Wednesday 15th July

I can see this is going to be a double post with this mornings brief one.

We’re still without the little truck, trying to find a brake hose is proving to be more than the Solomon Islands can cope with. Either that or the mechanic we use isn’t all that concerned with it. I went into the garage again tonight on the way home, lots of brake fluid on the floor, so hes obviously found the leak I pointed out to him on Monday morning, the split hose is still connected, once I see that off I’ll know we are making progress.

I’ve spent the last few days writing a brief but explanatory begging letter for sponsorship for the gardens and parks work. It’s not as easy as it sounds to get the right balance between saying we’re bankrupt, and we’d like you to sponsor us, and not actually saying it because we don’t want to give the impression we’re losing money. The letter we were given to go by had a fixed price in it, $1,000 a month no matter what garden or park, so we’d be right back in the same situation again if that goes out. I’ve got “a negotiated price” put in so we can actually recover all the costs.

Our fixed overheads are $14,500 a month, to be covered by 14 staff, so $1000 a month on any job is about 1 1/2 weeks work for one person. I can see myself having fun trying to explain it all. After it took 4 months to get it realised we were losing money to start with.

I’m so totally bored at work that I’m becoming a nuisance more than anything. There’s not a lot for me to do, despite what some people think. Tiffany has the office fully under control, David has the work crews working well, all that’s left for me to do is come up with small suggestions or changes to the overall place. Once we get the funding to rebuild the Nursery I’ll be happy, and back into doing something finally.

I don’t do boredom very well, and especially here where everything is out of my price range for recreation. I’m still trying to find an affordable fishing trip. I know I’m not paying $10,000 for a day out no matter what the boat looks like. Even the diving trips are in the $2,000 a trip range, definitely only for the consultants and RAMSI people. That is in Solomon Dollars, almost monopoly money if you don’t live here.

Once the truck is running again I’ll be able to get away a bit more, then I’m only paying out for diesel and beach fees.

The police have started doing blanket coverage through Honiara on the weekends now. Last weekend the arrest rate dropped to the lowest since I’ve been here. Apart from the squatter villages there were only 8 arrests in Honiara itself, mostly for drunken fights on Saturday afternoon around Central Market. Even the pickpockets and bagsnatchers took the weekend off, which made a change. I still don’t like Central Market though.

One of my websites, www.lewrockwell.com has had a few articles about global warming, and how it has become the new religion, rather than having any facts behind it. Which I’ve known ever since Al Gore started on about it. I hope enough people start to realise just how much of the hysteria is based on junk science, and the experimental findings don’t match the theories. There is a good book out by Ian Plimer, an Australian geologist, Heaven and Earth Global warming – the missing science, which finally puts everything I’ve believed, and a lot more into one place.

And a report published in the USA last month at http://www.oism.org/pproject/GWReview_OISM600.pdf
which debunks the CO2 hype.

This is the conclusion of 12 pages of data:

There are no experimental data to support the hypothesis that increases in human hydrocarbon use or in atmospheric carbon dioxide
and other green house gases are causing or can be expected to cause
unfavorable changes in global temperatures, weather, or landscape.
There is no reason to limit human production of CO2, CH4, and other
minor green house gases as has been proposed (82,83,97,123).
We also need not worry about environmental calamities even if
the current natural warming trend continues. The Earth has been
much warmer during the past 3,000 years without catastrophic effects. Warmer weather extends growing seasons and generally improves the habitability of colder regions.
As coal, oil, and natural gas are used to feed and lift from poverty
vast numbers of people across the globe, more CO2 will be released
into the atmosphere. This will help to maintain and improve the
health, longevity, prosperity, and productivity of all people.
The United States and other countries need to produce more energy, not less. The most practical, economical, and environmentally sound methods available are hydrocarbon and nuclear technologies.
Human use of coal, oil, and natural gas has not harmfully warmed
the Earth, and the extrapolation of current trends shows that it will
not do so in the foreseeable future. The CO2 produced does, how -
ever, accelerate the growth rates of plants and also permits plants to
grow in drier regions. Animal life, which depends upon plants, also
flourishes, and the diversity of plant and animal life is increased.
Human activities are producing part of the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere. Mankind is moving the carbon in coal, oil, and natural gas
from below ground to the atmosphere, where it is available for conversion into living things. We are living in an increasingly lush environment
of plants and animals as a result of this CO2 increase. Our
children will therefore en joy an Earth with far more plant and animal
life than that with which we now are blessed.


