Saturday 22nd May Late evening.

We had a little bit of excitement at work on Friday. 2 of the crew were cutting the overgrowth away from the back fence where the Nursery is eventually, possibly, may be going, and they found a thriving colony of Giant African Snails. Achatina fulica for those of a botanical bent. The last colony of them found here was late last year near Chinatown, by the Mataniko Bridge, and caused SI Quarantine to have a bit of a panic. They aren’t something we want here, if they do spread, and it appears they are, they will wipe out most of the agriculture around Honiara, where all our food comes from. They are large, the cigarette lighter in the pic is 80mm, (3 ½ inches) I found an empty shell later on that is slightly larger than the one in the pic.



I rang SI Quarantine, and had a hilarious conversation that went
“ Hello? SI Quarantine?”
“Yes”
“Warren from Honiara Beautification here, African Snails, do you want some?”
“Where are you?”
“Ranadi, on the Tip Road”
“We’ll send a team around now”

They arrived about 30 minutes later, 4 of them, and we or rather I, had an interesting conversation with them about the snails. No one knows how they arrived here, possibly on a trading ship, is the most likely explanation, but how they get to the places where they are found is unknown so far. They like long lank vegetation to shelter in, if it is cool and damp even better, the eggs, about ½ match head size are laid in the ground, and a colony can grow to 500 – 1000 individual snails in 6 months. Each adult snail can lay 500 or more eggs, they commence egg laying at about 1 year of age. Or so the man from SI Quarantine thinks, no one is sure how quickly they become fertile here. And they are like all snails and hermaphrodites, so a single snail is quite capable of forming a huge colony very quickly. So there has been a copious amount of snail bait scattered around, we are cutting back all the vegetation along the fence line on Tuesday, and then having a burnoff once it dries.

Other than that, Friday passed in a bit of a drug induced haze, I’m still taking paracetamol to keep my fever down, it seems to be passing finally, although being nearly midnight on Saturday with the fans going may have something to do with feeling cooler. All my joints still ache though, walking isn’t something I’m trying to do at the moment, I never knew my toes could ache, nor my fingers. Well ok, I knew my fingers could, I’ve damaged most of the knuckles, but this is all the joints, not just the damaged bits. Tiff is sure I’ve got a touch of malaria, and keeps trying to take me to the clinic, but all they will do is tell me to keep taking Doxycline and it will clear. Which I’m doing anyway. Probably causing a doxy resistant strain here as well.

I don’t know if I can be bothered waiting another month to find out if the nursery is going ahead or not. After nearly 17 months, and still no further ahead, and only 8 months to the end of my contract there is no way I am going to be able to achieve anything. If it gets knocked back again next month I’m giving up, if I haven’t walked out by then. The only reasons left for it to be turned down are political or personalities, so no matter how long I stayed here, the answer will always be the same.

If anyone has read “Salmon Fishing in Yemen”, that sums up fairly well the whole thing here.

It’s a pity, there are so many avenues to open up here with recycling the brewery waste into compost, the wheat husks from Delite Flour Mill, all future income producing things, plus the nursery. But Island politics is always about personalities, not benefits.

My letter last week must have had some effect, I was in town early today and wondered what was different, then I realised that there wasn’t the usual amount of rubbish everywhere, even in the rubbish garden by City Centre. I’ll check with Jacinta on Tuesday and see if the number of bags has fallen the last week. The boys with the market shop at the bottom of my road were out with the local witches brooms when I came back, sweeping around their stall, even Paul has cleaned up his market stall area as well. I don’t know if it will last, but something is happening finally.

Heritage Hotel, who I don’t have a lot of time for to start with after last years effort with them, are in the news all week. The 3 Indian Managers are being accused of trading sex with the hotel staff for promotion and pay increases, it is becoming more and more sordid with every day, from the original single accusation, there are now staff that have been fired for not acquiescing coming forward and confirming the accusations, plus security guards telling of seeing hotel cleaners/restaurant staff going into vacant rooms with the managers on several occasions. Denials are flowing, but I get the impression from the Solomon Star articles, that there is enough mud sticking to make a case.

Another article today as well about the salt fish being sold in Central Market, and the health risks from eating it. Apart from the E-coli count, it is also high in histamine which will cause a major reaction and possibly death from eating it. And still the Health Dept, Honiara City Council, and the Police can’t stop it. It will take a few deaths and a cholera epidemic I think before anyone takes notice. When you see the fish being sold, all good fish, from tuna, to reef fish, and know that all of them have probably got E-coli counts over 2,400 ppm, it is a bloody waste. All it would take is an icebox on board, and for the fish to be kept on ice till sold, instead of out in the sun, on an unwashed table, I don’t need to go on about it. I don’t buy or eat fish here.