Tuesday 30th June

Jocelyn has the gardeners position for NZ Aid, so she is happy. It’s 3 months trial, 20 hours a week, $5 per hour, and $30 per week transport allowance. After tax etc she’ll get about $80 of it, plus her bus fare, not a great amount, but it’s a start for her. After 3 months she goes onto permanent and a pay rise as well. $80 will buy 10kg of rice at the discount shop, or 5 kg of rice $55, and 5 small tins of shredded tuna to go with it.

Without their own gardens the people here would starve with the prices for food in the shops.

You can get a lot at the markets for that, some of the food like cassava, I’ve tried but I’m not that hungry yet to try it again. Well, not without a lot of spices to liven it up. And taro is ok, but really starchy and I have enough weight problems without adding to the problem.

I wish there were more newspapers like the Solomon Star around the world, there probably wouldn’t be the problems with politicians. Another one is being questioned in the letters section over where $9.7 million of development funds have gone. It appears his wantok got the majority of it, and haven’t started the work yet, after 7 years. But I assume they have a good house, tv etc in it while the rest of the villages are still living **customarily** as it’s put here, without anything. It’s really hard to comprehend just how deep wantok goes in society here. If you don’t support your family, extended out as far as possible, you get ostracised for life.

David has the problem of his wantok at work, we’re finally getting rid of him this week for poor attendance and work, but it’s taken a long time for David to be able to explain it to all his family. I have the same trouble with it as well, William is a good worker, when he wants to be, but has a slight problem with kwaso/marijuana/alcohol/betel and we catch him wandering all over town instead of being with the work crew. And he is well educated, just fell off the rails a bit and without the wantok system, he’d be on the streets with nothing. But he is a disruptive influence at work, with the rest of the crew having to carry the extra workload when he doesn’t turn up, or just wanders off on them.

6 more weeks and I’ll have clocked up 6 months here, and not done a damn thing on what I’m meant to be doing. And the way it is going, it’ll be another 3 months till anything gets started. It’s bloody frustrating.

Friday – Monday 29th June

I think it’s been the slow accumulation of little aggravations. Friday I just gave up any semblance of working, and spent the day goofing off with David, scrolling the net, reading pages of stuff about snakes in the Solomons, in general just goofing around. It must have been David as well, he bought a dvd into work for the crew to watch after lunch, it was about 35*C and dry, and the road crew were swimming in sweat. It was The Mummy 2, for the umpteenth time for me.

The heat here is really sapping the energy from everyone, I find I miss the humidity already. It’s like a really dry oven, all the road plantings are wilting, even the bigger trees and palms are suffering already, and we have another 5 months of this until the rains normally arrive. If the el nino takes hold, it could be February till we get significant rainfall again.

Saturday I spent cleaning up the house, couldn’t be bothered going into Honiara for shopping, so just went to the local Barack Enterprises shop. Everything is as cheap or cheaper there as in town anyway, just not the range. They still insist on getting the Papua New Guinea low bicarb Coke, it’s disgusting. No bite to it, and there is nothing worse than flat coke, well, there may well be, but for the moment flat coke is the top of the disgusting drinks table.

Our funding proposal finally got sent to Japan this morning, now it’s just waiting to see if they approve it and we can finally start moving ahead on what I’m meant to be doing here.

Barbara from NZ Aid contacted me a week or so back, looking for a gardener for their property. I took Jocelyn along today, she is the tiniest lady from the last course, barely 5’ tall, if that, and built like a match with the wood shaved off. But, she can work and carry huge loads all day and still be smiling at the end. It’s a fair sized garden for her to look after, I’ll go there again Wednesday morning, and draw up a plan for her to follow for trimming and planting, and maintenance. I have to take her into the NZ High Commission tomorrow to fill out the security papers and employment contract, hopefully she’ll get a good wage, plus one meal a day, and bus fares to and from White River.