I stumbled on a blog by the BodyShop about the Carteret Islands being inundated by rising sea levels, which I had to answer. They aren’t actually being flooded by rising sea levels, of if they are, why aren’t the other islands around them showing the same effect. What is happening there is the tectonic plate the Carterets is on is being subducted under the Pacific Plate, so they are actually sinking, plus the damage to the reef system around them by 50 years of dynamite fishing which has weakened the whole reef structure. The Carterets are to the north west of the Solomons, and the fault line runs directly from the Solomons past the Carteret Islands.

4.30am Thursday
The trouble with not having a lot to do and keep myself occupied is that I end up waking up at odd times during the night stressing out over minor things and can’t get back to sleep. I gave up this morning at 4am, I’m into my 3rd cup of coffee, on the 2nd rewrite of an article for the Solomon Star, and scribbling notes for the work crew for next week.

It’s a nice morning from what I can see, which isn’t much, it’s still pitch black outside, but it feels dry and warm. We had another little earthquake late last night, about 11pm, that shook the house around a bit, like a plate sitting on top of jelly, for a few minutes. The dogs around the neighbourhood have been barking almost continuosly ever since.

Wednesday 15th July

I'm running behind with everything this week already. Still no truck, it decided to blow a brake line over the weekend, and we're having trouble getting a replacement. It may be repaired by the end of the week, possibly, and the tray still hasn't been done.

The work crew are settling into a 3 day week, following the maxim that work expands to fill the time allocated. I hope we get back to a 5 day week soon, I don't want problems when we do.

I've got down to 45 minutes walking from home to work now, which is about right, any faster and I'd be jogging, not something I want to be doing in 30*c dry heat.

If I have power and water on at home tonight I'll write up a longer post for here, trying to do it at work doesn't really fit.

Friday 10th July

You’ll have to trust me on this one. Please don’t use sharp pointed knives to prise out coconut meat from the shells, you will injure yourself. I’ve just put 3 stitches into my thumb with the aid of a few ice cubes to numb it, and the suture kit from the Travel Medic Kit. Luckily it was my left thumb, I don’t think I’d have done such a neat job working left handed for stitching.

I was going to mop the floor off, but as the water supply has died for the night, I’ll have to wait till the morning. I did quite a nice job of it, the bleeding has stopped, well, it did once the last stitch went in, it took a while to get to the stitched stage though.

And no, I didn’t go to the hospital, despite all the overseas Doctors doing the surgery there. If it is that serious it needs hospital, I’ll fly out to Brisbane.

On my shopping list for tomorrow, a coconut scraper and a thin steel round edged flexible knife, or similar.

We’ve got the timber for the truck, beautiful timber, $1073 worth, about NZ$200. We’ll strip the rusted tray off Monday and start building the timber deck. With 3 of us working on it it should be finished Monday night. Although this is the Solomons, and something is bound to go wrong, or be missing.

I’m still playing with spreadsheet for dummies, I know what I want it to do, it’s just trying to get it to do what I want is the frustrating part. I may have to load excel from the work disc and try that, it’s got a lot more command capabilities. Especially when it comes to *if,then* commands.

I’m trying to write up a spreadsheet that will calculate the wages, then deduct from the monthly and yearly balance so we know exactly where we are at any point. Which means having job numbers, etc. I’ve got the bank accounts working so the totals adjust automatically for each variable, setting up the wages side is ok as well, trying to marry the two together is proving a bit harder. I have it written out on a piece of A3 and it looks terrific on paper. I’m regretting starting it already. Getting the job numbers and *if this then do* this commands are proving to be a slight problem as above.

