laura at large

bits and pieces

2007-01-07T14:54:00.000+11:00

Not a very eventful week, and I still can't load images, so just a few notes...

Learned a new word in pidgin: ‘komanda’ used when someone does something really good or admirable. Discovered this when I forked out $2000 to pay the overdue office power bill so that the power wasn’t cut off over the Christmas break. Clearly the first admirable thing I’ve done…

Learned how to say hello/goodbye in Roviana, a commonly spoken/understood local language. Also discovered that soy sauce could have a completely different meaning in said language; soi being a rude word for men’s bits.

Found a leafy green vegetable that I don’t like (the first one!). In usual style I saw something new at the market, so asked how to cook it and bought it. When I took it to work two of my colleagues said they’d never tried it, and one said she grew it as a hedge. Maybe this should have been enough of a deterrent, but I tried it anyway. Not very nice; I hope it makes a nice screen.

a gentle stroll, and all things tropical

2006-12-30T13:29:00.000+11:00

I trust that everyone has had a happy Christmas, and that you are all gearing up for 2007 (can’t believe it’s here already!).

The condensed version for the screen-reading-averse… I spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day walking up the volcanic mountain on Kolombangara Island, which is next to Ghizo Is. and about 1700 m high.
It was a great walk (with the exception of a few minor details, more below), and I think my legs have almost recovered, a week later. Other than that it’s been a pretty quiet week in the office, only tropical infections and tropical downpours to contend with. It’s raining lots at the moment, so a perfect day for sitting around writing blogs.

OK, more detail now…
Last Saturday I rode over to the beach on the other side of the island again, and swam out to the reef off the coast. Saw my first ray (a Spotted Eagle Ray), coral being grown on concrete disks, a couple of little nudibracts (I think), and a really cool coral formation with a cloud of little blue fish swarming around and through it. I forgot to put sunscreen on my back, resulting in a spectacular burn just in time to spend a couple of days walking with a backpack…

On Saturday evening we (NZ RAMSI called Andy and I) headed over to Iri Iri village on Kolombangara Island. We had to arrive after 6 as they are Seventh Day Adventists, so can’t take guests/tourists from Friday evening – Saturday evening. We stayed in the rest house; a very basic building with a trestle table, but nothing to sleep on. I had heard that they weren’t very keen or well set up for tourists, and this certainly seems to be true. I’m not sure if they’re not interested, or if they just don’t really know what would improve their operation. Or maybe they just figure that they’ve got a virtual monopoly on the walking up Kolombangara trade and don’t need to do anything else… We chatted to some of the people from the village for a while about the walk and life in Iri Iri in general, then had a quick dinner (cold baked beans on bread) and had an uncomfortable night’s sleep being smoked out by Andy’s mozzie coils.

We woke up early and set off on the walk with a guide (Gule) and two extra people to help carry stuff (George and Zino). We figured that we probably only needed one, but hired a second just in case. We took way too much gear (in my opinion); a tent and thermarest-type sleeping mats, and all sorts of stupidly heavy food (Andy had said that we needn’t bother buying anything as they had heaps of stuff to take at their house… ended up being lots of tins and ration packs). The first bit of the walk wandered past a few gardens and through a little bit of regrowth. I was feeling a bit tired and spectacularly uncoordinated (lack of caffeine? Sunstroke from the day before? Mozzie coil poisoning?), and I managed to fall over about 10 minutes in, scraping and bruising my shin, corking my quad muscle, and straining my shoulder. At this point I was glad we had a second person to help, and handed over my pack. Felt very pathetic, but I think I would have had to turn back otherwise.

