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