David is having 3 weeks off, and going bush for a week to cut the timber to finish his house off. He has wantok with some land with suitable trees on to use, so he’s stocked up with a 25kg bag of flour, 25kg bag of rice, 2 cartons of noodles, 1 carton of tinned tuna and 10kg of sugar. Which he thinks should be enough to feed his wantok while he cuts the trees.

His Grandmother arrived from Rennel today, the first time she has been off Rennel in her life. I think she is towards the end of her journey, even David thinks so, which is why she’s making the trip to see all her family. David took her to Frangipani Ice, the Ice cream shop in Honiara, and she had her first milk shake and ice cream. David had to carry her in, she can barely walk, and he said her eyes were popping out of her head as she got involved with ice cream and milkshakes for the first time in her long life.

If anyone opens google earth and looks at Honiara, I’ve loaded some pictures into there. And Savo Island as well. I’ll load more over the weekend if I get into work Sunday.

If anyone has read “Salmon fishing in Yemen” that is so similar to the position I am in here. I may edit this lot down when I’m finished and call it “2000 trees for the Islands” Or something, Well, edit and expand, this is more a series of disconnected notes rather than a script.

There have been a few articles in the Solomon Star this week about attracting businesses to Honiara. I’m a bit sceptical, as you may have noticed, about the idea. If my experience with trying to connect online with my bank in New Zealand is anything to go by, there are a few problems still to be sorted out.

The connection here is so slow, I kept timing out while logging in, after 3 attempts, Kiwibank froze the account, and the message said to phone their help desk and set up a new password etc. This is in the same week that Telekom here moved to charge per second for all calls. They touted it as a huge cost reduction, till you read the fine print, and they start charging as soon as the connection is made, not when the other end picks up, so going by the normal help desk time lag in answering, I’d be up for a few hundred dollars at $10 per minute by the time it was sorted. Sister to the rescue again hopefully.

I’d hate to be trying to run a business here, and relying on electricity, water, tele-communications etc.

It’s been a scrappy day here, (Saturday). My thumb is throbbing and letting me know it is still there, I’ve changed the dressings and it looks ok, terrific bruising though. I took all the books back to Nautilis this morning, and got the last 2 Neville Shute books I hadn’t read yet. His first two books written in the 1930’s, What happened to the Corbbets, and Lonely Road. Both set in England, good stories, but not as good as his later ones when he began writing more Australian based books. Beyond the Black Stump and A Town called Alice, and The Far Country. I read them all years ago in school, and occasionally since.

I have to bake another fruit loaf tomorrow for Tiffany, well, for her daughters anyway. They demolished a whole loaf last Sunday when I sent one around, and the same with the coconut loaf. Gorgeous girls, I call them Trouble and Mischief, Trouble is Renee, about 9 going on 14, Mischief is Tessie, she’s only just 4.

Our first real rain this afternoon in 3 weeks, about 4 hours of it pounding on the roof, which is good. We can’t count on it anymore now.

Wednesday 8th July

Thank God for spreadsheet for dummies, otherwise known as Microsoft Works Spreadsheet. I’ve got the costings to the nearest 20 dollars, I need some accurate figures and then I’ll be able to start fresh with a zero bank balance, but I’ll know where the money is going. We’ve been losing $15,783 each month, just on wages, without catastrophic stuff like truck repairs, weed trimmer repairs.

It makes for a difficult time.

Davids wantok William turned up today, received his termination letter, he didn’t come to work Monday, and got very upset. He is after redundancy, not termination hoping to get a bigger payout, instead of having to work the months notice out. As I pointed out to him, even if we paid him redundancy, he’s had so many advances on his wages this year, he hasn’t got anything to collect. He has 3 weeks holiday time owing, plus this months wages which he’d get as a redundancy payment. Unfortunately, what he owes is still $207 more than he has in credit, so he is going to end the month still owing money and not collecting anything.

