island politics always amazes me. Sir Alan Kemakeza. Former Prime Minister, owner of Savo Island Sunset Lodge Resort, has finally had to leave Parliament. He was convicted of corruption a few years ago, went to prison, came out, back into Parliament from prison, then because his sentence was longer than the get off free clause, he had to appeal to Parliament to be allowed stay. He’s finally withdrawn his appeal and stepped down as MP for Savo, so there will be a by-election soon. After which, Sir Alan can then stand again in the election next year for Savo Province. It is getting to feel like prison is a pre-requisite to being a MP here.
I had one former MP working with us at Rove Prison, similar thing, all the development money was going to his wantok, and not being dispersed throughout the province. He’s due out next week, and is standing again next year for re-election, and he’ll probably get in. Which is good for me, he wants to start a horticulture training scheme in his province, and hopefully I’m on his list of people to help set it up.
Our little truck came back this morning, a week to replace a brake line, and when I climbed under to check there was brake fluid dripping off the connections. All they had done was connect the nuts and do them finger tight. I got 3 turns with a spanner before they were leak proof, then we had to bleed the air out before we had brakes again. And this from a fully trained and qualified mechanic here. We’ve got a long way to go with stuff.
If I thought Honiara looked grubby on Saturday, going in this morning it looks worse. All the weekend rubbish was everywhere, all the roundabouts were full of cans, paper, plastic bags, and the street was just a mess of rubbish everywhere. Add in the smell where a few people had used one of the gardens by NPF Plaza as a toilet, and we’ve got a long way to go before Honiara can climb out of the filthy grubby town category.
There are 2 American warships due next month for the Guadacanal Campaign Anniversay, August the 7th, which will be a good time to be well away from Honiara. The last time they were here there were fights all along the main street, sailors drunk all over the town day and night, and a few problems with the girls, not all of whom were willing participants.
We’ve got the Memorial Gardens spruced up, and the sign is being re-painted, which will be good. All I have to do is keep chasing the traders out of the Gardens whenever there are visitors.
Steve offered to look for another house for me, I’m wary of moving, after 6 months I’ve settled into the area, I know most of the neighbours, shops etc, and I’m used to the quirky water system, even if it does frustrate me at times. I told him it would be good, but not to go rushing around about it.

Monday 20th July

Photos of Civic Centre planting. right beside the main road.

Friday 17th July
I’m constantly amazed at some of the thought processes that go in some of the peoples heads here. We fired one of the security night watch today for theft. He sold 5 tyres we had been keeping for the big truck, to a friend with a bus, who promptly reneged on paying, so Tome ended up without the tyres, and the money, and now no job either. His excuses got more and more bizarre when we were asking about what happened, until the final story was he sold them $500, but the other person only gave him $200, so he took the tyres back and burnt them. About $4,000 worth of tyres. And he felt that he’d done nothing wrong. The tyres were there, he sold them, what is the problem?
Still, with the Parliament trying to put a Bill through expempting any MP from criminal charges, and also a Bill giving the spouses of MPs a lump sum payment of $50,000 at the end of every Government term, you can see where everyone thinks it is perfectly permissable to acquire whatever they can.
The Solomon Star is full of letters and editorial content about both, well worth reading www.solomonstarnews.com
The town is looking decidely scruffier in a week, since we stopped cleaning the gardens and side areas. It’s really noticeable when I walk in, the NPF Plaza, Civic Centre gardens are full of rubbish, outside the Council offices by the ANZ roundabout is just an open rubbish tip now. Honiara has never been a tidy city for a long time, since the first coup in 1998, and I found a report from the South Pacific Forum where Honiara was described as the grubbiest city in the Pacific early this year. Not exactly a commendation you’d want when you are trying to encourage tourism, investors and business.
But, the bouganvillea are all in flower now through the town, and the Hibiscus are all in bud or flower as well. I stopped the crew pruning both about 2 months ago, to let the flowers come out. Until now, they have been pruning and trimming mercilessly, once we stopped everything has had a chance to come into flower. Now I’ve got to come up with some way of training the bouganvillea so it gets a chance to really grow and flower. With the dry weather, the bouganvillea and Hibiscus are the only plants that are looking good. The Duranta and Allamanda are wilting, even the Rowea are sufferring.
I found out today that Telekom here decided that Skype would be too much competition for phone calls, so they have slowed the bandwidth to prevent people using Skype for phone calls and VOIP, which also explains the incredible slowness of broadband here. I’m lucky to get up to 0.11mbps download, and 0.03mbps upload. And I used to feel hard done by in Ireland with 6.00mbps.

