A Wok and a Pot Sunday 29th November

Sunday 29th November A Wok and a Pot

Ok, I’ve had a few requests for recipes, well, ok, one, but I’m sure everyone else wants to know but are too shy to ask. And also do I really just have a Wok and one pot to cook with? Yes to that question, and the following is how I manage.

Dinner for tonight is going to be Garlic and Chilli Pita Bread, with a Kumara (Sweet Potato) and chilli curry, with rice.

Garlic and Chilli Pita Bread + 2 plain Bread Loaves.

This started on Friday night when I made up a sponge batter of 2 cups of flour, 1 packet of dried yeast, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 1 good teaspoon of salt and 1½ cups of water. Stirred till smooth and left on the bench till Saturday night. It did get very active, it’s been over 30*C all week here, and high humidity.

Saturday night I put 6 cups of flour, a good tablespoon of salt, about ½ cup of Olive oil into the Wok, and stirred it about till blended. Then tipped the yeast batter into the Wok and added 1 cup more of water, then mixed it all together. I needed another ½ cup of water to get it right, no dry bits, and a slightly sticky consistency. Put the lid on the Wok and worked on the irrigation plan for the Nursery till 11pm out in the porch.

Sunday morning I added another cup of flour to the Wok, mixed it in, then went to Kukum Fish Market. When I got back the dough was rising well, tipped it out onto a floured bench top, then started kneading, adding a handful of flour as needed to keep it soft and smooth without being sticky.

Split the dough into 3, made 2 loaves and put them into the tin and covered till they rose.

The other 1/3 piece I added chopped chilli and chopped garlic to, then put into the fridge for an hour while I baked the bread. Out of the fridge and split into small balls, a bit bigger than a golf ball, I don’t have scales so it’s all by guess, let them sit for a while then rolled them out to small circles about 10mm thick and 6” across. Cleaned the Wok and got ready for part 2.

Put the Wok onto low heat, I know Joe at www.joepastry.com recommends high heat, I haven’t got a wood fired oven, cast iron skillet, or baking stone for the oven, and the Wok is thin metal, so I use a lower heat.

Dropped each pita bread into the Wok, turned them over when they puffed up, and were still a bit soft, I’m using them for pocket bread so they need to be a bit softer than a crisp hot bake would give. I found if you drop them into the wok with the dryer side down, they puff up better, the side that has been sitting on the bench top or whatever will be softer and damper, and has more elasticity, so it will rise more.




I ended up with 24 Pita Breads, I’ll freeze most, and have a few with dinner.

Kumara and Chilli Curry

I cheat with this, I can’t get the ingredients to make my own curry, so I use the Solomon Islands generic Punjas Hot Curry Powder. If anyone wants a good reference book and a lot of recipes, Charmaine Solomons Asian Cookbook is the only one you’ll ever need.

Ingredients.
Kumara (Sweet potato)
Pineapple
Chillies
Onion
Garlic
Split yellow peas
Split Green peas
Red kidney beans
Chickpeas (Garbanzo beans)
Curry powder if using, or your own mix.

Ok, we’ve only got a Wok and a pot, so preparation and a bit of thought now. The Pita bread is made, the Wok is cleaned up again.

½ cup yellow peas, same of green peas, red kidney beans and chickpeas into the pot to soak, I did this early this morning before I went to the Market. Covered with water and sat on the bench.

Bought a pineapple, more chillies, and some kumara at the market, so we’ll start with the pineapple, follow the photos and you can’t go wrong. Top and tail, trim the outside off, cut the eyes out, then slice and cube, into a bowl, cover and put in fridge.



Kumara, you can peel if you like, I just rub with a scourer and then chop into cubes, cover with water, it will stain black otherwise.

Onion, chillies, garlic, peel onions, chop into slices/small bits, however, chillies need care, do not use bare hands if you get a reaction, do not touch your face, eyes, nose, until you have repeatedly washed your hands after handling and chopping. Crush the garlic, no need to chop, it is going to have a long cooking time and you don’t want all the flavour to evaporate away.



Drain the dried beans, peas and refill the pot and put onto boil, once boiling turn to simmer and leave to cook, about 45 minutes if the beans have had a good long soak, slightly longer without soaking. Drain when cooked and set aside.

Allow 1 – 1 ½ hours to cook the curry, long and slow is always best for this, quick and fast has it’s place but not with this.

Put the jug/kettle on to boil.

Tip the onions, garlic, chillies into the Wok, with about a tablespoon of butter/olive oil based margarine/vegetable oil, and cook gently till the onions are soft, add as much curry powder as you like, I use about 2 tablespoons. Once the onions are soft and the curry powder is starting to darken, add boiling water slowly and stir to mix, then add about 2 – 3 cups of boiling water and bring the mix to a boil.

Add the drained beans/peas/chickpeas, kumara, top up with more boiling water, to cover, bring to the boil and turn down to simmer.



Wash the pot out, and put 1 cup of rice, and 1½ cups of water and 1 teaspoon of salt in. Bring to a rolling boil, then turn off the heat, and cover the pot, set aside on the stove top till needed. It will cook very well, without any further heat, do not feel tempted to lift the lid and check every 5 minutes, it will be perfectly fine.

Stir the curry every now and then to make sure it doesn’t stick, slow heat and long cooking is all it needs now, about an hour, or a bit longer is good.

About 30 minutes before serving add as much pineapple as you like, keep the rest to make fruit salad with.

There, that was nice and simple, it’s probably taken me longer to write it up, and take photos as I went than it has to cook everything.

It’s been a mixed week, as they all seem to be lately. We’re slowly getting closer to moving to Ranandi, I was overly optimistic about Telekom and SIEA, it may be next week for Telekom, and as for SIEA it is up to the various Gods that live around here I think.

Tiffany managed to get most of the Japanese application done, I’ve been reworking the irrigation and other stuff to suit the German Embassy Funding. It’s been a few years since I did major irrigation plans, so it has been another steep learning curve. Plus not having anywhere here that stocks irrigation supplies I’ve had to rely on internet sites for information, and prices. All the stuff I am used to is still available, NaanDan rotating sprinklers, and the dripper trickle systems, so it has been a matter of starting with them and working backwards to sort out pump and pipe sizes to get the correct working pressures and delivery rates. As I noted up above, I was still working on it at 11pm last night and finally thinking I can do this!

I’m a lot behind in other stuff I have promised a couple of people, one in particular will be thinking I’m never going to finish what I’ve started for them. Does feeling guilty about it get me any brownie points?

