1st July /2nd July

Adele at Kukum Market

Adele at Kukum Market

Andrew with the truck

Andrew and Truck


Saturday morning, sunny, hot and noisy. The neighbours are having a party, I think it might be a childs birthday party, there is a horde of children running amok through the area, aunties and sisters all dressed up with huge bowls of food and the men sitting in the shade drinking. Ooops, edit to add, Later, it’s more of a gambling party going on, I can’t understand what they are playing, some sort of card game, but there is a fair bit of money changing hands very quickly on the turn of a card. I think I’ll stay away from it. The rules look simple, so far, but there is bound to be some sort of percentage that makes it a losers graveyard. Edit again later: They are playing 21 now, and larger sums of money changing hands. Plus a lot more cans and bottles of SolBrew being passed around. And it’s only 2pm. At least they have good music playing, local reggae, you can almost hear it over the shouts and laughter. The local version of reggae has a different style to the usual Jamaican Bob Marley style, similar beat and rythmn, but just different enough to be distinctive. Edit again, 2.30pm, there are now 40 people next door playing cards, having a few drinks, the noise level has risen considerably. Most of the money seems to be going to the man holding the cards, $2/$5/$10 at a time, into a cardboard box beside him. I still can’t figure out the rules or how to play, but everyone there seems happy to be passing money over. He pays out about every 3rd/4th player, but the cardboard box seems to fill up quicker than it goes down. 3pm update, 6 cartons of SolBrew have just arrived, 24 cans per carton, they may be there for some time today. Close to 50 people sitting drinking, the card game is still going, and money is still changing hands.

Edit again: 5.45pm. You can barely hear the music over the laughter and shouting. I was watching when one guy went to get some more money out of his pocket, slightly drunk, he fell over, and there would have been 20 or more $100 notes tossed into the air as he fell, I think he got them all back once they stood him back up, it was a confusing thing to watch as everyone tried to grab as many as they could. It’s down to the die hards now, about 20 men, in varying stages of falling over. Even sitting down they still manage to fall over. I can see 4 cases of SolBrew still unopened, so it may be a long night. I still can’t work out what they are playing, it looks like 21/pontoon, but the dealer is only showing one card and collecting or paying. The game they were playing earlier looked like high/low, the dealer pulled a card, then the player cut to try for high card. Whatever it is, the dealer never seems to lose as much as he pays out.

6.30pm. 15 men left, the guitar is out, I’d like to say the music is beautiful Solomon Island voices, singing in harmony, soaring melodies, soft tones reminiscent of the waves on the beach at sunset, wistful passages of song about their village and life on the islands, but in reality it’s 15 drunken men who can’t remember all the words, a guitar player who sometimes hits the strings, 2 or 3 guys who think they can sing falsetto, but cover about 3 octaves in each line and everyone else singing a different song. But they are happy, and that’s about all that matters.

We’re slowly getting the tray onto the truck, I’d forgotten how long things take when you’re teaching as you do, and having people who have never used any tools before takes a while for them to get used to things. But everyone is happy doing it, and they are learning bits and pieces. Considering they aren’t being paid for coming in Thursday or Friday, Emory, Andrew and Vincent put in 2 full days, and had a bit of fun as well. I thought of telling them to go home and take the time off, but realised they were there because they wanted to be, and building the tray was what they wanted to do. It would probably help if we had a diagramn to go by, but I’m making it up as we go along as usual for me. Well, I did do a rough sketch with some rough measurements, so we have an idea of what we are doing.

Adele is settling in, she arrived at her work Monday and promptly got inundated with everything, most of it totally out of her area, but everyone just cleared their desks off and gave it to her to sort out. I think she’s done this before, all she did was organise it into piles, then sent back what she didn’t deal with.

I’ve been picking her brains for how to deal with the problems we have at work, over funding and areas of responsibility. It’s a tricky situation, Tiffany is the Manager of SEB NGO, and the SEB Board are the decision making part. But Tiffany is responsible for the finances, despite having to follow the direction of the Board.

