Political Crisis...

Since Monday 12th November, the same day that I last wrote something here (purely coincidental I hope), the political system of the Solomon Islands has been in utter turmoil. The trigger was a mass resignation of MPs from Government, followed in the days after by acrimony, corruption allegations and counter-allegations, and general 'handbags at dawn'-type behaviour. We were treated to the dignified spectacle of long-standing and hitherto vehemently anti-government opposition MPs whizzing across the floor to join the government to take up vacant positions as Ministers, and the vacant seat behind the wheel of a nice shiny Hilux, while lots of MPs even switched sides twice. I don’t really wish to go into detail about where I stand on this issue, but suffice it to say that my already pretty cynical attitude to the functioning of ‘democracy’ in the Solomon Islands has now hardened to the point of despair. And instead I will let the headlines of the Solomon Star tell the story:

The action kicks off...

PM SOGAVARE TOLD TO GO
Mon 12th November

SOLOMON Islands has plunged into a political crisis following the mass resignation of government ministers and backbenchers yesterday.Twelve members of the ruling government deserted Prime Minister Manasseh at the weekend and called for his immediate resignation.

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The Prime Minister's right hand man (accused paedophile Julian Moti from Fiji) is bricking it...

NEW GROUP PROMISES TO SEND MOTI TO AUST

Mon 12th November

ATTORNEY General Julian Moti will be repatriated to Australia as soon as a new government comes to power.As the political crisis escalate with more MPs resigning from the Government, the Opposition and defected Government supporters say Moti will be sent back to Australia as soon as they come to power.Mr Fono said Opposition has made its position clear that they will honour Australia’s request to have Moti repatriated.

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Corruption claims...

KOLI LURED WITH $440,000

Wed 14th November

AN Opposition MP claims he rejected $440,000 the Government offered him on the condition he joins them.MP for East Guadalcanal Johnson Koli said he turned down the offer because “it came at the wrong time”.

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And allegiance claims ("government MP's a crybaby, nah nah nah nah nah")...

NEW MP SWITCH CLAIMED
Mon 19th November

ANOTHER government minister approached the Opposition at the weekend and asked if he could come on board, the Opposition said.Indigenous Affairs minister Clement Kengava showed up at the Honiara Hotel on Saturday night, where the Opposition were staying, and pleaded if he could join camp.“His sudden appearance out of the blue took many of us by surprise,” one Opposition member said.Mr Kengava, a former Opposition MP who defected to the government to take up a ministerial post, is MP for Northwest Choiseul. Former Minister of Planning Steve Abana, a defector himself, confirmed that Mr Kengava showed up on Saturday night at the hotel.“He was in tears. He came in and asked if he could join the group,” Mr Abana said.“We told him that we remain firm and are committed to our mission,” Mr Abana said.

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GG and the PM go head-to-head ("GG Unmoved" read an earlier classic headline")...

GG, PM SHOWDOWN
Sat 24th November

GOVERNOR General Sir Nathaniel Waena announced on Friday that the Parliament must meet on December 13 in a bid to end the political tension between the Opposition and Government.However,immediately the Prime Minister, Manasseh Sogavare, declared that he will be challenging Sir Nathaniel's decision in court citing non consultation with his government as the major problem.

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Government delaying, delaying, delaying...

Government ‘wants Parliament to meet on last day of year’
Monday 26th November

THE Opposition says Governor-General Sir Nathaniel Waena has told them the Sogavare Government wants Parliament to meet on the last day of the year, 31 December.Sir Nathaniel has instead called a meeting on 13 December to try to solve the political impasse, with the Government appearing in a minority.Opposition Leader Fred Fono said that the Government move was not justified.Sir Nathaniel told of the Government’s proposed date in his response to the Opposition’s request for him to call Parliament a week from today, 3 December.

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And it looks to have worked, with waetman MP Peter Boyes moving across to get the Minister of Finance position, and our friend Koli from earlier becoming Minister of Communication (it seems the time was now right!)...

PM NOW LOOKS SET

Thurs 29th November

THE Government regained their numbers and looks set to remain in power with 24 MPs in their camp last night.As lobbying continues, Sir Allan Kemakeza now holds the “balance of power”, with his loyalty crucial to both sidesSir Allan, a senior Opposition member, recently held talks with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare (on right in photo).The government claimed Sir Allan is now with them. But the Opposition still count him as their member too.Sir Allan, who is facing jail, recently told the Solomon Star he is neutral pending the outcome of his court case.He was recently found guilty of ordering an attack on law firm Sol-Law in 2001 when he was prime minister.He will be sentenced Monday.The Government regained its strength following the defection of two Opposition MPs, one Monday and one yesterday.Peter Boyers, who defected on Monday, is now the new finance minister.East Guadalcanal MP Johnson Koli (left in photo) who had earlier rejected a $400,000 government offer in return for switching sides, joined the government yesterday.He is now the new minister for Communications and Aviation.Mr Koli could not be reached for comments last night.

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And then finally today...

BRIBERY CLAIM

Fri 30th November

East Guadalcanal MP Johnson Koli was believed to have defected after the government promised him a portable Lucas sawmill. But the sawmill is now a subject of controversy after Norht New Georgia MP JOB Dudley Tuasinga revealed yesterday the milling machine was already allocated to him. Explaining his move back to the government Mr Koli told the Solomon Star that there were two reasons why he rejoined the government. "First it was for the sake of my constituents and secondly I want to tap into the priveleges that are made available to government backbenchers". And what of that $400,000? "I did not accept the offer at the time of the lobbying but now that I am with the government I will go for it" Mr Koli said.

I have a funny feeling this story isn't over yet, so listen out for more. This is your resident political correspondent signing off from the Hapi Isles. Good night.

Brushing birthday...

5:05pm.

The blue CBSI pickup is already overflowing as the last few stragglers come strolling out of the bank and clamber aboard to find a nonexistent space to squeeze into; the laughter is raucous and the betal nut and lime are already being passed around as the driver Alick pulls away. This has been the scene every day after work for the last couple of weeks since I returned from Singapore, and indeed no doubt also for the two weeks I was away. Our destination today… Riffle Range, where the Central Bank owns a property and some land. This is pronounced Rifle Range, named after the large numbers of guns found on the land after the Japanese fought their way ashore at this point during the Second World War, but I have only every seen it written as Riffle and don’t want to fall into the trap of neo-colonial grammarisation. So Riffle it will remain.

But why are these office workers from as prestigious institution as the Central Bank all packed in a pick-up, all armed to the teeth with dangerous looking bush-knives, and careering down Mendana Avenue, whooping with glee like a raggle-taggle army of rebels heading off to war? Well, funnily enough in a way we are going off to war, but our enemy ain’t the government. Nope, these past weeks we have been waging a determined battle with a far more durable and persistent adversary… the Solomon Bush. I’ve mentioned previously the tendency for my own garden here to explode out of control if not kept under close guard. Well similarly, around all the Central Bank properties there are large areas of communal land that grow ferociously and freely throughout the year, but which about once a year are cut back by a hired group of young men before they swallow our houses completely.

