Tuesday 11th August

Another day winds slowly to a close, homeward plods the weary cowherd etc etc. Apologies to Grey for misquoting.

I spent most of the day with Andrew and Vincent making another compost heap, shredding branches through the shredder and stacking the heap up. We’ve got orders for 60 bags of garden mix already this month, so most of what we made today is presold, it will take a couple of weeks to rot down then get fed through the little mulcher and into the bags. Nice work for $1200 for what is almost free apart from wages for the crew.

Steve arrived back from Wellington, he’s got me a few months at Don Bosco School teaching Welding in the technical dept there, so he’s managed to save my sanity for a while. I’ll start there in a couple of weeks once all the paperwork is completed, and my work permit gets altered. That is if we bother to tell anyone I’m altering my work conditions.
I must have had a thought about the welding, I sent an email to Roses this morning asking for my welding helmet and stuff to be sent up, then Steve arrived a couple of hours later with the news. Not that I’m all that keen on actually going back to it, 30 years of it is enough, but it’s something I can do almost blindfolded, and easy, and I’ll be doing something finally.


I can’t see any major progress being made with the stalemate over the Gardens for a few more months, so some time spent actually teaching again will be good.

Tiffany is coming down with the same thing I’ve got, so I’m hopeful it is just another throat infection or cold, it feels like I’ve been dropped from a great height and left to recover. Every joint aches, and I just feel washed out. Boredom isn’t helping either.

The American warships have gone cruising the rest of the archpelago, they were on Malaita yesterday at Auki, I think they are going to Western Province and Gizo for the rest of the week. Well, one warship, and it’s only a small training one, and the supply ship.

Al the Illinois Florist was going to the Milwaukee Irish Festival last weekend, I haven’t seen him since. He was hoping to meet up with the Screaming Orphans, www.thescreamingorphans.com and Una Flanaghan if she was there. I’ll have to chase him up over that this week. I’m after Grainnes autograph, or something. I warned Al not to go throwing his underpants on stage when the Orphans were on, it’s not a good look.

Monday 10th August

I’m trying to stay enthused, today I gave up about 1pm and went shopping instead. Didn’t buy anything, just wandered around Honiara for a couple of hours wondering what I’m doing here. Until all the political stuff gets sorted with Forestry/Council and SEB and our finances improve there’s not a lot happening. 6 months of promises and will do, and still no further ahead.

I had another look at the site in Ranandi, it’s small, there will be all sorts of problems with it, from water supply to access, and there is no room to expand. As Chie said last week, Japan has poured a lot of money into SEB and the Botanic Gardens already, if we have to move, the funding will stop. They are quite happy to continue expanding the exisiting Nursey, it is what they see as a benefit to everyone, training, improvements to the Gardens, if we leave, all the money they have given so far is just lost.

It is rather frustrating.

Rose sent me a large food parcel, chocolate, biscuits, pringles, yoghurt maker, and 2 packets of cigarettes. Nice thought, I appreciate it. The only trouble was Customs appreciated it more, and wanted $80 duty for the 2 packets of cigarettes, I can buy 4 packs for that so they kept them, probably gave them out to everyone working in Parcel Post at the Post Office as soon as I had gone. Thanks anyway Roses.

I haven’t had any new photos for a while, put it down to the loss of enthusiasm and general despondency. I’ve got another touch of Malaria by the feel of it, slight fever, chills and sweating, along with a general rundown feeling. If I’m still feeling as grotty by Wednesday I’ll go back to the clinic, although all they do is give me a higher dose of Doxycycline for a few days to kill the infection, then it is back to normal. I’ll try to weather this one out.

I downloaded a trial programme from Nikon for the D60, Capture 2, it enables the camera to run from a computer. So far I can’t see that it is worth paying for, there isn’t anything spectacular about it, other than being able to run a longer time delay or sequence through the computer. I don’t know what price Nikon want for it, I’ll keep looking and playing with the trial for another couple of weeks, but the initial feeling is it isn’t worth paying for.