One of the forums I belong to, 419Eater, one of the members has had a huge emotional shock. His parents, both in their early 70’s, are off to Nigeria as Missionaries for the church they belong to in the USA. He is a bit at sixes and sevens over it, and is worried about it all. Being as they talk about it as being the final thing they will probably do, they are both looking forward to spending their final years there. He was asking for advice, all I offered to him was my experience with VSA. We often forget that our parents had a life before we came along, and had dreams about what they wanted to do at some stage in their lives. Then usually all that gets put aside to raise a family, and it isn’t till later on that the old ideas or desires manifest themselves again. I, and others in the forum weren’t probably as sympathetic about it as he might have wished. We were all for it, and wished his parents well in whatever they do, it’s certainly better than spending your life in a rest home with the endless rounds of bingo and arguing over the tv.

We had another snake in the nursery over the weekend. I have no idea what it is, venomous or not, but it is very aggressive, and fast. It made a few lunges at me when I was trying to take a pic, so I gave it a wide berth and didn’t bother trying to pick it up. I’ll post the pic in here, if anyone recognises it please let me know. I haven’t been able to find any identification for it yet.

Our big boa from last week is settling into the lily pond area, it took me a while to find it this morning, but it is peacefully settled amongst the ginger and helliconia plants there. I was thinking it may be pregnant, the body looked too large for what I think is normal, that or else it had just eaten a large cat or cuscus.

Monday 29th June

Sorry, it's been one of those weekends, when nothing got done, and even less got planned I'll try to catch up tonight when I get home

In the meantime, here's Andrew cooking the barbque

Wednesday 24th June

Kukum Market

Kukum Market

The saga of the Police commissioner and the “lady” just gets more extreme each day. I had it wrong a bit yesterday, it was after the Queens Birthday celebrations, not the football, but other than that, the facts have changed a lot more.

In todays Solomon Star News, the Commissioner was with 6 other police officers, having a few drinks in a secluded spot, when a group of masked and armed men held them up, raped a female police officer, and took their uniforms. And also trashed their car. Luckily they had civilian clothing to put on, it is a very confusing story, I’ll stick with the one I heard a week ago just after it happened before it spread out of control. That he was with a female junior officer when her wantok arrived and dealt to the car and him.

http://www.solomonstarnews.com/

It is proving to be an interesting thing to follow in the paper anyway, along with all the other bits and pieces. More letters in there today about the sewage enhanced fish in the markets, asking why it is allowed to carry on instead of protecting the health of everyone. At the levels of contamination, the fish would have had to be caught in a sewage pond, 7,000ppm E-coli is high by any standards. Then there is the continuing saga of the electricity blackouts. SIEA (Solomon Island Electricity Authority) are saying that their highly skilled and trained technicians are working around the clock to repair the #3 generator, and as soon as the parts, which have been coming by boat arrive finally, after 4 months, from Japan, it will all be well again. The best they can offer is that it will be all restored by the end of July.

I sent Jennifer and Imelda out with the truck today, to get as many cuttings of Bougainvillea as they could find around the town. I’ve found several we don’t have and gave them directions to find where they are. Hopefully in a couple of months we’ll have a bigger range instead of the dwarf purple, standard purple, and orange. Somehow they lost the mother plant for the variegated pink, and the other colours.

Mendana Ave is slowly getting back to pothole alley. Another month and it will be almost as bad as it was before they patched the holes. And this is without a lot of rain. All the roading machinery was destroyed in the troubles, so if it can’t be done with a road grader and a roller, then it will just be a patch up job. All they do is scrape the surface with the grader, then roll over it, spray tar and spread road gravel. No compaction or base course, it goes straight onto the coral. Again it comes down to the cost, too many fingers getting back handers along the way to leave anything for the actual job.

Tiffany and I both feel like a holiday already, she’s been nearly 3 years without a break, I’ve only been 6 months without doing anything. I think that is what is getting me so depressed all the time, waiting to actually do what I’m here for. All I can do is find fill in stuff to keep me occupied, and it has to be something that doesn’t cost anything because we haven’t the funds for anything. Totally frustrating and pointless.

I’ve measured all the tracks in the Gardens now, 4.6 kilometres in total, which will help the schools when they do the next crosscountry, we can work out some really good routes for them.