This year, however, some bright spark at the Bank cleverly suggested that the Bokolo Blues football team and the Bokolo Hornets netball team could together take on the task of ‘brushing’ (as the activity is called), with the money earned going towards a joint trip to Vanuatu planned for next year. Just before I left for Singapore we began the work, with the coordinators talking confidently about 3 days for Mbokona and 2 days for Riffle Range to finish the job. In fact, almost everyone in the Bank has pitched in, and a good thing too; four weeks later we find ourselves still battling away, and I’m starting to wonder whether this could be another Forth Bridge scenario, so that by the time we finish the last clearing it will be time to go back to the beginning and start again. It is tough and sweaty work, but also great fun, as we march to the latest frontier, before each zoning in on our own particular patch, accompanied only by the shared rhythmic thwack- thwack of the forehand-backhand sweep of the bushknife. Only the sudden descent of darkness forces a halt to proceedings, when the scattered individuals make their way back slowly to the truck for the ride home, stopping here and there en route as one-by-one people jump down accompanied by cries of ‘gudnaet’, and those of us less accustomed to brushing (not just me I hasten to add) return to nurse hands blistered by the labour.

One day of brushing last week that I felt happily justified to miss was Tuesday and my birthday. This I celebrated the previous weekend when Fi organized a (genuinely surprising) surprise party for me at a little colourful cabin on a beach down the coast, where a big spread of food, barbecue and of course booze was waiting. We all had a merry time, drinking, singing and watching the electric storm sweep over from Savo Island to our left and descend on Honiara, somehow avoiding drenching us. Inevitably, once the food had been consumed and more importantly the drink drunk (but not us), our next step was to hit a packed Bula Bar, where we danced the rest of the night away to island grooves. Was a great night, and would only have been bettered if a few of you folks in England had suddenly materialized from the ocean, perhaps arriving on canoes filled with mangoes and cider. But you can’t have everything in this life.

Singa Pura...

From Solomon Islands to Singapore, and back again. That is what I’ve been up to in the last two weeks, and two more utterly contrasting capitals on this earth I find it hard to imagine.

The tallest building in Honiara, the renowned Antony Saro building, stands a mighty four storeys high, closely followed by the Central Bank building with three storeys. Other three-storey buildings you can count on the digits of one hand, even if you happen to be a Simpson. In Honiara there is not a single international shop outlet; the closest we come to having a multinational conglomerate is the Bulk Shop, a company with three small outlets selling flour, spices and popcorn in big plastic dustbins. Apart from shorts and shapeless shirts, it is literally impossible to buy new clothes here, and everyone buys their clothes from one of the many musty-smelling second hand stores. Advertising, that bastion of corporatisation and globalisation, is non-existent in Honiara streets, with the exception of the A4 sheets nailed to trees announcing either the imminent departure of the MV Haurisea to a distant village in Temotu province or informing all would-be spakaman such as myself about an upcoming dancedancedance at the Moonlight Niteclub; when one of the more orderly mechanical tool stores recently hung a big plastic imitation chainsaw on the front of their building big crowds of people gathered to watch. In fact, shopping is such a marginal activity here that almost all stores close by 5pm, if not earlier.

And then there is Singapore. Singapore, the most densely populated country in the world. Singapore the development miracle, one of the very few countries to have genuinely made the transition from so-called ‘developing’ to ‘developed’ country. Modern Singapore, where everything works just so damn well, where the streets are clean and the buildings built yesterday, and whose transport system makes the London version seem on the verge of collapse. As we were whisked from the airport to the hotel where I was staying, I was torn between being mesmerized by the sparkling shiny state of every single car on the road, and being terrified by the death defying speed at which we were racing (about 90 kph for the record). Entering this world of soaring office buildings and shopping centres on every corner was like a sledgehammer to the senses, exhilarating but slightly painful. Singapore is probably the most consumerism-oriented society I have ever encountered, but fortunately it is also much more. And two weeks, in a swanky (at least to my unaccustomed eyes) hotel with hot water to drool over, with some money to burn on clothes and electronics (including this ‘ere laptop that I types on now), and endless meals sampling the delicious Malay-Indo-Chinese-Indian cuisine, was an entertaining contrast to life in the Pacific.

I didn’t, however, spend quite all my time going up and down shopping centre escalators. The reason I went to Singapore was for a two-week course of lectures and workshops organised by the IMF, which basically looked at the inter-relations between the four main sectors of an economy: government spending; the real sector (e.g. production and investment); external accounts (trade and whatnot); and the monetary sector, and what implications this has for policy. In light of my student days attending various protests directed at IMF policies, and writing essays on the problems with the IMF policy dogma and approach to development, it was slightly strange to be sitting in a suit behind a desk listening to their words of wisdom. But as it turned out there was nothing very controversial in what we were discussing, and after working for a year in CBSI I found it extremely useful. It was made particularly interesting by the group of participants, who heralded from Central Banks and Ministries of Finance in countries from the Asia-Pacific region including Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu, Indonesia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Myanmar, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, India, and Afghanistan. There was even one (surprisingly pale) fella from the Solomon Islands. If it wasn’t getting so late I could harp on for ages about the hilarious social dynamics of the different nationalities, some of the predictable sub-groups that emerged, and some altogether more odd and surprising little groups. As for me, I flitted here and there fascinated by such a diverse bunch or interesting people, but ultimately spent most of my time with my fellow Islanders who surprised me by being the loud-mouthed life and soul of the party. Highlights included hitting the dance floor of Zouk, one of the biggest dance clubs in Singapore, with my typically huge Tongan friend surrounded by waif-like Asians all dancing manically, and getting the underground/double-decker bus with a terrified/delighted niVanuatua lady.

Aside from the workshops, and the shopping, and the eating, and the drinking, there was little time for seeing much else in Singapore. But this wasn’t really a problem, as Singapore is not a city to visit as a tourist. I did manage to find a day and half to do a few ‘guidebook activities’, visiting Sentosa island (which a Chinese cabbie quite accurately explained stands for ‘So Expensive, Nothing To See Actually), going to the impressive Asian Civilisations museum, sampling a few Buddhist temples. But to get a feel for Singapore it strikes me as much better to visit for a week or two on work. At lunchtime there are an unlimited range of delicious cheap eateries to choose from in the various food courts and arcades, where you can grab a tray and sit surrounded by Singaporean workers in suits shovelling rice or noodles into mouths. After work the evening possibilities stretch ahead, with restaurants, bars and shops opening late. You can wander Chinatown grazing from the huge number of stalls selling food and Tiger beer, passing the seedy clubs with gangs of Phillipino girls in the doorway trying to lure you in (hence the cabbie’s translation of Chinatown as ‘Come Honey, I Need Action’). You can hit the Quay areas thronged with young people every night of the week (everyone seems to have money here), or if you’re feeling particularly flush you can visit one of the many hotels and get stung viciously for the privilege, most notably at the beautiful colonial Raffles Hotel, home of the Singapore Sling, where amazingly the astronomical price is actually worth the hour or so spent in the famous Long Bar, chucking peanut shells on the floor, listening to the Cuban band and sound of the fans on the ceiling, and (slowly) sipping the famous cocktail. I spent quite a bit of time too in Little India (I’ll Never Do It Again), the only place I saw in Singapore that is chaotic and dirty, but where I tasted Indian curries that blew my mind, and where the huge tangled mess of Mustafa shopping centre opens 24 hours a day.