Young Andrew has moved to his Aunts place near Ranandi, I wondered why he was so late to work this morning. All the buses have cut their routes, and now stop at Central Market, so if like Andrew you live on the east side of town and want to go to White River, Rove, you have to change buses and pay again. He was waiting for an hour for a Rove bus to come past, before someone told him they stopped doing direct routes. I’m picking him up in the mornings from now on, 7am at Ranandi so he can get to work on time and stop worrying.

Dorise turned up again today. She didn’t take the job at GGPOL on the oil palm farm after the office got burned down in the land dispute a week ago, and shes applied to the NZ High Comission for the gardeners position. In the meantime she wants to come back with SEB again. I’d like to take her back, but with the slack workload we’re having trouble finding enough work for everyone for 3 days, let alone adding Dorise back. Add that to the list of frustrations.

One bright spot is that we are getting a good market for our growing mix, the wood chip and chicken manure compost. The bad bit is finding enough chicken manure now to keep the compost turning over quickly. A couple of weeks ago it looked as though we’d have a good supply, now it isn’t near enough already. We sell it at $20 for a halffull rubbish bag, and we have repeat orders continuously, so it must be working. I know it works in the nursery, getting a market for it outside is a bonus. We have close to 5 cu.m of wood chip waiting for manure to mix with it now, hopefully we can get a load tomorrow, and get another heap going. I’m always amazed at how quickly it rots down here, the constant 30C temp and humidity help, 2 weeks and it’s ready for the mulcher.

Friday 7th August/Sunday 9th

Friday 7th August

Finished the week no further ahead than when it started, but I’m used to that now. The only high point has been getting the truck back on the road with the new tray.

We had the Honiara Womens something or other hold a morning tea in the Gardens this morning, 200 women, the Prime Ministers wife etc, with her police escort. By the looks of them it was mostly consular and diplomatic wives, they bought more than enough food, cakes, sandwiches, soft drink to feed half Honiara. It was interesting for a few hours, they were all packed up and gone by 1pm, when all the school kids arrived to turn the Gardens into a zoo again.

Andrew came in for a couple of hours to help me get the picnic tables gathered up, so I gave him $20 for his help, he didn’t have to come in, he’s like all the work crew, they all want to work, and they like working for SEB.Even at weekends when I go in there are always 4 or 5 of them there, keeping an eye on the Gardens and Nursery. Either that or things are so bad at home they prefer coming into work.

Tiffany had to go early today, Tessie has pnuemonia and isn’t in the best of health this week. Tiffany took her to the hospital, a couple of injections, and a course of pills then see how she is by Monday. Poor little kid, she’s had a rough time this year, 2 bouts of malaria, now this. It’s a bit rough on a 4 year old growing up here. I think I mentioned a while back the death rate for under 10 yr olds here is 80% if they get to hospital. Mostly caused by people being unable to get there in time, and the poor facilities.

We’ve got rain again tonight, it’s that rare now I notice it, as opposed to when I arrived back in February and it was the fine days that were the rare event. It’s almost tolerable now, about 25C with the breeze and rain. I know it won’t last, by tomorrow it will be back into the low 30’s again.

I’m trying to make pita bread this time. I found another recipe on www.joepastry.com, it looks easier than my usual one so I’ll give it a try. They will come out a bit different, I don’t have a stone for the oven, so it’s back to the wok which is probably more authentic considering where they come from. My list of kitchen toys to buy is growing again. Coconut scraper, Indian style bread plate for doing chapati and paratha, and possibly pita bread on as well. Be nice if I had a house to put it all in : =). Then again with my history of losing or giving away stuff every few years why bother, I’ll use it till someone else needs it more than me as usual.

The Americans are here for the week, August 7th Guadacanal Anniversary, so there are a few hundred sailors wandering the streets looking like they have been dropped into hell. I must admit the Council have done a bit of a clean up, but it was only superficial along Mendana Ave. As soon as you get behind the main road it turns back into 3rd world again.

Sunday night
Spent a pointless couple of hours at work this morning trying toupload photos to webshots, gave up in the end, the connnection kept timing out even after I resized all the pics. I get so frustrated with it sometimes.

I’ve got a stack of washing, well, 2 sheets and 2 t-shirts and a pair of short, pillow cases to wash, and haven’t had any water in the house since Saturday morning again. I’m getting to the stage where it doesn’t bother me as much as it should. I’ve still got the rainwater tank for cooking and coffee water, so the washing can wait till tomorrow night.