The problem that came up Friday is about the next course we are meant to be running for Community Sector Programmes (CSP). They allocated the money, paid us, and while we are still contracted to run another course, all the money has gone on the community gardens and stuff as directed by Keithie. We received a letter from CSP Friday asking for a report and financial statement showing where the money has been spent so far on the previous courses, and where the $36,000 still on their books is going to be allocated and when the Course will be starting.

I think we’re going to have to call a full Board meeting and get this whole thing sorted out quickly. The legalities of what we have been doing are questionable, diverting Aid Funding into community work, and not completing or starting what the funds were allocated for.

I really was hoping to just come here and do a bit of fishing, sight see and work on the Nursery. The way things are going the Board meeting will be a bit of fun.

Sunday
I’d promised to take Adele down to the Kukum Fish Market today, it wasn’t till I woke up and remembered that I didn’t have any cash on me, so I had a very quick walk into town to the hole in the wall, and back home before 9am. I broke my personal best record, home to Point Cruze ANZ and back in an hour. Then we walked down to the Kukum Market, another kilometre down the road.

The prices have dropped a lot the last few weeks, eggs now $22 for 10, pawpaw $2 - $5, coconuts back to $1, pineapple are down to $15 from $45 2 weeks ago. Beans spring onions, and bok choy are $5 - $10 a bundle, cucumbers are $3 each. I got everything in the photo for SBD$50, about NZ $10, €5, which made me happy.

One of the traders was desperate, even at 10am, giving 50% discount on his watermelons, $25 for large, $15 for medium, $10 for small, and doing a good trade. I guess he didn’t feel like having to load up and take them all back with him later today.

There isn’t much movement next door so far, the girls are just sitting under the sleep out, quietly talking, I haven’t seen any evidence of the men yet. It was nearly midnight before the last of them fell asleep, I must admit the music did improve towards the end as the drunker ones fell over. It was more island songs, soft singing in contrast to the raucous bedlam earlier.

I’ll be pleased to get the truck finished this week, today is brilliant clear blue sky, hot sun, it would be ideal to go to Turtle beach and sleep under the coconut palms, although with my luck I’d have a coconut land on me.

Introduced Adele to Paul my betelnut seller, on our way to Kukum, so the word will go around the neighbourhood and she won’t get bothered walking around here. There are still a lot of beggars, actually that isn’t a good word for them, more desperate people trying to get their kids through school and asking for money to cover school fees. Ok, it is begging, but not in the usual something for nothing style. Most of them have carvings/baskets for sale, I’d buy some if I had the money, but then the expense of shipping it back to NZ comes into the equation, and it’s not worth it for me.

I had Willie, Davids wantok that we fired ask me last week for money for his son’s school fees. I’ve lost patience with him unfortunately, all of his wantok have tried to help him, they pressured David into hiring him, and he became an embarrassment to David, turning up drunk, taking days off and being seen drunk around White River. Plus borrowing money from everyone and never repaying it. I told him that I was sorry, but until he decides to think of his family first and not spending everything on Kwaso and alcohol, I wasn’t going to help.

The girls next door are quietly humming along and swaying to Van Morrison, I’ve got No Guru, No Method, No Teacher on at the moment, I’ve noticed when I play Van Morrison the girls take over the shade area, when it’s blues or techno, Christopher and his friends all arrive.

Adele bought over a couple of books this morning, one by Ross McDonald from Auckland University Centre for Maori and Pacific Development called “Money Makes You Crazy”. He was here for 3 years on and off living on the various Islands. It’s a really good book dealing with what has happened here with “development” or as we call it here, deforestation, pillaging the seas and sending the money to Korea/Japan/Malaysia. All the mistakes, the “grab the money” mentality that overseas investors instilled into the locals, the loss of tribal land and all their food sources. It’s not good reading.

One of the things VSA is emphatic about is thinking first before imposing development on anyone. Just because it works elsewhere doesn’t mean it is the right thing for here.

My coconut tree in front of the house finally dropped a couple of bunches, now I have 10 coconuts sitting in my porch, some I may leave to sprout before I open them. I was surprised they were still on the ground when I got home today, usually one of the neighbours grabs them as soon as they fall. I cracked one open, peeling off the husk was the hard part, but the meat cleaver helped.