He went to a lawyer, or said he had been. Then came back to work threatening to take us to the Employment Court if I didn’t change the wording on his termination letter to redundancy, instead of termination notice. Which is when I pointed out his wage advances. If he works out the month, he might just have some spare, but I doubt we’ll see much of him now. We counted up his days absence do far this year, 23 up to Monday, which isn’t bad for 5 months. Nearly a month off in 5.

The joys of employment issues never stop.

The little truck I’ve been driving, otherwise known as the rust bucket, has to have the tray replaced completely, so David and I are stripping it off tomorrow and Friday and replacing it with a timber deck. We have Vasa wood here, harder than Kwila, and a nice dark colour when it is oiled, so the truck will look quite good when we have finished. David got an exemption notice from the Police so we can continue driving it for a few days while we make repairs. David feels embarrassed when ever he sees me in it, all the other whitefala in Honiara drive new SUV’s, 4WD, Mitsubishi/Toyota/Landrovers and there I am in a beaten up truck, full of rust and dings, and quite happy about it.

It’s late here, we got caught at work with the power cuts this afternoon, and the crew had to wait till 6 pm before we had their wages done. Tiffany only just made it to the Bank in time to get the cash. Very few people use direct payment, actually, very few of them have bank accounts anyway, there isn’t enough money left over to put in the bank.

Wednesday 8th July

I'm dropping this in as an interesting thing to read.

http://www.garynorth.com

It's Not Just That Global Warming Is Fake. What Matters Is Why This Fakery Is Being Promoted.
Gary North

July 3, 2009

Global warming is based 100% on junk science. The most vocal promoters are not interested in the details of physical science. They are interested in two things: political control over the general public and the establishment of international socialism.


Junk Science vs. Real Science

For a detailed, footnoted, 12-page article, written by three scientists, two with Ph.D's from CalTech, click here.

This paper was sent to tens of thousands of natural scientists in the United States.

Over 31,000 scientists have put their reputations on the line and signed a politically incorrect petition opposing the 1997 Kyoto agreement or protocol. Here is a photocopy of a signed petition.




Here is a letter from a former president of the National Academy of Sciences. He asks recipients of the petition to sign it.

Back in the 1970's, the bugaboo was the coming ice age, as this Time Magazine article promoted. Not to be outdone, Newsweek got on board. The article warned: "Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects." Want more examples? Click here.

It, too, was based on junk science. It, too, had the same solution: government control over the economy. The goal never changes: government management over the economy. The justification has changed. If the voters won't accept control over their lives on the basis of one brand of junk science, maybe they will accept another. As they used to say in the Nixon Administration: "Let's run this up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes."


Socialism's Last Stand

The global warming movement is not about global warming. It is about the creation of an international political control arrangement by which bureaucrats who favor socialism can gain control over the international economy.

This strategy was stated boldly by economist Robert Heilbroner in 1990. Heilbroner, the multi-millionaire socialist and author of the best-selling history of economic thought, The Worldly Philosophers, wrote the manifesto for these bureaucrats. He did this in an article, "Reflections: After Communism," published by The New Yorker (Sept. 10, 1990).

In this article, he made an astounding admission. He said that Ludwig von Mises had been right in 1920 in his article, "Economic Calculation in the Socialist Commonwealth." Mises argued that without private ownership, central planners could not know what any resource is worth to consumers. With no capital market, the planners would be flying blind.

Heilbroner said that for 70 years, academic economists had either ignored this article or dismissed it without answering it. Then Heilbroner wrote these words: "Mises was right."

Heilbroner was one of these people. There is no reference to Mises in The Worldly Philosophers.

This admission was the preliminary section of Heilbroner's manifesto. He was cutting off all hope by socialists that there is a theoretically plausible response to Mises. The free market economy will always outproduce a socialist economy. Get used to it, he said.

Then, in the second section, he called on his socialist peers to get behind the ecology movement. Here, he said, is the best political means for promoting central planning, despite its inefficiency. In the name of ecology, he said, socialists can get a hearing from politicians and voters.

