A Soloman’s home is his castle…

Two extremely blurry days after landing on island soil, I am taken (with slight trepidation) to see the house I’ll be staying in for my time here. Getting there involves a 20 minute rodeo ride up a track winding up the hillside immediately above Honiara. Within minutes of leaving the dusty bustle of the town I am suddenly transported into the reality of tropical island life. Greenery exploding on all sides, an abundance of fruit trees, and rickety wooden huts with traditional thatched roofs scattered around, nestled comfortably in their environment resting on wobbly stilts.

At the top of the “rocky road” (as Luke - deputy head of the economics department - dubbed it), are the CBSI staff residential quarters and mi casa (see photo), which exceeds all my expectations. It is a three-room wooden bungalow just like all the others in the area, but unlike everyone else my wantak are about 10,000 miles away so I have it all to myself and have masses of space. There is also a wooden porch and large garden complete with fruit trees which Vincent (head of the economics department) points out as mine. These include: 5 banana trees, a couple of papaya trees (which are massive so to get the fruit I’ll either have to shin up myself - not appealing at all -, hire a local pikinini or import a foreign technical specialist – Spence?), 2 guava trees, 1 mango tree, 2 trees whose fruit I couldn’t identify and various pineapple plants. I find myself gazing at them all each morning, wondering when the hell those fruit will ripen.

But best of all is to be part of such a lovely community. Everyone is absolutely heart-warmingly sweet-natured, and each household overflowing with pikininis who roam and play in big bunches with seemingly no restrictions on property. Returned from work yesterday to find 5 wee lads playing practically under my porch, and it seems a tiny wee pup from next door sleeps on my porch each night as when I open the curtains each morning it jumps up startled and wobbles off. The ultimate “mi casa es tu casa” society, which suits me just fine.