Sunday 19th July
Absolutely boring weekend, well, I cleaned the house up, went shopping yesterday, got some pics of Civic Centre walkway with the rubbish, did the washing, read a few books, walked around Honiara for a bit yesterday morning, still no truck, promised for Monday now.
Thunder, lightning and a bit of rain this afternoon, but nothing spectacular.
I’ve been spending more time playing with some of the editing programmes finally, even digging into the Word programme and the Win Works stuff. Some of them are pretty dated, mind you I’ve only got Word 2000, I only updated it once from 98, it had everything I needed then so I just used what I wanted without going into all the publishing programmes and stuff.
I’m pleased with the laptop, apart from some quirks it has, like dropping programmes unexpectedly, and losing drivers every couple of months. I had to reload my Nikon Editor again today, and it’s always losing the drivers for the sound and audio. And spell check is just a nightmare, parts of this it checks in English Ireland, other parts with English Australia, and some with English NZ, when it can find the directories that is. I’ve climbed all through the settings trying to get it to be consistent, but to no avail so far. Even with the Word 2000 discs it won’t repair, I’d like to do a complete uninstall and re-install, but I’m always worried about losing everything if I play too much with it all.
I’ve had John Mayall on for most of the day, I should have copied my Peter Green cd’s before I left as well, I’ve had Supernatural from the Bluesbreakers album on high repeat all day, brilliant guitarist, even after he dropped out of Fleetwood Mac and spent 20 years having a nervous breakdown. I’ve got 3 of his later cd’s from the 90’s back in NZ, if I get there at Christmas I’m ripping them onto a thumbdrive.

Monday

I've just spent since 7am trying to get the internet connection to work, nearly 4 hours, with several phone calls to Telekom, They came out, replaced the adsl box, and the inline connector, then ahd to go and get another adsl box because the one they installed wasn't working anyway.

I'm not holding my breath over how long this will last.

Thursday 16th July

TGIF tomorrow, I keep trying to get enthused with work, it’s a struggle at the moment.

I’ve got most of the jobs costed, so that we can quote them and break even. We’re registered as a NGO Non –Profit Organisation, so we can get away with a bit of profit, and say it’s for repairs and maintenance, but I don’t like running at a loss either.

I cut my walking time by 5 minutes this morning, I left at 6 am, still dark, but by the time I was in Honiara it was daylight. Nice morning to be walking actually, not as hot as it became later, and a bit of a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. I was surprised by the number of people at Central Market at that time too. Some of the traders come from way down Guadacanal, and leave at midnight to get here, some even start the night before, especially those that have to walk out to a road to start with.

It’s surprising how quickly people have noticed that we have stopped a lot of the work. We had 1 man come in this morning asking if he could do the tubs and cleaning around NPF and Civc Centre as he had noticed it was getting very messy. He expected to be paid for it, so left very upset when we explained the reason we weren’t doing it at the moment was because we weren’t getting paid for it either.

I noticed walking in this morning how quickly the roundabouts fill with rubbish that people throw out of their vehicles as they drive around them. Drink cans, paper, general rubbish. Even the median strip gets filled with rubbish overnight

I pulled the stitches out of my thumb tonight, it doesn’t look too bad at all, still a bit tender, but too be expected. By the looks of it, it isn’t going to scar very much either, so the stitching must have been as good as needed.

The little truck is still in the garage, he’s found the fault with the brake line, the same split I showed him on Monday, and now it’s going to be Tuesday till it is repaired. I really need a concrete wall at times to beat my head against here. It’s a 1 hour job, to replace the hose, bleed the brakes and drive away. If I had the tools I’d do it myself, but without even a basic spanner set I’d just be getting more frustrated.

A bit of light relief, this from the G8 Summit

No wonder skeptics consider the left's belief in man-made global warming as akin to a fad religion -- last week in Italy, G8 leaders pledged to not allow the Earth's temperature to rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

For its next act, the G8 can part the Red Sea. The worst part is: These are the brainy swells who think of themselves as -- all bow -- Men of Science.

King Canute proved he could no more stop Nature than anyone, if all this didn't have so much potential for harm it would be laughable.

Wednesday 15th July

I can see this is going to be a double post with this mornings brief one.

We’re still without the little truck, trying to find a brake hose is proving to be more than the Solomon Islands can cope with. Either that or the mechanic we use isn’t all that concerned with it. I went into the garage again tonight on the way home, lots of brake fluid on the floor, so hes obviously found the leak I pointed out to him on Monday morning, the split hose is still connected, once I see that off I’ll know we are making progress.

I’ve spent the last few days writing a brief but explanatory begging letter for sponsorship for the gardens and parks work. It’s not as easy as it sounds to get the right balance between saying we’re bankrupt, and we’d like you to sponsor us, and not actually saying it because we don’t want to give the impression we’re losing money. The letter we were given to go by had a fixed price in it, $1,000 a month no matter what garden or park, so we’d be right back in the same situation again if that goes out. I’ve got “a negotiated price” put in so we can actually recover all the costs.

