Monday 25th May

Solomon Island Giant Frogs

Water lily

Red Heliconia

Pink water lily

Orange Heliconia

I think I’ve been here too long. Things that should get me upset, or mildly annoyed don’t anymore, and life carries on.

I didn’t get to Savo, it was either the driver forgot about picking me up, or the weather there was too rough for the boat to come over, or a combination of the two, I still haven’t found out. I’ll go into town later in the week and rebook for another weekend next month. I don’t know whether to be pleased, or annoyed. It’s saved me $1000 anyway, which I don’t mind, but I could have done with the break away doing something different.

Spent the weekend cleaning up the house, not that that took long, the few bits of washing, then went into the Gardens and got a few pictures around the place. 2 pics I really like, one of the lilies, and one of two Solomon Giant Frogs cuddling. A few others, as you can see which make good desktop or screen savers, I’m alternating them around at the moment trying to find which one I prefer, so far it’s the pink lily one up most often.

The Nautilis Souvenir shop and second hand book dealer has a good deal going. I took the books from last week back, 4 of them, took another 6 out, got 4 free, and only paid for 2, so that kept me quiet Saturday night and Sunday night with something to read finally. I’ll have to start rationing them out a bit better, but after nearly 4 months with only Bill Brysons “Made in America” to read since I got here, I’m devouring books at a great rate.

Davids Aunt died Thursday night, he’s been at work, but not really with us in some sense. He takes his position really seriously, if he’s not there it all falls apart quickly, so he’s been coming in for the mornings, getting everyone organised, then going back to his family for the rest of the day and night. He’s had very little sleep since Friday, I took him home at lunchtime today, he was looking like death warmed up, he’s the oldest male member of his family here, so it has all fallen on him to organise, and take care of everyone till they can get his Aunt back to Ren/Bel for the funeral later this week.

We’ve been having a bit of trouble with some of the taxi drivers using the Gardens as a rest and recreation area during the day. They drive up with a few friends, drink a few cans of beer, throw the empty cans out the car windows onto the lawns or gardens, then drive off. Shirleyta and I are now taking their cab numbers, and phoning the cab company and the police when we see them. Eventually they’ll stop coming when they figure out we’re reporting them everytime they come down. It may take a while.

The police do charge anyone drink driving, but it’s not a high priority thing here, they spend more time chasing the kwaso and marijuana sellers in town at the moment, trying to cut down on the assaults and petty thieving. Still, that’s better than New Zealand, where the Police seem to spend more time pulling cars over than actually catching people for criminal offences.

The work at Rove Prison is going well, it’s a pity most of the guys doing it are long term inmates, I’d employ all of them for their work ethic and attitudes. Always smiling, always keen to work. A couple are inside because of things from the troubles, 10 – 15 year sentences, 2 are in for murder, which means 25 years minimum, and a couple for growing marijuana, 6 – 10 years. All nice guys to work with, and with a good sense of humour.

The dry season has really started now, very little rain for a week now, and the air feels a lot drier. We had thunder and lightning Saturday night, but it never turned into anything more than a light shower for an hour or so. The plants in the gardens along the street are throwing up a lot more new growth, I’ll have to get used to the seasons here, it’s coming into winter in NZ, and I keep thinking everything will be slowing down. Most of the bougainvillea we have planted out is in flower, and all the hibiscus is well into bud and some flowers. It’s going to look good in another couple of weeks.


I’m posting reduced size prints here, if anyone wants a full size, 3mb copy, let me know and I’ll email them to you.

Gatto, I like your website, really well done, and interesting, http://www.gatto999.com/ , it’s well worth a look and the translate this link works well.

Another week ahead here, still working on the Japanese Grass Roots Funding proposal, I’m almost ready to throw it away and just go ahead and get the nursery going with what we have, instead of all the bother of trying to get someone else to pay for everything. I’m not very good at diplomacy or dealing with a lot of paperwork lately. And the EU Funding has so many strings attached to it, it’s going to be another nightmare to write up. Although I can see more benefit from the EU one than anything else, we can use the Nursery as a provincial training and education centre, for all the small farmers in the provinces, doing coffee/cocao/vanilla, and also the produce growers.