The next part of the walk was bloody terrible, I have to say. Two hours of walking up an old logging road completely covered in a vine, which was purpose-made for tripping up clumsy walkers. It was really hot, and I think I fell over about five times. It was also just really sad to be walking through a vine monoculture, not really able to see any bush, while hearing from the guide how the MP of the time had given permission for the logging company to go in, and the landowners had not received any benefits at all. A pretty standard story, I think…

I cheered up considerably one we got into the bush – lots of shade, welcome distractions (lots of interesting plants, heaps of moss, nice views), and no bloody vines. Basically we went up a bit, down a bit, crossed a river, then up a really steep bit of track for around two hours to reach the camp in about five hours. Andy really didn’t enjoy the last climb, which made me feel better about not enjoying the logging road! The camp site was really nice – an open grassy spot with a view down to Iri Iri and across to Gizo. We shared camp with a community of orb-weavers (see photo), lots of frogs, some bush rats and lots of birds flying past. After a bit of a rest Gule and I wandered down to the stream to wash and get some water. Then a camp feast – Andy cooked up some mince he’d taken with noodles, and I shared my weird ration-pack sausage meal and some tinned fish with Gule, George Zino in exchange for some of their rice.

The tents (or one tent and a tarp) were set up while we were at the stream, and by the time I got back from a gentle wander to take photos everyone was working hard, checking that the tarp provided adequate shade…

After not-very-much-sleep I got up early, in time to catch sunrise and join in the Christmas morning prayer. I’m not sure if it was the blessing we sought or the vanilla coffee, but I felt a bit more coordinated than the previous day. A quick breakfast of a little box of cornflakes (remember those ones you used to take on family camping trips?) and heaps of tinned apricot (funny the kinds of food that end up being exciting over here), then off to the top to try to beat the cloud which rolls in over the mountain-top most days. It took about an hour and a half to reach the top, and it was like an alien landscape up there. Everything was completely covered in moss, quite a bit of bamboo, and very eerie feeling. It was a bit hazy and cloudy, but I still really enjoyed it. I’ve put up a couple of photos of the top, with Gule, and Andrew near the top.

Andy had the shits because he wouldn’t use the local facilities, preferring to wait until he got back (he informed me on the way down that the record for holding on was 24 days, which is how long they’re allowed to detain a suspected drug smuggler while waiting for the evidence to come to pass…). So it’s no joke – RAMSI really are careful about what they take and leave behind!

We stopped in at the camp on the way back down, and I had my Christmas lunch with Gule at around 9:30 – masses of rice and tinned salmon (thanks RAMSI). The other boys had already eaten, and Andy was sticking to low-volume-high-energy muesli bars. Then back to Iri Iri – I was a bit slower than Andy and the boys, enjoying the bush before getting back to the road. I caught the end of a bamboo band performance when I got back to Iri Iri, then straight on the boat and back to Gizo.

All in all a good trip, and I think my leg muscles have almost recovered now. I’ve got a lovely tropical infection from the scrape, and am on my first dose of antibiotics since getting here. This required a trip to the hospital, which accidentally has caused me to test my allergy to penicillin – but that will have to be the subject of a later post because it’s hot, the air-con doesn’t seem to be working, and so I think I’ll go home. The tropical rain from this morning, which was keeping things cool, has finished and the building is like a sauna.

the Tetepare website is back

2006-12-26T13:25:00.000+11:00

In one of my earlier posts (this one) I talked a bit about Tetepare Island, which is supposed to be a pretty amazing place. Their website is up and running again, so go and check it out. I'll be going there briefly on 2 Jan (helping with training in putting microchips in leatherback turtles there and on Redova Is), so will provide a more personal perspecive after that...

happy christmas!

2006-12-19T16:03:00.000+11:00

Just some photos from my work Christmas party the other night...

HAPPY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

exit strategies 1-10

2006-12-09T15:44:00.000+11:00

Well, last week I came as close as I’ve ever been to marriage… Steph and I had been talking to Gen (Honiara housemates) about the beauty of Frank, who guided us up the volcano on Savo Island (see Savo Island post). He is pretty darn spunky, and also deaf and dumb (I’ll leave it up to you as to whether this is a positive or negative attribute, and I will post a photo as soon as I’m able!). Gen went back to Savo and, wanting to see Frank with her own two eyes, mentioned to Victoria (who runs the village rest house where we stayed) that I was keen on Frank. This resulted in Victoria’s husband Noel looking me up at Ben’s party in Honiara, to let me know that he and Victoria fully approved of this situation, and that all I had to do was send word back and I would be a done deal (oh, and possibly buy a couple of bags of rice, and Frank could do with a new screen for his DVD player, just for starters). Suspecting that this offer had little to do with mutual attraction on Frank’s behalf (I’m sure he saw me as a lumbering, awkward whitey) and a fair bit to do with my potential to be a benevolent provider of all things western to the village, I wrote to Victoria explaining that, where I’m from, two people usually get to know each other a bit before jumping into a lifelong commitment and besides I’m moving to Gizo. Exit strategy #1