Our fixed overheads are $14,500 a month, to be covered by 14 staff, so $1000 a month on any job is about 1 1/2 weeks work for one person. I can see myself having fun trying to explain it all. After it took 4 months to get it realised we were losing money to start with.

I’m so totally bored at work that I’m becoming a nuisance more than anything. There’s not a lot for me to do, despite what some people think. Tiffany has the office fully under control, David has the work crews working well, all that’s left for me to do is come up with small suggestions or changes to the overall place. Once we get the funding to rebuild the Nursery I’ll be happy, and back into doing something finally.

I don’t do boredom very well, and especially here where everything is out of my price range for recreation. I’m still trying to find an affordable fishing trip. I know I’m not paying $10,000 for a day out no matter what the boat looks like. Even the diving trips are in the $2,000 a trip range, definitely only for the consultants and RAMSI people. That is in Solomon Dollars, almost monopoly money if you don’t live here.

Once the truck is running again I’ll be able to get away a bit more, then I’m only paying out for diesel and beach fees.

The police have started doing blanket coverage through Honiara on the weekends now. Last weekend the arrest rate dropped to the lowest since I’ve been here. Apart from the squatter villages there were only 8 arrests in Honiara itself, mostly for drunken fights on Saturday afternoon around Central Market. Even the pickpockets and bagsnatchers took the weekend off, which made a change. I still don’t like Central Market though.

One of my websites, www.lewrockwell.com has had a few articles about global warming, and how it has become the new religion, rather than having any facts behind it. Which I’ve known ever since Al Gore started on about it. I hope enough people start to realise just how much of the hysteria is based on junk science, and the experimental findings don’t match the theories. There is a good book out by Ian Plimer, an Australian geologist, Heaven and Earth Global warming – the missing science, which finally puts everything I’ve believed, and a lot more into one place.

And a report published in the USA last month at http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf
which debunks the CO2 hype.

This is the conclusion of 12 pages of data:

There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide
and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause
unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape.
There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other
minor green house gases as has been proposed (82,83,97,123).
We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if
the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been
much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
As coal, oil, and natural gas are used to feed and lift from poverty
vast numbers of people across the globe, more CO2 will be released
into the atmosphere. This will help to maintain and improve the
health, longevity, prosperity, and productivity of all people.
The United States and other countries need to produce more energy, not less. The most practical, economical, and environmentally sound methods available are hydrocarbon and nuclear technologies.
Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed
the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will
not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, how -
ever, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to
grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also
flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas
from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment
of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our
children will therefore en joy an Earth with far more plant and animal
life than that with which we now are blessed.


I stumbled on a blog by the BodyShop about the Carteret Islands being inundated by rising sea levels, which I had to answer. They aren’t actually being flooded by rising sea levels, of if they are, why aren’t the other islands around them showing the same effect. What is happening there is the tectonic plate the Carterets is on is being subducted under the Pacific Plate, so they are actually sinking, plus the damage to the reef system around them by 50 years of dynamite fishing which has weakened the whole reef structure. The Carterets are to the north west of the Solomons, and the fault line runs directly from the Solomons past the Carteret Islands.

4.30am Thursday
The trouble with not having a lot to do and keep myself occupied is that I end up waking up at odd times during the night stressing out over minor things and can’t get back to sleep. I gave up this morning at 4am, I’m into my 3rd cup of coffee, on the 2nd rewrite of an article for the Solomon Star, and scribbling notes for the work crew for next week.

It’s a nice morning from what I can see, which isn’t much, it’s still pitch black outside, but it feels dry and warm. We had another little earthquake late last night, about 11pm, that shook the house around a bit, like a plate sitting on top of jelly, for a few minutes. The dogs around the neighbourhood have been barking almost continuosly ever since.

Wednesday 15th July

I'm running behind with everything this week already. Still no truck, it decided to blow a brake line over the weekend, and we're having trouble getting a replacement. It may be repaired by the end of the week, possibly, and the tray still hasn't been done.

The work crew are settling into a 3 day week, following the maxim that work expands to fill the time allocated. I hope we get back to a 5 day week soon, I don't want problems when we do.

I've got down to 45 minutes walking from home to work now, which is about right, any faster and I'd be jogging, not something I want to be doing in 30*c dry heat.

If I have power and water on at home tonight I'll write up a longer post for here, trying to do it at work doesn't really fit.

Friday 10th July

You’ll have to trust me on this one. Please don’t use sharp pointed knives to prise out coconut meat from the shells, you will injure yourself. I’ve just put 3 stitches into my thumb with the aid of a few ice cubes to numb it, and the suture kit from the Travel Medic Kit. Luckily it was my left thumb, I don’t think I’d have done such a neat job working left handed for stitching.