Take care, have a good week where ever you are.

Thurday 21st May

Memorial plaque on the road junction to the Gifu
Memorial on the Gifu summit

View from the Gifu Summit looking west, North Guadacanl to the left, Savo Island, the Florida Group, and in the distance, Malaita on the right

View from Mt Austin, Henderson Field is approximately centre in the distance.

Hi to my cousin John, and Sylvia, thanks for dropping in, also, Gatto in Italy, and if that is Polly calling in from Bantry, drop me an email when you get the chance please.

David and I went for a drive this morning to the Gifu, and Mt Austin. Kakabono Community have gardens around the Gifu, and wanted a bit of advice about what to do with the Gifu site.

The Gifu was the last Japanese stronghold here in WW2, it took the US Marines a few months to finally overcome it, with a horrendous loss of life on both sides. You can still see the Japanese foxholes, and fortifications on the hillside. They could control the whole northern side of Guadacanal from there, the view goes from the Ngella Islands in the northwest, east past the Florida group, to Malaita and Makira.

Last month we had the last Japanese survivor from the battle for the Gifu visit, he’s 91 now, very frail, and he was overcome in revisiting the scene of the battle. His foxhole is still visible, with the large rock over it. The local village has a good selection of WW2 memorabilia, helmets, machine guns, airplane parts etc, and they still find live ammunition and grenades through the area.

Very interesting trip, the road is more suited to 4wd, the little truck was bouncing around a fair bit, and with 13” wheels, you tend to get into the ruts and holes, rather than go over them.

Mt Austin was the controlling hill for Henderson field, you can look straight down the island to the airfield, and the sea around it. It was one of the first hills the US Marines took in the initial landings on Guadacanal.

I’ve spent the evening rigging up lines and traces, and lures for the weekend. I was going to take the surfcaster as well, but am going to settle for the 2 boat rods, the 6’ Silstar with the Silstar EF70 reel, and the full roller 6’ Titan Supreme with the Penn Commander reel. A good selection of hooks, swivels and sinkers, coral can be hard on lines, and a spare reel, the Jarvis Walker GX 7000
Ooooops, I ‘m actually going for orchids, not fishing. And if anyone believes that they don’t know me very well.

Writing up the Japanese Funding Proposal took another giant leap backwards again. While they think the 2 storey classroom/store etc is a good idea, we now have to itemise everything needed for the construction, how many kg’s of nails, lengths of timber, number of concrete blocks etc etc. There goes another week hunting up 3 different suppliers for pro forma invoices, and Keithie wanting it all done yesterday, and in the morning as well.

Tiffany is about ready to just walk away from the whole thing, this is the second time we’ve approached Japan for funding for the same proposal. It was all approved last year, then Keithie decided we had to have a truck included, and the proposal got dropped so fast over that.

We’ve cut out everything that Keithie wants that isn’t Nursery related from the latest proposal, and so far the lady we are dealing with in the Japanese Consul office is happy with it.

Consumer Warning! Coca Cola™, Coke™ are introducing a Bicarbonate reduced cola here. It’s like drinking flat Coca Cola™. Resist it when you see it appear in your local shop. It’s disgusting, flat, and insipid. I got caught tonight with a 2litre bottle of it, I thought the bottle had a leak, till I read around the label, and found Minuman Berperisa Berkarbonat on the label. It’s made in Papua New Guinea. It’s disgusting, vile, and deserves to be relegated to the same place New Coke went to. Why the hell CocaCola™ keeps on trying to fiddle with a good formula is beyond me, everything they’ve tried has been a dismal and disgusting failure.

I’ll be back Monday night, have a good weekend.

