Sunday 3rd January

Happy New Year!

And to put a more somber note to that, condolences to Gytha on the death of her father over the Christmas period. I hope Hogmanay went safely, and the brood were well behaved.

Last week was a fiasco, we had continual power cuts through Honiara, people wanted to go on holiday on short notice, the crew who were working were really good about everything, even when I had them out till 2 am finishing off the Post Office Gardens. I was down there yesterday morning, and it is amazing to see that no one walks across the sacking on the gardens, they use the footpaths and walkways through the area. And there isn’t any rubbish thrown into them either. David and I are now considering using more copra sacks through the other gardens as we upgrade them. I’m not sure what will happen when we cover them with wood chip, but I’m hoping that by the time we do, that people will have lost the habit around that area. We need more rubbish bins there as well, so another thing to look at soon.
I mentioned that we had received the funding from the EU just before Christmas, so I thought it would be worthwhile to look through our application and remember exactly what it was that we had said we would do. It was a long time back, I think April/May last year that the application was drawn up, and things have changed a bit since then.

Just skimming through the document, I appear to have really put myself into the firing line. In addition to the Level 1 & 2 Hort Courses, I’m also meant to be training up 4 of the staff, 2 up to Level 4, the other 2 to Level 3, and running Environment Classes in the local schools, 3 times a week. Plus, starting the Nursery, landscaping through Honiara, liasing with Kastom Gardens about running self sufficiency courses. I can see the Environment classes being fun, by the time I get through the AGW BS, and get started on the actual problems. It’s a pity groups like Greenpeace and even the political Green parties have got so side tracked with AGW and lost any credence. They had good environmental policies, till they decided it was easier to just blame CO2 for everything. Idiots.

I’m building up a collection of photos of the rubbish in the streams and places around here, to use as examples of what might, just possibly, be causing the reefs to die off, and the fish to become scarcer. I know I’m going to be fighting uphill against AGW, everyone here thinks the Solomons are going to get a huge payout from the Western Countries over it. They haven’t realised yet that if Copenhagen 15 had gone through it would have had the effect of keeping the Solomons as a backward subsistence economy forever, with no hope of improvement or progress. Yes, I know everyone should have solar panels on their roofs etc, but they won’t supply a manufacturing or business base, so all putting solar panels and installing wind generators does is make the manufacturers richer and keeps the Solomons poorer in the long run.

I keep thinking it would be a good idea to have a nuclear powered ship tied up at Honiara and feeding the town with electricity, on a rotating basis, if the USA wants to start muscling in here again, along with China, India. We’ve only got 60,000 people here, and the power grid is only for the city, outside of Honiara it is kerosene lamps and in the villages where they have wantok in parliament they might have solar panels for light bulbs.

I’ll be busy in New Zealand during the 2 week break, finding educational material, Tiffany wants a good laptop, there’s a few things I want to bring back as well to give me a few other interests, in case I get time to be bored. I have to visit Lyndale Nurseries to see about importing bare rooted cuttings, Carann Agencies in Hamilton for nursery equipment, other places for various contacts for future reference.

We still haven’t power on at Ranandi, it’s been put on the list for “maybe tomorrow” but I think it may be on the “soon” list. The phone is working, but without power to run the modems, computers, or the airconditioner, neither of us wants to be sitting in a hot container for most of the day.

New Year here was remarkably quiet. All the ships in the harbour roads let all their foghorns and sirens go at midnight, but other than that it was quiet. No one got killed, very few incidents in town, all in all a quiet non-eventful weekend.

I’ve mentioned kwaso a few times, the local home distilled firewater that is everywhere. David had one of his wantok, 24 yrs old, die on Friday after drinking a 300ml bottle straight. He was dead before they got him to #9, and nothing the hospital could do. The police are cracking down a fair bit lately on the distillers, but as usual it all revolves around wantok, and some get away with it, and others get picked up to settle old disputes. Similar to the betel nut sellers through Honiara township, most have wantok working for the council or the police, so they are allowed stay, despite the HCC banning the sale of betel nut in the town.

The 2009 Census has finished here, and I’m waiting for the results. No one here at Ba’hai Compound has seen any of the census recorders, and in asking around the neighbourhood, no one else in the area has either. Tiffany said no one in White River settlement has seen any census recorder either. On a whim, ok, stirring, I went into the Census office last week, they were asking people who hadn’t been counted to contact the, so I took the opportunity. The background to it all is that all the recorders were issued with GPS recorders, and entered the data directly into the GPS unit. From what I can gather, all they did was walk around making estimates and hitting the button for every house. According to the office I have 3 people living in the house. It is going to be so inaccurate, and this is what we have to work out schools, employment, business strategies with?

The Post Office Garden is starting to finalise in my mind. I’m slowly going away from the canoe shapes, and starting to consider large crab-claw sails, still with the sea shape trimmed shrubs and rocks, I think the sails will be a lot more visible, and instantly recognisable. I’d like to think we can get them made in stainless, but the cost may make the Post Office baulk. And stainless would give me something to do as well, welding them up and installing. Putting them onto truck axel bearings would be good as well, so they could rotate. Oh the possibilities. I have to stop thinking and just do it.

The chilli sauce improves with age, well, a week in a bottle anyway. I made another batch last week just in case I run out, and that is in the freezer till I can collect some more bottles. It still has a good bite to it, but more mellow now, you don’t start sweating till 5 minutes after now. I’m getting a good deal at Kukum Fish Market for chillies now too, since I bought an entire stalls supply the other week. I’ve ended up with chillies soaking in coconut oil till I can get around to making more, I may just process them and use the oil as a cooking oil, it is a violent pinkish red, and really peels the skin off your tongue. A little would go a long way in cooking I’m thinking.

I’m going to make an initial application for a years extension to my assignment once Steve gets back. The last year has been a real disaster in terms of accomplishing anything, and knowing how long things take here, I’d like another year to actually get things settled. This year will be what last year should have been, if we hadn’t had the turmoil and political rubbish over the Botanic Gardens. Plus the fact I like it here, despite all the little frustrations. The living is cheap, the people are good, and there’s not really a lot for me in New Zealand at the moment. Still, a year can be a long time in paradise as well.