The article is not online. An abstract is. Here is the concluding thought of the abstract.

The direction in which things are headed is some version of capitalism, whatever its title. In Eastern Europe, the new system is referred to as Not Socialism. Socialism may not continue as an important force now that Communism is finished. But another way of looking at socialism is as the society that must emerge if humanity is to cope with the ecological burden that economic growth is placing on the environment. From this perspective, the long vista after Communism leads through capitalism into a still unexplored world that roust [must?] be safely attained and settled before it can be named.

Heilbroner did not care that a worldwide government-run economic planning system would not be called called socialism. He just wanted to see the system set up.

Heilbroner's peers got the message. That was what Kyoto was all about.


Conclusion

If you like poverty, inefficiency, and bureaucratic controls over the economy, and therefore control over your choices, the "climate change" movement is ideal.

If you want to subsidize China and India, neither of which will enforce the rules laid down by unelected international bureaucrats, this movement is for you.

If you want to pay more for less energy, there is no better way than to pass the cap and tax bill which the House has passed. It will be sent to the U.S. Senate next week.

The rest of us should oppose it.

I hereby authorize anyone to reprint this article or post it on any website, just so long as the text is not changed.



© 2005-2009 GaryNorth.Com, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Tuesday 7th July

Solomon Islands Independence Day today. Plus the Swearing in of the new Governor General. I went along to Lawson Tama Stadium early this morning, well, I thought it was early , about 8 am, and there were already 10,000 people there. The stand was full, and the shaded bank was already near full. I was hoping for some good photos, but everyone had to keep back behind the field fence, so you’ll have to excuse the pictures being so distant.

I was thinking while I was there just how much Helen Clarks 9 years of government took away all the things that should be celebrated, or more appreciated. I couldn’t name the NZ Governor General if I tried, the last one I remember is Dame Cath Tizard, and Lord knows how long ago she was. Everyone in the Solomons knows the past one, and the new one, the decision making process for Governor General has been a major topic in the newspapers and radio for the past 3 months, the out-going GG has toured all the provinces saying goodbye, and today was a really big celebration of both Independence and the new Governor General.

The same goes for ANZAC Day. It’s a toss up between Sydney and Melbourne over which one I would go back for, or even the Commemoration at Torbay in Geelong. As far as New Zealand goes, other than the Cenotaph Dawn Service, it’s barely acknowledged in comparison with Australia. Typical of the grey society socialism creates, Nanny knows best in everything, and woe betide anyone having fun. Or being nationalistic. I’m pleased John Key bought back Knighthoods, I may not agree with the choices, I didn’t get one for a start, but the appellation means more historically than some Order of New Zealand medal ever will. I could go on and on and on about things I’ve noticed from being away from New Zealand for so long, then going back and wondering what the hell has happened. But I’d be typing for ages to do that. I’ll just slip things in as I notice.

I’ve had a few days sort of off from here, we had a meeting with Keithie on Friday, the outcome of which I had to spend the weekend going over in my mind trying to come up with some way of making it sound reasonable for the work crew, and us, then power cuts all weekend haven’t helped.

Keithie has finally accepted that we can’t keep doing the *free* work anymore, it’s taken me 4 months to get this realised, and it wasn’t till our bank balance got to one months pay left that she took action. I’ve mentioned before that half our work is the parks, roadside plantings, verges, etc, which we do, but no one pays us for it. It costs us $15,000 a month in wages, plus $5,000- $7,000 in overhead, diesel, tool repairs, plants etc. considering our income from contract work is only $19,000 a month, we’ve been losing $20,000 a month for a long time. All the letters asking for payment for the upkeep of the gardens and parks have gone out, asking for sponsorship for the parks, payment for specific ones, like the Central Police Station, City Centre, NPF Plaza. NPF have been good, they immediately agreed to $2,300 per month, and Kiethie is putting $1,000 a month into the Memorial Gardens.

