Wednesday 29th July

It’s been a few days, and still no further along the road to getting anything sorted. Will arrived back from Western Province yesterday so he’s been busy today getting the EU proposal written up, and Tiffany and I have got the costings done for him. It’s been a very stressful week, neither of us feel like doing anything till the tenure over the gardens and nursery is settled, and all of the proposals have to be completed by Friday, with us not knowing if all the work is just for nothing.
We still don’t know what is going to happen with the Japanese Grass Roots Funding. Chie has been ringing every day asking for the Letter of Tenure, and we keep putting her off. It isn’t a good look.

The dry season ended Monday night, it’s been raining continuosly since then, steady rain, not the usual tropical downpour, but it is steadily adding up. The river is slowly rising through the Gardens, and there are a lot of birds coming in to shelter among the trees. Saw my first white cockatoo yesterday, screeching in the treetops, hopefully there are a few more to come once all the nut trees are ready.

We finally got all the bolts nuts, drills etc for the little truck, and now we have to wait for the rain to stop before we can get to work on it. It’s sitting outside at work, the rain is good though, it’s washed all the dirt and crud off the chassis, and most of the oil and grease has gone as well, so it looks clean for once.

Back to the conflict over the MPs wives allowance, the PM Sikua denied any political involvement, then it turns out the Committee that decides the MPs perks, has 3 MPs on it, the Minister of Finance, and the Minister of State Services, plus another, on a 5 person committee. The newspapers are full of it the past week, it is absolutely stupid. $50,000 to each MPs wife at the end of each 4 year term, the Prime Minister gets a new house and car at the end of each term, or the rental equivalent if he already has a house he wants to stay in. Plus a long list of extra payments for the MPs covering everything from taxis to food allowance. The total according to what has been printed so far is over $10million to be spread around the 50 MPs and family. On top of their normal payments. The base rate for MPs is $135,000, with extras taking it to nearly $200,000 with allowances and province payments.

Average hourly wage for the locals who have work is $5.00, $200 per week. Tax doesn’t start till they earn $320, although NPF payments at 5% are deducted from the first dollar. NPF is like Social Security pension fund.

I’m still walking into work in the mornings, I’m down to 45 minutes, and can’t quite manage to get under it enough to say I’m going faster. Even in the rain.

Saturday 25th July/Sunday 26th July

Tiffany and I have just had the two most stressfull days since I’ve been here. The MID Contract cheque didn’t clear the bank by Thursday night, and we had the crew wages due Friday. I had enough to just cover enough for them to pay debts in my personal account, and was about to clear it out, but we finally had enough cash to pay them Friday afternoon.

David arrived back Friday morning, from his bush trek to get timber. He’d carried a pregnant lady from her village way back in the hills to the road, found transport for her to #9 Hospital, then stayed with her and her husband till the baby was born, then walked back to White River and home at 3am.

You really have to see the conditions here to understand what all that means, it took 6 hours to carry the lady to the road, along bush tracks through the hills, then another hour or so to find someone with a vehicle to get to Honiara. From what David has said, I think they are going to call their son after him.

What David has said so far, the husband arrived at their bush camp in an advanced state of panic, his wife had been 2 days in labour at that stage, and was crawling along the track behind him. David, who keeps telling me he is not a supervisor/leader/chief, organised his work crew to go back, find her, and carry her out on a make shift stretcher, then once he was satisfied it was organised, ran ahead and found someone with a car. He hasn’t said if it cost anything, but I get the impression that there was no cost involved, David can really pull the doing good for everyone and don’t expect to be paid for doing this dialogue.

Then I had to tell him that everything he and Tiffany have been working towards for the past 10 years has been for nothing unless we can find a site to move to.

I am so really past the BS I hear from people here about the “locals”.

I had a laugh this morning in town, I’ve blown my budget for the month at Wings and bought wine and beer for a dinner invitation from Barbara at NZ Aid for tomorrow night. As I was walking back one of the buses pulled up at the stop, and the change collector calls out, “hey, white man, you got light for roll?” So I answered “ hey, nem blo me Warren, iufala savvy? He just about fell out of the bus laughing, and I’ve got another person here that knows me.

