A Lesson in Motu Making

To celebrate Christmas with our friends we had a motu making lesson. Motu is the Solomon Islands version of a hangi usually cooked above ground with hot rocks and everything wrapped in banana palms. Is a lot faster than a hangi as it only takes 1 -2 hrs to cook..

In the photo I am learning the finer art of scrapeing cassava to make cassava pudding. The precooked version can be seen wrapped up like a parcel behind Tobias...who is busy munching on sugar cane!!!

Promise any visitors will now be treated to a Thurston Motu!!!!!!!

Wishing you Happy Christmas

Carols in the Islands

Last night was the inaugral Carols in the Islands, kind of a Christmas in the Park.

It had all the normal ingredients, glow sticks, Christms Carols, choirs and bands, Santa arriving by chopper, AND a few Honiara special items like Kiwi Ramsi soldiers with machine guns, and kids who had never seen Father Christmas before so didn't have the normal jaded attitude to the man in the red suit.

Was a great night actually - we got to sit on real soft grass ( a big novelty here) at the soccer stadium, and enjoy the evening with a bunch of kiwi and Solomon Island friends.

My favourite moment however had to be when the MC made the announcement to all the Emergencey Department Nurses (Hospital is across the road) to get back to work please as they were needed back at the hospital!!!! Nothing like sherking your responsibilities in the spirit of Christmas ay!!

Compound 75 Christmas Party

Well Christmas seems to be fast approaching...even in the distant isles of the Solomons. We decided to take the Compound 75 guys to the beach for our Christmas Do!! We headed 5- 10 minutes out of town to the beach we have been to numerous times. Only 1 had ever been out of town West and that was before the ethnic tensions. During the tensions if they had headed that way they could possibly have been attacked and killed....so it was all new territory and real treat.

I cooked the meat over the fire, Robert climbed a coconut tree to tie us a great rope swing and we all enjoyed the swimming and kayaks.

So what do you buy security guards for Christmas - well our Christmas gifts are likely to include 10kg of rice, a carton of tin tuna, a carton a hard biskits and soap!!!! The shopping trolley is filled with very simple things here!!!

Management Agenda for the Week

Sometimes as we sit around at the Management Meeting we are bemused about the range of things we end up having to discuss.
This week the topics included toilet paper and riots!!
1. Toilet Paper.
The toilets at work are horrific....no seats, no soap, often no water, no toilet paper but plenty of odour!!! You have to bring your own loo paper from home but not everyone plans ahead so all sorts is used!!!!
Anyway even for the hardy it got all a bit much this week...so a plumber has been called in. I ended up buying 48 rolls of loo paper for my teams but of course you can't just put it out for use as it will walk...... we now have toilet paper monitors!!!

2. Riots
After a month of no majority government ( and 3 different Ministers of Finance!!!) and the PM doing all he can to keep the Parliament from sitting to avoid a vote of no confidence, we think they may be sitting next Thursday. The numbers are very tight with the kingmaker(to use a Winstonian term) being Sir Alan (our Savo Island Host) who has just been sentenced to prison for 5 months for inciting arson!! Apparently even in prison he is eligible to vote so will get transported from prison to parliament by police!!! Sometimes is is hard to believe what happens as everyday stuff.
Anyway everyone is on riot alert..plans in place....just is case...At the Ministry of Finance buildings we are high risk as the Prime Minister shares our compound. Will be interesting to see what eventuates..hopefully any change of government will be without event. This country could well do without another clean up job after the Tsunami and Riots of last year.

Bye bye to Mrs Hewetson

Today was the farewell class party to Mrs Hewetson, Poppy's teacher. Mrs Hewetson is my boss Mike's wife so has been lovely for Poppy to have her as a teacher. Ingrid is a fabulous lady, and great value. We enjoy her company and Poppy enjoyed being in her class.

The Hewetson's return back to NZ at the end of January - we will all miss them alot.

Woodford Carols by Candlelight

School finishes next Thursday and the Woodford Finale for the year is the Carols by Candlelight Evening which was held this evening. All the kids perform in their classes and have been practising for weeks.
Millie was a somewhat coy kindy star playing "mummy" who kissed Santa claus underneath the mistletoe!!!! A peck on the hand and tickle under the chin was all this santa got to enjoy!!!

IRD Christmas Party

IRD staff are pretty good at putting on a Christmas Party. This year the venue was the beach, and the menu a roast pig, 10 chickens, 5 fish, carton of sausages and 20kg of rice. Alot of the meat is cooked by 2 -3 of the women and in normal BBQ style the rest is cooked over an open fire, men with beer in hand supervising the proceedings. Amazing how 10kg each of sausages and chicken pieces and 5 large fish can be cooked over an open fire with hot plate. Makes our gas BBQ seem somewhat superfluous.

Normal debates over ratio of beer to softdrinks - funny how softdrink drinkers only need 2 drinks but beer drinkers need at least 10!!!

Very few staff have cars so much of the morning is spent transporting food and people around from work and home to the venue.

Was great to be able to meet everyone's partners and kids.

Was a great event, ample food and beer and a beautiful afternoon.

Heading towards Christmas

Howard and Jill left today heading to the Sunshine Coast for the rest of their holiday. Was nice to be able to introduce them to our life here, so they have a better appreciation of what life in Honiara is like - the highs and lows.
The kids enjoyed the attention and fun of having grandparents around.

Now the count down is on for the end of school in 2 1/2 weeks and then Christmas and a holiday in Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast. Most of the staff at IRD starte heading off for 6 ++ weeks leave from early December so things grind to a standstill. There is very little evidence of Christmas here though - the commercialisation of Christmas just doesnt exist. Not sure if I am looking forward to doing ALL my Christmas shopping on the 2 days I have in Brisbane before Christmas !!!!