I was going to mop the floor off, but as the water supply has died for the night, I’ll have to wait till the morning. I did quite a nice job of it, the bleeding has stopped, well, it did once the last stitch went in, it took a while to get to the stitched stage though.

And no, I didn’t go to the hospital, despite all the overseas Doctors doing the surgery there. If it is that serious it needs hospital, I’ll fly out to Brisbane.

On my shopping list for tomorrow, a coconut scraper and a thin steel round edged flexible knife, or similar.

We’ve got the timber for the truck, beautiful timber, $1073 worth, about NZ$200. We’ll strip the rusted tray off Monday and start building the timber deck. With 3 of us working on it it should be finished Monday night. Although this is the Solomons, and something is bound to go wrong, or be missing.

I’m still playing with spreadsheet for dummies, I know what I want it to do, it’s just trying to get it to do what I want is the frustrating part. I may have to load excel from the work disc and try that, it’s got a lot more command capabilities. Especially when it comes to *if,then* commands.

I’m trying to write up a spreadsheet that will calculate the wages, then deduct from the monthly and yearly balance so we know exactly where we are at any point. Which means having job numbers, etc. I’ve got the bank accounts working so the totals adjust automatically for each variable, setting up the wages side is ok as well, trying to marry the two together is proving a bit harder. I have it written out on a piece of A3 and it looks terrific on paper. I’m regretting starting it already. Getting the job numbers and *if this then do* this commands are proving to be a slight problem as above.

David is having 3 weeks off, and going bush for a week to cut the timber to finish his house off. He has wantok with some land with suitable trees on to use, so he’s stocked up with a 25kg bag of flour, 25kg bag of rice, 2 cartons of noodles, 1 carton of tinned tuna and 10kg of sugar. Which he thinks should be enough to feed his wantok while he cuts the trees.

His Grandmother arrived from Rennel today, the first time she has been off Rennel in her life. I think she is towards the end of her journey, even David thinks so, which is why she’s making the trip to see all her family. David took her to Frangipani Ice, the Ice cream shop in Honiara, and she had her first milk shake and ice cream. David had to carry her in, she can barely walk, and he said her eyes were popping out of her head as she got involved with ice cream and milkshakes for the first time in her long life.

If anyone opens google earth and looks at Honiara, I’ve loaded some pictures into there. And Savo Island as well. I’ll load more over the weekend if I get into work Sunday.

If anyone has read “Salmon fishing in Yemen” that is so similar to the position I am in here. I may edit this lot down when I’m finished and call it “2000 trees for the Islands” Or something, Well, edit and expand, this is more a series of disconnected notes rather than a script.

There have been a few articles in the Solomon Star this week about attracting businesses to Honiara. I’m a bit sceptical, as you may have noticed, about the idea. If my experience with trying to connect online with my bank in New Zealand is anything to go by, there are a few problems still to be sorted out.

The connection here is so slow, I kept timing out while logging in, after 3 attempts, Kiwibank froze the account, and the message said to phone their help desk and set up a new password etc. This is in the same week that Telekom here moved to charge per second for all calls. They touted it as a huge cost reduction, till you read the fine print, and they start charging as soon as the connection is made, not when the other end picks up, so going by the normal help desk time lag in answering, I’d be up for a few hundred dollars at $10 per minute by the time it was sorted. Sister to the rescue again hopefully.

I’d hate to be trying to run a business here, and relying on electricity, water, tele-communications etc.

It’s been a scrappy day here, (Saturday). My thumb is throbbing and letting me know it is still there, I’ve changed the dressings and it looks ok, terrific bruising though. I took all the books back to Nautilis this morning, and got the last 2 Neville Shute books I hadn’t read yet. His first two books written in the 1930’s, What happened to the Corbbets, and Lonely Road. Both set in England, good stories, but not as good as his later ones when he began writing more Australian based books. Beyond the Black Stump and A Town called Alice, and The Far Country. I read them all years ago in school, and occasionally since.

I have to bake another fruit loaf tomorrow for Tiffany, well, for her daughters anyway. They demolished a whole loaf last Sunday when I sent one around, and the same with the coconut loaf. Gorgeous girls, I call them Trouble and Mischief, Trouble is Renee, about 9 going on 14, Mischief is Tessie, she’s only just 4.

Our first real rain this afternoon in 3 weeks, about 4 hours of it pounding on the roof, which is good. We can’t count on it anymore now.

Wednesday 8th July

Thank God for spreadsheet for dummies, otherwise known as Microsoft Works Spreadsheet. I’ve got the costings to the nearest 20 dollars, I need some accurate figures and then I’ll be able to start fresh with a zero bank balance, but I’ll know where the money is going. We’ve been losing $15,783 each month, just on wages, without catastrophic stuff like truck repairs, weed trimmer repairs.

It makes for a difficult time.