It is going to be a panic in a week or so when we start the Post Office job, as well as do a major clean up through the gardens before Christmas, I still have prices to get for Commonwealth Ave, classes every morning this week, prices and sources for the irrigation, mark out the nursery on the ground, and all I wanted to do was come here and go fishing.

I’m trying to concentrate on getting one thing done at a time, but working out of the office in town makes that almost impossible, both of us keep getting given other stuff that is “more important” to do, then we have to explain why the other “important” stuff hasn’t been completed yet. It’s no wonder I’m drinking more and more coffee at work lately, samesame with Tiffany.

Wednesday 25th November.

It’s been a busy week, I’ve got the drawings done for Commonwealth Ave, Tiffany and I have a meeting with MID tomorrow to go over the concept plan, and hopefully get an idea of how much they are going to put towards the budget, we’ll probably have to canvass the businesses along Commonwealth Ave, I can’t see the Chinese owned ones paying anything though.




It’s finally raining. Steady rain that should last the night out by the looks of the clouds.



We had the bush pigs visit town last night, 14 Alexandra Palms along Ranandi Highway near work were chopped down, all 7 year old palms, just starting to get good solid trunks and that grey colour to them. I wrote a short piece and sent photos to the Solomon Star again. I wanted Tiffany to write it, but she said I use stronger words than she would, so it would be better if I did it. It's in todays Solomon Star in the Letters section. www.solomonstarnews.com

I’ve got 350 seeds from one of the Alexandra Palms in town to start, by the ANZ. I was in there with Tiffany and we saw the crew outside so I sent Jack up the trees to shake the seeds off the bunch. Spent last night washing the pulp off and then nicking the seeds so they start faster without having to wait for the shell to split. Huge amount of non fertile seeds from them, only half the seeds were fertile, I floated all of them in the sink, then doubting what was happening I split some of the floaters open. All hollow, so I didn’t bother checking any others, just kept the ones that sank.

We’ve got a lot of stuff done this week, it’s one of the things that happens. I’ve got pricing to do for Commonwealth Ave, the Post Office is costed and agreed, we start there soon. I’m trying to get more compost made before then, the girls have run out again for the Nursery, plus we have orders for about 3 truckloads to go to private gardens. It is turning into a good earner provided we can keep the supply up. Moving out of the Botanic Gardens has mucked the process up a bit, and I’m reluctant to start large scale processing until we have the lease and agreement signed on the area at Hasting Deering.

The drawings and costing have to be into the Japanese Consul on Friday, I still haven’t heard back from NZ Aid about the scholarships for Andrew and Emory, another thing to chase up tomorrow, I only have till Monday to have them registered in Dunedin Polytech so I can see it is going to be a last minute rush. Like everything here turns into.

Sunday 22nd November

I know I was a few days early with Birthday wishes, I’m never sure if I’m going to be online, especially with us being in the office in town. Better early than miss entirely though.

My chilli and pepper trader at Kukum Fish Market was back again this week, I have to go look for him, he hides over the back off the main part, he’d bought more Thai birdseye chillies, so I bought most of what he had, $20 worth, he gets a laugh from me because I always try one or two first, and I really have to struggle not to gasp and breathe fire with them. Think of a lit match being put on your tongue. I’ve got another couple of jars salted down, with ginger as well this time, in a few months I’ll have a really spicy hot chilli sauce to use. They’re small, barely ½ an inch long, but my hands are still tingling from handling them over 10 hours ago. Meant to be good for arthritis, I’ll find out if my finger knuckles work better tomorrow. Also found out, well, just once more, never touch your face, or other body parts after handling chillies, you have to really like stinging pain to do it repeatedly.


My steamer died on Friday night, another thing to put on the list of things to bring back, as well as a steamer, a voltage rectifier. I found out at work that SIEA voltage can vary from 250v to 220v at any time, depending on how many generators are working and what the load is. So it does play havoc with electrical equipment. Which explains why the laptop transformer can run really hot at times. I’ve decided to get a dehydrator as well, there is just too much cheap fruit to eat, I waste a bit, bananas, pawpaw, sometimes pineapple, it all gets too much for me to eat in a week, even when I cut down on the amount of fruit I buy. The size of the banana hands is always a trap, 15 – 25 bananas in a hand, for $10- $15, even the $10 pineapples I buy are enough to last a week made into fruit salad with pawpaw and banana.

I was asked the other day if I missed having meat, I could be all virtuous and holistic, lentil munching looney left wing bleeding heart cuddling kittens and puppies and say no, but truthfully I wake up dreaming about leg of lamb roasts, thick cuts of steak marinated in soy sauce and covered with black pepper cooked almost rare on a hot plate, chilli stir fried squid, so I guess being a vegetarian isn’t something I’m meant to be. Roast pork with apple and clove sauce, crackling, venison quick fried with garlic, liver and bacon for breakfast with mushrooms, oh stop it.

There are local chicken producers, but looking at the cuts or whole chickens in the shop is a bit of a let down, it is probably perfectly good, but it always looks scrawny, and at $30 for a 1kg bag of soup cuts, neck/ribs/bones I don’t think so. Whole chickens are between $85 and $130, which is more than I spend on food a week anyway. Leg of lamb is $450, sausages $50 (pkt of 6), beef mince (hamburger) $50 for 500gm (1 lb), 4n’20 Australian frozen meat pies are $18 each, whole duck $380, it’s no wonder the locals don’t eat meat often. Or have their own pig that never seems to grow old. And the chickens that run loose everywhere but never seem to overrun the place.

I’m still wary of the fish, even if it hasn’t killed anyone here, well, not that the newspapers have reported anyway. There was some really nice red snapper at Kukum today, but after the last episode with buying fish I gave it a miss.

I’ll plug my favourite blog site again, www.joepastry.com, I use a lot of Joes bread recipes, and ideas, as anyone reading this should know by now. The latest batch of bread from the weekend is probably the best I’ve made so far, for plain bread anyway, the garlic and black pepper loaves I made a couple of weeks back are going to be hard to beat. I made a sponge up Friday night, 2 teaspoons yeast, 1 cup flour, 1 tablespoon salt and 1 ½ cups water, and left it to work till Saturday night, then poured it into 8 cups of flour, a bit more salt, and ½ cup of oil, a couple of cups more water and mixed, then left till Sunday morning to shape and bake.