Now I've finally left Honiara (exit strategy #2). Things here in Gizo are pretty good – it really is a beautiful place; nice and clean after Honiara, and soooo quiet at night. One of the med students at Phoebe’s mentioned a noisy rooster close-by, but I sure haven’t noticed it after the raucous mob outside my window at Tanuli. I arrived on Thursday night at around 7:30 (the boat ended up taking about 12 hours all up), fairly zombified from the constant drone of the engine, the snap freezing, and too much sitting in the sun to thaw out. I dropped into Nings on the way for a polo bun, then decided that I should limit consumption for the rest of the trip to avoid the toilet, and conserve my limited paper supply. It was a good plan… typical that my only real, ongoing stomach problems coincided with a 12-hour boat ride! I can’t say that I really enjoyed the boat trip… too cold inside, and crowded, windy and wet/sunny/smokey/vomity outside. The video clips being shown on the DVD were pretty funny, but by the end of the trip I think I new them by heart. I woke up from a quick snooze at one point to see footage of Madonna performing live at some Live-Aid event – very surreal.

When I got to Phoebes Jaffar was there with three of the Swedish med students we met on Savo Island and a British med student too. Jaffar works at the Gizo hotel (you’ll meet him when you come and visit, he’s a classic, completely camp and lovely), and came to cook for us last time I was here, demonstrating how to make coconut rice and deal with big fishies. Discovered that I was very hungry and ate about half a tuna and a good SI-style helping of really yummy c’nut rice. Mmmmmm. Then realized that belly still wasn’t up to scratch, and have been filling up on fluffy white bread ever since. Better than that gastro-stop stuff, I reckon! I reached new heights of mental density when I managed to ask the British med student - who wears a skullcap and who’s name is Gideon – what he’s doing for Christmas. I think my thought processes must have the same problem as my bowels at the moment… bypassing some critical step on the way to the outside world, resulting in unplanned and somewhat undesirable exit strategies…(#3&4)

I went for a bit of a walk along the road that follows the southern coast of Ghizo Is this morning, through a couple of villages which have the most amazing settings and views out past the reef, across to the other parts of the island etc. The road is pretty reasonable, and I think it’ll be perfect to ride along; the furthest point on the road, Sasikola (or something like that) is about 12 km away. Someone rode past me on my way back, and he had front suspension, so mine definitely won’t be the swankiest bike around (‘though I think his bike was even noisier than mine, and didn’t seem to be working on all gears).I still have to put my bike together, and hope that it hasn’t rusted solid. The bike box lasted for just long enough… after being unloaded onto a wet wharf at Gizo the bottom fell apart when I got to Phoebe’s.

Now I’m just chilling in the office, quite literally; the office here has air-con, and toilets that flush! Or at least they do when the water is on. Seems to be off pretty often, but I think the shower at Phoebe’s is rainwater, so at least I can still wash.

The others at Phoebe’s are going to Fatboy’s tomorrow, so I might tag along for a snorkel. I’ve got a pretty crazy week coming up, and all this staring at nice-but-unswimmable sea is going to drive me ‘nanas!

Oh, and the other six exit strategies? At the moment they're to do with work... both what's being written into workplans for finishing up projects and my fantasies for the increasing times when the beauracracy and financial difficulties just seem completely unworkable, and 'boring' Canberra looks attractive again.

wha- whe- how- ???

2006-11-27T17:38:00.000+11:00

only a condensed version this time, you'll be pleased to hear... I'm still here, alive and kicking (lots of kicking, not so much life). Have just been to Port Moresby for a few days for a meeting, and now work is even more crazy than it's been so far. Surely it will let up soon, all these jobs have their lulls, right?