101 uses for dental floss

#1 Repairing sandals when the stitching comes apart.

#2 Replacing the eyelet binding on the top of my surfcaster when the tip gets damaged.

#3 Rethreading one of my shell money necklaces when it breaks. And it’s not as easy to get the pattern right as you’d think.

More to come

Further to the post on Sunday about the shell money paid as blood money in the murder feud. It is worth $100 per metre for plain, if there are patterns, or groups of other shells in it, it can go to $200 per metre equivalent. A heap of shell money is usually 10 metres in length, so the 45 heaps given as reparation and reconciliation would be worth a minimum of $45,000 in Solomon Dollars, about NZ$9,000, AUD$7,500, US$6,000, €4,200

And would probably take 1 person 2 –3 days to make each heap. A lot of families on Malaita start making shell money lengths as soon as their son is born, so they will have enough to pay bride price when he is old enough.

We heard back from the Japanese consul today, they have accepted our application, now it goes for translating, then forwarded to Japan for approval. Hopefully by the end of September we’ll know and be able to start doing something.

Tuesday 23rd June

David and Solomon boa

Solomon boa

I finally got my pictures of a snake. Some of the crew were clearing weeds along the river track when they found one asleep in the undergrowth. Beautiful dusty brown Solomon boa, about 3’ long, and well feed by the look of it. I think it’s close to shedding its skin, it had that dry dull look on the back, while the stomach was all brightly coloured and patches of skin were still peeling off in places.

David picked it up, we had people clustered back on the track while I was taking photos, none of them were prepared to come near us. I presumed it was a boa, from the shape of the head and the colour and pattern it looked like the pics I’ve seen of them, so I took the chance it wasn’t poisonous. It was very slow moving, I suppose being woken up in the hot daylight does that.

I took it down to the lily pond and let it go into the ginger and helliconia shrubbery, it’ll be safer there than near the track. And it’s got more food with the frogs there, plus shelter and water.

Other than that, it’s been a quiet day. We cleaned out the garage area, Forestry want to store their fuel drums in it as well, so we had a bit of rearranging to do. I found a lot of ropes, all with knotted ends instead of splices and ends, so spent a while with Andrew showing him how to back splice, join and make loop splices in it. Plus a few knots, bowline etc instead of the usual Solomon convoluted knot that is impossible to untie without using a bushknife.

David has given me the Town Ground roundabout to design and landscape. I will try and get it done with the next class, that way I’m not taking any of the crew away from what they are meant to be doing.

The papers here are warning against a drought happening this year, already the rainfall has dropped, there is a good el nino pattern forming, which brings dry winds here. I’ve noticed already how dry it is, the plants along the road are drying out in a couple of days which has David and a few others out every night with the water truck. Coupled with Solomon Islands Water authority, things are looking dry for a few months till November when the rains come back hopefully.

The Police Commissioner got caught a week ago with a “lady” friend parked up at Henderson, by the airport, presumably by family of the “lady”, and his car was trashed. It was hushed up till today, when the Solomon Star published a front page story about him being suspended pending a full inquiry. His story is that he was out with other officers having a few drinks after the celebrations in town following the football. Unofficially, he was caught with a “lady” in a compromising position. Needless to say, his wife isn’t too impressed.

The fish sellers are still thriving in Central Market, and the roadside fish stalls. You’d have to be stupid to be buying fish from them, but I guess if it’s what you’re used to, then your system can cope with it. I’m just waiting for a cholera outbreak in town soon, with the lack of water, no sewage system, and the general state of the squatter settlements around Honiara. I’ll go through Central Market with the camera on Saturday morning, I wish I had some good rat traps to put in my shoulder bag to catch the fingers of the bloody pick pockets.

Hi Dave in Maryland, good to see you catch up with me again. It’s been a while, Hi to Caleb too.

Monday 22nd June

Rove Prison planting out
Grasshopper on Helliconia leaf

I wish Bill Gates would get all the bugs out of stuff before MSN dump systems on people. IE8 is full of little quirks that really bug you if you have a lot of things you do online, copy/paste is only one of many. I’ve removed IE8, left IE7 on the HD, and installed Firefox. Once I get used to Firefox I’ll take IE7 off completely, do a big cleanup on the HD, I’ve got 45GB used already, ok, 30GB of it is music, and the other 10 is all the pictures gradually filling up the space.