Davids wantok William turned up today, received his termination letter, he didn’t come to work Monday, and got very upset. He is after redundancy, not termination hoping to get a bigger payout, instead of having to work the months notice out. As I pointed out to him, even if we paid him redundancy, he’s had so many advances on his wages this year, he hasn’t got anything to collect. He has 3 weeks holiday time owing, plus this months wages which he’d get as a redundancy payment. Unfortunately, what he owes is still $207 more than he has in credit, so he is going to end the month still owing money and not collecting anything.

He went to a lawyer, or said he had been. Then came back to work threatening to take us to the Employment Court if I didn’t change the wording on his termination letter to redundancy, instead of termination notice. Which is when I pointed out his wage advances. If he works out the month, he might just have some spare, but I doubt we’ll see much of him now. We counted up his days absence do far this year, 23 up to Monday, which isn’t bad for 5 months. Nearly a month off in 5.

The joys of employment issues never stop.

The little truck I’ve been driving, otherwise known as the rust bucket, has to have the tray replaced completely, so David and I are stripping it off tomorrow and Friday and replacing it with a timber deck. We have Vasa wood here, harder than Kwila, and a nice dark colour when it is oiled, so the truck will look quite good when we have finished. David got an exemption notice from the Police so we can continue driving it for a few days while we make repairs. David feels embarrassed when ever he sees me in it, all the other whitefala in Honiara drive new SUV’s, 4WD, Mitsubishi/Toyota/Landrovers and there I am in a beaten up truck, full of rust and dings, and quite happy about it.

It’s late here, we got caught at work with the power cuts this afternoon, and the crew had to wait till 6 pm before we had their wages done. Tiffany only just made it to the Bank in time to get the cash. Very few people use direct payment, actually, very few of them have bank accounts anyway, there isn’t enough money left over to put in the bank.

Wednesday 8th July

I'm dropping this in as an interesting thing to read.

http://www.garynorth.com

It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.
Gary North

July 3, 2009

Global warming is based 100% on junk science. The most vocal promoters are not interested in the details of physical science. They are interested in two things: political control over the general public and the establishment of international socialism.


Junk Science vs. Real Science

For a detailed, footnoted, 12-page article, written by three scientists, two with Ph.D's from CalTech, click here.

This paper was sent to tens of thousands of natural scientists in the United States.

Over 31,000 scientists have put their reputations on the line and signed a politically incorrect petition opposing the 1997 Kyoto agreement or protocol. Here is a photocopy of a signed petition.




Here is a letter from a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He asks recipients of the petition to sign it.

Back in the 1970's, the bugaboo was the coming ice age, as this Time Magazine article promoted. Not to be outdone, Newsweek got on board. The article warned: "Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects." Want more examples? Click here.

It, too, was based on junk science. It, too, had the same solution: government control over the economy. The goal never changes: government management over the economy. The justification has changed. If the voters won't accept control over their lives on the basis of one brand of junk science, maybe they will accept another. As they used to say in the Nixon Administration: "Let's run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes."


Socialism's Last Stand

The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, "Reflections: After Communism," published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990).

In this article, he made an astounding admission. He said that Ludwig von Mises had been right in 1920 in his article, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." Mises argued that without private ownership, central planners could not know what any resource is worth to consumers. With no capital market, the planners would be flying blind.

Heilbroner said that for 70 years, academic economists had either ignored this article or dismissed it without answering it. Then Heilbroner wrote these words: "Mises was right."

Heilbroner was one of these people. There is no reference to Mises in The Worldly Philosophers.

This admission was the preliminary section of Heilbroner's manifesto. He was cutting off all hope by socialists that there is a theoretically plausible response to Mises. The free market economy will always outproduce a socialist economy. Get used to it, he said.

Then, in the second section, he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.

The article is not online. An abstract is. Here is the concluding thought of the abstract.

The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished. But another way of looking at socialism is as the society that must emerge if humanity is to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, the long vista after Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world that roust [must?] be safely attained and settled before it can be named.

Heilbroner did not care that a worldwide government-run economic planning system would not be called called socialism. He just wanted to see the system set up.

Heilbroner's peers got the message. That was what Kyoto was all about.


Conclusion

If you like poverty, inefficiency, and bureaucratic controls over the economy, and therefore control over your choices, the "climate change" movement is ideal.

If you want to subsidize China and India, neither of which will enforce the rules laid down by unelected international bureaucrats, this movement is for you.

If you want to pay more for less energy, there is no better way than to pass the cap and tax bill which the House has passed. It will be sent to the U.S. Senate next week.

The rest of us should oppose it.

I hereby authorize anyone to reprint this article or post it on any website, just so long as the text is not changed.



© 2005-2009 GaryNorth.Com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Tuesday 7th July

Solomon Islands Independence Day today. Plus the Swearing in of the new Governor General. I went along to Lawson Tama Stadium early this morning, well, I thought it was early , about 8 am, and there were already 10,000 people there. The stand was full, and the shaded bank was already near full. I was hoping for some good photos, but everyone had to keep back behind the field fence, so you’ll have to excuse the pictures being so distant.