Tension is building up in town over the payouts the MPs have given themselves. It is nearly $500,000 each at the end of each parliament term, $50,000 to their wife, $100,000 if they don’t get re-elected, plus a pension for life, free air travel anywhere, $250,000 if they were a cabinet minister, all accumulative, so after a couple of terms they collect well over a million dollars when they finally get voted out. No wonder they give so much money out in pre election bribes and stuff.

There is a report going around the Consulates describing the Solomons as the 6th most corrupt nation after 5 African states, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, a couple of others I can’t remember rigth now. It is certainly true, you can’t egt anything done here without bribing someone, from the Customs to the politicians, I think the Police force has improved since RAMSI have been here, but I’m not going to say it doesn’t still happen a ttimes, just not as blatently as it used to.

Wednesday 5th August

Ok, I know I need to get the dates sorted out. It’s been one of those weeks when nothing has gone right, other than getting the truck certified.

I missed the appointment with the Central Police Station Commander, we were stuck in the ANZ Bank trying to get them to understand that we are Honiara Beautification Committee trading as Solo Enviro Beautification. Considering that we have been doing that for 2 years so far, since SEB was registered as an NGO, and up till yesterday they have been happily depositing and cashing our SEB cheques into the HBC account, it took a while to sort out. We ended up changing all the accounts to SEB and as we were leaving, Tiffany asked for a printout, and sure enough, they had changed them to HBC only, so it was back into the office and a new round of paper filling. Things speed up a lot when I loudly said to Tiffany that we would be better off closing the accounts and opening new ones with Westpac across the road.

We had another meeting with Chie at the Japanese Consul this afternoon about the funding proposal. She wasn’t all that happy with us moving out of the Gardens, as the way the funding proposal is written, we use the Gardens as a teaching resource. If we move to Ranandi there is nothing there, factories, burnt out buildings and wasteland. Her suggestion is to call a meeting at the Japanese Consul Office with Forestry, Minister of Lands, Minister of Environment, Minister of Labour, Honiara Council, and tell them that $700,000 will not be appearing unless they can get their collective egos under control and give way on us staying at the gardens. The other side is that I have to find a way to tell Keithie that it may be time for her to step down as Chairperson of Honiara Beautification Committee as it is turning into a personality clash, and we’re the ones paying for it.

It’s going to be interesting, I’ll have a talk with Bruce tomorrow if I can get a meeting organised and start the process.

I saw Dave in Maryland online this morning, he mentioned something I wrote the other day about having to wait till the truck was ready to get to the beach, and wondered why. The beaches close to Honiara are heavily polluted, with rubbish, sewage, storm drains, so you have to go about 20 miles north to Bonegi or further to find clean water and beaches. There aren’t any buses, and a taxi would cost up to $150 each way, with no guarantee they would return for you at any time. There is a great business opportunity for someone to open a scooter/motorcycle hire here for the tourists, although you are restricted to the main road, every other road in Guadacanal is just a rutted dirt road so you may have a few accidents. Which is fine, there is no insurance cover here for tourists, you have an accident, the hospital patches you up and off you go. It’s like a huge adventure playground with an all care no responsibility clause. There have been tourists on Savo who have had their feet and legs burnt walking into the volcano there, it takes 6 hours to get back from Savo to Honiara Hospital, and there are no medical facilities on Savo. You get warned about it, and as far as everyone here is concerned, you were warned, so tough luck. No point trying to sue either.

I’m sitting here with stuff going on in my mind about how to handle Keithie. It’s not going to be simple, she’s been the founder and driving force for 10 years with HBC, and she has accomplished a lot. Ok, there are people with spike marks in their backs where she has climbed over them to get stuff done, which I think is where the present problems start from.

But if Chie does cancel the funding I’m wasting my time here totally. So it becomes do I want this to happen, and if I do, what can I do to move this whole thing forward. I was talking about this with Tiffany a few weeks ago, so to hear it from Chie again today reinforced what I have been thinking for a while.