So during the first week I dived head first into this jamboree for the senses, scarcely able to picture the sleepy world of the Pacific Islands I had left behind or imagine how I could return. But by the middle of the second week this began to change, and slowly I began to tire of the shopping, the hotel world, and all the bricks piled on top of each other. By the end of that week I was pining for a sweet coconut and fantasising about stepping off the plane into the familiar Solomon air and smells, and missing the smiling faces and laughter of my adopted countrymen. So I was more than happy to return on Sunday, and to see that in my absence nothing had changed at all save for some white lines that had been painted on the Lengakiki road which goes up to my house. Best of all my homecoming was particularly sweetened by the feast I was served thanks to Fi and her auntie crew cooking up a motu pigpig storm, replacing the gulf left by crappy airline food.

And now, adjusting to being back at work, I am left still thinking and pondering the enigma of Singapore. There is no denying it is a remarkable place. At the crossroads of international trade routes (all along the coast there are mountains of containers piled far higher than the tallest buildings in the Solomons) it is a truly multicultural city. It is a city where West meets East and everyone is (originally) an immigrant (Chinese make up about 70% of the population, followed by Malay, Indians, Sri Lankans and Europeans), and as such there can be no objection to other ethnic groups or new arrivals, only acceptance and tolerance. But it also strikes me as a city of paradoxes and, as in most places, first impressions are somewhat deceiving. For example Singapore is seen as the epitome of successful free-market liberalism, where a minimum of red-tape and government interference has made it a regional hub of international business and investment. In fact the situation is far more complicated, and the heavy hand of government is surprisingly omnipresent, constantly prodding and pulling the economy in new directions. The government is playing a big role in the construction of huge new resorts and a massive solar power generation plant (costing around 1,000 years of GDP in the Solomon Islands), and is effectively the owner of Singapore Airlines and 90% of taxi cars in the city (driven by extremely disgruntled cabbies).

Beneath the smiling, polite and helpful surface of Singaporean society, there is also a hard and somewhat brutal core. One contact I had there is currently finishing his military service, which basically involves ingraining a discipline and obedience to authority in all young people, in sometimes masochistic fashion (fortunately for him, as a university graduate, he was one of the officers dishing out the punishments). Another example is the whippings dealt out to the worst criminal offenders, which leave them not able to sit down for 3 months. Less extreme, but equally indicative of the hard-minded mentality of society, are the stipulations for being a Singaporean Airline hostess. There are five rounds of interviews (including a swimming costume round), candidates must be over a certain height and below a certain weight, have a certain kind of (pretty) look, and once they get the job they are weighed on a regular basis to ensure they do not put on weight. At 28 they are retired from aircraft duty to take up a desk job.

The name Singapore comes from Singa Pura, meaning Lion City, and the aggressive approach to development by leaders of the country (which is officially a democracy but in fact extremely authoritarian and effectively a one-party state) has so far proved incredibly successful. The true test of the government, and the population’s willingness to allow the leaders on high to make all decisions on their behalf, will come when the economy starts to falter. On which note I leave you with the words of a Chinese fisherman, speaking about the early boom days that transformed the sleepy Malay fishing village into the beacon of globalisation it is today. “Everyone traded on their luck”, he said. “If you have the luck of a coconut fibre, you float. If of stones, you sink”.

Wanfala samting...

The second installment of Les Viajandos Barones was meant to go here - an altogether bigger, brighter and better version of Part One in Oz. Unfortunately, something has happened that means it will now be some time until you all get to see my little sis sweating it out under the bright Solomon sun; or brighter still the sight of my padre's white English knees.

That something does at least mean that I am now writing this in a slightly more interesting location than the usual sofa in my house. It is 7.30pm of a Tuesday evening, I have just finished playing tennis, and I am now sitting in one of the little makeshift huts scattered around the 'taon graon' for Women's week. The chicken is barbecuing, the frest coconut is sweet, and from the speakers on the main stage I can hear the voice of Sharzy singing "no matta wea iu stap, me still lovim iu". For lack of paper I am scribbling this in the white spaces of a leaflet advertising 'GPW Enterprises', which tells me the company is "A local business run by indigenous people helping our people to make money out of their minerals and lost treasures" (the first person to guess what they sell will receive a Sharzy CD straight from the Sols).

So what has happened that leaves me blogging in these circumstances?

The first sign that something was wrong came a few Friday nights ago when Fiona and I returned from a CBSI fundraising 'drink, dine and dance'. As we crawled up in the taxi and pulled into my garden, Fiona's typically Solomon eagle-eyes spotted my front door was slightly ajar. My first thoughts were "I didn't leave the bloody door open did I?". Fi's somewhat more accurate thoughts were "There's someone in your house". Sure enough when I leapt out of the cab and shouted an indignant "oy", there was a pause of one second, two se.. then out of the door like a hound from hell came flying a figure leaping over my porch rail, into the bushes and was gone. Since he wasn't carrying anything I was hopeful at first that we might have got back in time, but no such luck. Aside from a floor splattered with blood from cuts they must have sustained squeezing through the tiny hole they'd made where they'd cut away the iron bars, my laptop, DVD player and camera were all gone. They'd even taken a couple of kitchen pans (dirty at least, saving me a bit of washing up). But worst of all, they'd found their way into my fridge and taken a bottle of Mango fizzy drink... though were kind enough to leave the second bottle for me.

But joking apart, losing my laptop is an absolute bitch, and one which means I won't be writing in the immediate future. Writing by hand is great for the fact that can sit in more interesting settings, and some of what's going on around you absorbs into your words. But I'm afraid it's just too much of a chore to write by hand, and then just type it all up again. Plus, writing by hand you tend to end up pouring out a mundane stream of consciousness, as demonstrated in this sentence. I could write on a computer at work, but I never have time. There is also the possibility of using an internet cafe at the weekend, but weekends are... well weekends, and should not be polluted with computer screens and the like.

But hey, every cloud has a silver lining the saying goes, and now I'm looking forward to getting a replacement laptop when I go to Singapore in a couple of weeks. Once my family get the holiday pics posted out to me I will chuck on a few, so you can see what an amazing time we all had. But the rest of the goings-ons over here in this laptop-less period I'm afraid will be unrecorded and lost to time. It was sad to see my family leave, and the first week back at work was a little flat. But things soon picked up, and since then there's been loads going on: staka 'go finis' parties, an amazing 5-dives-a-day diving weekend, not to mention regularly falling drunkenly asleep on the sofa as I try to watch the Rugby World Cup through the night. Oh, and a curious incident of a dead dog in the night. But the less said about that the better, as I'm worried that the grave dug under my washing line just ain't deep enough.