Honiara is really the dirtiest, grubbiest, filthy place I have seen. All the aid money is going in to things we don’t need, shopping malls, stadiums, and there is no sewerage system, reliable and safe water supply, electricity, and the parliament is in the process of approving $2.5 million in payments to MPs wives, plus a house and car in perpetuity to the Prime Minister, and all those that follow.
I’d misheard Steve, not an uncommon occurrence, I do that with everyone, hearing aids aren’t 100% accurate. Adele isn’t the Adele I’ve been dealing with in Wellington, she’s a NZ lawyer from London and specialising in international law that relates to what is happening here. Nice lady, she’s had a huge adjustment to make this week with the change in temp from London to here, plus the language.

I walked down to Panatina Ridge this afternoon and asked Barbara if I could bring a guest tomorrow, so Adele is coming along as well tomorrow evening. She’s in a house just along from me at Ba’hai.

Dinner with Steve, Gwen , Bruce and Adele on Thursday was good. Back to the Taj Mahal, the food is good, I’m not a fan of of the place because of the acoustics. It is just an open large room, concrete floor, hard surfaces, and echoes from everywhere. I can’t hear properly under those circumstances, so a lot of what was going on I missed. Add in a party of Australians with Sydney accents that can cut corrugated iron and it was a bit noisy. Plus the tv on Sky Sports and the ones watching it.

Gwen and Bruce are having fun on Matira, they are getting used to the land disputes that are a way of life here, and watching their neighbours arguing over a strip of land behind their house. Someone cut down a tree that was a boundary marker, so the disputes over a row of banana and cassava trees has been going on for a while now.

They have a shop there, but it stocks the very basics, rice, flour, sugar, salt and not very much else, so they look forward to coming to Honiara once in a while to stock up on necessities, soap, toothpaste, spices, tinned food. From what Gwen said they have 3 cartons of stuff to take back with them which she hopes will last till they can get back to Honiara.

I was a bit overly optimistic about the water in the house. Sunday and it’s been off since 6am this morning and not looking like coming back anytime soon.

Back from dinner with Barbara and Terry, we had a good evening. Terry used to be involved with Search and Rescue in NZ, and he’s been to a few places in the North Island I’ve gone through around the central North Island plateaux. Ratehi, the Bridge to Nowhere, some of theUreweras. He was based more in the South Island, and worked around the Homer Tunnel when that was being pushed through, so we had a few stories we could relate to with each other.

Adele has her first day at work Monday so that will be interesting for her. She’s already been told that the person she is meant to be working with won’t be available till Wednesday, so she has an office all to herself for a few days, and not alot to do yet. Similar to my situation.

Wednesday 22nd July

It isn’t easy explaining how I feel right now. I have never felt so frustrated in my life, well ok, there have been times, but that has been over personal stuff, this is over sheer stupidity and ego massaging.

Council have decided not to let us build the Nursery, in line with what Forestry want. And for us to be out of the Botanic Gardens as soon as possible so Forestry can move in and build their 2 story building after they cut down half the trees.
We’re still trying to find somewhere to move to, the Japanese Funding is now looking like it won’t eventuate without us having tenure somewhere, the town is looking more and more like an open rubbish dump each day, and stupid petty minded little ego-centric idiots in Council and Forestry keep playing stupid games.
Welcome to the Solomons.

Tiffany and I feel like moving to Bellona, building a bush house and spending the rest of the time fishing and growing food crops for the family. We haven’t told David yet, he’s still in the bush cutting timber for their house and we won’t see him for another week at least.

I keep trying to find something positive to pull from it, all there is is the hope that we can find some land quickly, and set up with a clean start. And cut out all the community work till someone comes up with the funding for it. Keithie is still on about us doing it, I’m not going back down that road again, it bankrupted the whole organisation, and while it was a worthy thing to do, when you’re losing $15,000 a month doing it, plus fixed overheads on top, it has to stop.

We’re losing 2 more of the crew to better paying jobs this week, Dorise and Rose. Dorise is going to the oil palm plantation, with her husband, they get a house supplied, $7.25 an hour wages, and as much work as they can do. Rose is going to one of the Hotels as head gardener, which will suit her very well. Not too bad a position considering she’s only been with SEB for just over a year, and got both Level 1 and Level 2 Certificates this year. And still under 20 years of age.
This is looking like being the shortest VSA posting in a long time.