Just got my copy of the VSA magazine, if anyone is interested http://www.vsa.org.nz/ will open the home page, and the magazine is online there. Plus you can read about VSA Volunteers and what everyone else is achieving while I’m here beating my head against the wall.

I’ve been trading emails most of the day, trying to convince people that laying off staff, and expecting the ones left to do the same amount of work is not going to work. If we had machinery it might be possible, but we rely on people power, even the road sweeping is done with brooms and shovels, not a powered road sweeper. It takes the crew 4 ½ days to sweep from Town ground, through Honiara and along the Prince Phillip Highway to King GeorgeVI School. About 12 miles I think. All done with brooms and a shovel and wheelbarrow.

I’m pleased I had the work at Rove Prison to keep me occupied, the guys are having a weeks break, and it’s only Monday and I’ve been trying to find things to do already. I’ve got one more side of the Gardens to walk the track on tomorrow with the Measuring Wheel, then draw a nice map with the distances marked and get it copied onto the Visitors Map Board.

My little corner shop is getting a lot more of my trade, I had a couple of hours off this afternoon, another power cut from 3pm till 5pm, so we called an early day, well I did anyway, Tiffany was going to wait in the Nursery for the truck to come back. I went into Wings, the “supermarket” checked the prices, and also into Ausmart. My corner shop is $2.50 cheaper for milk, $1 a kilo cheaper for rice, margarine, tinned stuff, even coffee is $15 per 250gram packet cheaper. If I shopped around a bit more I could probably do better, but I hate dragging around shops just to save $1 and ending up with several shopping bags half full of stuff.

We’re giving the two night security guys a months notice this week, with Forestry taking over the building we’re getting a container as a temporary home till the Nursery building is completed, and Forestry can take care of the security. One of them has been given a few written warnings anyway, arriving for work drunk, smashing the doors open because he forgot his keys, not turning up for work, all in all, he’s been the architect of his own problems.

I’ve got 2 weeks break coming up at the end of July, my 6 month get out of area break, and I’m totally undecided where to go. I could just about afford to get to Sydney, or Brisbane, Sydney would be good. If Louise Scott and Zambezi have a spare bit of floor, I could just about settle back into Bondi again. Last time I lived there was in 1970, I’ve been back a few times since, it has certainly changed from the seedy surfer full of kiwis lifestyle.
In all probability I’ll end up going to Gizo or maybe Rennel/Bellona. Ren/Bel would be good, I can visit Tiffany and Davids family there, and get really used to the Island lifestyle there. And it’s almost as far from Honiara as you can be in the Solomons, apart from Temotu. 18 hours on the ferry, then two main islands, Rennel, and Bellona, with a smattering of smaller ones around the edges. Rennel has the largest fresh water lagoon in the world, it’s now a World Heritage Listing, or is on the list to be made one, news travels slowly here. Tiffany says the Bellona is the better of the two islands, David argues for Rennel, so it’s easy to figure out where they come from.

Monday 22nd June

For some reason copy/paste isn't working yet in here. 2 pics of the cuscus to go on with while I sort the problem out.

Sorted, IE8 has a glitch that won't let you copy/paste, I'm downloading Firefox and swapping over. Removed IE8 and gone back to IE7 in the meantime till I get used to Firefox.

Friday 19th June

Another week over with, and still no further with what I’m actually meant to be doing. Tiffany and I took the final copy of the proposal for Japanese Grass Roots funding into the Japanese Consul this afternoon. If it’s accepted here, it then gets translated, and sent to Japan for approval, which could take 3 months from today. Then we can start working on the Nursery improvements.