Pic is of one of the loaves, it has a strong sourdough aroma when opened, slightly vinegary, but with a strong yeast aroma that comes through. I’ll find out tomorrow morning how it tastes as toast. I’ve got a copy of Elizabeth Davids Bread Book back in NZ, one of the things she constantly reiterates is how the flavour of bread is enhanced by long proving times, and less yeast. I know Joe is more commercially orientated, and even when I was working in the bakery in Schull we never gave a long proving time, the bread still tasted better than the commercial mechanical loaves though. I worked for Donaghues Bakery in Tullamore for a few months, that was a real contrast to Schull, all machines, it was just tip 10 bags of flour in, turn the tap on for water, throw a couple of packets of yeast into the vat, and set the blades going. Even the shaping was done by machines. It tasted ok in a fashion, but nowhere as good as small batch made product.

I got rid of all the left over bananas as well, and baked 2 banana cakes, with 8 bananas in each. The first one was a bit of a disaster, I forgot to turn the oven down when I put the tin in, so it formed a crust before the centre had a chance to rise, then split open along one side as the centre burst out. The second one is a lot more presentable, I need deeper tins though, another thing to go on the list, the tin I have is only 40mm high, so everything tends to rise in the centre and spill sideways without keeping a nice even shape.


Another pic of dinner, well, dinner ingredients, the bowl has pineapple, onion, garlic, chillies, grated ginger, a bowl of chopped up green stuff, I never know what it is, but it tastes good, egg noodles, also on show, the bread, unchopped habanero and birdseye chillies. It all got tossed into the ever faithful wok, tossed around over high heat for a few minutes, a splash of fish sauce, and dinner was ready. And yes, the chillies were still hot.

Friday 20th November

Happy Birthday Stef.

Tiffany and I had another meeting with the Post Office this afternoon, and they have agreed to pay for the upgrade along Mendana Ave, outside the Post Office, we start on it about the 14th December, or maybe the week before depending on when they give us the 25% initial payment. Kennedy is there doing artwork inside, so I’ve got his carving ability to use for statues in the PO Gardens after we finish the road frontage. All up, we have nearly 4 months work full time there now once we start. It’s going to be a complete rip out and redesign and plant, which I’ve been dying to do since I arrived here.

Which means our compost making has got to increase, I’m going to need 8 truckloads just for the outside gardens, and at least 10 – 15 truckloads for inside the boundary fence, plus the carpark areas and border gardens. I have a letter to go to the ROC Trial farm, Tiff is taking it on Monday, and hopefully we can get a constant supply of rice husks and chaff, to add to the woodchip and chicken manure. Thankfully it rots quickly here, 2 weeks is more than enough time to go from raw to finished compost in the heat and humidity. I may need to find more chicken farms though, up till now it’s been bags at a time, we need truckloads now. It’s getting to be a bit like the King of the Golden River, we’ll take anyones waste and turn it into something useful.

To say I’m happy about getting the Post Office job is a bit of an understatement. It’s the first bit of good news Tiffany and I have had in a long while, and for it to be all Tiffanys work, without anyone else taking it over because it is far to complicated for her means a lot. I finally got her to do the 10% discount method, put a price, but add a 10% contingency price for unforseen expenditure, and offer to deduct it if they guarantee payment, in this case we got a 25% initial payment on commencement, and a final payment within 5 days of completion, so it’s a nice little earner for us. 2 weeks work and a good payment.

There’s going to be a few changes at work now though, I’ve been working on time sheets, job numbers or names, mileage recording on the trucks, so we can keep track of how much each job costs and also to some extent, where we can cut waste expenditure. Now we know we can get the work, the systems are ready to track everything finally. It is going to annoy someone who thinks it can’t be done by the natives, but I’m not here to be nice to the colonials. No matter who they are.

I’ve got drawings to do for the Japanese Consul, and the German Embassy, for the Nursery, before Monday, working plans for Commonwealth Ave to have done so we can get the costings completed for Ministry of Infrastructure and Development by Friday, so my weekend is looking rather full for once.

The accountant came back today and said he’d made a mistake, like we cared enough to worry, but he’d totalled everything wrong, and instead of losing $6,000 per month for the past 5 months, we’d lost $6,000 over the 5 months. So from $35,000 a month to just over $1,000 by cutting out all the community work is working, and once the new pricing Tiffany has done for all the jobs starts in January, we should be showing break even or a profit by March. It’s been a battle though, we’re still being told that we have to do the community work, and I’m still ignoring it. I’m tired of trying to explain that if we don’t get paid for doing something, the money has to come from somewhere to cover all the expenses, and if we have to do it, then there is no point in getting upset at running a loss every month if we aren’t allowed to charge for our time and expenses.

Tuesday 17th November

I should really get out more at the weekend. The football match between the Gualie team and the Malaitan team at Lawson Tama on Saturday had a bit of an upset over a referees decision, which went against the Malaitan team. The ensuing dispute led to the Solomon Island Football Federation Building at Lawson Tama being burnt down, the grandstand was a bit damaged, and everyone went home happy. I haven’t heard of anyone being seriously injured, you don’t see bushknives at the football usually, although that may change. SIFF lost all the trophies, memorabilia, records etc, and the building.

Work remains the same. Although Tiff and I are making headway over the budget issues. We’ve gone from $35,000 a month loss prior to June to $6,000 per month, measured over the past 5 months income/expenditure, and the slope is dropping. It still isn’t perfect, but we are turning it around. On the figures Tiff and I worked on, we should be breaking even by March next year when the new pricing starts being reflected in the income, and the other sources of income like landscaping, plant sales and compost sales are included.

I’ve got all the measurements for the Post Office, I should have been finishing the Commonwealth Street designs today, but I got distracted in the morning, and started the Level 2 class anyway, then by the time we got into town Tiff had another meeting with MID over the payment, I got totally sidetracked with another small job for one of the BJS staff, David came in to tell us about 3 of the crew deciding to wander off and do a couple of private houses lawn cutting instead of the Childrens Park and Rove Police Memorial park, so I’ve written warning letters for them for tomorrow morning, about 2pm I picked up my bag and camera and went out to take photos of the Post Office gardens instead. Add in the usual Telekom internet connection faults, so emails that should have gone to people this morning about quotes/contracts/jobs weren’t sent, and it wasn’t till the afternoon we could get back online to check, it isn’t doing my patience much good.




Post office gardens, it's a bit of a jungle as you can see, bits of everything all thrown in together, I'm clearing it back to bare ground, then Alexandra or Royal palms, with Hibiscus and a few of Kennedys statues with a boulder surround.


No rain for 5 days so far, but there is thunder again in the hills, although the wind is northerly again so it is holding the clouds back away from Honiara. I never thought I’d be welcoming rain, this month has been drier than last year so far, the la nina pattern is settling and holding off the monsoons right across the area, which could make the period after December very interesting, more floods and washouts probably, as the rain finally arrives.

