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.