There are carols by torchlight at Lawson Tama stadium tonight (we saw the RAMSI chopper go over to deliver Santa Clause). Given the propensity of Solomon Islanders to burn things (particularly buildings – like they did whilst rioting in China town a couple of weeks ago), the carols are by torchlight…it removes the temptation of the flame. Apparently a few years ago Santa started delivering gifts to small pikininis and within minutes got tackled by small pikininis and had his sack ransacked. Now they have RAMSI security for Santa and ho ho ho ho helpem fren elves to keep the pikininis at bay. How’s that for Christmas cheer?
Edward, Richard and I arrived at the Pacific Casino last night and there was a hissing sound…”what’s that noise?” said Edward and I almost simultaneously looking at the front tractor tyre. “Just the sprinkler system” says Richard. Edward and I walked around to the other side of the tractor and voila, one hissing tyre rapidly deflating…
Although thumbs up to Richard who had the genius idea of leaving it there for the night and getting a random betel nut stall holder to change it for SBD20 (about $3) in the morning!
After getting home at 4am on Saturday morning, I don’t know that I was quite ready for the dizzying feats of Adventure Sunday but somehow I made it through the wilderness.
Adam, Belinda and I went diving at 7am at Benegi II (where there’s a great wreck and I saw a massive puffer fish), then out to breakfast at the Lime. Then we went for a hot, muddy and treacherous walk up to a waterfall at Matanico at the back of Chinatown, went swimming in freezing waterholes, then climbed down the waterfall and came back via the river (half swimming, half walking). I’m sure we all nearly lost a limb (or possibly a life) dozens of times and I was absolutely shattered by the time we got back at mid-afternoon. The things you do. Sigh. But gosh it was fun.
The tractor has had a slow leak in the back tyre, so on Friday I took it to get fixed. They also fixed the spare. At about 5 o’clock, while on my way home to get ready for the Christmas party, I got the feeling that there was something wrong with the front tyre. So I pulled over and sure enough it was flat. What are the odds of that happening?
It being Friday, naturally there was no mobile reception from (y)our Telecom so I couldn’t ring anyone for help. Fortunately I was on the main road, near the turn off to Belinda’s place and I knew she’d be coming home soon as she was picking me up. Well she did drive past – straight past, despite my desperate attempts to flag her down.
So then it started raining. A lot. I just stood there forlornly until a kindly police prosecutor came to my rescue. He asked if I had a spare – I did! He asked me what my plan was and I told him my plan was to stand there until some kindly soul such as him inevitably came by to help. So we got filthy dirty and sweaty and wet changing the tyre and I got home with just enough time to shower and change for the party.
Well, you’ll never guess who I had lunch with in the Lime Lounge today…the pirate of Gizo! He just turned up – maybe he got shipwrecked or something.
When Paul Keating visited the Solomon Islands in the 90s he famously exclaimed: “Stop cutting all the f***ing trees down!“.
When I got home tonight I muttered the very same phrase – I think they’re making way for telegraph poles in our street, but it’s heartbreaking to see these hundreds of years old trees attacked by chainsaws.
Belinda stood me up for a run last night. Well, that’s not entirely true – she tried to call to say she couldn’t make it, but Your Telecom, as the only telco service provider here is fallaciously called, always ceases to function on a Friday rendering phone, e-mail and mobile communication impossible, so I didn’t get the message.
I sat at home for half an hour in my gym gear until I decided she probably wasn’t going to show. It’s a tad dangerous here in the hood in Vura II (burnt out cars, aimless youths, that kind of thing) so I didn’t like to go alone, so I decided that I should take Jessica-Susan with me. She was most excited about this.
Solomon Islanders are generally very afraid of dogs, so when they saw a whitey and a very healthy big black dog running along, they parted like the Red Sea. I tried to keep J-S on a very short leash, close to me so they’d see she was under my control, and stay on the side of the road with the least people, but we caused a very big stir. While they were afraid, they were still curious and J-S and I got more “evening!”s than I’ve ever got before with Belinda. I’ve never felt so popular…or so safe! Then when we got to the park some of the pikininis from across the road were there playing soccer and they were very excited to see us and yelled out “Jesse!” and ran along beside us. They wanted to come and pat her but were too afraid and asked me “Hem save bite?” It was quite an adventure and boy was there one pooped pooch at the end.
Today was a very exciting day for me – I finally scored a Census 2009 t-shirt! Now I can kaountim everiwan! It was especially fun at pijin class because I got to answer all the questions about what I had done at work that day as if I was wanfala enumerator instead of wanfala loia and tell everyone how my day was counting people in their houses!