Other developments:
1. I'm forgetting how to speak English... couldn't decide whether 'operationalizing' was really a word when I was reading through someone else's bit of a funding proposal. Certainly would be in pidgin (along with classics like developmentis-im, strategis-im, plann-im, etc.), but not so sure from the point of view of a US donor.
2. A fellow AYAD hassled me the other day about working too hard and not doing my job as far as the AYAD program is concerned (not enough 'capacity building'). After agonising moments of extra guilt and feeling even more hopeless than before, have decided to apply Solomons Time to this dilemma, for now.
3. You'll have to make the rest up... I'm tired and going home for now.

This is a picture of my workmate/counterpart John Pita and a new friend he made while at the meeting in PNG.

confused roosters, mysterious substances

2006-11-16T07:42:00.000+11:00

I've moved into a new house until I go to Gizo - on Tanuli Ridge. I'm living with three other volunteers; Ben, Steph and Gen. The house is pretty cool, and there's an extended hours canteen at the top of the exciting driveway where we can pop up to buy odd bits and pieces, or just gather gossip.

Good points = nice people, handy location (don't have to walk all the way through town on my way to work), ultimate frizbee.

Bad points = confused rooster next door, who wakes me up at around 4 most mornings, lack of internet.

We have weekly dinners for the volunteers, and anyone else who wants to come along. Last night I was all excited about making chick pea curry. I hadn't managed to get into town to stock up on spices, but I knew there were at least some at the house. Hunting through the cupboards I happily added some cumin or garam masala or something (bit hard to tell when everything's a bit stale), and a good whack of what I thought was ground coriander. Tossed in highly prized tinned tomatoes etc., tasted and was shocked by a very distinctive bitter flavour. After a few more tastes to work out what the bitterness was I realised my mouth was numb, and came to the conclusion that the coriander was kava in disguise. Probably not Fijian judging by the potency. I managed to salvage the dish by rinsing the sauce off and starting again, but everyone did seem pretty mellow by the end of the evening...

I found Nemo and an island paradise

2006-11-07T06:02:00.000+11:00

Saturday 4 November 2006

Well, my trip to Western Province was an interesting experience! Gizo is definitely a much nicer place to be than Honiara. It’s a smaller, one-street town, the people are generally a bit friendlier, the market is REALLY good (smaller than Honiara, but heaps of fresh fish every afternoon), it’s cleaner, less dusty and nowhere near as smelly. And it’s closer to lots of really nice places out west too. The only disadvantage is the number of tourists, and the (mainly British) medical students who seem to be journeying to SI and Western Province in particular en masse.

After a delayed flight we (Dale, the WWF South Pacific coordinator and I) touched down for a refueling stop in Munda, where Julian Moti recently sneaked back to the Solomon Islands courtesy of the PNG defence force. Then onto Gizo, where the airstrip is actually on a separate island (not sure if this is because there’s not enough flat land on Ghizo Island, or just so that the single boat taxi operator can make a killing through this essential service…). Arriving lunchless and starving I then had to walk past the market; masses of very fresh looking fish, fish and chips, fruit, etc etc. and go straight to the office to meet the staff. It was pushing 4 on a Friday, and normal office hours are 8 – 4:30, so we were stretching company loyalty expecting people to wait around for too long.

We just went around the table doing quick introductions, and having people talk a little bit about their projects or what they are working on. Everyone was really nice, and it seems like an interesting range of projects that WWF-SI has going. Most of the work is on marine conservation in the Western part of SI; particularly assisting communities to assess their resources and use patterns, identify areas of conservation priority, develop management plans for various kinds of protected areas, monitor species and populations, education and awareness raising, and training in alternative sustainable livelihoods. The first project technical report since I started was due on Tuesday, so that forced me to get my head around at least one of the projects. The project manager had written it, I just had to edit and check that the donor requirements had been met, and check the financial reports for this and another project which also had a financial report due. I was pretty nervous about going back to the project manager with the fairly significant changes I had made, but it seemed to go down OK, and we got the report in on time. Unfortunately the weird procedures for financial reporting have meant that the financial reports will be a little late to the donors, but oh well… maybe I should have incorporated a report on the meaning of ‘Solomon Time’.

