Wednesday 5th August

Ok, I know I need to get the dates sorted out. It’s been one of those weeks when nothing has gone right, other than getting the truck certified.

I missed the appointment with the Central Police Station Commander, we were stuck in the ANZ Bank trying to get them to understand that we are Honiara Beautification Committee trading as Solo Enviro Beautification. Considering that we have been doing that for 2 years so far, since SEB was registered as an NGO, and up till yesterday they have been happily depositing and cashing our SEB cheques into the HBC account, it took a while to sort out. We ended up changing all the accounts to SEB and as we were leaving, Tiffany asked for a printout, and sure enough, they had changed them to HBC only, so it was back into the office and a new round of paper filling. Things speed up a lot when I loudly said to Tiffany that we would be better off closing the accounts and opening new ones with Westpac across the road.

We had another meeting with Chie at the Japanese Consul this afternoon about the funding proposal. She wasn’t all that happy with us moving out of the Gardens, as the way the funding proposal is written, we use the Gardens as a teaching resource. If we move to Ranandi there is nothing there, factories, burnt out buildings and wasteland. Her suggestion is to call a meeting at the Japanese Consul Office with Forestry, Minister of Lands, Minister of Environment, Minister of Labour, Honiara Council, and tell them that $700,000 will not be appearing unless they can get their collective egos under control and give way on us staying at the gardens. The other side is that I have to find a way to tell Keithie that it may be time for her to step down as Chairperson of Honiara Beautification Committee as it is turning into a personality clash, and we’re the ones paying for it.

It’s going to be interesting, I’ll have a talk with Bruce tomorrow if I can get a meeting organised and start the process.

I saw Dave in Maryland online this morning, he mentioned something I wrote the other day about having to wait till the truck was ready to get to the beach, and wondered why. The beaches close to Honiara are heavily polluted, with rubbish, sewage, storm drains, so you have to go about 20 miles north to Bonegi or further to find clean water and beaches. There aren’t any buses, and a taxi would cost up to $150 each way, with no guarantee they would return for you at any time. There is a great business opportunity for someone to open a scooter/motorcycle hire here for the tourists, although you are restricted to the main road, every other road in Guadacanal is just a rutted dirt road so you may have a few accidents. Which is fine, there is no insurance cover here for tourists, you have an accident, the hospital patches you up and off you go. It’s like a huge adventure playground with an all care no responsibility clause. There have been tourists on Savo who have had their feet and legs burnt walking into the volcano there, it takes 6 hours to get back from Savo to Honiara Hospital, and there are no medical facilities on Savo. You get warned about it, and as far as everyone here is concerned, you were warned, so tough luck. No point trying to sue either.

I’m sitting here with stuff going on in my mind about how to handle Keithie. It’s not going to be simple, she’s been the founder and driving force for 10 years with HBC, and she has accomplished a lot. Ok, there are people with spike marks in their backs where she has climbed over them to get stuff done, which I think is where the present problems start from.

But if Chie does cancel the funding I’m wasting my time here totally. So it becomes do I want this to happen, and if I do, what can I do to move this whole thing forward. I was talking about this with Tiffany a few weeks ago, so to hear it from Chie again today reinforced what I have been thinking for a while.

There’s a reprieve of Saturday night going on next door, about 8 drunken men singing again, it sounded quite good earlier, the more Solbrew that gets passed around the more ragged the songs become.