25th February

I know I’m definitely back in Honiara. The list of problems is getting longer quickly, as is the list of things that can be really annoying if I let them.

Dept Lands is holding up the resource consent for the Nursery at Ranandi, I get the impression it is a personality conflict going on there, without the consent we can’t get the Japanese Grass Roots funding for the building, so we have a meeting at the Japanese Consul tomorrow in an effort to get something resolved.

Lands is the same office that had us removed from the Botanic Gardens, so I think it is just a personality thing happening.

SIWA (Solomon Island Water Authority) have major problems with water supply as usual, although this time it is major. There has been no maintenance on any of the infrastructure since independence in 1976, which leads to pumps failing, pipework crumbling, and no water supply to most of Honiara. I have the problem here with the main tank being below my roofline, so the pressure isn’t sufficient to feed my house, as I mentioned a while back I swapped my feed line over to the main supply line. As SIWA have shut off the water to this part of town, it means I have no water once more, other the rainwater tank below. It could be worse, and I could have no water available at all, so going outside to collect water from the tank isn’t too much of a burden. I tried tonight swapping back to the header tank, but it is well below the level needed to reach my house.

Good news is that MID liked our plan for Commonwealth Ave, I have to have completed drawings and details to them asap, probably Monday at the latest, and it goes through for approval. We should have added more to the cost, the $420,000 seemed a bit low to Ambrose, but we make a bit on it, and there is enough built into it to cover any problems. I haven’t managed to get to the other end of town yet to check on the Post Office, I know it is only a kilometre away, but life has been hectic so far this week. Tomorrow for sure.

I’ve got a few Cordyline australis seeds, and some Campanula var. seeds to try propagating, Jennifer was putting mulch through the Rover Mulcher when we left the Nursery this morning, so I’ll have some fine seed mix for tomorrow to sow seeds into. It will be interesting to see how the Cordyline grow here, I think they should grow a lot faster than in NZ, with the considerably warmer climate and the fairly constant rain. The Campanula should go ok, I’ll plant a few in some of the roundabouts to see how they grow, having plants with 2m flower spikes will be interesting here.

Andrew is reading through the Small Motor Maintenance book I bought in Auckland, hopefully he can learn enough from it to do a knowledgeable job on the machines now, rather than the “Lets take it apart, put it back together and see if that works” approach.

I have to try again with Carann Agencies in Brisbane for planter bags, irrigation equipment, and nursery trolleys. Island Enterprises appear to have lost or forgotten about the order I took to them before Christmas, well, November actually, so we’ll try getting everything shipped on the BJS monthly container from Brisbane. I know I should be waiting till the lease etc is settled at Ranandi, but sitting around waiting has never been a strong point with me. We may as well be doing something in the meantime, at the temporary site, and making some improvements.

I’ve been loading photos into facebook, not a lot, the main amount go into webshots.com, but some anyway. Facebook is under Warren Dennis, webshots is http://community.webshots.com/user/VWKombi if anyone is interested.

Once I look into blog tools I‘ll figure out how to post those links permanently in the blog.

The small truck is still a lethal mix, but I’ll put up with it till we get the parts. It’s been 9 months now since we started trying to get it serviced, the brakes still haven’t been fixed, the fuel pump is still leaking, now the wipers have burnt out, there is a huge hole in the exhaust behind the cab, right where you can’t get at it. Well, not without taking off the manifold and feeding the exhaust system out through the chassis. Or lifting it up through the cab. Either way, it’s been put in the too hard at the moment basket, onto the “soon” list.

The good thing is that anyone seeing me driving it around knows I’m not working for RAMSI or any of the overpaid organizations.

Things are getting a bit on the “be cautious” side in Honiara lately. With the elections coming up in August, there is a fair bit of tribal/village/wantok trouble starting. Security here in the Ba’hai compound have issued everyone with police whistles, to use at night or daytime if there is any trouble. The compound is small enough to be sure someone will hear it, and security walk around with 36” bushknives, so it might be an interesting thing to see, if you weren’t involved. My bushknife sits by the bed at night, and I put chairs across the doorways at night to give me some warning if anyone breaks in. But other than that, it is still reasonably safe here, ok, you don’t go out at night alone, or anywhere off the main street, although even Mendana Ave isn’t that safe at night. I might do what Steve suggested and get a couple of spear guns and keep them loaded at night just in case.

From the Solomon Star this week, since I’ve been back, there have only been 2 murders this week, both kwaso related, people having a drunken argument while holding bushknives. The 3 that attacked the woman in Ranandi about a month ago have been caught, it’s hard to say what they will get, it was robbery, and assault. They stopped her car on the way home, smashed the windows in, cut her face with bushknives, and got nothing from her. They were hoping for the wages for her business, but as usual here, they got the day wrong, and it wasn’t the day for wages.

All the fun of village life up close.