In the short term however, I’ve had to cut the work week to 3 days, while Tiff and I work on getting everything paid for. I’ve put a lot of trust out to the crew, and told them that as the work contracts come in, I’ll increase the work week, and hopefully by the end of the month we’ll be in a better position financially. Once I have that confirmed, and a better cash flow, I’m after getting everyone a pay rise. They’ve been working for the past 3 years on a promise of one, now that we have a better financial base starting it may be possible finally.

We had a 2 hour meeting Monday morning to discuss it all. David and I have a good system now, I don’t know enough toktok pijin to explain stuff completely, but I can understand it, David has the English and toktok, so I talk first, with all the details in English, David translates into toktok, then I go back over stuff he couldn’t put into toktok, till everyone understands fully. The crew aren’t completely happy with the short week and pay, but we all agreed, any work at the moment is better than none. I’m hopeful it won’t be for longer than a month or so, 6 weeks at most. The cost of living here is horrendous, and the wage rates aren’t great for the locals.

Base rate here is $3.50 Solomon, about NZ$0.70c , AUD$0.55c, US$0.40c, €0.35c, the work crew average is SBD$5.25 per hour. There was some talk of cutting the rate, I managed to get that stopped, all the crew have been there for 5 years minimum, and all have Level 2 Certificates, and can work without supervision. If anything I feel they are underpaid, if I could get $0.50c an hour raise by Christmas that will be a good start.

We’ve laid off 2 people, Davids wantok, and Wilson, the caretaker at the memorial Gardens. Davids wantok I won’t miss or feel sorry for, his excuses have been getting more and more outrageous by the day, and having seen him drunk in town on more than one occasion when he was supposedly off work sick doesn’t endear him to me. Wilson on the other hand I felt really terrible about letting go. He’s in his late 60’s, and just potters around the Memorial Gardens, raking leaves, talking to any visitors, which was fine by me. He knows a lot of the history of Guadacanal, which has been good for any visitors, but we just haven’t got the money to support him at the moment. If we can get back into positive cash flow soon, I’ll take him back.

In some ways I’m happy about the situation, it’s the sort of thing I enjoy doing, not the laying off of staff, but the crisis management side of the whole thing. We’re that far in the hole financially, everything is being considered, so even the more way out things are finally being considered if someone can be found to pay for it. Add in the choices for new work now we can decide if we want it and we should be in a lot better position soon. Either that or I’ll be packing and going.

I’ve had no water since yesterday, the pressure is so low through Honiara that half the town is without water, not a good look for the hotels and guest houses, along with the power cuts which are still happening more frequently. We lost power at work yesterday from 10am till 12, then from 1 pm till 4 pm.

But we have a huge Rugby Stadium going up, and 2 shopping malls with 300 shops with Aid money. It’s the main problem with accepting Aid money from some countries. Japan wants buildings, and won’t give anything towards infrastructure, along with most of the other countries giving Aid money. So we end up with huge buildings, and no services for them.

Here’s my latest creation from the kitchen

Coconut Bread

1 coconut, meat grated and cream extracted (see Method)
or 500 gm dessicated coconut, and cream made from it (see Method)

600 ml coconut cream, tinned if not making your own will work as well.

about 1 cup heavy coconut cream (see Method)

4 – 6 cups plain white or wholemeal flour Use either or a mix of both, although wholemeal will make a fairly dense loaf. Start with 4 cups, add more as needed.

2 tsps Salt

3 tsps dried yeast.

Method

Fresh Coconut

Grate meat out, there are a number of choices here. Either the Island style grater, which is a flat piece of steel with a rounded and notched end, and the coconut half is scraped over it into a bowl, there is a superior Indian/Malaysian grater, which is a multi bladed shape like a large lemon squeezer, with sharpened and notched blades and very quick to use. Or, the not so traditional european method and use a juice extractor, Champion style machine, although as you have to prise the coconut meat out of the shell for this, you will end up with the brown skin flakes through the coconut. You can scrape the skin off, if you want to be fussy. I used a Kenwood extractor, it worked, so whatever you have will probably be sufficient.

