Monday 24th August

Hi Jerome, I hope you’re having a better time fishing in Schull than I am here. All the fishing charter type people here, including the dive trips and general boat sight seeing tours charge the earth for trips. Ok, if you convert it to AUD. NZ, Euro, USD it isn’t that much, but when you’re like me on a volunteers income it is a months income for me to go out for a days fishing. It is SBD$2,500 a day with the dive trip people, SBD$10,000 on Lalae Charters. About AUD $400, NZ$500, €250 for the dive trip. Still expensive I feel, mainly because of the consultants and RAMSI people here on huge amounts.

Misi said it got worse at the Gardens on Friday after I left, if it was crowded with drunken teenagers by 4.30, it was totally out of control by 6pm. He caught 2 of his sons there drinking kwaso, and took to them with a mop handle. Then spent all weekend walking around town trying to find them after they ran off. Still hadn’t found them by today.

There was a bit of a traffic accident in town early Friday morning, 2 of our flower tubs were smashed, I don’t know what hit them yet. It must have been a good hit though, they are 100mm concrete sides, about ¾ tonne each. I went to Central Police about it, then sent a letter in today asking for compensation from the driver when it gets to Court, or else his insurance company so we can claim off them. Close to $2,600 to replace both tubs, the artwork alone is $800 to get done on each of them. David was quite impressed with me putting a claim in over it. All they have done previously is just replace any that get broken, and never thought of claiming from the drivers.

We have got orders for 100 bags of our potting mix now, still another week away from being ready so Andrew and a few others are going to be busy feeding the compost through the mulcher next week. At $20 a bag it is a good money earner from what is just waste material. I’m going to try and get the 20 kg rice bags to use, and offer a free bag of potting mix if all the bags are returned. 10 bags or more though. It should work out cheaper than continuosly buying plastic rubbish bags to be used once.

All the helliconia and ginger plants are starting to flower really thickly now. I’m finding all sorts of different varieties, Heliconia rostrata and auranticum, Zingerber zerumpet and amaricans both in flower. Zingerber amaricans is the Shampoo ginger, you can use the sap out of the flower heads for shampoo.

A lot more orchids flowering as well in the orchid house, Dendrobium spectabile, and macrophyllum, spectabile has twisted petals, the macrophyllum species, which I’m only guessing at because it looks similar to the pictures, has really hairy calyx and petals and leopard spotted flowers. Plus a lot of others that I can’t find any reference material on other than that they are Dendrobiums, just which species is all guess work.

PM Sikura is in todays Solomon Star saying that he had nothing to do with the Parliamentary Entitlements Committee result. As he was the person who appointed 2 sitting MPs, and one ex-MP to a 5 person group, one being the Finance Minister, and all supporters of his, I find it slightly hard to believe. But he has formed an Inquiry Board to look at the Parliamentary Spouse $50,000 grant section. The whole thing needs to be addressed, and soon. Doubling MPs wages, and giving them $500,000 termination grants if they get voted out isn’t going to fly here, well, not without another riot and trouble.

As was mentioned to me last week, when you come from a “hunter/gatherer” society, you grab everything you can before someone else does. Add in the “wantok” system and you have a recipe for graft and corruption that beggars belief. Plus the endless ego boosting to prove how big a man you are all adds up to a totally dysfunctional civil service.

It also explains why most of the fruit and vegetables in the markets are always under ripe. If the growers waited till it was ripe, someone else would be taking the produce for themselves, it is still a very communal society, with no private ownership, and all your wantok feel entitled to borrow, take, use anything you may have. It isn’t uncommon for the people at work to arrive home and find 10 – 30 of their wantok have arrived and moved in, and it is your responsibility to feed and house them till they move on. David and Tiffany had 15 of Tiffanys wantok arrive for a week a short while back, it was hell for both of them. Their house is still being built, no water, electricity, and to have 15 extra, including teenagers wasn’t good for both of them. But it is something that happens and all you can do is go with it, it all sorts itself out eventually.