I’m away out with Steve, Bruce, Gwen and Adele tomorrow night for dinner, on Steves card. Bruce and Gwen are settling into their island really well, it’s all a huge adventure for them still, setting up a new school and coming to terms with how things are done or not here. Adele is from VSA Wellington, she does all the environment articles for VSA. I hope she doesn’t mention global warming till after dinner.

I saw Steve this morning by Town Ground Stadium, out for his early morning jog, and mentioned my continuing saga with the water, and he said he’d have a word with the property manager. I didn’t really expect too much from it, but for the first time in I don’t know how long, I had water when I got home at 5, and it’s still working. That gets the dishes done, and a load of washing on as well. And it’s raining as well, so it is nice and coolish for the evening as well.

Tuesday 21st July

Success, we finally got the tray off the little truck, with a bit of hammering and cold chisel work. Then we found the drill bits have gone missing, so it’s another trip to the hardware tomorrow to buy drills, nuts/bolts and wood screws. It may be finished by the weekend, but I’m not saying which weekend

Andrew had a bit of a mishap getting the tray off, and broke the rear window, luckily the glass didn’t all fall out, so I’ve got it all taped up with clear packaging tape till we can get another one from where ever. He came and got me to have a look when he did it, all worried and really apologetic. I looked at it, looked at Andrew, back at the window, then told him he’d be a bit broke for the next couple of weeks when I took the $400 out of his pay for the window. His face was priceless, jaw down to his waist, eyes out on stalks, till I started laughing. He’s slowly getting used to me.

I’m getting used to the pace of life here. 6 months ago I’d have been having a total stress-out over the problems and the time spent on simple things. Now I just light up a cigarette, joke with the crew, wind poor Andrew up all the time, and just accept that it will get done, just not to my arbitrary time frame. Actually even a few months ago, not necessarily 6.
OK Libby, last week.

I’m going to take Steve up about another house, or else he can give the property manager hell about this one. It’s Tuesday evening, 7 pm, and I’ve been without water since Sunday afternoon again. Everyone at work thinks I’ve gone native, swimming in the river every day and walking around till my clothes dry on me. If I let my hair grow a bit more Jennifer will plait it island style, like corn rows then I’ll never fit in with the ex-pats here. Not that I want to anyway, I get annoyed with the attitudes from most of them.

Just had one of my gecko family climb up my back, then onto the laptop, and it waited while I got a few pics. Actually, getting it to go onto the wall was the hardest part, it was quite happy walking up and down my arm. Just a small one, I think the bigger ones eat anything smaller than them, so it’s not a good thing to be a small gecko with no where to run.

Rose is after another job, she asked me today for a reference, I’ll be sorry to see her go. She works well, always happy, and has learnt a huge amount. But with being on a 3 day week, it’s hard on all of them, and if they can get a full time paying job good luck to them.