There’s a reprieve of Saturday night going on next door, about 8 drunken men singing again, it sounded quite good earlier, the more Solbrew that gets passed around the more ragged the songs become.

Tuesday 4th August

153 pages of drivel. I’m doing well, if I edit it all down, I’d probably have a book about 5 pages long including index/introduction and 3 pages of photos.

The truck passed certification, we have to do few more things before the next certificate, fit a number plate light, and put the number plate lower at the rear, but other than that it was all good. David vanished for 4 hours with it today, he took it for certification, then took it for a drive to all his wantok showing the tray off. It is a distinctive truck in Honiara now, the only one with a wooden tray and deck, David said he had people coming up and checking it out where ever he stopped, I think he is quietly pleased with it, being the foreman of the work crew he can say his crew made it, which gives him a lot of mana in his community and wantok.

He is going to boil down some coconut meat for oil, and give the tray a good coating of coconut oil to bring up the colour of the timber and help preserve it. Andrew, Emory, and Thomas are really pleased with it, it has made a huge difference to them from what Adrian had them doing before I came. I get them measuring/cutting, drilling etc, if they make a mistake, well, ok, it’s a mistake, fix it and keep going, no point in getting upset. Slightly different to Adrian having a fit and shouting at everyone.

Plus they learn quickly, I know they could build another deck without my help, without the little mistakes we’ve made with this one. I could see the change in all of them as the time went by, from being hesitant about using the drill or skilsaw, to almost fighting over who was going to use it. Well, ok, not fighting, but certainly wanting to be the one using it. And thinking ahead as we went as well. I’ll have to do drawings for the next project though, they couldn’t get used to the fact I had it all in my head, and was just making it up as we went.

We are getting some responses to the letters I sent out last week asking people to pay for the community garden work we do. The Central Police Station Superintendant phoned today, and I have an appointment tomorrow to discuss how much for how much. What we have been doing there so far is $1500 a month of work, I’m going to try for the grounds inside the fence as well, and work out a better price and deal for it. Every $2,000 a month we can get means another persons wages plus the overhead fixed costs are paid each month, which gives me a lot of incentive. I hate having the crew on short weeks, it makes it hard on them and their families.

Plus an appointment tomorrow afternoon with the Japanese Consul to convince her that we have sorted out the problems and have suitable land and guaranteed tenure finally. Just not at the Botanic Gardens.

Monday 3rd August

Don’t the months fly past too quickly. I just noticed I had July again in the date line.

It was sweltering at work today. The little truck is only a few hours away from being finished, everyone put in a good day with it today. The floor and sides are finished, the back tray folds down, all we need now is to get the lights and number plate on, and a bit of tidy up and hopefully we will have it certified tomorrow or Wednesday. It needs 3 new tyres, so there goes another bit of money.

I went down to the market stall by the entrance at lunch time, bought a few cans of coke and strawberry cream for everyone, got back, cracked a really cold can of coke and almost collapsed with the shock of it hitting my system. I hadn’t realised how hot I’d been till then. For a minute I felt like I was going to black out, that would have made everyones day, watching me fall over from heat exhaustion. At least I’m getting some colour on my skin finally, and if the truck is going the weekend I’ll finally get away to the beach again.

There are a few minor faults with the truck, the tray is slightly shorter on one side than the other by 1cm, the centre board on the floor had to be split lengthways with the skillsaw and no guide so it’s got a few small gaps along it, but considering all we had to build it with it’s not looking too bad.

I’ve got The Band playing at the moment, The Band cd, and Music From Big Pink, it still sounds as good as it did 40 years ago. Either that or I’m just an old fart stuck in my ways too much. We were all living in Bankside Street in Auckland then in the old 18th century cottage, it’s still there, buried among the skyscrapers.

It looks like we are definitely moving out of the Botanic Gardens, Forestry is still insisting we can’t work together, Council are not being helpful either. Keithie has found a place in Ranandi on an industrial estate we can have tenure on, it’s not ideal, right beside the main highway, no shade, but it’s free, and ours.

I’ll go and have another look tomorrow, there is a seperate block of land above on the hillside we can have as well, but it will mean having to transport plants up and down by truck every day. But it’s finally getting the Nursery established and that’s what I’ve been waiting six months for.