Savo and Beyond

After a very wet arrival in Savo we had a lovely relaxing weekend which included walking to some thermal areas (dramatically called the Volcano walk) and some totally fabulous dolphin spotting. Pretty hard to get any decent pictures but did get one mid flight as proof. Probably 40 or so large dolphins swimming with our boat, jumping and dancing right next to us...magical.

Sunday we went visiting the local village but ended up taking refuge in their little ramshackle church with a pile of local kids because of more downpours of rain. ..yes seems the rainy season might have arrived here.

The trip home was another white knuckle experience but we did manage another cool moment when a large marine turtle popped its head up next to us before swimming off.

Sunset Lodge where we stayed is owned by Sir Alan Kemakaza, a former SI Prime Minister. Sir Alan and his wife Lady Jocelyn are lovely hosts and have a fabulous team of girls who provide great meals, clean up after the kids and generally keep the kids happy and entertained. Sir Alan is currently embroiled in the political crisis with both sides claiming he has signed his support with them. All we could get from Sir Alan was "don't believe everything you read in the paper" which has to be an understatement of the year for here!!

Each day the paper is full of full page ads- some paid for by the Government and some the Opposition - accusing each other of all sorts of crimes of fraud and corruption. I don't think people really care too much about the substance of the claims anymore..they just want to know who really has the numbers to rule.

The RAMSI helicopters are back in force this week flying low over the city with armed police and army hanging out the side..just a less than subtle reminder to everyone that they are around.

Nan & Grandad at Savo Island

BEFORE

DURING

AFTER

Thought it would be nice for Howard and Jill to get out of Honiara for a few days while they were here, so we headed off to Savo. Now every boat trip to Savo has tested the nerves and been pretty exciting - this one was no exception.

Hope you like these snaps:

Will post more pics of the weeekend soon!!!

PS: In case you are wondering where Carl is during the trip - yes hiding in the boat's cabin!!!

So what do you do at work Sharron?????

Thought you might be interested in some of the crazy stuff that comes my way at work!!!

Today we had a visit from a Indonesian guy who wanted us to consider selling fake residency letters for international yacht crewmen. There are a whole myriad of tax issue for these guys as they travel the world working, but this scamer thought we may like a new stream of income for the government by creating a type of tax haven for these workers. For a set up front annual tax payment ( scam fee!!!) we could give them fake residency letters that "may" help them avoid tax anywhere in the world. They probably wouldnt be worth the paper they were written on but may have kept some tax adminstrations at bay. Needless to say we told him we weren't interested but he will probably go over our head and someone above us may think it is a legitimate income stream for a country desperate for revenue...and if not this country I suppose he will find somewhere obscure that will do it!!!

7 days in Solomon Island Politics!!!

Seven days is a long time in Solomon Island Politics!! A week ago our Minister was demoted for political reasons so led a charge to overthrow the government. In the last week most MP's have moved to and throe between the government and oppostion, vying for power, position and money. Is near impossible to know who has the numbers or where things we end up...but as is often the case in Melanesian politics the longer they have to lobby the stronger the government's position to win back the numbers. It would seem that $$$ are all that is necessary to dissolve opposition. Now we have the crazy position where the government has even managed to convince some of their old foes that they have previously deposed from power back into the fold. Is really a very sad state of affairs for the general population and future of the country.

We have a new Finance Minister who has recently been convicted of corruption but ended up getting off being sentenced on a technicality. Apparently if you are a MP you aren't a public servant so can't be convicted of defrauding public funds.

Is very unsettling times for all Solomon Islands and those of us who are guests in this beautiful country

So far the antics have been limited to the politicians and the general public is playing a wait and see game....they are a very tolerant and long suffering population!!!

On a lighter note we have 3 new fluffy family members...Blue, Fuzz and Sugarplum!!! Sorry about the names...I had nothing to do with it and by the time I got home from work it was signed and sealed. Names aside they are very cute little chickens that Carl bought from a village out of town. We hope they may supply us with eggs in due course...but the jury is still out on whether they are girls or boys!!!!!

Millie spent the morning with Nan at the local Childrens Day celebration where her Kindy was set up as model demonstration. Crowds of people, stinking hot but think she survived and enjoyed the mornings activities.

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Rain, rain, rain!!!!

The last 36 hrs has seen endless torrential rain and cool weather. Any drainage here is usually clogged with vegetation and rubbish so roads and backyards quickly become riverways As most of the roads are dirt or coral they quickly deteriorate into muddy traps!!

During the break from the rain me and the kids decided to go out for a muddy walk.
We weren't disapppointed!!! Half way through the sky opened again and we quickly took refuge on a school verandah!

A couple more Birthday Girl Pics!!

Nan and Grandad in Honiara

We are enjoying having Nan and Grandad to stay with us. They are our first Kiwi visitors and it has been fun showing them around and sharing our life in Honiara with them.
Today we headed out to East Guadacanal for a look at rural life and stopped at this river for a snack. We were soon joined by a crowd of kids, and a few extended families who had driven down to the river for their weekend ritual of a river car wash!!!

Usually when you stop anywhere people will turn up ready to charge you $$$$. By the time we'd shared our food and drink with the kids and taken their photos with the promise of bringing them copies back they must have decided against the "river fee"!!!

Where ever we go we take photos of the kids and then promise to bring them back copies of the pictures. We now have 4 piles of prints waiting for return trips!!!