Adam and Belinda had had a bet about who could score one of these t-shirts first – they’re in short supply as not enough were printed. Last night they found some drunken enumerator in a bar and hit him up for a t-shirt. He said he had a spare one at home and would gladly give it up…for Belinda’s phone number! She’s a trooper and will do almost anything to win a bet, so bingo, I arrived at the Lime to find two grinning maniacs and a Census t-shirt present for me (it seems I am the most excited by the Census 2009 slogan – I don’t know what that says about me, but let’s move on shall we?).
I was a little worried as the delightful elderly NZ Census officials I’d made friends with in Kira Kira had explained to me that I could not have a t-shirt as there were none to spare as enumerators need to have two shirts so they can alternate – wear one, wash one…but Adam, Belinda and Carla assured me that the guy definitely smelt like he’d been wearing the same shirt for at least a month and he obviously didn’t need a spare. I also learned that he’d already called Belinda about 10 times that day wanting to meet up.
Of course I immediately put the t-shirt on and was most happy…until one of the delightful NZ Census officials came up and whispered that she was going to perform a citizen’s arrest on me for wearing stolen goods and impersonating an enumerator. Whoops!
Kate and I just got interviewed for the Solomon Island Census 2009 – there have been Kountim mi, kountim iu, kountim eviriwan! posters up all over town.
The numerator was very, very nervous when faced with two white girls, no husbands, no pikinis and one very black pooch – he’d come especially on a Sunday because all the neighbours had told him that the white girls on top of the hill aren’t home during the weekdays. He very earnestly told me it was the first time he’d ever heard of the “agnostic” religion, so I very straight-facedly spelt it for him.
He was so embarrassed about asking some of the questions (about how we support ourselves etc), that at one point he nervously paused and couldn’t quite bring himself to ask the next question – so Kate kindly pre-empted it and said “mitufala no garem eni pikininis” which was a great relief to him and allowed him to cross off quite a few boxes on his census form! I tried to get Jessica-Susan included in the stats – if she was a pikinini, a pigpig or a chicken, she would have rated a mention, but dogs don’t count (apart from to fearim wanfala censusman)!
I’ve just been in Makira province for 3 days. Kira Kira is the provincial capital and it was lovely small seaside village – but damn hot! I have to admit I haven’t been feeling too flash (on antibiotics for a sore throat/chest infection – one of the delights of Honiara-living apparently) and trying to work while it’s so hot that sweat is dripping down your legs (while still sneezing and being congested) wasn’t too fun at all, but I managed to keep up the enthusiasm and then crash for 12 hours sleep each night – so much so that I didn’t even notice that there were ants in my bed. I’ve also been bitten by something nasty on my wrist (everyone reckons it looks like a spider bite – there was a massive one in the bathroom, but who knows) which is all blistered over – luckily it doesn’t hurt. It’s very red and ugly looking, though, so I’ve been keeping it covered as everyone who sees it goes “ew!”. Now I know how the lepers feel.
I had to speak lots of pijin so that was good for me and they appreciate you trying and enjoy laughing at your mistakes! On my last night, one of the officers decided to cook me a farewell dinner…now Operation Lobsterani has come a long way, but it does not extend to appreciating 4pm fly-ridden tuna fish (as in it’s been sitting at the market all day) put in a curry…ew! Being the only whitefala, I also had to pay for the privilege, but I appreciated the kindness of it all. I figured I was already feeling so ill and looking so skanky with such a feral sore on my wrist, that what did a little food poisoning matter…I did politely decline seconds though, mi fullup!
I was supposed to fly out at 9.30am directly to Honiara, but the Commandant came to fetch me in a panic at 6.45 as Solomon Airlines changed the schedule – so I shoved everything in a bag (including some famous Kira Kira bananas and inkori fruit I was just tucking into), jumped on the back of the truck and raced to the airport for a weigh in just in the nick of time. Then I randomly bumped into a woman I knew from Phnom Penh, Isabelle, getting off the plane to do some work for World Vision which was a bit strange! Once on board the plane, they announced that the flight was going to go to Santa Ana and then back to Kira Kira before leaving for Honiara so I ended up finally leaving Kira Kira at the appointed time of 9.30am anyway, but with a bonus trip to Santa Ana and back thrown in!
Belinda kindly sent my own private Adam to meet me at the airport with her car (and a chocolate bar!) and I was driven straight to the Lime Lounge for a real coffee, which was well-earned by that stage.
Recent Comments