One of the orchids flowering in the orchid House

Wednesday 20th May

It’s been a quiet week in Honiara so far. Only 2 murders, one in Cenral Market, idiots drunk on kwaso having a fight with bushknives, and one in East Honiara same cause. Plus one serious wounding in Chinatown Friday night, young teacher from Western Province stabbed 18 times while walking over the bridge in the early evening. Same cause in that one as well, idiots drunk on kwaso.

It’s no wonder I don’t or can’t be bothered going out of an evening. Too many people with bushkinives wandering around and you never know just what is happening in their heads at any time.

Had lunch today with Peter and Steve. Peter has had a good visit, caught up with all the VSA people in country, and is happy with what is happening so far.

It’s surprising how every occupation has it’s own in-house jokes, that in any other group would have people being shocked/horrified/disgusted. I’m happy to say VSA staff have a really good sense of the ridiculous, I’m not too sure about the people in the office back in Wellington, but the field staff certainly have a slightly off beat twist to the humour.

Our little Rover Mulcher is back working again, I’m picking it will a be monthly maintenance job replacing the shafts, if I could get hold of a mig welder I could modify the design a little to stop the problem, we’re looking for one here now. I’ve written to Rover Industries again with a query on how long the shafts should last, but if their last reply was anything to go by, I’m not expecting anything back. Great machine, crap customer relations. And I think 40 hours use isn’t a great deal of time to be paying out $750 for 3 shafts to get it running again. As I said, it’s a slight design problem with the cutter blades spinning hard on fixed shafts, I’m going to try welding the blades to the spacers so there is a wider surface in contact with the shaft.

Peter has been in contact with Wellington Botanic Gardens, well, they contacted him the week before he left, wondering if VSA had any people that would be interested in working at the Wellington Gardens for a month as exchange students, all expenses paid. It’s part of their outreach programme for the South Pacific, and they are after local people working in similar situations to be part of the training there.

I’ll have to wait for Peter to get back to NZ in the next week, and he is going to follow up, and pass my contact details to WBG. It is looking good for Jennifer and Imelda to get a month in NZ, although I don’t think they’ll be thanking me for the weather in Wellington when they get there. Ok, I know Wellington can be absolutely fabulous at times, but also bloody wet and windy at other times. Plus my son lives there, so it can’t all be bad.

We’ve got Andrew and Emorys applications to be filled out and put in, for them to hopefully get a place in Otago Polytech for the Aboriculture course next year. I had a look at the forms, and decided that while the words may be English, the way they are put together made toktok look simple to understand. Tiffany is going to fill them out, all I have to do is write the recommendation letters.

The beach football (futsal, like soccer) competitions are on in Honiara this week. So far one team has been banned, and 2 players banned for life for attacking the referee and breaking his arm after a match they lost. It seems to be quite common here, one team was banned for life last year, all the players, for a similar occurrence.

As for the rugby Stadium, I found out that all the rugby players come from Rennel/Bellona Province, mostly Polynesians, and they tend to end up in New Zealand or Australia if they are reasonably good. Steve thinks the Solomon Govt should put in for the Rugby World Cup for whenever once the stadium is built. It’s probably the only time it’ll be used.

It can be extremely frustrating dealing in toktok with shopkeepers when you want something technical. I’m after a ring compressor for the stihl weedeater and chainsaw motors, so we can do a complete service, replace the rings bearings etc. Toktok doesn’t have words for “ringcompressor” so it’s a lot of “small fella hem move updown and hem need small fella ring around hem stop hem oil blong hem come out. To puttem back we need hem small fella long tube tight around ring blong small fella go updown” Or words to that effect. Needless to say, I’m still looking. They don’t use them in the repair shops here, the usual method is to tie a tin can around with string, and drive the piston through that into the cylinder. I’m just being fussy I suppose in wanting the right tools.