In case I don’t catch up, have a safe trip Libby, and I’ll catch up when you get to Hawaii and settled back in.

Added in, my article got published full page in the Solomon Star Wednesday morning, now I'll wait for Al's Apostles to start abusing me.

Monday 16th November

Spent the weekend caching up on things. Saw Steve Saturday afternoon and told him to expect another “the man is impossible to deal with” email. I’ve really got to learn how to say “Yes Ma’am” more often, but somehow I don’t think that is going to happen.

There are a couple of ladies from Malaita who sell shell money necklaces in town by Wings Supermarket that I’ve been talking to the past while, and the prices are slowly dropping each time I go past. Beautiful shell banded collar like necklace, I know there is a word for them but I can’t think of it as yet, that started a month ago at $1,000, I can now buy 2 for $800 each, and the usual single strand necklace similar to the ones I already have from Imelda and Suzzie are down to $20. So that took care of Hayden and Damians Christmas presents.

I’m going in again Saturday with photos of everyone, Jesse, Kahu, Tarsha, and I should get a good deal on things for them as well. The only problem is that it takes a while to get away from there once I start talking, which is good, I’m learning more all the time about life and things here.

One of my market traders at Kukum finally brought chilli peppers in for sale, he’s been telling me for ages he has some, so I bought half his stock. I’ve now got several jars of salted chilli sitting on the window sill fermenting. He has the usual long cayenne type, as well as the small Thai birdseye and some that look like a small habanero. He was most impressed when I asked to try them before buying, and managed to eat a whole habanero and a couple of Thai ones without going into fits of screaming for water or writhing in agony. They are hot though, I don’t think I could have eaten too many more like that without a bit of trouble.

I’m meant to be starting classes this week, it is turning into a bit of a shambles though with only a few people enrolled so far. I’ve got 3 of the crew doing Level 2, and one outside person so far. I’ll have to start anyway, so that it finishes before February, I can always cram it down to 10 weeks, and do a few all day sessions to cover everything.

I never thought I’d actually be looking forward to going on a break, but the last month has really got to me. Trying to teach people how to read an income/expenditure or profit/loss spreadsheet, knowing full well it won’t make any difference and we’ll still be arguing over doing unpaid community work with the ensuing argument over wages and expenditure because of it is becoming a pointless exercise in futility.

I’ve not lost hope, but it’s sort of sitting quietly in a corner and waiting I think. It is going to be interesting when the funding comes through, Tiffany and I want to set it up in separate accounts so we can keep a good watch over the spending, and also because it makes an easier audit trail, from what we were told last week someone else has a different idea and thinks it is all going to go into the general slush fund account and be used to cover any charity work. There may be “words”.

I finally gave into temptation over the weekend, and spent a fair bit of time going through all the files and writing an article for the Solomon Star about AGW Hysteria. They have had items all week in the paper about Copenhagen, and bits and pieces from various schools doing AGW projects. I know I should have ignored it all, but when it gets to the stage where natural weather patterns are used as examples of AGW, I gave in to the temptation.

I’ve got 4 ½ pages done, and I need a lot more to cover it better, but the main points are there, so I’ll send that in today, and will do more if the response is forthcoming.

Thursday 12th November

I haven’t killed anyone this week, which is more a miracle than good management. Wednesday I did the absolutely worst thing I’ve done here, and blew up at David, over something that wasn’t his fault. It was one of those days that Wednesdays turn into when we’re trying to get everything done as it’s the last day for the week for the crew. We had people on all the roundabouts, the Median strip crew were trying to finish the grass cutting, there were two loads of soil/compost mix to be delivered, one to Point Cruz Yacht Club, one to Tonys, City Centre Garden was a mess and we had 2 people in there all day picking up rubbish and trimming shrubs, and Keithie grabbed David and got him and two of the crew to sort out some Palms, Rowea, and Duranta and take them to her place and set them up on her lawn for a lawn party she was having Wednesday night, without telling Tiffany.

So when the phone rang from Point Cruz Yacht Club at 2pm wanting to know where the soil was, as they had 4 of their gardeners sitting around for the last 4 hours waiting after I’d told them it would be there at 10am, I was a bit annoyed. Then Tiff came back and said that the people who should have been at City Centre weren’t there and it was only half done, which is about when David walked in and told us he’d be a little while yet as he was still getting Keithies plants.

I sort of lost the plot completely about then, told him that paying customers come first, we don’t leave people that are waiting on us in the dark about what is happening, and as we’re not getting paid to run around after Keithie, she can wait. David is far to polite, and he tends to do what Keithie wants, without checking with Tiff, and it is Keithies fault as well, she always goes to David because she knows he won’t refuse or put off doing what she wants.

If we hadn’t just had Keithie telling Tiff and I the work crew are over paid, under worked, and most of them need to be laid off I probably could have handled it better. As it was, we didn’t finish till after 6pm Wednesday, and there’s no show of the crew being paid for the extra hours as Keithie won’t believe it took us that long thanks to her pulling the truck, and 3 of the crew away to tidy her lawn up for a party.

Time for good news. MID (Ministry Infrastructure and Development) have asked for a design concept for the median strip down Commonwealth Ave, they are working on upgrading it with new kerbing, pictures attached. I’ve been a couple of days just watching what happens along the street, and I’ve got the plan worked out. Rough sketches are done, I’m working on scale plans now, it isn’t what Keithie would want, very plain, easy to maintain, seating, palms and hibiscus, helliconia and paving. There are existing Delonix regina along the street now, so we keep those for shade trees, with seating under them, a bit of paving so people aren’t walking through the gardens, and a palm inbetween each Delonix with hibiscus in a circle, and helliconia in the shade between the seating.



There are 3 island median strips up Commonwealth Ave, one 30 metre one, the others are smaller, but I’ll use the same design all the way up, and similar for the open side of the street opposite the shops and offices. What has happened in the past has been each little garden has been done as and when it became available, and whatever plants were available went into it, which explains the mess outside Telekom to the Post Office. Hibiscus/gardenias/helliconia/ginger/alamanda/ frangipani all in the same bed. Oh, plus a couple of opuntia cactus trying to spread everywhere.

My intention is to gut the entire strip right out, and replant with hibiscus and palms, so we get a single uniform approach and effect all the way through Honiara.


Caught up with the American kids here on a youth exchange programme today. They are working with the Council, and I’m really annoyed with Council over what Council have done with them. Not so much the job they are doing, but how little thought or help Council have given to the whole scheme.