Monday 20th July pt 2

A couple of pics of the small gardens at Lawson Tama Stadium

I’ve decided that I hate Solomon Islands Telekom. It may not be their fault, although that’s a bit like saying GWB2 was a bit misguided about Iraq. I spent most of the day alternatively swearing (while Tiffany was out of the office) and resetting the adsl box and splitter. It would work for a while then just drop out entirely for another hour or so.
With luck Telekom will be out sometime this week to check the connection. Or possibly next week, it is the Solomons.
We started taking the tray off the little truck today. I wasn’t watching too closely, and now we have one stripped nut from using the open end of the combination instead of the ring spanner. And it’s in the most awkward position, I doubt I’ll be able to get to it with a nut splitter or grinder. Oh well, just another day at the office.
I’m sticking to 45 min for the walk to work, I was trying to beat it this morning, but the heat builds up quickly if you move too fast, so I’ll just stick to a fast walk. I can get into Point Cruz, about 2/3 of the way in 30 minutes, then another 15 minutes past town to Rove, carrying the laptop and shoulder bag is more than enough.
Solomon Island politics always amazes me. Sir Alan Kemakeza. Former Prime Minister, owner of Savo Island Sunset Lodge Resort, has finally had to leave Parliament. He was convicted of corruption a few years ago, went to prison, came out, back into Parliament from prison, then because his sentence was longer than the get off free clause, he had to appeal to Parliament to be allowed stay. He’s finally withdrawn his appeal and stepped down as MP for Savo, so there will be a by-election soon. After which, Sir Alan can then stand again in the election next year for Savo Province. It is getting to feel like prison is a pre-requisite to being a MP here.
I had one former MP working with us at Rove Prison, similar thing, all the development money was going to his wantok, and not being dispersed throughout the province. He’s due out next week, and is standing again next year for re-election, and he’ll probably get in. Which is good for me, he wants to start a horticulture training scheme in his province, and hopefully I’m on his list of people to help set it up.
Our little truck came back this morning, a week to replace a brake line, and when I climbed under to check there was brake fluid dripping off the connections. All they had done was connect the nuts and do them finger tight. I got 3 turns with a spanner before they were leak proof, then we had to bleed the air out before we had brakes again. And this from a fully trained and qualified mechanic here. We’ve got a long way to go with stuff.
If I thought Honiara looked grubby on Saturday, going in this morning it looks worse. All the weekend rubbish was everywhere, all the roundabouts were full of cans, paper, plastic bags, and the street was just a mess of rubbish everywhere. Add in the smell where a few people had used one of the gardens by NPF Plaza as a toilet, and we’ve got a long way to go before Honiara can climb out of the filthy grubby town category.
There are 2 American warships due next month for the Guadacanal Campaign Anniversay, August the 7th, which will be a good time to be well away from Honiara. The last time they were here there were fights all along the main street, sailors drunk all over the town day and night, and a few problems with the girls, not all of whom were willing participants.
We’ve got the Memorial Gardens spruced up, and the sign is being re-painted, which will be good. All I have to do is keep chasing the traders out of the Gardens whenever there are visitors.
Steve offered to look for another house for me, I’m wary of moving, after 6 months I’ve settled into the area, I know most of the neighbours, shops etc, and I’m used to the quirky water system, even if it does frustrate me at times. I told him it would be good, but not to go rushing around about it.

Monday 20th July

Photos of Civic Centre planting. right beside the main road.

Friday 17th July
I’m constantly amazed at some of the thought processes that go in some of the peoples heads here. We fired one of the security night watch today for theft. He sold 5 tyres we had been keeping for the big truck, to a friend with a bus, who promptly reneged on paying, so Tome ended up without the tyres, and the money, and now no job either. His excuses got more and more bizarre when we were asking about what happened, until the final story was he sold them $500, but the other person only gave him $200, so he took the tyres back and burnt them. About $4,000 worth of tyres. And he felt that he’d done nothing wrong. The tyres were there, he sold them, what is the problem?
Still, with the Parliament trying to put a Bill through expempting any MP from criminal charges, and also a Bill giving the spouses of MPs a lump sum payment of $50,000 at the end of every Government term, you can see where everyone thinks it is perfectly permissable to acquire whatever they can.
The Solomon Star is full of letters and editorial content about both, well worth reading www.solomonstarnews.com
The town is looking decidely scruffier in a week, since we stopped cleaning the gardens and side areas. It’s really noticeable when I walk in, the NPF Plaza, Civic Centre gardens are full of rubbish, outside the Council offices by the ANZ roundabout is just an open rubbish tip now. Honiara has never been a tidy city for a long time, since the first coup in 1998, and I found a report from the South Pacific Forum where Honiara was described as the grubbiest city in the Pacific early this year. Not exactly a commendation you’d want when you are trying to encourage tourism, investors and business.
But, the bouganvillea are all in flower now through the town, and the Hibiscus are all in bud or flower as well. I stopped the crew pruning both about 2 months ago, to let the flowers come out. Until now, they have been pruning and trimming mercilessly, once we stopped everything has had a chance to come into flower. Now I’ve got to come up with some way of training the bouganvillea so it gets a chance to really grow and flower. With the dry weather, the bouganvillea and Hibiscus are the only plants that are looking good. The Duranta and Allamanda are wilting, even the Rowea are sufferring.
I found out today that Telekom here decided that Skype would be too much competition for phone calls, so they have slowed the bandwidth to prevent people using Skype for phone calls and VOIP, which also explains the incredible slowness of broadband here. I’m lucky to get up to 0.11mbps download, and 0.03mbps upload. And I used to feel hard done by in Ireland with 6.00mbps.