A word of caution. Our Telekom here charge you for incoming calls on a mobile as well as outgoing. Rose rang on Mothers Day so I could talk to Mum, it ate all of the $50 I’d just put on the phone the week before. Very frustrating and expensive. If I’d known before hand, I’d have rung Mum from the public phone box, it would have been cheaper at $10 a minute.

I’m wondering if the Calling cards will work here, I’ve not seen them on sale anywhere, but it’s possible they will work. I’ll have to stock up on a couple when I get a break at the 12month mark. As well as all the other stuff I’m getting a list of.

Go out with an empty suitcase, come back over weight with tools, cigarette lighters, bic pens, Champion fruit juicer.

One more day to go, then another weekend on Savo, orchids and fishing, I’ll be in heaven.

Monday 18th May

Imelda, Rose, Jennifer, Caroline, Angela, Sepa, Jocelyn, Dorise with their certificates

Rose and Sepa

Rose, Suzzie, Caroline and Imelda with some old fart of a teacher

Nothing like being woken at 5am by what you think is the neighbours pigpig scratching itself on the house support posts for about a minute, then going into work and finding out we had an earthquake. The house was shaking rather well, a few things fell over, nothing broken though. Interesting, almost like living in Wellington again.

Graduation Day for the Students. TV, Newspapers, local radio station all there. Education is a big thing here, any opportunity to promote people achieving qualifications makes the newspapers, radio, tv, All the usual speeches, I had mine down to 2 minutes, which is a bit abrupt for here, an hour is more the norm, but as I said, today isn’t about me, it’s the Students day, and they’ve been listening to me for the past 3 months, they don’t need more.

Steve turned up, with Peter, our VSA South Pacific Regional Director, which was a really pleasant surprise. Lunch was a good mix of fish, chicken, salads, fruit, rice. After the outside people had gone, there was a big cook up for the work crew, I’ve got a good pic of Andrew cooking chicken on the barbque, cigarette in mouth, tossing chicken pieces. Definitely not your 5* restaurant hygiene, but the barbque flavour was terrific.

It’s going to be a bit quiet without the students now, I’ve got so used to Sepa laughing in the river every lunchtime, Suzzie bustling about always busy and smiling, Jocelyn who is the smallest lady I have seen here carrying huge loads on her head, all of them with wide smiles, and willing to do anything.

Rose, Imelda, Jennifer, Dorisse are part of the crew, so they stay on, Rose and Imelda I’d like to send to NZ for training, they are both really good workers, and keen. Jennifer I could send later, she’s too important in the Nursery for me to lose her at the moment.

It was a good day, the pics can be the story here.

Sunday 17th May

Another day of good intentions, I’ve got a few of them done which puts me ahead of yesterday. Went to Kukum Fish Market early today to get ahead of the crowds and possibly get out of town later. I’ve finally got some pics of the market, I’ll post a couple in here, the rest in my webshots album, www.community.webshots.com/user/VWKombi if anyone wants to look. I’m putting reduced size pics in there, 600 pix wide, due to the time it takes to upload larger ones. If there is a pic you’d like a full size 3mb copy of, contact me here

My Coconut crabs are still having fun on the porch, they climb up into the roof during the day, then come down during the night and chase each other around. I bought a few $1 coconuts at the market for them to eat, so hopefully they’ll be a bit quieter tonight.
I’m doubtful about cooking them, for all you get, just a bit of meat out of the claws, and a fiddly bit out of the legs, for the size of them, I’ll take them to the beach next weekend and set them down in a coconut plantation.

I’ve got everyones references written for tomorrow, the weather has clouded over, but that could just be the usual evening buildup. So long as we get a fine morning, it will all go well. A few speeches, barbque, food, with luck they’ll all find work now either in Honiara or back in the provinces.

I’ve printed a few of the Market pics to take to the stall people, I haven’t got a UV filter, and you really notice the blueish cast to the prints. Clear skies and a lot of UV coming down, it is quite noticeable.

I’ll play with the editing programmes at some time and get it adjusted.