I’ll have been here 9 months filling in time with other things, watching the time go by and getting totally frustrated. Everything we’ve done so far was all meant to have been finalised before I arrived, but the insistence on a truck being part of the funding cancelled any hope of the original proposal going through. And now that we have to have a building as part of it, both from our own necessity, and the Japanese insistence, a lot of the nursery equipment has had to be sacrificed to allow for the cost of the building. I still get the irrigation system though, and most of the security fence. So it’s not all bad.

We’re still being pushed to cut the wages down to $17,000 per month, and lay off staff. I’m going to wear the wages bit, I can be a bit bolshy about that, but if we get told to lay off staff I’ll be re-evaluating the role VSA should have with the SEB. We’re meant to be building self sufficiency and self determination, job skills etc, and putting people out of work doesn’t come into the equation.

I’ll go through the work book again Monday, sort out the contract work we get paid for, and all the unpaid work, thankfully it’s all on spreadsheet, so there’s not a lot to do, and we’ll go to a minimum work week, do the paid work only and any other work up to the wage limit, then stop. Keithie can’t grasp the concept that people still get paid, even if the work we do isn’t part of any contract. And the number of people on the crew is the minimum we need to cover all of the work. Ok, there are a couple we can get rid of and we’re working through the dismissal process with them, but if the crew get below 18 people, we won’t be able to cope with the paid work.

There’s a nice big editorial in the Solomon Star today, almost exactly what I wrote yesterday in here, about the fishmarket. Asking why it isn’t closed down, the threat to everyones health from the E-coli count, warning about typhoid, cholera etc, and putting peoples incomes before the majorities health. As Tiffany said, everything here is upside down, the fishmarket people are telling the Government and Health Authorities what to do, instead of following what the law says.

It’s a strange country to get used to. On Makira, there is no power now, because the land owners where the power generator is, have got a dispute with the power company over payment for the use of the land and river for the hydro generator. So they cut off the water supply to the dynamo. And because a lot of their wantok work for the ferry boat, they haven’t allowed any diesel to be delivered to run the diesel generators. Which cuts out the tourist places there till it’s all settled.

The guys who put the water flow meter into the stream at the Gardens ran into the same problem. All they put in is a pipe about 400mm diameter, about 2m high, into the stream bed. They can’t get to a few rivers because the land owners wanted SBD$1 million a year in rental for the use of the stream. About NZ$200K, AUD$175K, €100K, US$125K.



Sunday 21st June.

It’s Sunday evening, I’ve got over my anger about the Friday meeting, almost. Steve called in Saturday afternoon, I was in one of my anger displacement moods, the washing machine was going, I had bread rising, the floors were mopped, the music was on LOUD, Jonny Lang and early Jefferson Aiplane.

It took about 2 hours to get it to sound rational, I’m convinced now that SEB is not what VSA should be involved with. I’m meant to be doing all the catch phrase stuff, capacity building, promoting independence, strengthening employment, self determination, put the rest in whatever.

Instead, we have a situation where the person in charge, for all the good work that has been done, still considers the locals to be slightly deficient in ability, and totally incapable of being left on their own without the benevolent guiding hand of a white fella to keep it all under control. Oh for the days of Empire, when Britain ruled and the cute little fuzzy wuzzies were happy little children. I’ve been stewing all weekend over it, trying to write out something to give Steve for VSA.

I’ve got a work meeting in the morning, to let everyone know the current situation, by Friday I’ll have next months work roster drawn up, no free work, unless we have enough to cover the hours.

I’m trying to be positive about it all, caught up with David at work this morning, I know, it’s Sunday, but we both go in at weekends unpaid anyway, and told him again to talk about forming his own company with Tiffany and taking over the contracts next year when they come up.

On a more positive note, the scout camp at the gardens the weekend went well, they caught a small cuscus and kept it for me till this morning, so I finally got some pics of one. Very similar to a NZ possum, but with a log naked tail. Cute little thing, if it hadn’t bitten me as I was putting it back in the breadfruit tree I’d probably have liked it a lot more.

Another tourist got robbed in the Central Markets again last week, well, not in the Market proper, but the thieves ran into the Market, and when she caught up with them, they just laughed at her and walked away. Her watch and bag had been long disposed of or passed around before she caught up with them, so the Police couldn’t do anything without any real evidence. American student here doing a wild bird study for Dept of Conservation. Needless to say, there is another nail in the coffin of the fledgling tourist industry here.