Sunday 19th July
Absolutely boring weekend, well, I cleaned the house up, went shopping yesterday, got some pics of Civic Centre walkway with the rubbish, did the washing, read a few books, walked around Honiara for a bit yesterday morning, still no truck, promised for Monday now.
Thunder, lightning and a bit of rain this afternoon, but nothing spectacular.
I’ve been spending more time playing with some of the editing programmes finally, even digging into the Word programme and the Win Works stuff. Some of them are pretty dated, mind you I’ve only got Word 2000, I only updated it once from 98, it had everything I needed then so I just used what I wanted without going into all the publishing programmes and stuff.
I’m pleased with the laptop, apart from some quirks it has, like dropping programmes unexpectedly, and losing drivers every couple of months. I had to reload my Nikon Editor again today, and it’s always losing the drivers for the sound and audio. And spell check is just a nightmare, parts of this it checks in English Ireland, other parts with English Australia, and some with English NZ, when it can find the directories that is. I’ve climbed all through the settings trying to get it to be consistent, but to no avail so far. Even with the Word 2000 discs it won’t repair, I’d like to do a complete uninstall and re-install, but I’m always worried about losing everything if I play too much with it all.
I’ve had John Mayall on for most of the day, I should have copied my Peter Green cd’s before I left as well, I’ve had Supernatural from the Bluesbreakers album on high repeat all day, brilliant guitarist, even after he dropped out of Fleetwood Mac and spent 20 years having a nervous breakdown. I’ve got 3 of his later cd’s from the 90’s back in NZ, if I get there at Christmas I’m ripping them onto a thumbdrive.

Monday

I've just spent since 7am trying to get the internet connection to work, nearly 4 hours, with several phone calls to Telekom, They came out, replaced the adsl box, and the inline connector, then ahd to go and get another adsl box because the one they installed wasn't working anyway.

I'm not holding my breath over how long this will last.

Thursday 16th July

TGIF tomorrow, I keep trying to get enthused with work, it’s a struggle at the moment.

I’ve got most of the jobs costed, so that we can quote them and break even. We’re registered as a NGO Non –Profit Organisation, so we can get away with a bit of profit, and say it’s for repairs and maintenance, but I don’t like running at a loss either.

I cut my walking time by 5 minutes this morning, I left at 6 am, still dark, but by the time I was in Honiara it was daylight. Nice morning to be walking actually, not as hot as it became later, and a bit of a cool breeze coming in off the ocean. I was surprised by the number of people at Central Market at that time too. Some of the traders come from way down Guadacanal, and leave at midnight to get here, some even start the night before, especially those that have to walk out to a road to start with.

It’s surprising how quickly people have noticed that we have stopped a lot of the work. We had 1 man come in this morning asking if he could do the tubs and cleaning around NPF and Civc Centre as he had noticed it was getting very messy. He expected to be paid for it, so left very upset when we explained the reason we weren’t doing it at the moment was because we weren’t getting paid for it either.

I noticed walking in this morning how quickly the roundabouts fill with rubbish that people throw out of their vehicles as they drive around them. Drink cans, paper, general rubbish. Even the median strip gets filled with rubbish overnight

I pulled the stitches out of my thumb tonight, it doesn’t look too bad at all, still a bit tender, but too be expected. By the looks of it, it isn’t going to scar very much either, so the stitching must have been as good as needed.

The little truck is still in the garage, he’s found the fault with the brake line, the same split I showed him on Monday, and now it’s going to be Tuesday till it is repaired. I really need a concrete wall at times to beat my head against here. It’s a 1 hour job, to replace the hose, bleed the brakes and drive away. If I had the tools I’d do it myself, but without even a basic spanner set I’d just be getting more frustrated.

A bit of light relief, this from the G8 Summit

No wonder skeptics consider the left's belief in man-made global warming as akin to a fad religion -- last week in Italy, G8 leaders pledged to not allow the Earth's temperature to rise more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

For its next act, the G8 can part the Red Sea. The worst part is: These are the brainy swells who think of themselves as -- all bow -- Men of Science.

King Canute proved he could no more stop Nature than anyone, if all this didn't have so much potential for harm it would be laughable.