The little truck I have is getting temperamental again, taking ages to start, but it does eventually start. It still needs the main fuses fixed, but the jumper leads across the terminals are still working, so it’s the normal Solomon Island case of if it’s running keep going, we’ll fix it when it really dies.

I went into work today, and put the carburettors from the weedeaters into some white spirits to see if that will clean the jets and filters. I’m happy with what we got done on Friday, stripped down one motor completely, and rebuilt, and it started and runs. I’ll have to buy a few proper tools this week, all we have is 2 screwdrivers, some sockets, no ratchet handle for the sockets, so we use a screwdriver wedged into the square end. It’s a bit primitive.

It’s 7pm. The water went off at the same time as the power this morning at 9am, I’ve got power, but still waiting for the water pressure to build up in the lines, it’s a slow trickle at the moment.

Friday in Honiara was fun, I forgot about it till today driving through town. A container truck took the power lines and pole down outside Central Market about 1pm. They had traffic diverted through Hibiscus Avenue from the Breadshop Roundabout, and the ANZ roundabout, but there was still a 4km long buildup in both directions for several hours. They were replacing the pole today in the quiet period when everyone is at church.

Managed to get hold of Steve, my VSA Officer, he’s going to come along tomorrow as well, and get a few pics to send to Wellington for the VSA Magazine. I should really do an article for it as well, I have enough pictures, just the writing is the hard part. I’m meant to be doing a 3 month report anyway, I may just crib a lot of the rubbish in here and fill the spaces with pictures.

Our roads are improving. The council have been out and started filling in the potholes on Mendana, and the really bad corner outside the Iron Bottom Hotel by Rove. It’s a bit annoying, I’ve got so used to the holes, some of them seem like old friends now. You get used to driving sideways along the road once you know where the big ones are, or crossing over lanes into oncoming traffic to dodge the really big ones. Never mind, another few months of rain and they’ll be back again

Friday 15th May

I’m finally ready to dispose of Adrian, one way or the other. He heard us talking about Keithies “request” for us to cut the wage bill and put some of the crew off, and took it on himself to go to Keithie and tell her that we only need 12 people at the Gardens, and we could put 8 people off to cut the number from 20 to 12. He didn’t take into account that in the 20 is Tiffany, Shirleyta, David, in the office, Jennifer and Imelda in the Nursery, Andrew doing the tool maintenance in the workshop every day, so his idea would cut our actual hands on crew to 7 including Emory the driver.

On that number, there is no way we could do the amount of work we have in a week, let alone the month. Bloody idiot. And to cap it all off, David from Rove Prison called up, and admitted that they are unable to guarantee Adrians safety while he is working there with the prisoners because of his attitude towards them. They’re all life sentence people, a few for murder, some from the troubles for sedition and guerrilla activities. And Adrian is abusing them. Anyway, he’s been barred from the prison job, I’m happier, Sepka is happy, the prison staff are happy, and the prisoners are working well again.

I’ve got 3 live coconut crabs scuttling about on my porch, they’ll live quite happily there for a while, so long as I throw them some coconut every now and then. Good burglar alarms too, you don’t want to be treading on one, the claws can rip a coconut apart, so toes and feet will be like soft jelly.

There’s not a lot of meat in them, I feel like letting them go in the bush somewhere to live, the amount of work required to get a few tablespoons of meat doesn’t seem appropriate to kill one for. Crayfish are a different story though, lots of meat, and easier to get at.

We’ve had a good couple of days at work, Andrew, David and I, stripping down the motors on the grass cutters, and rebuilding them. It drives Adrian crazy watching us, he’s still against showing the guys how to service and repair the machines. As far as I’m concerned, it goes with my job, advise, teach, demonstrate. Anyway, the guys can strip a machine down to the cylinders, assemble, check and get it going now, so I feel that is a plus. I’ll get a few more tools to do it properly with next week, and a ring compressor, then we can do a full strip down and reassembly.