Last Sunday I took a day off and went on a snorkeling trip with Dive Gizo. The trip cost SBD150 (or about AUD30, I think), and first off we went to a reef wall off an island called Naru (ha ha). It was really amazing, easily the best snorkeling I’ve every done. Not that I’ve done all that much, but it definitely beat anything I’ve seen on the Great Barrier Reef or in PNG. A recent rapid environmental assessment showed that bits of Western Province have some of the highest fish and coral diversity in the world. Getting even more technical, I saw some Nemos (they do look pretty nice hiding out in the anemones (?) as the common photos show), Angelfish, Parrotfish, and a whole lot of others that I don’t know the name of. And those blue starfish that I was raving about earlier – common as anything, saw lots of them just walking along the seaside around Gizo. The person who went diving on the same trip saw a turtle and sharks, too.

Munda is a really sweet place; very small, again very pretty on the seaside, and very friendly. I came here to go to the AGM of the Tetepare Descendents’ Association, which manages the conservation and use of Tetepare Island. This is a fantastic ‘good news’ conservation story – I’ll post a link to their website when it’s working again. The AGM went all day, and I’ll have no excuse to complain about AGMs of Australian associations after sitting through that in a stinking hot hall, not to mention being coopted into being a returning officer for the voting in of committee members, which turned into a fairly complicated process…

Today I went for a really nice walk in the morning along a seaside road, then up into the island past some gardens and into the bush. It was raining when I headed off, so nice and cool. I wandered around for a while, and there seemed to be roads everywhere so I was pretty confident that when I was ready to head back I could just pick one heading in the right direction. Forgot that I have a terrible sense of direction, and luckily the sun came out and I realized that I was heading in completely the wrong direction to find Munda again, and my plane back to Honiara. I got just a little concerned, especially after I tried a couple of other roads that looked promising but eventually dwindled and disappeared at seemingly random destinations. I ended up having to retrace my steps, and made it back just in time for the plane.

I can’t really say that it’s nice to be back in Honiara, ‘though I am enjoying my last few days of living in a nice house, and plan to stuff myself with dairy products before moving west, where they’re not really available. Also making the most of broadband… don’t know how much more download-intensive blogging there’ll be!

more photos!

2006-11-06T23:48:00.000+11:00

I've set up a Flickr account. Haven't quite worked out how to post from there yet, but will do soon! Till then if you're really keen you can see the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/lozpix

back to Boneggi

2006-11-04T23:15:00.000+11:00

I'm all excited about being able to load photos from my Mac (ok, only one so far, but I still maintain that Macs are the best) so I'm not going to write about Gizo until I've downloaded some photos.

Instead, the trip to the beach on Sunday 22. I walked to the designated meeting spot where us vollies were supposed to be congregating (or so I thought). Noone was there, so I dropped off the food I had brought (potato salad with megapod eggs from Victoria) and wandered on in the general direction of Boneggi.

This first shot, on the right, is a typical local house; not all have this 'location location location', but they're generally pretty small leaf houses, and the small bit on the left is the outdoor kitchen (the toilet is most likely the beach, hence the need to travel so far out of town for a swim).

The shot underneath shows the contrast with an expatty abode - the building to the right is probably the security shack...

Had a really good day despite the lack of coordinated vollie activity - got a ride from some fellow beach-goers (wouldn't have made it to Boneggi otherwise), had a nice snorkel, nice walk back from the fish BBQ stall somewhere starting with T out past somewhere starting with K (ah, the disadvantages of writing too late!), and got some nice shots. I think I'm a little obsessed with graffiti and painted stores at the moment... I quite liked this little Marxist comment.

The snorkelling was really good - masses of fish today, maybe because it was a bit rough and the water was a bit stirred up. I think my lung capacity and ability to equalise is improving too. Maybe someone can explain to me why the top layer of the water was really murky and unclear, but as soon as I dived down under a bit it was much better? Seemed really strange...

I saw these boys playing in a stream outlet on the way and couldn't resist the 'cute' shot. One of the advantages of a digital camera is that I could show them the photo afterwards.

after the first week of work...