The beggars and petty thefts are getting worse lately. I had another beggar track me for 3 days till he found my house. I’d seen him at the corner shop about Wednesday evening on my way home, then Thursday he was at the top corner of the road, waiting to see which way I turned I guess, then Friday he was further up the road at the Ba’hai turnoff, and Saturday he was doorknocking on my house asking for money for his sons school fees. With the usual story about how the last white person that lived here used to give him the money for carvings etc, and wanting $700 for this terms fees. I finally got rid of him, but he’s not convinced I’m here on volunteers income, and not RAMSI or Consultants wages. It’s becoming worse in town now, I try to get my shopping done and get out as fast as possible. Too many people just standing around watching where your wallet gets put, what goes into your bags etc. The good thing is being without a haircut for six months, I don’t look like any of the RAMSI or Consultants, and there are a few people I recognise on the streets as well. Still doesn’t feel safe though, especially Central Market.

To counter that though, the ANZ hole in the wall swallowed my card on Saturday morning, and refused to give it back, after hitting all the buttons, and saying a few choice words in pijin and english, with a bit of the gaelige thrown in, I walked off, got the truck and for some reason went back to see if by chance it had regurgitated my card. About 5 – 10 minutes I guess. I got there, and a woman who had been in the que came up, with my card, and said it had spat it out a little while after I left, and if I hadn’t come back, she was going to drop it into the bank on Monday. Restored my faith in everything again.

Steve feels it is only a matter of time before it all turns upside down again, next years elections may be the catalyst, or it may happen sooner. Unemployment in Honiara is 80% for the people under 25, no one has done a survey on the older people, the schools track pupils for some time after they leave, then it all get lost in the paperwork. Having continual power cuts, a dodgy water supply that isn’t always available, no real infrastructure, roads etc, and a lot of misused or ill advised aid provinces away from Honiara. It’s a lot safer out there than in this dysfunctional town.

If anyone reads the Solomon Star, www.solomonstarnews.com there is a good front page story about what happens here with intertribal murders for Saturdays edition. There was a man killed in Kabia Heights in Honiara last month, kwaso related, and the two families have been feuding ever since. It’s been settled with the payment of 45 heaps of shell money, and $20,000 cash from the Manafiu tribe on Malaita, to the Saena’a tribe of Kwara’ae as blood money to buy the debt of the murder. The person who killed the man is still in Rove Prison awaiting trial, but the feuding has stopped without anyone else being killed.

There’s a good pic of the heaps of shell money in the paper, I have no idea about the $ value, I’ll ask at work what each heap would be worth or could buy on Malaita. I know bride price can get to 100 heaps of shell money and over $30,000 in cash.. Weddings there if they are tribal, have “red” money payments. The Solomon $100 dollar note is red, and they get pinned up around the feast area for the wantok members to help themselves to, as a gift from the grooms family. The last wedding I heard about, about 2 months back, cost the groom $30,000, in “red” money alone for the feast, as well as the bride price paid to start with.

We had a group of Temotuan people go missing early this month. Eight of them, a couple of priests, and others sailing a traditional catamaran from Utuapa to Anuta when they lost a steering oar, and drifted under sail to Vanuatu. Good sized catamaran though, sleeping and cooking room on board, so they were reasonably ok for 15 days till they arrived in Vanuatu yesterday. It’s always funny to read about it here, it’s such a common occurrence, that there isn’t much written about it, no headlines screaming “Survivors of Ordeal” “15 days Lost At Sea Victims” etc. When you see the distances they sail or paddle in dugout canoes and the totally casual way of life here, they could be missing for months and still not get more than a slap from their partners for being late home with the fish.

I noticed on Savo how easy it is to sail to the other islands here. Although the islands proper are mostly below the horizon, even more so at sea level in a canoe, there is always a tall cumulous cloud over each bit of land, no matter the size. It’s just a matter of heading in the general direction using the current or wind, and you’ll strike land eventually