This way all we have to pay for is the parts, gaskets etc, although I showed Andrew how to make a gasket with a small ball peen hammer and some thick paper today. All the little tricks I’ve learnt over the years doing maintenance, Andrew and David, just look once, they have it straight away. We had fun tuning the motor today, the micro filter on the jet was blocked, not fully, just enough to let some fuel through for starting and idling, but not enough to run. David was all for stripping the entire motor down again, till I convinced him it was a fuel problem, not mechanical. He’d never touched the carburettors before, so there went an hour or so stripping it apart, not that there is much to them. He didn’t believe me when I said the filter looked clogged, well, it was hard to say, very fine holes, but I figured it must be. We had another old carb so we swapped parts around, reassembled, put it all back together, and then had a petrol head time tuning it in. A lot of noise and smoke from the excess oil in the crankcase for a while, and another machine ready for work.

Graduation Ceremony for the students on Monday, it’s a real big thing here, family, newspapers, even though it’s only Level 2 Certificate, it means a job and a chance for further education. I hope they all do well, it’s been a fun class, and a really good bunch of people to work with. We’re having a full on barbque on the lawn, from what I gather, it’s everything from fish, meat, taro, salads, rice, fruit, cassava. It’ll be good whatever happens, they always have good functions and food enough to make sure everyone gets fed.

I had “words” with David today, he won’t take any money for Mums present, and now he’s got some handwoven baskets from his home for me as well. I keep trying to tell him I’m only doing what I’m meant to be here for, nothing special, just advise, show, help, but he’s too bloody nice and is really proud of his heritage. I’m really pleased, but it’s not something I expect just for doing my job.

Pics are a green tree lizard, and 2 unidentified spiders

Thursday 14th May

I’m sure I’ve died and gone to heaven. David insisted on coming home with me tonight, with a cardboard box.

15 coconut crabs, a couple of large ones, and the rest average restaurant size.

We cooked 4 of the small ones and had a claw cracking feast, then a couple have been cooked and gone into the deep freeze, and I’ve still got one large one and a small one tied up on the floor

David and Tiffany stayed for a while, had a good long talk, the more I get assimilated into here, the more I see where we can make things work. My cutting out the free work has had an impact on David, he can see where the money has been going on what I call “hobby” activities. We need more of the private contracts, lawn mowing, garden maintenance as our bread and butter lines, then we start looking at the cream jobs

I‘m still working on the figures for the contract work, I should have them juggled by the end of next week, and ok, we may have to be on a short work week for a while, 3 or 4 days a week, but it keeps the crew together, which is the main point.

David cracked me up tonight, we’re looking for something to cook the coconut crabs in, well, he was looking, I knew I had a wok, and he said,” Jesus man, is that all you have?????????

When it comes down the real basics, yes, it’s all I have. I have a really good set of pots, pans, frypans back in Auckland I bought in Alaska, but the weight makes them out of range to get here, so it’s back to basic cooking.

And I refuse to buy the crap aluminium stuff on sale here.

I get so frustrated dealing with people here a times. We had a guy call into the gardens yesterday, I was busy with the Students, David was out, so he saw Tiff and Shirleyta. Made all sorts of statements about how he had plants and cuttings, seedlings for us, and could we go get them please.

When we arrived at his place today, all he wanted to do was sell us stuff his father had potted up, which we have plenty of anyway, I walked off in disgust, David followed me very quickly.