They are replacing the walkway over the bridge to Chinatown with a lot of the teenagers in town helping, which is really good, but the kids have had to go out and beg and borrow tools, and equipment to do it with. Les at Council Works has been really good with them, tools, back hoe, lifter etc, but they should not have had to go begging around town for basic stuff like hammers, saws, nails. They want to landscape around the bridge heads, so I’ll sort out some plants for them and we’ll work up some ideas. They are only here for 2 weeks, and finding Solomon Time a bit hard to get used to, but they are still smiling and having a good time. 2 from Wisconsin, 1 from California, 1 from Missouri.

Tiff and I are resigned to the fact that nothing is ever going to change, it will always be a constant battle between trying to get more work, and try to get SEB into more of a business commercial standing. I can see all sorts of problems next year with the nursery, I want it to be commercial, and have a public sales area. There isn’t a garden nursery anywhere in the Solomons, and certainly not one anywhere near as big as the one we are building. I’ll have close to 2,500 sq metres of ground to play with, plus an office/classroom/propagating and bagging area, soil and composting area.

Tiff and I went to the ROC Trial Farm on Monday to have a browse. They grow several varieties of rice, trialling for best variety for here, several species of pawpaw, poultry breeds, guavas. It was the rice husks we were after though for composting into propagating mix. We continuosly run short of wood chip, and now we have people buying our mix as well, supply is getting to be a major problem. It looks good, we should be able to get the husks and a fair bit of the chaff as well for composting. Chicken manure is never going to be a problem, unless someone else gets the same idea, then we’ll put our compost prices up and pay the chicken farms for it, and then they won’t give it away to anyone else.

MID payment was delayed again this month, after Friday of this week all the Government Departments have been told not to make any payments till late January. We had 3 invoices for Corrections that David at Rove Prison pushed through for us, that will be ready for pick up tomorrow, all we can do is hope MID pay out tomorrow. I had to pay the crew wages again this week, $9,046, thank God I don’t spend a lot or live a high life style here. Hopefully I’ll get it back before February, depending on how soon MID pay up, and whatever other money we can get in. Although we are looking in better shape financially than we were when I arrived, we were losing $35,000 a month then, now we are close to break even point, and with better pricing going onto the contracts now we should be showing a profit by March next year when all the contracts renew. It hasn’t been easy.

Monday 9th November

I’ve decided that all I’ve been doing is going around and around on the samesame treadmill since February with work. We’ve cut $35,000 off the monthly wage bill, by stopping the community work, increased our contract paid work, cut the staff to 17 total, 5 of whom are non-direct income producing, 2 in the Nursery producing plants, 2 security, and Tiffany in the office. Of the 12 on the outside work crew, 4 of them are tied to the MID Median Strip Contract, the other 8 have 5 roundabouts, all the gardens along Mendana Ave in town, the Childrens Playground, Rove Police Memorial, the Memorial Gardens, one off work as with the Point Cruz Yacht Club, Pacific Casino frontage, and a few others that I can’t be bothered thinking about.

And now we are back on a 3 day work week because the crew don’t work as hard as 2 gardeners in a residential situation with an established and tidy area. And we can do all of the work in 3 days plus whatever else comes up.

I told Tiffany and David it’s time to move on, it’s taken me 9 months to get some realistic pricing in place for the contracts, and now we have less time to get it all done in despite a 40% increase in workload.

We pick up 100 bags of rubbish a day from the gardens, including human excrement, disposable nappies, bits of paper used as toilet paper, vomit, all of the crew regularly get blood infections, or illnesses, David is now away for a week with Yaws, his feet are a mass of open swollen pustules, caused from infected scratches on his legs.

I’m having another word with Steve as soon as he gets back from Metira later this week, if my advice is going to be ignored, or worse, VSA get emails complaining about my lack of respect and failure to obey commands, I’m just wasting my time, VSA time, and it’s all been a bloody ego trip for someone.

I’m not worried about the emails to VSA, everything I’ve sent, asked or suggested is recorded, so the paper trail is there.

On a brighter note, the weather has cooled down today, no rain though, but it isn’t the energy draining heat we had yesterday. Had a question/query from Zoe about the pic of the work crew in yesterdays post, and do they wear overalls etc in the heat? Yes, trying to get them into something cooler doesn’t work, the o’alls have SEB stencilled on, and the crew make sure everyone knows they are working, and keeping the town as clean as we can. I’d like to find thinner and cooler o’alls for them, the present ones came from Australia, and are the fairly heavy cotton ones, fine for a factory in Melbourne, but not so good in the heat here. Still, they were free, donated by a company in Melbourne through the efforts of the previous Aid Advisor. I’ve got that on my list of things to do in Auckland when I get a break if ever.

I know I’m getting too overly involved with the crew, and the situation, it happens and sometimes there are things that no matter how much you wish, will never change. Time for another long advisory note to go, with the resultant eruption, and no positive outcome envisaged.

Sunday 8th November

I can’t wait for the rains. Today would have to have been the hottest I have felt it here since I arrived. I woke about 4am sweating on top of the bed, ceiling fan just pushing dry hot air over me, and it never got cooler all day.

I’m afraid I’m settling into a routine on Sundays, Kukum Fish Market about 9am, chat to the stall holders, ask hao mus hemifala, wander along the stalls, I usually buy pretty much the same things, pineapple, bananas, bok choy, stuff that looks like spinach, pawpaw, cucumber, kumara, and I notice I’m finding the same stall holders each week, even if they move up or down the street. The slight discount doesn’t sound much, a dollar or two off stuff, but it’s more the feeling of belonging instead of the full price I see some of the other palangi paying. Being of a decidely non-RAMSI appearance probably helps as well, I’m certainly not close cropped hair and clean pressed clothes with a Pajero 4x4 parked beside the road.

I almost went to the beach, but the thought of driving for 45 minutes, paying out $20 and putting up with the conversation from the other palangi on the beach changed my mind. Plus knowing the sea would be almost as warm as the air, the sun is behind the beach now, and the palms and trees along the beaches cast shadows over the sand all day. I’m going to be going back to NZ on holiday looking paler than when I left.

I’ve still got the geckos inside, well, most of them, haven’t seen the big ones yet, but 3 of the small ones are still wandering over the ceiling and walls. Hopefully the termite spray hasn’t killed them off, I’ll be finding dead bodies under the fridge and stove no doubt sometime.

A bit more on time definitions. Zoe (thank you) summed it up with “tomorrow” means “not today” it does not necessarily mean the next day. I’m going to write a few up and send to VSA for a page filler for the VSA Magazine, although I’m sure it has been done before.

