Mifela Save Tok Pijin Lilibit Nomoa

The kids all seem to be developing some Solomon Islanderisms to their lanaguage. Tobias's new words over the last couple of weeks reflect his everyday experiences and include gecko, mosquito,turtle, mummy's work, swimming pool, laplap (sarong), Cathy, Max. He also relishes saying Jack - his new cousin's name!!! He now identifies pictures of oranges as pawpaws and apples as mangoes so is amazing how quickly your world view can change!!!

Poppy fancies herself as a bit of a pijin speaker much to the amusement and delight of the locals. Is a bit rough but am sure her confidence will pay off as she's not at all scared to give it a go.

I find I have to flit between English and Pijin most days at work. I'm slowly weeding out the PNG pidgin and replacing it with the SI version. I'm still pretty rusty at best but we're getting there. The biggest challenge is to understand it when SIers speak to each other - I find it near impossible at times but not sure if that's the speed of speech or the different sense of humour they have!!!

The Village Visit

Mabel and her Granny making a coconut broom. Granny's tshirt was put on for for the photo!!

After out exhausting climb

The view on our way down


Millie always seems to be able to hitch a ride up the hill!!!Sharing a coconut with Clement out guide

Maravagi Resort

As its the school holidays we decided to head away for the weekend. Maravagi Resort is the closest place of choice for most expats. To call it a resort probably leads you to think something reasonably flash. Rustic and basic is a better description more on par with camping. That aside ita great spot with heaps of tropical fish that swim right up to the dining room/restaurant window, beautifully scenery, warm tropical water and friendly hosts. The food is fabulous too.

The trip over takes 90 minutes in a banana boat. I found it a little hair raising but was rewarded with the sighting of a couple of whales and some dolphins, along with dozens of flying fish. To be honest we didn't see much more than a spout, flick of a tail and hump of a back with the whales and dolphins but the flying fish were amazing. They come zooming out of the water at high speed and literally fly through the air for up to 75 metres with their little fins fanned out like wings. Apparently its their escape route when being chased by bigger fish and I suppose frightened by our boat. Counting flying fish is a nice variation to counting cows something we have done between Taupo and Tauranga on occasions!!!!

We took a trip to another island to visit a village and see their sacrificial site - where they use to chop off enemies heads who were foolish enough to get caught. Actually the walk up the steep hill in ridiculously hot temperatures seemed punishment enough for me - chopping heads seemed a little bit of an overkill. Got beautiful views from the top and was interesting to learn about plants, tabu sites etc.

Poppy did her first real snorkling and was buzzed out by the magical world. That and the mosquito nets were enough for the girls to think they were in fairy land. Playing in the tropical rain storm was another fun moment!!!

Friends

We have met some wonderful people here.

Yesterday we went out for the day with the family of one of Poppy's friends from school. Jimmy, the Dad is also the kids PE teacher at school and is a fabulous guy. Tobias loves to join in the Kindy PE lessons. ( Tobias gets called "Toby-us" here! and interestingly I have come across 2 Solomon Islanders called Tobias already!!) Tammy works for customs and helped us import our new car. Was lovely to spend the day with them and get to know their family better.

Tammy is going to teach Poppy and her 2 girls custom dancing on Wednesdays. They start this week with a dance called the Bilikiki.

As you can see from the photos we soon attracted a crowd of kids from the local village who were very keen to try out the kayaks.

Spot our Sporty Chicken Legs

Poha Wins the Day!!!

Today was the much heralded sports carnival. Hrs of practice marching, chant learning and sports training came to fruition on a very hot muggy day. The girls had a great day, Poppy came second in her heat, Millie ran like the wind and even Carl's parent relay and tug a war won!!!

Was lots of fun and I even managed to pop down from work for a while to watch.

Despite limited success in the past our house Poha won the day.

The favourite chant for the team was:

Sliding down a waterfall

Landing on a cactus

We can do anything without any practice.

We're rough, we're tough

We're hard to buff,

So come on Poha show your stuff!!!!

Who makes up these things you ask!!!!!!

One day to go and its holidays!!! Yay

Festus, Freda & Family

A Family Day Out

A Family Day Out

Today 17 of us piled - literally - into our 2 cars and headed to the beach for the day. Cathy's family rarely gets out of Honiara as they have no vehicle and in fact during the ethnic tensions nobody could drive out of Honiara so they hadn't been to the beach for years - and never been to Bonege......so off we headed with BBQ plate, firewood, kayaks, 5 adults, 5 teen agers and 6 kids and 1 baby and a picnic of rice, cassava, sausages, watermelon and Carl's birthday cake!!!

What a ball everyone had. The kids of course are great paddlers from time in the village so headed off doing crazy things in the kayaks, even Mum - Freda had a ride on one and a swim. Was just great for the kids to get out and have fun as most Saturdays are spent at the house hanging around or sleeping.

Took lots of photos to record the day as photos are a rare thing here and then finished the day by taking a family photo of Festus and Freda and their kids.

Hopefully this will be the first of many fun Saturdays together

Disco Queens

Last night was the school Disco. Of course these events are so much easier to organise and execute when you have a beautiful tropical evening. Was held outside in the school grassy courtyards where the lovely leaf haus's are. All the kids had a ball - great music no crazy chicken or Bob the Builder in site!!!!





Millie won the 3-4 year old dancing competiton...way to go girl I say!!! She got a great prize of fake girls lego!!! (incidentally all brands are fake here - I bought some great Celvin Klain - yes that's how they spell it - undies the other day for $1.

The school has very active and enthusiastic parents and staff. Next week is the school sports carnival inter house competition. Quite a full on event - the kids have been learning house chants and marching for weeks. We are Poha house which is green so will let you know how we go next week!!!! Have green face paint ready to go!!!!