If you use a juice extractor, you will end up with about 1 cup of heavy coconut cream, keep this aside.

If you grate the coconut traditionally, wrap the coconut in a clean muslin cloth, soak briefly in 1 – 2 cups boiling water, and squeeze out the juice, repeat until you have 600 ml of juice, or a bit more. Or use a blender, as for dessicated coconut below.

If you use dessicated coconut, put 500gm of coconut into a blender, pour in 600ml of boiling water, let stand for 5 minutes then blend and strain. Repeat once more. Keep the coconut meat, it isn’t necessary to let it dry out again.

Mixing

Put coconut meat, 4 cups of flour, salt and yeast into a large bowl, mix well.

Put room temp heavy coconut cream (if using dessicated coconut, omit this), and 600ml of coconut cream into the flour mix and stir well till mix is well blended. You may need more flour, it depends on which type of coconut method you have used. You may need more liquid also, use excess coconut liquid if you have any left, or water.

Once dough is to the almost not sticky stage, cover and leave for an hour or so at room temp to rise. It is 35*C average temp where I live, bread doubles in an hour here, adjust this time to suit your local temperature.

Once dough has doubled in size, tip onto bench and knead till it is stretchy and holds it shape without collapsing, again, add flour if needed.

Form into loaves and place in tins to rise again. You should get 2 loaves, normal household loaf tin size.

Heat oven to 250C, 450f, pour 1 cup of boiling water into a hot oven tray on the oven floor to create a steamy atmosphere and place loaf tins on the bottom shelf or next one up and reset oven to 210C 400f,

Bake 45 min - one hour, or until loaves have a good hollow drum sound when tapped on the bottom

Caution, the coconut may brown very quickly on the top of the loaf, cover with tinfoil if this happens and continue baking till done.


It is nice fresh or toasted with butter and honey, any other suggestions welcomed.

It’s really dry now, I’ve got the watering crew working 3 nights a week now, just to keep the plants through town in the tubs looking ok. Once we get everything replaced with bouganvillea it won’t be as bad, the crotons and duranta wilt so quickly and shed dried leaves if they go more than 2 days without water. The bouganvillea just sends up more flowers.

If we can get everything sponsored before the Japanese Grant comes through I’ll be a lot happier too. It won’t be siphoned off to pay for the free stuff, which I suspect is what has happened in the past to any money coming in.

Thursday 2nd July

Wednesday 1st July

Got a mid year package from VSA Auckland branch today, copy of the Listener, Whittakers peanut slab, packet of pineapple lumps, 2 Nestle cappuccino, tiki key ring, which was all appreciated. I’ll have to mention not to send chocolates again though, especially to here, both the peanut slab and the pineapple lumps were soft and melted, but an hour in the fridge and they are firm again, lost the shape a little, or a lot, but very nice.

David and I tried sorting out the rear wiring on the little truck this afternoon, it’s due for a warrant of fitness tomorrow. In the distance between the 2 tail lights, about 3’, there are 20 or more joins all with different coloured wire, different sized wire, and several inline fuse connectors. We’re taking it to the auto electrician first thing in the morning. If we could get new cable it would be easy enough to fix, but here it’s just a case of using whatever insulated wire you can find, household included.

There have been thunder and lightning storms on and off all day here, no rain in sight though, the lightning has been impressive, and the thunder really rolls across the landscape like a tank. The trees actually sway, and the ground vibrates under you when it rolls over.

I’ve still not figured out the water system in the house, after 6 months it is still a mystery. The last 2 weeks there has been no water in the afternoons when I get home, till about 10 or 11pm, but in the morning there is water to spare and high pressure. I’m used to it now so it can just be one of the things to accept.



Thursday 2nd July

Almost another week over with. The little truck failed the road fitness certificate, the lights decided to go on strike, and the rust in the tray and sides was a bit too much for them to accept. I took the sides off today, so we have a true flatbed now. David and I are going to strip the tray completely off over the weekend, and next week we’ll build a timber deck and sides for it.

