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.