Anyway, to those still loyally checking this stagnant website, thanks for thinking of me and persisting. I'll write again from Singapore in a couple of weeks.

Syd-ers

Holidays holidays holidays.
The usual way of handling these things is to head from the grey urbanised bustle and icy winds seeking scorching blue skies and remote island beaches. Bizarrely, I found myself doing exactly the opposite, more bizarrely still, this seemed like a good thing. And most bizarrely of all, before I knew it I found myself in the company of three of my four family for the first time in 9 months: the marge, the parge and the piggo (sadly no Dr Ick - you were sorely missed sis, but it's some consolation that I hear from a reliable source you're going to be heading this way in 2008).

From the first reunion, accompanied by multiple bottles of red wine, we had a fantastic 10 days in Oz, especially once E had stopped interrupting everything I said with "god, stop talking like an Aussie", and once temperatures rose above the 40 year low they had plummetted to in preparation for my arrival.

The first five nights in Sydney we spent in Paddington, an old Victorian part of Sydney, in a beautiful house occupied by my dad's cousin Timothy (see photo of the two of them below). This was the perfrect place to spend a few days wining, dining and generally consumering. The perfect place too to explore Sydney's rather famous (but deservedly so) landmarks.

Such as THE BRIDGE...

and THE OPERA HOUSE...















And generally hung out, trying to look like Aussies...

We also managed to fit in a wee trip up to the wine region of the Hunter Valley, where we sampled the fare of four vineyards, and in which time certain un-named souls managed to get rapidly merry, falling asleep each time we got in the car and rolling out in time to sample the next of the frankly delicious wines.

Later we spent three days in the Blue mountains, learning about gum trees, doing some bush-trekking, and learning about gum trees.

We also were lucky enough (though Aussies will tell you that they're two-a-penny over there) to find some wild kangeroos in a clearing in the trees, and Emily proved her mettle as the only person in the world to be absolutely petrified by the vicious critters ("But they kick, they kick").

The second half of our Sydney stay we moved to a new base across the water in stunning and well-heeled Balmoral, to stay in the house of Diane and Graham, two friends of my parents. More amazing food and a colourfully detailed description of what a nasty piece of work Senor Howard really is.

Some of us pretended to go swimming (hint: Robin Baron is not the one in the budgie smugglers playing with the yellow ball) , and we all checked out a game of Aussie Rules (Go swans, Go) at the spectacular Sydney Cricket Ground, where most of the crowd seemed more intent of making use of the three "half-times" to consume hotdogs and beer than actually watch the game.

Finally, just as the high-life was beginning to take its toll (R's belly began to expand worringly, and I became concerned that after so much delicious wine, pre-mix would never be the same again), the Solomon Islands began to call. So we packed up our stuff, said our goodbyes, and headed north to Brisbane, the last stepping stone on the road to Honiara. We had a last day buying a few last things (ipod cover for the pig, ear drops for me - how much does that tell you!!), strolling the South Bank and cruising the river in the City Cat ferries.

And then we bid the country G'day, and headed on our way.

Off to Oz...

In three days time I leave the Solomon Islands for the first time since my arrival here, and head down to Sydney to meet my folks and younger sis (sorry Iso that you can’t get out of helping sick people and come too). Aside from how nice it will be to be reunited with my true and original wantok, there is also something very appealing about the prospect of a couple of weeks of hot water, nice restaurants and the buzz of wandering an international and ‘rich-country’ city.

It is hard to believe that it is now almost nine months since I stepped off the plane into the muggy heat of what is now my home. For all those considering making a pikinini of your own, I can assure you that 9 months is a cinch – it has absolutely flown by. Yet reading the first couple of entries of this blog reminds me too how much has happened. The epic journey to get here, first surreal days and first ventures beyond the Honiara boundaries all now seem like they happened in another lifetime. For me, when travelling, this is a recurrent characteristic of the mysterious concept that is time. It is a seeming paradox that on closer inspection proves not to be. For in the present, on a day-to-day level, the old adage ‘time flies when you’re having fun’ kicks in and you watch with dismay as the weeks and months flash by. In retrospective, however, as a rule the more you fit in your days and weeks the longer that period in your life will seem.

It has been a while since I last wrote, which I hope will not turn out to be a long-term trend. Part of the reason is that it has been an eventful last 3 or 4 weeks. But as I run around these last few days trying to get things done at work and preparing the red carpet (or at least the mosquito coils and beds) ready for the English arrival, my mind is turning already to holidays ahead and it seems that the moment has passed for a detailed evocation of what’s been going on. For records sake, and for my own memory, it is however worth mentioning a few of the things I’ve been up to.

A few weekends ago I made a return to Savo, accompanied by my trusty translator Fiona. The motivation, apart from the refreshment of a couple of nights of traditional island life, was the village’s celebration of their patron saint St Peter, accompanied by a typical mixture of traditional dancing by men dressed as bushes and the regimented marching of the Church’s ‘Marching Band’ (I have video clips of these which I am yet to find time to download). The following weekend was the considerably bigger celebration of the country’s Independence (quite incredibly just 29 years - only a couple of years older than I am). These were held on Malaita, the most populated of the nation’s islands and about three hours away by express boat. Though only a small number live in the provincial capital of Auki, it seemed like half the island had turned up to join in the festivities, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people in such a small town – unless you count people in a Glastonbury field. When night fell, with the ground everywhere wet and muddy (to a degree that would make Glasto itself proud) and with no way to get home, the wooden sidewalks were thick with families nesting down for the night and hoping to get a truck home in the morning.

I’ve also been graced with the presence of two English friends, Kate and Asim, who’ve been in Honiara for the past couple of weeks and staying with me in the Mbokona Motel for half of that (we met them on Lola island at Christmas). Was a delight to have them, watch them relish the bright lights of the capital (they are teaching in a church school out in the bush in the province of Makira), and to compare tales of life in the Solos and of bygone days in the mother country. All the best to them in their next six months in Pamua – and click here for a short video they made of the school for the Melanesian Mission's annual conference. Finally, also in the last couple of weeks, the IMF has been paying us another visit to set us on the path for a pretty major overhaul of our Monetary and Financial reporting, a project with which I have been closely involved. With meetings and workshops every day it has been hard to find time to keep correspondence with friends and family as much as I’d like (e.g. Apologies Connell for missing your birthday – I put something in the post yesterday though; Kerrie, I got your fantastic letter, a reply will happen before you can say "southseamutterings"...)

With holidays coming I’m unlikely to write anything for about three weeks. But be reassured that when I return you’ll be getting the uncensored low-down of holidays witim wantok, a first taste of which I can give you with the photo below – the last time I saw my dear graduate sister Em.