I was thinking while I was there just how much Helen Clarks 9 years of government took away all the things that should be celebrated, or more appreciated. I couldn’t name the NZ Governor General if I tried, the last one I remember is Dame Cath Tizard, and Lord knows how long ago she was. Everyone in the Solomons knows the past one, and the new one, the decision making process for Governor General has been a major topic in the newspapers and radio for the past 3 months, the out-going GG has toured all the provinces saying goodbye, and today was a really big celebration of both Independence and the new Governor General.

The same goes for ANZAC Day. It’s a toss up between Sydney and Melbourne over which one I would go back for, or even the Commemoration at Torbay in Geelong. As far as New Zealand goes, other than the Cenotaph Dawn Service, it’s barely acknowledged in comparison with Australia. Typical of the grey society socialism creates, Nanny knows best in everything, and woe betide anyone having fun. Or being nationalistic. I’m pleased John Key bought back Knighthoods, I may not agree with the choices, I didn’t get one for a start, but the appellation means more historically than some Order of New Zealand medal ever will. I could go on and on and on about things I’ve noticed from being away from New Zealand for so long, then going back and wondering what the hell has happened. But I’d be typing for ages to do that. I’ll just slip things in as I notice.

I’ve had a few days sort of off from here, we had a meeting with Keithie on Friday, the outcome of which I had to spend the weekend going over in my mind trying to come up with some way of making it sound reasonable for the work crew, and us, then power cuts all weekend haven’t helped.

Keithie has finally accepted that we can’t keep doing the *free* work anymore, it’s taken me 4 months to get this realised, and it wasn’t till our bank balance got to one months pay left that she took action. I’ve mentioned before that half our work is the parks, roadside plantings, verges, etc, which we do, but no one pays us for it. It costs us $15,000 a month in wages, plus $5,000- $7,000 in overhead, diesel, tool repairs, plants etc. considering our income from contract work is only $19,000 a month, we’ve been losing $20,000 a month for a long time. All the letters asking for payment for the upkeep of the gardens and parks have gone out, asking for sponsorship for the parks, payment for specific ones, like the Central Police Station, City Centre, NPF Plaza. NPF have been good, they immediately agreed to $2,300 per month, and Kiethie is putting $1,000 a month into the Memorial Gardens.

In the short term however, I’ve had to cut the work week to 3 days, while Tiff and I work on getting everything paid for. I’ve put a lot of trust out to the crew, and told them that as the work contracts come in, I’ll increase the work week, and hopefully by the end of the month we’ll be in a better position financially. Once I have that confirmed, and a better cash flow, I’m after getting everyone a pay rise. They’ve been working for the past 3 years on a promise of one, now that we have a better financial base starting it may be possible finally.

We had a 2 hour meeting Monday morning to discuss it all. David and I have a good system now, I don’t know enough toktok pijin to explain stuff completely, but I can understand it, David has the English and toktok, so I talk first, with all the details in English, David translates into toktok, then I go back over stuff he couldn’t put into toktok, till everyone understands fully. The crew aren’t completely happy with the short week and pay, but we all agreed, any work at the moment is better than none. I’m hopeful it won’t be for longer than a month or so, 6 weeks at most. The cost of living here is horrendous, and the wage rates aren’t great for the locals.

Base rate here is $3.50 Solomon, about NZ$0.70c , AUD$0.55c, US$0.40c, €0.35c, the work crew average is SBD$5.25 per hour. There was some talk of cutting the rate, I managed to get that stopped, all the crew have been there for 5 years minimum, and all have Level 2 Certificates, and can work without supervision. If anything I feel they are underpaid, if I could get $0.50c an hour raise by Christmas that will be a good start.

We’ve laid off 2 people, Davids wantok, and Wilson, the caretaker at the memorial Gardens. Davids wantok I won’t miss or feel sorry for, his excuses have been getting more and more outrageous by the day, and having seen him drunk in town on more than one occasion when he was supposedly off work sick doesn’t endear him to me. Wilson on the other hand I felt really terrible about letting go. He’s in his late 60’s, and just potters around the Memorial Gardens, raking leaves, talking to any visitors, which was fine by me. He knows a lot of the history of Guadacanal, which has been good for any visitors, but we just haven’t got the money to support him at the moment. If we can get back into positive cash flow soon, I’ll take him back.

In some ways I’m happy about the situation, it’s the sort of thing I enjoy doing, not the laying off of staff, but the crisis management side of the whole thing. We’re that far in the hole financially, everything is being considered, so even the more way out things are finally being considered if someone can be found to pay for it. Add in the choices for new work now we can decide if we want it and we should be in a lot better position soon. Either that or I’ll be packing and going.