2006-10-22T08:54:00.000+11:00

Saturday 21 October

Phew, what a week! Is it time to go home yet? I’m completely exhausted, but taking comfort in the realisation that I’ve got some kind of virus or something, so things aren’t necessarily as immense as they have seemed in the last day or two…

A typical day at work this week has started with the walk to work via a ‘goat track’ short cut (named after the agile and nimble mountain variety I’m sure, as the track is steep and slippery in the constant wet and reminds me of parts of the walk up the volcano on Savo), then past numerous stalls selling betel nut, accompaniments, single cigarettes and the odd donut or coconut roll along the side of the road from the main road up to Ngossi. Then I meet up with the main road, where I can see the ocean, Savo Island, Florida Islands and Malaita on a clear day; and smell the heady aroma of vehicle exhaust, sewage and burning rubbish (no landfill here!). Lately it’s been raining fairly often in the morning, which keeps things cooler, but can make progress through the centre of town very slow as everyone tries to squeeze past on a single non-muddy piece of curb, avoiding muddy, betelnut stained puddles and crazy drivers on the road.

My trip to work takes me past the market, so I sometimes stop for some fruits or vegies (there’s not usually much left by the time I’m heading home). Then into what’s left of Chinatown, and to the SIDT building where the WWF Honiara HQ is. The building is wooden, and has a policy of no shoes on the wooden floors, which is a relief as my feet are still a little tender from last weekend and I’m more than happy to go barefoot when possible.

Our office is quite nice – we have ceiling fans, laptops, an operational printer, and intermittent broadband. The broken photocopier makes a fantastic feature and stand for miscellaneous files. The toilets are a bit of an adventure, and there’s a new canteen run by a youth group, which has rapidly expanded its repertoire from fish and chips (not quite as we Ozzies know them) to include greens/tuna/coconut milk, cooked bananas and sweet potato in coconut milk, and rice. They also sell cold young coconuts and fruit sometimes. Would put Jamie Oliver to shame if resources were compared, I’m sure. I’ve been trying to establish fridge usage rights by asking them to keep a can of softdrink cold for me sometimes, but I think putting a container of lunch fare or a fish from the market might be stretching the friendship…

In my office there’s the country manager, Stephen (or Kido); the communications person, Doreen; and the fisheries policy officer, Julia. We’re also recruiting for a replacement finance manager as the last one was encouraged to leave recently because he wasn’t doing his job satisfactorily (pretty impressive that they managed to get rid of him! Go team!). People just seem to beetle away on their own for the most part, and Doreen and Julia are both pretty new. I think Doreen’s been there for a few months, and Julia just for a month or so. I share an office with Julia and we’re starting to get a bit more chatty; she’s probably around my age or a few years younger, and has recently finished studying in Moresby. We’re going to give a presentation to second year teaching students next week on WWF’s activities, so that should be a learning experience for both of us. I’m hoping she’ll do most of the talking. It’s been a pretty draining week, trying to work out where to start, what project is what, etc. etc. Next week a representative from WWF South Pacific is coming for his annual visit so that should be exciting… hope I don’t seem like too much of a goose. He, Stephen and I will go to Gizo for a visit next weekend which will be a good chance to meet everyone there and check out accommodation etc.

After work, depending on how much I’ve got to carry, I usually walk or get a bus to the turn off to Ngossi (no busses go up the hill, unfortunately…). The busses are fun – mostly just Toyota type people movers with music blaring, a driver and a conductor sitting in the back. The fare is SBD$2 (around 50 cents) regardless of how far you’re going, but if you don’t have the right change it’s SBD$3. The conductor says the name of the next stop, and you signal your intention to disembark by hissing at him. It ends up being a fairly constant monologue as he says the name a few times, waits for any hisses, then lets the driver know whether anyone wants to get off and whether there’s any room to let others on. I’ve also befriended a reliable taxi driver (apparently some of them will try to rip you off or make sleezy comments). Very handy for when I’m really loaded down with shopping and don’t feel able to struggle up the hill. I’m also planning a strategic trip to a small shop nearby which is open later than most selling western goods (most close at 5), and which also has ICE-CREAM. I dropped in the other day when I had the taxi, but they were down to strawberry flavour so no joy there. I’m sure it will all have been melted and refrozen numerous times unless I go to the really swanky shopping centre right at the other end of town (haven’t made it there yet), but beggars can’t be choosers, and even on a volunteer wage I’m certainly not really among the beggars here.