Photos from top: Arriving at Auki by boat; traditional dancing and singing from Savo boys; the women's church singing group fused with traditional dancing; boys lined up for communion outside church in Savo, with the girls' lined up on the other side of them; Wantok from the hood; Emily celebrating her graduation in typical style.

Where to get spaka in Honiara: Bula bar; TopTen; Paradise; Flamingos…

Honiara is a tiny place, and to avoid the suffocation that can start to build up over time, I always try to get away every few weekends, spending at least a night on another isle or further up the coast. Last weekend F and I skitted over Iron Bottom Sound to the simple but beautiful island resort of Maravagi, where two nights was not nearly long enough but was nonetheless a delicious treat. The ease and pleasure of such weekend escapades always reminds me how lucky I am to have got a job on an island in the Pacific. Especially when the sun explodes across the sky first thing in the morning, like it did the day we left (see photo).

For an urban lad like myself, the Honiara nightlife will never be able to match up to the beauty and fascination of the timeless rural areas. But that doesn’t mean Honiara’s got nothing to offer in the way of shaking a leg or two. In fact I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the jokes to be had hitting the various ‘nightclubs’, one or two of which are invariably kicking.

The first club I sampled, in my second week here, was Paradise, a predictably inappropriate name for the grimiest, darkest and most drunken of all the clubs that I’ve been to. I can’t imagine a bigger contrast with the overdone glamour of the places I used to go out to in Jordan, where everyone is impeccably dressed, not a hair out of place and too busy looking good to dance. At Paradise, bare feet, flip-flops, ripped t-shirts and a heady stench of BO are the order of the day. Definitely the kind of place you’ve got to arrive at battered. Which I think it is safe to assume that I did, as arriving in the Central Bank vehicle (that I was driving for my first month here) with a couple of colleagues and my next door neighbour Lakoa, I managed to lock the doors with the keys inside, the headlights on, and best of all with the engine still running. Whoops. Not too big a problem as it turned out, for straight away one of the spaka rascals loitering around the front of the club stepped forward with a bit of wire and had the door open in 15 seconds. I found it amusing that after a quick thanks we then didn’t hesitate to march straight into the club, leaving the fella, his bit of wire and the car outside – a happy threesome.

I haven’t been back to Paradise since, tending instead to frequent the slightly less grimy venues of Top Ten, Flamingos and the Bola Bar. The first of these consists of what is basically a big empty shed, with a raised dance floor in the middle. This is surrounded by barriers, I suppose to keep heaving and unsteady dancers from toppling off the edge, but which gives it the distinct feel of a boxing ring. At times it can certainly feel like this. Top Ten is a relatively young crowd (by which I mean mostly 20-somethings) but also full of spakaman. Dancing ‘close’ in public is a big no-no, a result of Christianity rather than traditional customs, and in general people hardly touch their dancing partner (only the very drunkest will venture on to the dancefloor without a dancing partner/friend). At Top Ten though, the dance floor is so small and the venue so big that you emerge from the heaving mass of sweaty and wrestling bodies and limbs relieved to be gulping in the fresh air. There is a lot of going back and forth from the dancefloor by the way, since as soon as a song finishes it is the custom for everyone to immediately rush off, only to promptly surge back on when the next song begins.

Flamingos is a little club connected to the Honiara Hotel and is cleaner, but far less fun, than Top Ten. It’s also full of waku (Solomon Islands Chinese) and also tends to be frequented by dugong (prostitutes) – which unfortunately are not unrelated phenomena. However, the DJ is good (which for me means he plays ‘Island’ music not American RnB) and it’s the only place you feel happy dancing in bare feet (except for Kawaore, but that’s for altogether different reasons).

The place I seem to end up going to most these days, however, is Bola Bar. This is a huge leaf hut situated down by the airport and since you’ve got to have access to a vehicle or be willing to cough up the $60 cab fare (about £4) it tends to get a cleaner and slightly less spaka crowd (only slightly less spaka though – the other sum in the equation is: more money = more alcohol). It also opens till 4 or 5am which is later than everywhere else (except for Kawaore – but again that’s another story) and has a VIP area on a balcony upstairs where you can play free pool and watch live football (e.g. a very boring English F.A cup final not so long ago). Finally, it also sells Strongbow, which makes a nice change from the vicious sweetness of the various pre-mix drinks and which always leave me with a teeth-gritting hangover.

Drinks? The local beer Solbrew is practically the country’s national drink and is pretty nice (perhaps because it’s brewed by a German company). Despite this, it is beginning to be superseded by the newish stronger version from the same factory called SB, which all self-respecting spakaman will only ever drink. The pre-mixes are sickly and strong but drinkable. One particularly lethal variety called Saratoga is made locally by Solbrew and sold in little plastic bottles with yellow screw-on caps. Finally there is a drink I haven’t yet sampled, partly for fear of going blind and partly because a big crackdown since RAMSI arrived has limited availability. You always know when someone has been drinking the local moonshine known as Kwaso, because it is usually 5 in the afternoon and the fella is stumbling along with tangled legs, eyelids half shut, and muttering incoherently while occasionally letting out strangled shouts that seem to me like cries of anguish.

(A note on Kawaore – I have only been a few times, and would like to tell you more, but unfortunately can remember nothing. It is the place everyone goes when everywhere else has closed and it would be fascinating seeing it in the daytime sometime, as I have no idea what it’s like. All I know is that when I wake up from a Kawaore night, my feet – and consequently sheets – are always black with mud, and my keys are usually still in the lock. Some things, such as oysters and fine cigars, are meant to be relished only sporadically. Kawaore can be added to this list).

A day of glory…

It is now old hat over here in the Solomon Islands, but as the news is very unlikely to have reached your ears, I’ll risk boring myself by repeating it:

CBSI: Interbank Soccer and Overall Champions 2007

After 16 years of hurt, in which time the prized Interbank football trophy was passed between the hands of the National Bank of Solomon Islands (NBSI) and NPF (National Provident Fund), CBSI have now won the trophy two years on the trot. Might not seem like much, but this is a big deal over here, and the events of last Monday are still being talked about and sang about and the photos spliced together into slide show sequences with suitably rousing music as a backing. As everyone has been saying, win the soccer trophy one more time and we get to keep it. For eva!

The day wasn’t just about football (using the word soccer once was plenty I’ll think you’ll agree). From the opening ceremony at the crack of dawn (while I was safely tucked up in bed) to the presentation of trophies at dusk, it was non-stop crazy sporting action with at least three events going on at any one time: management relay; netball; volleyball; football; touch rugby and tug-of-war. There were even games for pikininis which accumulated points for the overall tally, and quite sensibly these were scheduled during the one hour of rest at lunchtime, when the blazing sun was its zenith (fortunately didn’t’ diminish the usual hilarity of the sack race and three-legged race). There were several notable performances on the day, and the tug-of-war particularly tickled my fancy; the sight of gangs of tiny pikininis dancing like pixies around some of the heavy-weight giants, clapping their hands and egging them on as they grunted and puffed in slow motion. But the football was the (unspoken) crowning glory.

