According to the Solomon Star things have been a little heated in Auki, Tulagi and Lata, no one killed fortunately, but some rather ugly scenes happening. At Auki some supporters were upset at their candidate losing, so they stormed the hall where the votes were being counted, took the ballot boxes and burned them, on Tulagi a few windows were broken by stones, and a shop belonging to Mark Kemakeza the successful candidate was broken into and cleaned out, a school on Malaita looks like being closed for a while after a crowd damaged the water pump, and destroyed the food garden, because their candidate lost, and there have been reports of trouble on Lata (Temotu Province) for the same reason.
Out of 29 confirmed MPs so far, 13 are new faces, only 16 are returning, which is about the usual percentages for elections here. Half the sitting MPs are replaced each election, which does lead to a lack of continuity, although it does clear out some of the dead wood too.
It’s been quiet around Honiara so far, well, there’s been no trouble this side of town, and I was through Honiara this morning shopping, ok, early, but it appeared to be peaceful enough. Monday will be the day for any more disturbances, once all the votes have been counted and results announced, then a lull till the 14th when the Prime Minister is announced. Between Monday and the 14th all the MPs will be meeting to decide factions, groups, who they will support etc, and deciding on an acceptable Prime Minister, depending of course on which faction has the most support.
I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather the last few days, by Friday I felt totally washed out, and I was running a slight fever. I came home early Friday, slept from Friday afternoon till Saturday morning, still have a fever, paracetamol is helping, and still feel washed out. I’m having cold showers every few hours, tg I have water this weekend, and I’m hoping it passes off by Monday. I think this is the third time now for a fever, no cause I can think of, I had a blood test for Dengue Fever when I was back in Auckland, which was negative, the test last year for Malaria was positive, but as I was already taking Doxycycline there wasn’t much they could offer. And it certainly didn’t last as long as I’ve seen with others here. I’ll just get used to it, I’ve been healthy enough the whole time I’ve been here, tinned soup and stuff not withstanding, a few spider bites but no skin infections, or infected cuts.
There was a bit of a breakdown in communications while I was in New Zealand, and our irrigation system hadn’t been shipped. Finally sorted last week and it is now on its way, along with some shade cloth, so September will be a bit busy getting it installed. Hopefully it will arrive about the middle of September, I’d like to have the weedmat down and the propagation house and posts in for the shadecloth, so it will be simply lay out the irrigation and connect it up, and put the shadecloth up.
Trying to propagate plants without a water supply, potting mix, and crew at the moment is a bit of a farce. I’m meant to be redeveloping the Memorial Garden entrance, the design is done, all I’m waiting on now is for the plants to grow. We lost over half our stock with moving from the Botanic Gardens, due to lack of water, and shelter, it’s been a bit of a problem just keeping the existing stock alive.
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