Victoria, one of the people who runs the guest house on Savo Island, came to town on Friday. She mentioned that she might be coming to Honiara, so I left my phone number for her at the SI Visitor’s Bureau. I was feeling sick on Friday and stayed home in the morning, then was woken up by a phone call from her father letting me know that she’d meet me in town at 12. After a very confused start to the conversation I finally woke up and worked out what was going on. I met up with her and bought us some lunch at the stall owned by Steve’s (who taught us pidgin) mum (the photo called pc-mall is a shot of the numerous food stalls near point cruz where you can buy tuna and vegie rotis – very exotic – as well as the usual fish and chips, sweet potato, yam, banana, greens, egg rolls, and the odd curry), and she brought me a couple of megapod eggs from the island.

Today I ventured out into town to do some shopping in the morning, and struggled back with bags full from the market. I took a few photos on the way in and will try to get some of Chinatown and work next week. Other than that it’s been a day of taking it easy, and I’m also making the most of this house while I’ve got it; burning CDs onto my computer, watching crappy movies on DVD, and generally flaking around in comfort. Tomorrow I’m going to the beach with the other vollies, which should be nice.

'Podes' demystified

2006-10-18T21:23:00.000+11:00

I was going to just post this as a comment, but it's too good to be hidden away and missed! Heino from the Gardens sent me this explanation of what the 'pod' in megapod refers to. Hope you don't mind me quoting you Heino, and thanks for the explanation! I'm glad I won't miss out on all of your interesting tid-bits just because I'm not in Canberra...

"I reckon megapods have big feet - which is the Greek/Latin meaning. Regarding the "pod" part of the word think of tripod or podiatrist.In ancient Greek "pod" is not a word by itself but is the root for various foot-related words. Incidentally, you may see megapodes, instead of megapods, as the plural. In ancient Greek you'd add "s" to pod to make the singular "foot" but you'd add "es" to pod to make the plural "feet". But in ancient Greek you couldn't end a word in "ds", so the "d" was dropped and the vowel lengthened to give "pous" as the singular. In the English word megapod we use the stem form but in the word octopus we've taken over the actual Greek word for foot. That also explains why some people maintain that the proper plural is octopodes, not octopuses - and certainly not octopi.

Anyway, back to birds. Your megapods dug egg-laying holes, so big feet would be useful as shovels. Various mound-building birds are also megapods. Again, large feet would be very useful in raking up leaf litter etc"

Savo Island

2006-10-17T04:47:00.000+11:00

Sunday 15 October

Just got back from an amazing weekend on Savo Island – a little volcanic number about one and three quarter hours from Honiara on a little 30 hp fibreglass boat. The island is only a few km in diameter, and has a number of villages around the outside. It also boasts the Kamakeza hotel/rest house, which was first established some years ago, was destroyed during the ethnic tensions, and has now been rebuilt at a new site. A bit more expensive than our choice… we stayed at the Kula Village Stay – sort of set up to be an authentic village experience, with a separate leaf house for visitors (with beds with mattresses I should note, and more comfortable than at the Rest House in Honiara too), meals provided, a sort of pit toilet, and various activity options. The couple who run most of it, Noel and Victoria Kuku, are really lovely, and the whole village is very friendly and the kids are fabulously charming.

We arrived late Friday afternoon and took it pretty easy – a couple of people were feeling a bit poorly from dodgey food/different food/something, and everyone was pretty tired from the busy week. They must have thought we were very boring, as most people went to bed at 7 on Friday and not much later on Saturday. Gave me the chance to (uncharacteristically) be a party animal, relatively speaking. They wanted to sort out what our program was, so we all decided to go up the volcano on Saturday and go to church on Sunday. Leave at around 7 in the morning to get up the volcano before the weather gets too hot. No worries… and sat down to a feast of fried reef fish, rice, sweet potato and two minute noodles mixed with beans, tomatoes, onions, tinned fish, and plenty of curry powder.