I’ve had no water since yesterday, the pressure is so low through Honiara that half the town is without water, not a good look for the hotels and guest houses, along with the power cuts which are still happening more frequently. We lost power at work yesterday from 10am till 12, then from 1 pm till 4 pm.

But we have a huge Rugby Stadium going up, and 2 shopping malls with 300 shops with Aid money. It’s the main problem with accepting Aid money from some countries. Japan wants buildings, and won’t give anything towards infrastructure, along with most of the other countries giving Aid money. So we end up with huge buildings, and no services for them.

Here’s my latest creation from the kitchen

Coconut Bread

1 coconut, meat grated and cream extracted (see Method)
or 500 gm dessicated coconut, and cream made from it (see Method)

600 ml coconut cream, tinned if not making your own will work as well.

about 1 cup heavy coconut cream (see Method)

4 – 6 cups plain white or wholemeal flour Use either or a mix of both, although wholemeal will make a fairly dense loaf. Start with 4 cups, add more as needed.

2 tsps Salt

3 tsps dried yeast.

Method

Fresh Coconut

Grate meat out, there are a number of choices here. Either the Island style grater, which is a flat piece of steel with a rounded and notched end, and the coconut half is scraped over it into a bowl, there is a superior Indian/Malaysian grater, which is a multi bladed shape like a large lemon squeezer, with sharpened and notched blades and very quick to use. Or, the not so traditional european method and use a juice extractor, Champion style machine, although as you have to prise the coconut meat out of the shell for this, you will end up with the brown skin flakes through the coconut. You can scrape the skin off, if you want to be fussy. I used a Kenwood extractor, it worked, so whatever you have will probably be sufficient.

If you use a juice extractor, you will end up with about 1 cup of heavy coconut cream, keep this aside.

If you grate the coconut traditionally, wrap the coconut in a clean muslin cloth, soak briefly in 1 – 2 cups boiling water, and squeeze out the juice, repeat until you have 600 ml of juice, or a bit more. Or use a blender, as for dessicated coconut below.

If you use dessicated coconut, put 500gm of coconut into a blender, pour in 600ml of boiling water, let stand for 5 minutes then blend and strain. Repeat once more. Keep the coconut meat, it isn’t necessary to let it dry out again.

Mixing

Put coconut meat, 4 cups of flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well.

Put room temp heavy coconut cream (if using dessicated coconut, omit this), and 600ml of coconut cream into the flour mix and stir well till mix is well blended. You may need more flour, it depends on which type of coconut method you have used. You may need more liquid also, use excess coconut liquid if you have any left, or water.

Once dough is to the almost not sticky stage, cover and leave for an hour or so at room temp to rise. It is 35*C average temp where I live, bread doubles in an hour here, adjust this time to suit your local temperature.

Once dough has doubled in size, tip onto bench and knead till it is stretchy and holds it shape without collapsing, again, add flour if needed.

Form into loaves and place in tins to rise again. You should get 2 loaves, normal household loaf tin size.

Heat oven to 250C, 450f, pour 1 cup of boiling water into a hot oven tray on the oven floor to create a steamy atmosphere and place loaf tins on the bottom shelf or next one up and reset oven to 210C 400f,

Bake 45 min - one hour, or until loaves have a good hollow drum sound when tapped on the bottom

Caution, the coconut may brown very quickly on the top of the loaf, cover with tinfoil if this happens and continue baking till done.


It is nice fresh or toasted with butter and honey, any other suggestions welcomed.

It’s really dry now, I’ve got the watering crew working 3 nights a week now, just to keep the plants through town in the tubs looking ok. Once we get everything replaced with bouganvillea it won’t be as bad, the crotons and duranta wilt so quickly and shed dried leaves if they go more than 2 days without water. The bouganvillea just sends up more flowers.

If we can get everything sponsored before the Japanese Grant comes through I’ll be a lot happier too. It won’t be siphoned off to pay for the free stuff, which I suspect is what has happened in the past to any money coming in.

Thursday 2nd July

Wednesday 1st July

Got a mid year package from VSA Auckland branch today, copy of the Listener, Whittakers peanut slab, packet of pineapple lumps, 2 Nestle cappuccino, tiki key ring, which was all appreciated. I’ll have to mention not to send chocolates again though, especially to here, both the peanut slab and the pineapple lumps were soft and melted, but an hour in the fridge and they are firm again, lost the shape a little, or a lot, but very nice.

David and I tried sorting out the rear wiring on the little truck this afternoon, it’s due for a warrant of fitness tomorrow. In the distance between the 2 tail lights, about 3’, there are 20 or more joins all with different coloured wire, different sized wire, and several inline fuse connectors. We’re taking it to the auto electrician first thing in the morning. If we could get new cable it would be easy enough to fix, but here it’s just a case of using whatever insulated wire you can find, household included.