The hero of the hour, in my mind at least, was our young maintenance guy Bernard (who reminds me of one London friend in body language and grin – I’ll leave it to iufala to guess who I mean). Unlike the rest of the bank workers he’s not had an education, and is pretty shy around the team (who in general are loud-mouth jokers). In the practice games his contribution was not particularly noteworthy, but this was always after a long day doing physical labour up on the ridges somewhere. On the day of the tournament however, the sun beating down with a sickening vengeance, our man ran around like a nutter, getting kicked all over the place, scoring a couple of goals and winning the decisive penalty in the final game. Most heroic of all, in the last game, as he went up for a header, he was caught full in the cheekbone by the deliberate flying elbow of an opposition player and was sent sprawling. If it had been any of our other players fouled, in particular for example the governor or one of the managers, the guy would have been sent off straight away. But because it was just Bernard the game carried on, none of the opposition checked to see if he was alright and once he had picked himself dazed off the grass and shaken his head a couple of times, he carried on playing with a huge egg growing under his eye and without even a hint of complaint. A warrior.

After we’d won our final game of football the drinks were cracked open and everyone proceeded to get immediately and rapidly pissed; in some aspects at least, it’s reassuring to observe, sport here shares some important characteristics with English traditions.

Photos from top: some of the victorious team in front of the CBSI tent; CBSI Governor Rick Hou with two pikininis; tug-of-war or "battle of the giants" as it is referred to here; Our man Bernard alongside Richard the receptionist; Sol brew time (including my boss Vinnie in the gold vest).

Next blog entry: Where to get spaka in Honiara...Bula bar; TopTen; Paradise; Flamingos…

It’s the economy, stupid… (The Solomon Island Economy Part I)

In my first couple of months here, as I gradually learnt more and more about the Solomon Island economy, my overwhelming feeling was one of increasing pessimism about the country’s prospects. And that was from a starting point that I like to think of as ‘realistic’ (i.e. I’ve been to a few developing countries and have seen all too well the difficulties of achieving growth, development and poverty reduction). More recently, however, this negative outlook regarding the country’s future has softened somewhat. Why is this, I wonder to myself? There are a couple of concrete reasons for some optimism, but in the main I think it comes down to something more subjective and less rational. Being surrounded by such lovely people, and with consciousness of the fragile peace we inhabit highly evident in conversations and newspaper headlines everyday, the consequences of economic stagnation or deterioration do not bear thinking about. And so I suspect it is simply hope that gives me cause for optimism. Anyway, I’ll give you an overview of economic activities here. It shouldn’t take long!

Apart from subsistence production that feeds 80% of the population, production here is basically limited to five primary commodity exports: fish, cocoa, copra, palm oil and logs. (Gold mining is also expected to commence in 2008). The ‘fishing sector’ comprises a grand total of two fishing companies. One of these catches around 70% of the total catch, most of which it freezes and exports to Asia. The other is a loss-making State-Owned-Enterprise which processes tuna for export in cans, including, once-upon-a-time, to good old Sainsbury’s. The fishing industry is still relatively tiny however, and most of the big boats you see in Solomon waters are foreign vessels that freeze their catch on board and head off back to Asia without even coming ashore.

Cocoa and copra are the only real source of income for the rural population, but production levels are still relatively tiny. The British gobblers of Cadbury’s know only too well the significance of cocoa, but copra is probably somewhat more of a mystery. Copra is made by scraping and then drying the flesh of old (fallen) coconuts, and is a laborious process for which producers receive a pittance (as a rule the further you are from Honiara, the less you receive from your labour). One short piece of research I’m going to try to do soon is looking at the relationship between international prices for copra (and cocoa) and the export and domestic price received by exporters and ‘farmers’. Since copra production in particular is very much a supplementary source of income rather than being necessary for survival, it will also be interesting to examine how production levels respond to changes in the domestic price. Copra is largely exported as a raw product, but is also used to make coconut oil for use in cosmetics. An increasing amount of coconut oil is being produced in Honiara however, which is a particularly interesting development since it can be mixed with a small amount of diesel to make a bio-fuel that can be used in standard generators. A third of all imports here are for fuel, and reducing this dependency would help to reduce our trade deficit, which in the last couple of years has been growing and growing.

I have left the two biggies till last. These two are the antithesis of each other; the classic good guy, bad guy. Palm Oil is the 2006 poster-child of the Solomons, as this year production finally resumed after a halt of around 8 years due to the ‘tensions’. Only one company is operating so far, but two other plantations are under negotiation. Once the (considerable) challenge of establishing agreeable royalties to landowners has been undertaken, palm oil is fairly straightforward to produce, and seemingly has a lot of potential. It is labour-intensive so generates large numbers of jobs (around 2,500 already even though the current operator GPPOL hasn’t reached anywhere close to full capacity), but also offers scope for landowners to operate their own small plantations supplying the raw product (palm nuts) to the mill operator. Unlike logging there are no unpleasant side-effects, in fact GPPOL generates all the power it requires by burning the palm husks, and is even about to start exporting surplus electricity to Gold Ridge Mining Company. International demand is strong, prices are high and rising and people are even beginning to whisper that palm oil might be a replacement for the logging sector.

They will have to be very quick though. ‘Unsustainable’ is not a strong enough word to describe what is happening to the country’s forests. In the lush abundance of the land around Honiara, and in fact much of the coastal areas in the Solomons, it easy to be blissfully unaware of what is happening. But the statistics say it all. A recent survey estimated that the stock of harvestable forest will be exhausted by 2010 if production (though of course it should really be called destruction) continues at 1 million cubic metres per year. In 2006 production was over 1.1 million cubic metres, and this year we have forecast it will increase by another 12%. The logging crash is going to hit soon, and it’s going to hit hard - in particular, government revenue will take a severe smack in the nose. More worrying for us at the Central Bank, logging is the source of 70% of all export earnings and a sudden halt in logging in a couple of years will leave a gaping whole in the trade balance, and us scrambling to maintain the foreign reserves. I could spit bile about the logging industry for several trees-worth of pages, and perhaps I will at a later date. But to end on a more positive note, in a few isolated and small-scale places forestry plantations, managed by villages, offer a potential sustainable future for logging in the country.

And that, pretty much is that. Manufacturing (apart from tuna, booze and fags) is pretty much non-existent. With the huge numbers of cheap Chinese goods flooding the market along with food products from Fiji and Papua New Guinea, developing a manufacturing industry (let alone one capable of export) will be a tough task. Tourism is also miniscule; in fact the prospective arrival of les Barones is expected to double the monthly visitor figures. The country is too far from Europe, there are not enough fancy hotels and golf courses for the Americans and Japanese, and the Aussies and Kiwis are scared off by Embassy Travel Advice which places the country on the same level of alert as Iran. The recent Tsunami, though with little immediate consequences for the economy, will do little to help us attract greater numbers in future. On top of all this is the knowledge that the vast volumes (in per capita terms at least) of assistance pouring into the country as a result of the RAMSI presence will not be infinite.