A few pictures, I know I’ve been really slack with pictures lately, of the crew cleaning up along the road frontage by Iron Bottom Sound Hotel. And my bestest friend Adrian, the man I’ll probably either hang for killing, or be awarded a medal for doing it. He decided Jacks betel nut stained teeth were a disgrace, well, ok, most of everyones teeth here are, so Adrian turned up with a new toothbrush, bi-carb and vinegar, and got Jack to scrub his teeth with the bi-carb, then rinse with vinegar. I was close to starting the chainsaw up and cutting Adrian into small pieces.

Saturday 7th November

It’s 3.30am, we’ve got rain, thunder, lightning, all together finally. The thunder started waking me about midnight, low growls and rumbles in the distance, a bit like a pallet lifter going over a wooden floor, then getting closer till about an hour ago it felt like the house was being hit by a shockwave. The thunder has moved on into the distance again but the rain is now persisting down. And it’s cooler and the air hasn’t got that heavy damp, cloying feeling to it.

Soon it will be the dry days that are the rarity, the usual rainfall on this side of Guadacanal is 12 feet (3.5m) per year, we’ve had maybe 2 foot of it since the dry started, so another 10 foot to come before the end of March. Along with the flooding, the washouts, bridges lost, and maybe an earthquake or two just for fun.

Being Saturday, and I’m still here I guess the world didn’t end yesterday like the idiot w******s running around crying at the 350 World day were claiming. It was all big posters through Honiara the last week, 5 Days to save the World, 4 days/3 Days. HG Wells would have been impressed, all he managed was to frighten the Americans with a radio broadcast, Al Save the Polar Bears Gore has got the entire world running around like Chicken Little. I saw another report, (do they ever put out anything other than reports) now saying that 550 ppm CO2 is inevitable, and mankind and the planet are doomed. All based on computer projections that rely on whatever is feed in. Until one of their hypothesis is proven, and there’s only 4 really, all I can say is it is a load of total bloody garbage. Doing the right things for the wrong reasons still doesn’t make the reasons right. Yes we do need to cut down on the pollution, the waste of resources, but beggaring the western world and sending everyone back to some eco-sustainable living in the woods conversing with the furry little animals isn’t the way to do it.

All the schoolkids here are totally brainwashed about AGW, every tree that falls is one more proof of global warming, the slowly declining fish stocks, the rain, the potholes in the roads, I’m just waiting for the rubbish in the streets to be blamed on AGW as well.

Having Korea, Japan and China run through the seas around the Solomons with giant seine nets scooping up every fish available, stripping the coral reefs of everything and selling it illegally to the Koreans, using dynamite and cyanide to catch fish with, none of those things contribute, it’s all AGW.

I really have to stop writing this at this time in the morning, the part of my brain that usually censors everything is away on holiday or still asleep.

My house is all totally cleaned up again, well, ok, maybe not again, finally, first time since I got here then for the pedants out there. One of the neighbours trees has had a few branches draped over my roof, and the termites decided to travel up the tree and use it as a bridge to my house. They build quite large tunnels on the outside of the tree trunks as super highways, so I had the guys with the spray, the bushknives, saws around yesterday, spraying inside and outside the house, cutting branches, trees down and ripping half the guttering off the side as the branches fell.

I’ll have the guttering repaired hopefully next week, the spray smell is still lingering, and I can’t put anything back into the cupboards for 24 hours minimum, till the fumes dissipate. Everything is stacked neatly? Well, stacked in a heap, in the centre of the floor at the moment, food, cutlery, pots wok, dishes, till later today. It’s good though, I found I had more curry powder than I thought, and a bag of sugar I never remembered surfaced, and the cassava root that was hiding in the corner of the cupboard where I couldn’t see it trying to sprout is now gone.

And I counted 15 dead cockroaches so far in a quick look around, no doubt I’ll get more as the weekend progresses. I hope the spray didn’t affect the geckos, but I can’t see any at the moment, hopeful anyway.

I’ve been thinking about Davids attitude at times with everything. He told me a while back about what has been happening with advisors here, ok, they have been Australians till now, but he said they come, change everything, then when they go it goes back to how it was before. It’s been in the back of my mind since then, and I’ve been quietly and slowly coming to the realisation that while he may be a good motivator for the work crew, he’s not really interested in changing anything. Which makes it harder for me to find that balanced path between what Keithie wants, what I know is possible, and what the work crew can do.

I can see what Keithie wants, and I agree with her about it, I don’t agree with her methods, so I’m trying to get things done in a way that works here. If David is going to be pleasantly obstinate and obstructive, I’m going to stop being the buffer between them and Keithie, and things will not be pleasant. I’m trying to put permanent methods in place that will work, and give Keithie the results she wants, and also improve the work crews abilities, it’s a bit of an uphill battle, but God loves a trier. Well ok, He hasn’t shown me much sympathy yet, but I’ll get His attention one day.

It may come to telling David either accept some change, or if not, then perhaps he should consider going back to SICHE and finishing his Seamans Certification. Having Tiffany and David as CEO and Supervisor is probably not the best thing here, although Rennel/Bellona is more Polynesian that the rest of the Solomons, that patriarchal attitude is there, so being Tiffs husband would make taking orders/instructions from her that little bit awkward for him. Add in his “I don’t want to get involved in management decisions” attitude, and his reaction when he finds out what Tiff and I have been dealing with for months that he hasn’t wanted to know about, it is going to be an interesting time. Not that everything so far hasn’t been.

I finally got all of Andrews paperwork, now I have less than 20 working days to get Aid Funding approved for them to go to NZ for the Polytech Course, and get them enrolled by the end of November. No-one here seems to realise that things sometimes run at someone else’s pace, it is always smiles and a “oh sori, no wariwari, mifala bring tomoro” and then I get stressed out trying to get it all done so they can get the benefits.

And of course if I don’t get it done, it will be “oh hemi whitefala, hemi makem bigfala promis but hemi no deliver nomoa”, and not a thought that perhaps if they had bought all the paperwork in 3 weeks ago as requested it might have been different?

Thursday 5th November

I’m really annoyed. I know Damian will be at home setting off his fireworks and in general having a great time. Spit spit spit. Just don’t set fire to the house, or get Jesse or Kahu burnt. Bloody pyromaniac. I’m just jealous.

We hate working out of the BJS office, it’s like being in a goldfish bowl, just because we’re there everyone thinks that it’s perfectly fine to just interrupt and expect us to drop what we’re doing and do what they think is more important. Then come back later and ask why the stuff they interrupted us doing isn’t finished.

