Friday 18th December/Sunday20th

We finally caught up with Kennedy at the Post Office. It took less than a minute for him to grasp the idea of the canoe prows, with the planting creating the sea. So after about 30 minutes Tiff finally dragged me away, Kennedy and I were walking up and down the gardens, measuring out sizes, shapes, getting more and more excited. He’s going to come around tomorrow and we’ll spend the afternoon sketching and designing, I really like working with him, as people may have noticed. I think knowing that I was responsible for getting the statues at Heritage, and constantly telling him I want more art work in Honiara helps.

We told him we were probably going to be doing Government House grounds as well next year, and that really made his day. It’s good Tiff is a bit more level headed than either of us, we’d be knee deep in sculptures if Kennedy and I had our way with everything.

I’ve got so many ideas going through my head for Government House, I’d like to put a Formal Greeting area in, like a Marae and Meeting House in New Zealand. I’ll have to pick Kennedys brain about that, and find out the customs here a bit more for things like that. Plus fountains! Tiff just shakes her head when I mention fountains now. I’ll get one in Honiara before I go. One way or the other. I’d like to put one similar to the El Alamein Fountain in Kings Cross into Government house at the building entrance forecourt. It’s a big U shaped enclosure, there is a garden there at present, struggling to survive surrounded by ashphalt and buildings. A good misting fountain there would cool the whole area.

And I only came here to advise on setting up a nursery and training school. The way we’re going I’ll be demolishing half Honiara and redeveloping it. Still, good fun, and it gives the crew something to do.

It is still chaos down at the wharves. Close to 2/3 of Honiara are going home for the Christmas period, which means every boat is packed to sitting on someone elses shoulders capacity. It’s really good being down there watching, schoolkids saying goodbye to their host families after boarding here for the school year, friends saying farewells, the huge amount of stuff that gets packed into, onto and around everywhere on each boat. As I’m learning, you have to be first on board to get sitting room space, latecomers get pushed further and further out onto the open deck or up on the bow. Every bit of space has a person on it. the walkways are packed with cartons, bags, people, the smart ones take mattresses to sit on, the slower people have the steel deck. Home comforts are non-existent. Some of the trips take 30 hours, to Temotu can be 2 days, or longer depending on the weather.







Picked up the initial payment from the Post Office as well today, with the MID payment as well it means I’ll get back everything I’ve spent so far the last couple of months. It is close to $4,500 I’ve used to pay for things now, we needed two new tyres for the big truck today, well, we needed them a month ago, but the arguments over the cost dragged on and on. We’ve been driving with what were basically racing slicks, no tread, and the canvas was starting to show on one wheel. Neither Tiff nor I felt like having an argument so I wrote out a cheque for Emory to get 2 new tyres now, $1800. Luckily I don’t have a lot of expenditure.

Next year we’ll have better pricing, I have the crew filling out work sheets each day now so we can track where and when they have been, then work out which contracts need adjusting. Pulling numbers out of the air might work when you don’t have to worry, but trying to run SEB as a business means we need to take into account everything, from truck repairs, wage tax, NPF (National Provident Fund) payments, diesel, rubbish collection.

Sunday 20th

Kennedy didn’t arrive yesterday, but it gave me the excuse to do a big clean up through the house, Mopped the floor, found enough washing to get 2 loads through the machine, clothes then sheets, then did a few sketches of the PO to work from.
Still no truck, so everything is walkabout, by the time I’d gone I’d gone into town, wandered around the shops, visited the wharves again, then arrived back home it was into the afternoon already.

It is still chaos at the wharves, although it seems to be organised chaos. I’m going to find some excuse to go on one of the ferries for a trip at some stage next year. Tiff keeps on at me to visit Bellona, which is a 20 hour boat trip, leave Honiara about 4pm/6pm, arrive at Bellona between 2pm and 4pm the next day. If the weather is good, and the Weather Coast isn’t having a storm.

Barbara and Terry from NZ Aid had a Christmas party for their house staff today, and invited me along as a thank you for finding Jocelyn for them as their house gardener. I have written before about some of the customs here, the patriarchial society, the strict religious views some Islands have. It was like being at some 1950’s party in NZ or Australia, all the women are at one side, the men sit as far away from them as possible. And they don’t mix at all. The couple of pics show the divide really well. I got the position as barbque chef for the afternoon, which suited me, Terry and Barbara were free to wander around talking. Terry was with VSA many years back, and did a few assignments in Africa, on the Serengeti Plains, and East Africa. If you can get him talking about his time there it is extremely interesting. I admit I go around to their place just to get Terry talking, he’s got a huge amount of stuff to talk about, from living with the Masai, the oddball people you meet on assignments, the fun you can have if you’re prepared to give anything a try. He works for the Red Cross now, and has been back and forth to Fiji most of this year brokering deals with Frank Banimarama and the Military.






Jocelyn is doing a great job at their house with the gardens, everything looks good, no weeds, and her little garden plots have been keeping the kitchen full with fresh vegetables for the past couple of months.

We’ve got 4 days this week, I’m hoping to have the PO planted either Monday or Tuesday, then give it all a good watering Wednesday night to carry it over the Christmas weekend. I’ve given up trying to get any more prices for equipment till after the holiday period, no one is interested at present, other than Tiff and I, so it is really frustrating to even try.