1st July /2nd July

Adele at Kukum Market

Adele at Kukum Market

Andrew with the truck

Andrew and Truck


Saturday morning, sunny, hot and noisy. The neighbours are having a party, I think it might be a childs birthday party, there is a horde of children running amok through the area, aunties and sisters all dressed up with huge bowls of food and the men sitting in the shade drinking. Ooops, edit to add, Later, it’s more of a gambling party going on, I can’t understand what they are playing, some sort of card game, but there is a fair bit of money changing hands very quickly on the turn of a card. I think I’ll stay away from it. The rules look simple, so far, but there is bound to be some sort of percentage that makes it a losers graveyard. Edit again later: They are playing 21 now, and larger sums of money changing hands. Plus a lot more cans and bottles of SolBrew being passed around. And it’s only 2pm. At least they have good music playing, local reggae, you can almost hear it over the shouts and laughter. The local version of reggae has a different style to the usual Jamaican Bob Marley style, similar beat and rythmn, but just different enough to be distinctive. Edit again, 2.30pm, there are now 40 people next door playing cards, having a few drinks, the noise level has risen considerably. Most of the money seems to be going to the man holding the cards, $2/$5/$10 at a time, into a cardboard box beside him. I still can’t figure out the rules or how to play, but everyone there seems happy to be passing money over. He pays out about every 3rd/4th player, but the cardboard box seems to fill up quicker than it goes down. 3pm update, 6 cartons of SolBrew have just arrived, 24 cans per carton, they may be there for some time today. Close to 50 people sitting drinking, the card game is still going, and money is still changing hands.

Edit again: 5.45pm. You can barely hear the music over the laughter and shouting. I was watching when one guy went to get some more money out of his pocket, slightly drunk, he fell over, and there would have been 20 or more $100 notes tossed into the air as he fell, I think he got them all back once they stood him back up, it was a confusing thing to watch as everyone tried to grab as many as they could. It’s down to the die hards now, about 20 men, in varying stages of falling over. Even sitting down they still manage to fall over. I can see 4 cases of SolBrew still unopened, so it may be a long night. I still can’t work out what they are playing, it looks like 21/pontoon, but the dealer is only showing one card and collecting or paying. The game they were playing earlier looked like high/low, the dealer pulled a card, then the player cut to try for high card. Whatever it is, the dealer never seems to lose as much as he pays out.

6.30pm. 15 men left, the guitar is out, I’d like to say the music is beautiful Solomon Island voices, singing in harmony, soaring melodies, soft tones reminiscent of the waves on the beach at sunset, wistful passages of song about their village and life on the islands, but in reality it’s 15 drunken men who can’t remember all the words, a guitar player who sometimes hits the strings, 2 or 3 guys who think they can sing falsetto, but cover about 3 octaves in each line and everyone else singing a different song. But they are happy, and that’s about all that matters.

We’re slowly getting the tray onto the truck, I’d forgotten how long things take when you’re teaching as you do, and having people who have never used any tools before takes a while for them to get used to things. But everyone is happy doing it, and they are learning bits and pieces. Considering they aren’t being paid for coming in Thursday or Friday, Emory, Andrew and Vincent put in 2 full days, and had a bit of fun as well. I thought of telling them to go home and take the time off, but realised they were there because they wanted to be, and building the tray was what they wanted to do. It would probably help if we had a diagramn to go by, but I’m making it up as we go along as usual for me. Well, I did do a rough sketch with some rough measurements, so we have an idea of what we are doing.

Adele is settling in, she arrived at her work Monday and promptly got inundated with everything, most of it totally out of her area, but everyone just cleared their desks off and gave it to her to sort out. I think she’s done this before, all she did was organise it into piles, then sent back what she didn’t deal with.

I’ve been picking her brains for how to deal with the problems we have at work, over funding and areas of responsibility. It’s a tricky situation, Tiffany is the Manager of SEB NGO, and the SEB Board are the decision making part. But Tiffany is responsible for the finances, despite having to follow the direction of the Board.