I know I said that the electricity and phone would be on by the end of last week. Silly me, I meant maybe possibly perhaps by the end of the year. Welcome to the Solomon Islands. We could get it done tomorrow, if we slipped $500 to the guy at SIEA for the meter, and $500 to a guy in Telekom.

But Keithie would want a receipt, and I doubt they’d be giving us one.

We got the cheque for the Childrens Park contract today, $2,500 per month which is good, although I’d like to burn the boat. HK Logistics who are sponsoring the Park have offered to fill the boat with concrete, which I’m all in favour of, let the kids play on the top and outside, and stop people using the hollow inside as a toilet and rubbish dump.

We got a small job for the Point Cruz Yacht club, supply plants and Garden mix for the garden at the car park area, $2,000 worth, I’m getting really annoyed with the con artist attitude from the whites here. Just because SEB is a wholly Island workforce, they continuously try to get our charges lowered, or get more than what they are prepared to pay for. It isn’t as if we charge commercial rates either, SEB is a registered Non-Profit NGO, with tax exempt status, so our prices have to reflect that. And still they try to get something for nothing.

As Tiffany said with the PC Yacht Club, the last time SEB dealt with them SEB got screwed and the people we deal with are just con artists. They got a surprise this time though, same as Heritage last week. Cash up front, or the stop credit notice goes into the Solomon Star, the Island Sun and the National Express. David was most impressed at how effective it can be just showing the typed up notice and saying they have till 2pm to pay, in cash, no cheques etc, or this goes in the paper.

I told Tiffany that in future all our accounts have a copy of a post dated stop credit notice enclosed with the invoice, just to get the bastards to pay on time.

Tiffany was shocked that I would do it, but I’m really past caring about what the bloody ex-pat colonials think. Especially the Australian ones. And I’m sick of the local people who are working getting ripped off all the time.

And I needed to let off a bit of frustration as well. More than a bit, a lot.

Things are moving slowly at Ranandi, we’re in a holding pattern over funding, income, etc, so long as we can get to the end of the year, and we can keep the workforce together we should be in a good position for a fresh start.

I went to the Botanic Gardens today, to catch up with John from Woodford School. He was a bit steamed, they had spent 3 hours picking up rubbish, raking the lawn area, going through all the tracks picking up bottles, cans, rubbish before they could start the Cross Country events. I did think that Forestry might have made an attempt, but not even that. The lawn area is a mess, uncut, cars have been driving over paths, so it is all wheel ruts and mud, tyre tracks over the lawn from 4x4’s, the stream is full of cans, bottles plastics. I didn’t stay, it was just too bloody depressing to think of all the work the crew have done all let go.

Jepthah is ok, well, as ok as you would be after falling off a roof, it turned out his ribs weren’t broken, the x-ray they took wasn’t all that good so the doctor just made an assumption based on the lumps, contusions, scrapes and general battered state he was in. he should be back at work next week. I told him I was going to deduct his wages for the damage to the wheelbarrow where he fell on it. I know I shouldn’t do things like that, but I can’t help it sometimes. His face was priceless, round eyes, his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish a few times. If I hadn’t started laughing I may have carried it on a bit longer.

I picked Tessie up from school today, Tiff was in the office, and I was out at the Gardens so I got her on my way back. Got a lot of surprised looks carrying her down the road to BJS, you don’t see many palangi with children that are obviously locals here. And when she was chattering away in pijin and I’m talking back we got a lot of very confused looks. And I think she is a cute little kid anyway, so it wasn’t any problem.

I’ve got 8 people so far for the final Level 2 course for the year, starting Monday in the open air classroom at Ranandi, it’s going to be interesting.

The rains aren’t far away. All this week the clouds have been building up in the afternoons, all we’ve had so far is thunder and lightning, with a few 1 or 2 minute downpours. The thunder is brilliant, if you have read the earlier posts from when I first arrived, add 50% to that. I arrived here towards the end of the rains, from this side of them it is even better. You can feel the air pressing down on you, it’s like trying to walk through thick syrup, then about 3pm there will be an absolutely deafening roll and clap of thunder, and the lightning starts. It continues for a few hours, it’s 8pm now, and still there is lightning flashing outside. No rain though, but we all know it is coming.

I wrote up a concept plan for the road frontage from BSP to the Post Office, put it with the proposed contracts, and Tiffany delivered them to BSP, Telekom, British High Commission and Sol Post. Hopefully they’ll go for it, it is one of the first areas done during the troubles, and it looks as though they just threw plants in to hide the damage, with no thought of unity or similarity to what was there or came after.

I want to gut all the garden beds there, and start fresh, hibiscus and palms, to tie it in with the Supreme Court and the roundabouts.

Speaking of palms, I am getting so frustrated with trying to get the crew to collect the palm seed bunches and bring them back to the Nursery, instead of dumping them in the rubbish. I’ve been trying for months to get this idea across, and I still get, “hemi palms hemi grow lo bush, iumifala gogo digem fo planting, no wariwari boutem seed”

I DON’T want them dug out of the bloody bush all the time, I want them to start growing more, not digging up existing ones and moving them. I’ll either get the idea across or die in the attempt I think.

It’s taken me 2 weeks to get all the paperwork from Andrew and Emory for the NZ Aid STTA Scholarship Applications. And I’m still waiting on Andrew to bring his passport in so I can p/copy it. He lost it at home, and it’s taken him a week to find it, which he did Wednesday night, so he came into work this morning all smiles and happy because he’s found it. But he didn’t bring it in so I could p/copy it and get his application in before I run out of time. But he found it, so I guess that’s a hopeful sign I’ll get it tomorrow.

Emory doesn’t have a birth certificate, and the chances of getting one before he dies of old age are on par with me holding onto money. I’ve used his drivers licence, although it doesn’t have a section for age or date of birth. He thinks he’s 27, possibly 28, or he could be 25, he knows he has 2 older brothers, one younger sister, and 2 younger brothers. So we took a guess and got a rough age for his younger siblings, and put him a year or so older. I have no idea how we are going to get a passport for him if I ever get all the paperwork done, completed, handed into the NZ High Commission, then wait for it to be approved, then enrol him in Otago Polytech, before the end of November. We’ll have till February to sort that out though, it may give enough time.

Time is a really elastic thing here. Einstein never came here, or else relativity would never have been described as it is. “Urgent” depends on who, where and when, “now” is a fairly open ended argument, it could be today, tomorrow or some unspecified time in the near future, “soon” can mean possibly in this lifetime, but don’t go making plans, any other time based definition is best not explored. I’ve got fairly well used to it, but I’ve seen new arrivals here almost broken by it.