It is anyone’s guess as to where the country and economy will be in 50 years - predicting the situation even five years from now is impossible. But as I get increasingly absorbed in the work, and learn more and more about the economy, I feel myself becoming entwined with the country’s fate. In a year and a half there’ll be just as many questions about the future as we ponder now, but hopefully in that time we’ll see a fair few answers unfold too.

An old tub...

(Obligatory apology: I know I haven’t written anything for a long while. Sorry! I’ll try to write a bit more frequently over the next two weeks as compensation)

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A Sunday cruise to the notoriously beautiful island of Anooha; organised by the Girl Guides to raise money for an overseas trip. Even the 6am departure time seemed a positive - seemingly offering more time to relax on the white sands and snorkel the crystal waters. But oh, what fools we were to trust those devious Girl Guides. By 9am on the day in question it had already become clear that we were sorely mistaken, and we were in this thing for the brutal long-haul.

Boat travel in the Solomons is notoriously unpleasant. Of all the boats that ply their trade in the country’s waters, there are two whose names include the word Express. The rest lack this feature for good reason. And aside from the sheer excruciating length of time it takes to cover the huge distances between islands, you’ve also got to put up with high seas and vomiting passengers – the Solomon Islanders are at home in little dugout canoes that wobble like a novice tightrope-walker, but when it comes to the bigger boats they are just as susceptible to the dreaded sea-sickness as the rest of us land-lubbers.

Nevertheless, spirits were high as families, expats and young local guys (carrying crates of Sol Brew and eyeing up the Girl Guides) clambered aboard the rusting MV Temotu at first light. An hour later people were still chatting merrily, light-heartedly joking about the ‘Solomon-time’ departure. Another hour later and with still no sign we were any closer to leaving, the mood was decidedly less carefree, and the grumbling was getting louder. Eventually, just when I was beginning to worry the girl guides were on the verge of being lynched, the engine suddenly spluttered into life (if you can call it that), thick smoke pouring out of the funnel, the last few passengers ran down the jetty and leapt aboard, and the MV Temotu pulled away from Honiara.

Great I thought. Not for long. It was a cloudy morning and the seas were already choppy. Within 15 minutes the first victim had rushed to the side and kindly hurled her breakfast down to the fishes below, accompanied by cries of oouuaahhh from nearby passengers. She was soon joined by several others, and within an hour that familiar deathly sea-sick hush had enveloped the boat. It’s a great leveller is sea-sickness. Whether aboard the mighty QE2 or an old tub like the MV Temotu, once it strikes you are subject to exactly the same torment. And a lonesome plight it is too. You see couples standing clutching the guard rail for hours, side-by-side but a mile apart, each individually fighting their solitary and silent battle against their churning stomach. I would like to say that I was immune, having sailed the stormy Solent waters since I was in nappies – but not a bit of it. I stood chanting the old mantra of ‘look at the horizon’ and reminding myself that even Britain’s most famous seafarer Lord Nelson used to be struck down for the first 3-days of each voyage before finding his sea legs. Little consolation though when you’re trip is only a couple of hours each way…

Or at least that’s what we thought and were told. Last time I went to Ngela it took an hour by 40 h/p fibre-glass canoe. The MV Temotu was in no such hurry. As Honiara slowly, very slowly, receded behind us, it was immediately clear that this was going to take a while. And when we arrived at Anooha five hours later (yes, five hours!!) it was equally clear that we were going to have to leave again pretty shortly, especially as there was only one little metal boat (and one oar) that took an hour to ferry over 200 passengers to the beach. (Fortunately this was a pretty short distance, as the microphone announcement that we were about to ‘beach’ was literally accurate – the ship ploughing straight into the shore).

There followed a couple of pleasant sunny hours in the water, some barbecued fish and the treat of some traditional dancing and beautiful chanting/singing from the Central Province women. But before we knew it the little metal boat was going back and forth again (in fact I’m not even sure there was a break between the last disembark and the first re-embark). Well, me and Fi quite wisely decided to make our own return one of the last. And this would have been fine except that just as we were about to step off the shore we realized that the fleeing figure we had seen earlier charging into the bush as we changed behind some trees was in fact making off with my sunglasses and snorkelling gear. With everyone already on board, looking down at us from several decks above, there was clearly nothing that could be done at this stage but we mentioned it to the head organiser (Brown Owl or something is she called?) of the Girl Guides anyway, who happened to be standing next to us. She was clearly a woman of action, however, for straight away, with a whole boatload of her already fuming passengers waiting, she marched back along the beach to set things straight. An hour later, after extensive negotiations with the village elders, it transpired that the kid who had nabbed it had jumped on a boat to another island. Such things are a matter of honour for the islanders and another boat was despatched to chase it down. Meanwhile, with the sun sinking and heavy rainclouds brewing, the MV Temotu finally pootled away from the bay.

There is not much to say about the journey back, other than it took longer than the first and everyone was forced inside by rain lashing outside (except for one elderly Australian who sat in a plastic chair alone on the deck as a storm raged around him – reminding me of Ahab going down with old Moby Dick). An hour into the journey a speedboat came alongside and handed something aboard. This turned out to be my lost items, which were returned to me with great pride, and accompanied by scowls from nearby expats who were clearly not impressed we’d been delayed an extra hour by some guy’s bloody snorkel.

At 10.30 we arrived back in Honiara. We’d been on board the sick-inducing, fume-reeking boat for over 13 hours, in exchange for a quick 2 hour dip. A grand day out indeed.

Sunday 29th April, 2007…

At 9.32am I wake up, and take a few seconds to work out where I am and which country I’m in. This is rare these days (the spatial confusion that is, not the waking up). When I first arrived it happened all the time, and at length. Sometimes for what seemed like 10 minutes I would look around me racking my brain trying to gain familiarity from a particular wall or curtain pattern, hoping then to extend that one concrete reality to my life and place in general. But these days such confusion usually only happens when I’ve been out on the razz the night before. And as I wake this morning I have a firm recollection (practically the only recollection at all in fact, including how I found my way home) of the numbers 5.54 on my bedside alarm clock as I stumbled in to bed the ‘night’ before. Luckily, my drunken autopilot slipped a little homeopathic remedy called ‘Nux Vomica’ into my mouth before passing out, and my hangover is manageable.(Take heed… this is truly a miracle hangover cure to beat even a Potter’s House church session).

Cold shower – my first of four in the day. Me and cold showers have a turbulent relationship. Even in the tropics, it can get tiresome summoning up the courage and bracing yourself for that first blast, particularly at 6.30 in the morning every single day. On the other hand, at times like this it absolute bliss.