The good thing was we kept him talking long enough for Jennifer and Imelda to get lots of cuttings from the plants he had we don’t. Petrea volubis, some more bougainvillea we don’ t have, a double pink, a yellow, and a really cerise one. I am sure Tiffany told him we don’t buy plants, we’re basically a volunteer organization, but as usual, if they sniff money, they’ll try anything

We bumped into Kennedy in town today, we’ve got a garden to design and put into the front of the Tourism Solomon Island Bureaux, I’ll get Tiff to approach them on Monday about having a statue in there as well. Kennedy is ok about accepting cost only for it, so long as we start getting the local art out into the community

I feel I have to make it up to him after the Heritage Hotel fiasco. I’m pleased that fell through, they are still trying to stiff us over hiring our tree shredder, we gave them a per day cost, now they are trying to tell us it was a job and finish contract. 5 days worth of the shredder, 2 staff each day, sorry, you pay the going rate, $1600 Solomon per day

I wouldn’t take any work from them now, they screw the price down, then dicker about the bill, and don’t pay anyway. I’ll put it again here in the hope the search engines find it, Heritage Hotels are not worth wasting time on

I’m up to 99 pages in word with this, and 3 months in, ok, it’s going to make a long novel, even with editing

Then again it’s probably only of interest to anyone coming here, which I’d like to think will be a lot more people. Honiara isn’t the Solomons by any means, once you get out of here, it is all the things you read about. Life slows down, there is time for fishing, just lazing around, life can be so good once you get away from the tv, the video, the dvd player,

Not that I’m a prime example, I like being able to get online, although even that has taken a back seat to some extent. And even in the furtherest islands, it is still possible to hook up with satellite. Ok, solar panels and stuff help.

Alphonse, one of the students on the course asked me to type up his speech for graduation. I’m going to include it here because I think it encapsulates everything I’ve said about all the people here. They are so hungry for knowledge, training, learning, that they appreciate, and see, any opportunity as a gift to be accepted, and worked with

Alphonse speaks 4 languages, his own wantok language, his province language, toktok pijin, and English. He understands me talking in English, he asks me questions in toktok pijin, I feel embarrassed that I cannot answer him as fully as I should in toktok

Alphonse wrote

“ Master of Ceremonies, distinguished guests, representative staff, SEB Trainer, Students parents, other colleagues, ladies and gentlemen

It is indeed a great pleasure for me on behalf of the student trainees to take this wonderful chance to breath our appreciation today.

First of all I would wish to first thank Solo Enviro Beautification for their understanding in collaborating with the idea of forming SEB which started in 1999
To take up the responsibility of beautifying our city is indeed a bold step forward in this much talked about development of Solomon Islands, this is to physically beautify our city, a responsibility that each and everyone of us should shoulder. Also on behalf of student colleagues, I would like to thank the CSF’s who helped SEB in its strive to bear this responsibility.

For without your support, the SEB cannot venture further in fulfilling its commitment and their said responsibility. On the same line of appreciation I would like to thank the hard working staff of SEB who have committed their time and profession in conveying the useful course and training

Secondly, many thanks to the SEB Administration for giving us this wonderful opportunity by accepting us freely to undertake the useful course and training. Something that one have to pay large sums of money to do. With that we are awarded with Certificates is seen as stepping stone in gaining entry to other institution of training and more learning.

It is an ingredient that will eventually ease the many challenges that we will face today and tomorrow. And the future that holds many of these challenges awaits us there. Therefore our conclusion in this programme of SEB really pave a way forward for us. For this, thumbs up to Solo Enviro Beautification.

Finally I would also like to thank any students and colleagues for the enthusiasm that you have shown, and the willingness that you have displayed. So therefore, may I state, here that what we have gained from the benefit of our time with SEB will be long remembered. So too, may I on behalf of my colleagues wish SEB in its endeavours and may the future of SEB be bright and full of many achievements. Before I forget, thanks to the SEB workers for your great work well done. All in all, thanks to the SEB Staff, and many others not mentioned here but who have contributed to this course.

Once again ladies and gentlemen,

Thank you very much, may God bless us all”

If anyone has an idea how I can answer that by Monday, please let me know. After reading it today while typing it out, I feel that I have failed to give them as much as I should have.

I’ve said it previously, if I had my own Nursery, and employed all the people on the course, it would beat any competition

Pics are of Sepa, Jocelyn, Suzie, Alphonse and Caroline preparing a tree trunk for the Orchid House, and the coconut crab we had for dinner