After so much rain when I got here, I thought I’d be happy for the dry season to start. A week without rain and everything is parched, the trees are showing wilting signs, any small shrubs are just dried leaves and bare branches. It almost rained today, but just turned into thunder and lightning, and a dark heavy oppressive feel to the air. I think I’m used to the temperature, I don’t notice it so much anymore even when it gets to 35*C. The good thing about the dry season is that you don’t feel as though you’re in a sauna all the time, and you don’t seem to sweat as much.

Recalling the saga off the Cattle Development Fund that went missing, the Govt are still finding bits and pieces of the $8million tucked away in various bank accounts, so now it’s just $2.5 million missing, and for here that’s really close accounting. I still feel that they are going about it with the wrong type of cattle, European breeds, when we have water buffalo all the way through Indonesia and Malaya that thrive in the conditions here.
David at Rove Prison gave me a good lead for funding to get the Nursery into native plant production today. He worked in Vietnam for a while starting up nurseries and seed banks for indigenous trees that were under threat from logging. It’s a Danish organisation, and they seriously fund facilities for forest seed collection and propagation. I may get everything I want one way or the other.

Tiffany and I have a meeting with the UN Development Head tomorrow with Wills, going over their criteria for funding. I’m losing track of what we’re applying for, and from whom, and exactly why we’re applying for funding. And also the constant bending or altering the purpose of what we do. I’m hoping it will all settle down once we get one set of funds to start with, so I can start doing something rather than just make shift stuff to keep busy.

It looks as though we’ll know by the end of July about the Japanese Grass Roots Funding for the Nursery building, and I think from what Wills mentioned the UN Grants will cover classroom equipment, which will give us good resources for teaching, over head projector, powerpoint set up and text books, and a good photocopier. I shouldn’t mention powerpoint presentations, I have a disconcerting habit of falling asleep within 5 minutes of sitting in front of any. I said as much to Steve a few weeks back, and he replied that he’d seen me do exactly that at VSA in Wellington at one of the orientation meetings. The ones I’ve had to endure have always been such ponderous, boring, dull presentations, and as soon as they start showing bullet point style stuff, one point at a time, I’m usually snoring by the second slide.

I’ll have to remember that if I get to doing them here.

I was a bit worried driving home tonight. I had Maelyn in the cab with me, Sarah, Jepthath, William, Jack and Angela on the tray behind me, with no sides only the tip tray rear still there. Drove through Honiara in rush hour, police everywhere directing traffic, and not one of them thought anything unusual was going past. Everyone on the back thought it was a great laugh, I think a few of them just wanted a ride to Central Market on the truck for the fun.

There was an accident in Papua New Guinea a couple of weeks ago, 2 trucks collided head on, 60 people injured, a few killed. After seeing how everyone rides the trucks here to market, or just to work, I can understand now how so many people can be involved. I’ve counted 40 people in a truck, and yes it was full to over flowing, people sitting on the sides and doubled up on the floor, plus all their market stuff in bags and boxes. Doing 60 – 80 kmh along Mendana Ave. The funniest one I’ve seen was a truck with about 30 people on the back. They had loops of rope tied to the cab, and everyone was standing in between the loops, going all the way to the rear of the tray. As the truck swayed around the corners of the potholes, the lines of people swayed sideways, like a wave travelling down the truck. As always, everyone was laughing or singing loudly.

Mendana Ave is reverting to pot hole alley again, very quickly. If the Romans could build roads that are in some places still in use, why can’t we build a road that lasts longer than 3 months before falling apart????

There are a few more letters in the Solomon Star asking why the betel nut sellers are still selling in Honiara township, after Council banned them late last year. Along with the associated spitting and betel nut juice everywhere, there is the mess from the nut husks, and the rubbish that accumulates around the stalls. It’s going to take a while I think before Honiara starts to recover properly.

I’ll get pics of the stalls through town this weekend, Pauls’ little roadside stall at the end of my street is typical of the street ones, the ones in town are nowhere near as flash.