There have been thunder and lightning storms on and off all day here, no rain in sight though, the lightning has been impressive, and the thunder really rolls across the landscape like a tank. The trees actually sway, and the ground vibrates under you when it rolls over.

I’ve still not figured out the water system in the house, after 6 months it is still a mystery. The last 2 weeks there has been no water in the afternoons when I get home, till about 10 or 11pm, but in the morning there is water to spare and high pressure. I’m used to it now so it can just be one of the things to accept.



Thursday 2nd July

Almost another week over with. The little truck failed the road fitness certificate, the lights decided to go on strike, and the rust in the tray and sides was a bit too much for them to accept. I took the sides off today, so we have a true flatbed now. David and I are going to strip the tray completely off over the weekend, and next week we’ll build a timber deck and sides for it.

After so much rain when I got here, I thought I’d be happy for the dry season to start. A week without rain and everything is parched, the trees are showing wilting signs, any small shrubs are just dried leaves and bare branches. It almost rained today, but just turned into thunder and lightning, and a dark heavy oppressive feel to the air. I think I’m used to the temperature, I don’t notice it so much anymore even when it gets to 35*C. The good thing about the dry season is that you don’t feel as though you’re in a sauna all the time, and you don’t seem to sweat as much.

Recalling the saga off the Cattle Development Fund that went missing, the Govt are still finding bits and pieces of the $8million tucked away in various bank accounts, so now it’s just $2.5 million missing, and for here that’s really close accounting. I still feel that they are going about it with the wrong type of cattle, European breeds, when we have water buffalo all the way through Indonesia and Malaya that thrive in the conditions here.
David at Rove Prison gave me a good lead for funding to get the Nursery into native plant production today. He worked in Vietnam for a while starting up nurseries and seed banks for indigenous trees that were under threat from logging. It’s a Danish organisation, and they seriously fund facilities for forest seed collection and propagation. I may get everything I want one way or the other.

Tiffany and I have a meeting with the UN Development Head tomorrow with Wills, going over their criteria for funding. I’m losing track of what we’re applying for, and from whom, and exactly why we’re applying for funding. And also the constant bending or altering the purpose of what we do. I’m hoping it will all settle down once we get one set of funds to start with, so I can start doing something rather than just make shift stuff to keep busy.

It looks as though we’ll know by the end of July about the Japanese Grass Roots Funding for the Nursery building, and I think from what Wills mentioned the UN Grants will cover classroom equipment, which will give us good resources for teaching, over head projector, powerpoint set up and text books, and a good photocopier. I shouldn’t mention powerpoint presentations, I have a disconcerting habit of falling asleep within 5 minutes of sitting in front of any. I said as much to Steve a few weeks back, and he replied that he’d seen me do exactly that at VSA in Wellington at one of the orientation meetings. The ones I’ve had to endure have always been such ponderous, boring, dull presentations, and as soon as they start showing bullet point style stuff, one point at a time, I’m usually snoring by the second slide.

I’ll have to remember that if I get to doing them here.

I was a bit worried driving home tonight. I had Maelyn in the cab with me, Sarah, Jepthath, William, Jack and Angela on the tray behind me, with no sides only the tip tray rear still there. Drove through Honiara in rush hour, police everywhere directing traffic, and not one of them thought anything unusual was going past. Everyone on the back thought it was a great laugh, I think a few of them just wanted a ride to Central Market on the truck for the fun.

There was an accident in Papua New Guinea a couple of weeks ago, 2 trucks collided head on, 60 people injured, a few killed. After seeing how everyone rides the trucks here to market, or just to work, I can understand now how so many people can be involved. I’ve counted 40 people in a truck, and yes it was full to over flowing, people sitting on the sides and doubled up on the floor, plus all their market stuff in bags and boxes. Doing 60 – 80 kmh along Mendana Ave. The funniest one I’ve seen was a truck with about 30 people on the back. They had loops of rope tied to the cab, and everyone was standing in between the loops, going all the way to the rear of the tray. As the truck swayed around the corners of the potholes, the lines of people swayed sideways, like a wave travelling down the truck. As always, everyone was laughing or singing loudly.

Mendana Ave is reverting to pot hole alley again, very quickly. If the Romans could build roads that are in some places still in use, why can’t we build a road that lasts longer than 3 months before falling apart????

There are a few more letters in the Solomon Star asking why the betel nut sellers are still selling in Honiara township, after Council banned them late last year. Along with the associated spitting and betel nut juice everywhere, there is the mess from the nut husks, and the rubbish that accumulates around the stalls. It’s going to take a while I think before Honiara starts to recover properly.

I’ll get pics of the stalls through town this weekend, Pauls’ little roadside stall at the end of my street is typical of the street ones, the ones in town are nowhere near as flash.