The problem that came up Friday is about the next course we are meant to be running for Community Sector Programmes (CSP). They allocated the money, paid us, and while we are still contracted to run another course, all the money has gone on the community gardens and stuff as directed by Keithie. We received a letter from CSP Friday asking for a report and financial statement showing where the money has been spent so far on the previous courses, and where the $36,000 still on their books is going to be allocated and when the Course will be starting.

I think we’re going to have to call a full Board meeting and get this whole thing sorted out quickly. The legalities of what we have been doing are questionable, diverting Aid Funding into community work, and not completing or starting what the funds were allocated for.

I really was hoping to just come here and do a bit of fishing, sight see and work on the Nursery. The way things are going the Board meeting will be a bit of fun.

Sunday
I’d promised to take Adele down to the Kukum Fish Market today, it wasn’t till I woke up and remembered that I didn’t have any cash on me, so I had a very quick walk into town to the hole in the wall, and back home before 9am. I broke my personal best record, home to Point Cruze ANZ and back in an hour. Then we walked down to the Kukum Market, another kilometre down the road.

The prices have dropped a lot the last few weeks, eggs now $22 for 10, pawpaw $2 - $5, coconuts back to $1, pineapple are down to $15 from $45 2 weeks ago. Beans spring onions, and bok choy are $5 - $10 a bundle, cucumbers are $3 each. I got everything in the photo for SBD$50, about NZ $10, €5, which made me happy.

One of the traders was desperate, even at 10am, giving 50% discount on his watermelons, $25 for large, $15 for medium, $10 for small, and doing a good trade. I guess he didn’t feel like having to load up and take them all back with him later today.

There isn’t much movement next door so far, the girls are just sitting under the sleep out, quietly talking, I haven’t seen any evidence of the men yet. It was nearly midnight before the last of them fell asleep, I must admit the music did improve towards the end as the drunker ones fell over. It was more island songs, soft singing in contrast to the raucous bedlam earlier.

I’ll be pleased to get the truck finished this week, today is brilliant clear blue sky, hot sun, it would be ideal to go to Turtle beach and sleep under the coconut palms, although with my luck I’d have a coconut land on me.

Introduced Adele to Paul my betelnut seller, on our way to Kukum, so the word will go around the neighbourhood and she won’t get bothered walking around here. There are still a lot of beggars, actually that isn’t a good word for them, more desperate people trying to get their kids through school and asking for money to cover school fees. Ok, it is begging, but not in the usual something for nothing style. Most of them have carvings/baskets for sale, I’d buy some if I had the money, but then the expense of shipping it back to NZ comes into the equation, and it’s not worth it for me.

I had Willie, Davids wantok that we fired ask me last week for money for his son’s school fees. I’ve lost patience with him unfortunately, all of his wantok have tried to help him, they pressured David into hiring him, and he became an embarrassment to David, turning up drunk, taking days off and being seen drunk around White River. Plus borrowing money from everyone and never repaying it. I told him that I was sorry, but until he decides to think of his family first and not spending everything on Kwaso and alcohol, I wasn’t going to help.

The girls next door are quietly humming along and swaying to Van Morrison, I’ve got No Guru, No Method, No Teacher on at the moment, I’ve noticed when I play Van Morrison the girls take over the shade area, when it’s blues or techno, Christopher and his friends all arrive.

Adele bought over a couple of books this morning, one by Ross McDonald from Auckland University Centre for Maori and Pacific Development called “Money Makes You Crazy”. He was here for 3 years on and off living on the various Islands. It’s a really good book dealing with what has happened here with “development” or as we call it here, deforestation, pillaging the seas and sending the money to Korea/Japan/Malaysia. All the mistakes, the “grab the money” mentality that overseas investors instilled into the locals, the loss of tribal land and all their food sources. It’s not good reading.

One of the things VSA is emphatic about is thinking first before imposing development on anyone. Just because it works elsewhere doesn’t mean it is the right thing for here.

My coconut tree in front of the house finally dropped a couple of bunches, now I have 10 coconuts sitting in my porch, some I may leave to sprout before I open them. I was surprised they were still on the ground when I got home today, usually one of the neighbours grabs them as soon as they fall. I cracked one open, peeling off the husk was the hard part, but the meat cleaver helped.