For a couple of hours I sit on my porch writing a letter. It is scorchingly hot even in the shade, and I desperately will the faint wafts of breeze to flex a bit more muscle. Ice cold water from my rain tank helps though. Honiara tap water is reputedly pretty safe, but it tastes like shit whereas the rainwater that flows from my roof, into my gutter (hopefully not past too many dead geckos or birds) and into the tank behind my house tastes fresh as a mountain stream. I peel and eat a few guava too, crunching the seeds and admiring the beautiful pink flesh. The little Mbokona kids haven’t come calling recently with their tentative calls of "William, mi laek guava", and though I don’t begrudge them scampering up the tree – they always give me a few of the nicest fruits anyway – it’s great once in a while to climb the tree myself and get a proper heap to eat all day.

I have several visitors while I sit on the porch, though I must also have replied halo, moning and baebae fifty times – it being Sunday there is a steady procession of families (though very few sign of daddies) going to church, kitted out in their smartest clothes and armed with umbrellas (para el sol). Little Steven is one of the most entertaining, though only about 3 years old, and we regularly pass the time of day at weekends. I always hear his little voice calling “waetman, eh, waetman” before I see him, and then in a now familiar little routine I call back “halo Steven, halo Steven”, and then, in an an ongoing educational effort to wean him off addressing me directly as waetman, I ask him “who nao name blo mi?”. To which, he proudly replies, "William", before jabbering in either garbled pijin or more likely in one of the Malaitan languages that is his mother tongue – either way I can’t understand a word but give him a thumbs up, a “lukim iu Steven”, and he marches happily on his way.

With my belly full of brown rice and curry, I fall asleep, assisted by my trusty metallic-blue-finish Chinese fan. An hour later I wake sweltering and too hot to sleep, the fan suspiciously quiet beside me. “Shit”, I think “a power-cut”, and for the second time that day I give up trying to sleep anymore.

At the golf club I reluctantly turn down the eager caddies, holding up my tennis racket in apology. We fail to get in to the peaceful little court at the back however, undone by a third friend who failed to show (something to do with tequila shots at 4am I suspect) and who is the one member among us. But anyway, the court is being repaired and they don’t allow singlets (?!) which my Aussie mate (J), being an Aussie, is wearing. I wonder if they would allow vests. We play at the dilapidated old courts beside the Pacific casino instead, shown up by the old Chinese guy and fat local guy whipping the ball back and forth beside us. We don’t do too badly though: the ball only goes in the sea once, rescued by a little posse of kids armed with sticks and stones.

On J’s balcony we sip whisky and ginger and eat steak. His house is swish, with air-conditioning and big screen doors. He also has the biggest barbecue I’ve ever seen. This, he tells me, was written into his contract before coming here, which I find hilarious. It poured with rain while we were eating, and on the road home the toads are out in force. The world is divided into two kinds of people: those who drive to avoid the toads; and those who drive to squash them. There is no middle ground of ignoring them. J, who is giving me a lift home, is a squasher, as he’s from Northern Australia. Toads were introduced there by some wise soul to try to control a pest on the big sugar cane plantations, but with no natural predator (their back is covered in a noxious poisonous slime) they have run amok. They also proved utterly useless in controlling the sugar cane pest – too high up on the plant apparently. I’ve no idea why the toads were brought to the Solomons, but no doubt for an even stupider reason.

I sleep like a baby, until midnight when I receive a call from a certain ningnong in PNG (mi jok nomoa!!). Then back under the mosquito net till dawn.

(I have realised that I always seem to write about ‘something’, be it an aspect of Solomon life or a weekend away, so today I decided to take a different approach and write about ‘nothing’. Since it is hard to capture ‘nothing’ well on a camera, there are no photos I’m afraid. But please accept this photo of me and my mate ‘Meat’ as compensation).

A short wander...

- “Bus hem waka?” I ask.
- “Nomoa, hem no kam yet”, the cheery response I invariably receive from the string of people selling betel nut, cigarettes and ring cakes from their little stalls.

Thus my day begins; the outcome of this little exchange a 30 minute walk down a dusty track to town and work. I have no complaints, however. Even when it rains heavily during the night, as it frequently does, leaving me slipping and sliding my way down certain sections of the route, I still take pleasure in this daily routine and wouldn’t swap it even for the whitest Hilux in Honiara.

It is strange how the strongest memories of a time and place tend to be connected with activities and events that are seemingly at the periphery of life. Forget all those thousands of hours spent in lessons in primary school, or the theory of Pareto efficiency I was supposedly studying at university. No. Instead, the types of memories that spring to mind from those respective times are kicking a flattened soft drink can around the playground with other munchkins, and the man playing a penny whistle beside the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, who I would walk past on the meadows each morning. Perhaps those sights and sounds that enter, as it were, on the sly, find some direct route into the long-term memory; sneaking past the everyday garbage of the mind such as telephone numbers, lecture notes and Big Brother.

In particular, the everyday routine of walking to school/work sticks strongly in the mind, and for me seems somehow to capture the entire atmosphere of a particular era in my life. What at the time might have seemed a boring trudge, in hindsight now gleams with meaning and an epic quality. When I think about it, the number of such walks I’ve experienced is actually very few, but they are so familiar I’m sure I regularly walk them in my dreams without knowing it. First was the short walk to Brookfield Primary School, escorted in the very early days by me mam and sisters or various Scandanavian aupairs, and a little later often in the company of a couple of wee friends. Later came the even shorter walk to and from my secondary school, the regular walk from my house in Paraguay to catch the Numero Once bus to Asuncion and the various icy meadows marches in Edinburgh that I have previously referred to in the blog.

And now… and now the morning wander down the Mbokona valley (but never back!!) joins this select list. Who knows which aspects of the walk I will remember in the swirls of time, if any? But for now, perhaps because I am no longer a lazy teenager/gapyearer/student and I am more than 4ft tall, this current edition seems easily the most pleasurable. Past the betel nut sellers and over the first ramshackle bridge. Past the cassava patches and the women hacking away at the heavy soil with their hoes. The teetering makeshift houses inhabited by a few Malaitan families, overflowing with pikininis and looking like they’re about to collapse at any second. The hordes of little boys and girls walking barefoot to Mbokona Primary School, in their striking uniforms of purple flannel shirts and dresses. The bus that has been in the ‘roadside workshop’ for several months and which is now apparently an elaborate climbing frame for kids. The sounds (and smell) of the pigpigs being fed their morning slops, or whatever it is that Solomon pigpigs eat. And betel nut stalls every 50 metres, I suppose just in case you get caught out by a particularly sharp craving pang.

I toyed with the idea of buying a car for a while not long ago. But the pleasure of this daily walk has been one of the major factors in my changing my mind, as even though I was trying to trick myself into believing I would only use a vehicle at weekends, in reality I knew deep down that I would be waving this morning wander goodbye.

Photos from top: The road begins; An inspired artist's impression of a ring cake (otherwise known as a donut); The 'roadside workshop'; One of the more elaborate betel nut stalls; Pikininis on their way to school; A wee Malaitan scally; Just one more bend...