Busy Weekend

We have just come off a very busy but fun weekend. Due to a bit of bad management and planning on our part we had 5 events. Friday night we had our security guard party, Saturday we had a get together with a whole lot of other families to celebrate a birthday, Saturday night my boss and his wife Mike and Ingrid came for dinner, Sunday Carl had a fishing trip out to the Florida Islands with a couple of guys he has met when showing somelocal guys how to weld, and then Sunday afternoon we met a couple of families at the local hotel for a swim. Sometimes it feels like we know on one here and then other times like this weekend you realise your social life isn't too bad.

In addition to all that we managed to pick up our new vehicle that we imported from Japan basically as it rolled off the ship.

This photo is at the pool with Poppy's friend Angela. Her family are with the Taiwanese embassy and have had a fasinating life moving postings between West Africa, Pacific and Europe. Next year they will either be moving to Vietnam or India. I'm amazed at families and kids who can move so many times and be so well adjusted.

Poppy and Angela are great mates.....cultural barriers seem to vanish

Friends to Play

Cathy's little brother and sister Junior and Frelis came to play this week and became instant best friends with Millie and TO. Their Dad Festus helped Carl put up a TV aerial so we can get a bit of TV - BBC news and ABC - Asian. Not great viewing but hoping we might see the odd World Cup Match.

Solomon Islanders are big soccer fans and were hoping their National Team would win the South Pacific Games. To a Nations disappointment they were knocked out yesterday in the Semi finals so all focus has turned to the All Blacks compaign. They are huge All Black fans!!!

Securiti Gard Pati

Just the pics of Max, Stephen, Robert, Thomas, Timothy and Peter.

Incidentally Dad (Muz) some of these guys are from Nafanua and recognised their home area from your photos!!

Securiti Gard Pati

Today we organised a party for our security guards. We have 6 guys who rotate through the job of looking after our property 24/7. Its pretty unnecessary but a mandatory part of working for Ramsi. Plus of course it gives 6 guys a job, even if it is terribly paid. Currently their employer is ripping them off paying them 1/3 of what RAMSI has agreed to so Carl has taken it on to sort out. Hopefully we can get them what they are entitled to.

They're a gr8 bunch who are between them very hilarious, shy, intense and generous. Our car gets washed at least daily, gardens weeded, grounds swept, kids played with....and none of that is in their job description.

Just to say thanks we invited them for a BBQ and movie. It was vey humbling when one came with gifts for the kids and the head guy gave a little speech about how no one they had ever worked for had invited them into their house or shared a meal with them. These are guys who earn 40cents/hr when I am earn at least 200x more!! Its a screwy world. ...all the more evident when you are confronted with the extremes.

The expat community (particularly the RAMSI community) here stick very much together and don't mix outside their group. It takes a real decision to close the door to those friendships and invest your time in building relationships with locals. The popular line of course is that locals feel too uncomfortable coming into our homes because we have so much in comparison. What a load of crock!!!! I don't buy that at all. Everyone appreciates friendship, hospitality and generosity of spirit.

We had a great night sharing around a meal together, learning about each others's lives and homes and watching Shrek - although to be honest they missed most of the one liners!!!! The girls loved being the waitresses and friendships were forged.

You are confronted with challenges here living between an expat and local communities. Still working out what being counter culture in this environment means!!!!
Well that's my rave for the night

PS: Promised I would put all their photos on the internet to make them world famous in NZ!!!

Two months on..

Well we have been in Honiara for over 2 months now and everyone is settled into a happy routine. The kids are happy at school and Kindy so Carl is now able to drop and run each morning. Tobias is happy to stay with Kathy if Carl requires it.

Carl has had 4 pidgin lesson but is a bit reticent to practice so I suspect progress will be slow. At school next term Poppy will have to start to learn a 2nd language - pidgin being an option - so there may be a bit of competition between father and daughter.

Carl of course is missing flying but hopefully over time an opprotunity will come up for him. This weekend half a dozen tuna boats were in Port will with spotter helicopter's on board so no shortage of machines around to get your fix from!!!

My work is endlessly unpredictable. Each week the Department seems to lurch from one crisis to the next. Last week a number of staff were suspended or sacked for a number of offences including, stealing $2million from the cashroom, lighting a fire in the office that destroyed documents and one wall, bringing prostitutes in the office over the weekend, and using a taxpayers refund cheque to buy beer!!! As we went into the weekend another case of missing cash was revealed in one of the provincial offices.

In addition to that I continue to find LARGE piles of unactioned work from the last 7 years. During the ethnic tensions large numbers of people in Honiara were chased back to their villages and government department processes basically fell over. Things are pretty much a shambles and is difficult to forge a path through it all that balances old work, current risks and future planning.

The morale challenges of poverty are ever present and it is difficult to work out what role you should or shouldn't play in it all. For example our security guards who are provided for us and paid for as part of RAMSI earn $88/week or $18NZ. Even with the simplest lifestyle they can't survive on it. Most people survive on rice as a staple diet but that wouldnt even buy a bag of rice for the week.

So are we enjoying ourselves??? Yes, yes, and yes. Of course the kids ask when we are going back to Taupo regularly but they are happy, well settled and both seem to be growing heaps in experiences at school. Poppy's reading, spelling and general school work is doing great. She's getting confident with computers as they have a computer suite the class visits each week.

Millie loves Kindy and has 2 lovely Solomon Island teachers. There are heaps of nice little girls in her class from all over the place.....

.....and everyday in Solomons is a great day to be at the beach as they photos from this morning show.