VSA have a new volunteer in town, tax accountant, working for another Aid Agency. Steve gives him 3 months till he cracks.

The Solomon Dollar is continuing the steady decline, it’s tied to the US$, latest currency exchange is

US$1 = SBD$8.32
AUD$1 = SBD$7.07
NZ$1 =SBD$6.08
€1 =SBD$11.37

If it keeps going the way it is, I won’t be able to afford to leave

2nd November

I really wish there was an easier way of doing things, or getting things done here, that didn’t involve head to head clashes all the time. Last week as I mentioned above was chaotic, we were juggling the work crew around jobs, 2 new contracts signed, and having to be done, Pacific Casino took 3 of the girls a day and a half to clean up, 15 bags of plastics and paper alone, with 20 bags of weedings, trrimmings, before I could get a weedeater into there to cut the grass back. The Childrens Park and Rove Memorial Park took all of the crew on Friday, I hate sending them there. The wooden boat that in the daytime the children play on, turns into a toilet/brothel at night time. Again they were cleaning out used condoms, excrement, tins, plastics, for what I keep being told are extremely high wages for people who are only gardeners.
I don’t consider $6.75 Solomon per hour to be an extremely high wage, for picking up and cleaning what they do I’d be wanting a considerable amount more. $6.75 SBD is the equivalent of US $0.56c, if there is anyone reading this that tells me that they would pick up human shit and used condoms with cotton gloves because we can’t get shovels into the space, for that amount per hour, please let me know. I’ll hire you so that my ladies don’t have to do it.

And people wonder why I get a bit touchy when the crew are criticised for being lazy, not working hard enough, and being overpaid.

Bruce and Gwen over on Metira are doing ok. Steve said Bruce has lost 10 kg since they have been there, which is a worry, he was built like a match with the wood shaved off to start with, and when they came over a month or so ago he looked painfully thin. Steve feels they haven’t adapted to the lifestyle very well, their work is always up to date, well done, but unlike me, they have had a considerable amount of difficulty adjusting to the food available here.

I had been hoping that the lifestyle, food, tropical living would help me drop a bit of the excess weight, but I’m finding everything here agrees only too well with me, and I’m still struggling to get my weight down. If you take out the nonfood items, soap, detergent, etc, I spend SBD$150 a week on food, at most, equivalent to US$12.50c. It would be nice if I had outside income, you could live well here on a couple of hundred US/AUD/NZ /€ a week coming in.

We’ve had the electrician out to Ranandi today, wiring up the office container, he was the first SI contractor I’ve met who arrived when he said he would, finished the job when he said he would, and hasn’t ripped us off. Now we have to wait for SIEA to install the meter box so the internal wiring can be hooked up, Telekom to put the phone line in, which is only 4 days behind when they said so far, and Tiff and I will be back with the crew.


As I said at the top, I really wish there was a better way of doing things instead of butting heads all the time. Well, butting heads is probably a bit mild, 2 goods trains on a single track heading for each other is a better simile.

I may think about another Dale Carnegie Course.

Ok, thought about it, nope.

The Botanical Gardens are a mess, David has a crew out there dismantling the Nursery shelter, the river is full of plastics, rubbish, SolBrew cans, the lawn area is half cut, and the cut area is now catching back up with the uncut area, there is plastic rubbish from the little plastic cups from the flavoured ices, kwaso bottles, cans, plastic bags all across the lawn, along the tracks. It all seems so bloody pointless, all the work the crew have done over the years getting it back in shape just let go.

I had the rare feeling of feeling sorry for Clement from Forestry when I saw it like that, Woodford School cross-country race is this Thursday, and I felt like offering to send the crew in to clean it up, I’d be charging Forestry for it, but just to get it in shape for the cross country, then thought “Sod them” After all the crap, abuse, threats for the past nine months, they wanted it, they can have it, with all the costs involved.

I know Woodford will have something to say in the Solomon Star if it isn’t up to standard, so I’m being very sinful and indulging in a bath of spite.

We had our first accident today. Jephtah fell off the roof of the Nursery shelter, a few broken/cracked ribs, several large lumps on his head, a few bits of skin missing, but other than that he was still smiling. I didn’t help by turning up and asking who pushed him, which had everyone rolling in laughter, including Jepthah, not the best thing for him, but everyone else thought it was good. It’s a rather basic sense of humour here, I fit right in with it.

He bounced off the wheelbarrow, a few bits of 4 x 2, then hit the ground. I didn’t help again by commenting that “Jephtah, hemi barava gudlukluk fala, hemi have ground stap hemi fall furtha” “he was very lucky to have the ground stop his fall, he could have fallen further otherwise. Ok, not much of a joke, but it worked.

Back into the swings again for the week, at least Tiff and I now feel we are getting somewhere, even if the methods we have to use aren’t all that conducive to cordial relationships, we know that SEB is slowly becoming financially viable.

Hi to my cousin John having a break in London, Libby, Al, Kelly, Hayden and Leigh, Damian, Jesse, Tarsha, Kahu

Sunday 1st November

It’s been one of those weeks when I really feel as though I could possibly kill someone. Not any of the work crew, they’ve been working their butts off all week, extra work, longer hours somedays, and still laughing and smiling.

Tiff and I are in the office in town, a long way from the site at Ranandi, consequently, if we forget a file or folder in the morning it is drive back to there, get involved with what is happening there, then back to town and try catch up with the time missing.

Add in that with the extra hours the crew is working and our wages bill has naturally gone up, and we are back with the same argument about cutting staff and wages.

Tiff was in tears Wednesday over it all, I wrote up a monthly report that I took 2 days to think about afterwards before sending. CC’d it to Steve, and sat back waiting for the explosion. It arrived Friday, none of what I feel are the important things, like David and Tiffany considering leaving, the underquoting of contracts which we aren’t involved with, the constant $4,500 a month we lose on the roundabouts due to the price quoted. All of that was ignored, but we are once again told to cut the staff to half at least, and do more work in less time, without any equipment.

I’ve been so angry at nights I have not written anything in here, it would have been a diatribe of bitches, abuse whatever.

Spent this afternoon with Steve, talking over options, again. He’s ok with it all, sometimes things just don’t plain work out, he has places for me to go, but I told him that until Tiffany and David are sorted I can’t really just walk out on them, nor the crew. While I’m there I’m a buffer between them and the shite, it may not be pretty.

I’ll get back to all this hopefully this week, I’ve been so frustrated with things all week that I’ve been doing distraction stuff, and not thinking about work or related stuff at night.

Hi Gytha, Zoe,