We were woken at about 5:30 by Victoria’s dad knocking on doors (or walls) and asking who wants to go to the megapod fields. Not sure where that fit into all the previous night’s planning, but Fiona and I struggled out of bed and wandered off for a tour of the mysterious critters. I assume that the name refers to the size of the eggs (showing my ignorance of things Latin – maybe someone can enlighten me?), as the birds themselves are smaller than chickens. They are wild, and the spot we visited was a big enclosure, cut in half by a partial fence. The first half contained people digging up eggs. Holes are dug the night before, and the birds then go and dig a bit deeper (sometimes more than a metre) and lay an egg, then cover up the hole. While the people are in half the enclosure digging the eggs up again, the birds run away to the other half of the enclosure (they’re very shy, hence the fuzzy, long distance photos) and keep laying, up to three eggs a day. In the wild they dig the whole nest themselves, and apparently the eggs are still good for eating up to two weeks from being laid. The eggs are bigger (esp. longer) than chicken eggs, and have a bigger yolk. For all the digging and fence building I think the chicken probably still comes out ahead though. We took one back for brekkie, which was cocnutty bread (pretty good with shiteloads of vitamite/peanut butter), left over sweet potato, a little sample of fried megapod egg (pretty tasty as far as I could tell) and starfruit.

We eventually departed for the volcano at around 9, and seemed to wander along at a pretty relaxed pace for the first hour or so of flat walking. Stopped briefly by a stream, then crossed over for the ‘difficult’ bit, which consisted of scrambling up a slippery, slidey slope assisted by tree roots and any unfortunate bits of vegetation that came to hand. After the difficult bit there was a mere two hours of pretty-darn-steep and fairly slippery terrain to negotiate, before arriving at the crater in the middle of the day. It was pretty amazing – bare whitish rock with sulfuric colouring, boiling hot water and well heated ground. The experience was only slightly tainted by meeting three Sweedish doctors who were staying at the Kamekeza place and had managed to take the shorter route, which had been ruled out by Noel because of difficulties with land ownership and royalty payments. I think our hard work payed off though – we all managed to get back in one piece and resisted the temptation of walking on to another higher vantage point on the way back, where (we heard later) one of the Swedes slipped an hurt his arm. Lucky they were doctors. The walk through the forest was really speccy too – good views across valleys, lots of nice ferns (sorry, no piccies of these, Jim), some cool fungi, and constant entertainment from our entourage of kids, the spunky mute guide (sigh), and Noel. All chewing betel nut and/or smoking the whole way, and looking like they could turn around and do it all again by the end.

Were rewarded on return by a refreshing swim (I didn’t realise the others were eating first, jumped in the water, then realised on getting out that I should have moved further to avoid the preferred toilet location), cold shower, and meal of rice and megapod omelette with tomato, bean, onion, and, creatively, two minute noodles and curry powder. Drank litres of water, sat around feeling bloated, and was surprisingly hungry for dinner a couple of hours later. Rice, sweet potato, chunks of fried tuna (I think I ate about half a fish), more omelette, pumpkin tips in coconut milk, and greens with two minute noodles and curry. Was almost driven insane after a few nights of broken sleep by the generator running late into the night next to my room, running a screening of Tristan and Isolde I later discovered. I guess there have to be some perks for having your home invaded every weekend by weirdos.
Today we got up for the Sunday service at the local Anglican church. The singing was beautiful, but I can’t say I really appreciated all the standing, sitting and kneeling given that my legs were making a few comments about the previous day’s exertion. Very special though, really. The first hymn almost made me cry, and I embarrassed myself again (getting very good at this) by asking if they were singing in language and being told it was English…
I went for a big snorkel after brekkie (fried coconutty bread with more vitamite, greans with noodles, curry and tinned fish, greens with noodles, curry and tinned corned beef, coconutty rice) and saw some very cool huge blue starfish with lighter blue spots, a few biggish fish, a few littlish colourful ones too, some cool coral, etc. etc. (very technical, I know). The boat trip back was very wet but not too cold, and I managed not to think about how impossible it would really be to swim either way by half way across.
Now it’s my first night in the pure luxury of the house I’ll be minding for three weeks (very grateful to Kahlee and Steve for this!).

arrival!

2006-10-17T04:41:00.000+11:00

Sunday 8 October

Well, we all arrived in the end, in one piece, with all our luggage, and no major tantrums. The food on the plane was even delicious (SI Air, not Qantas). Pretty incredible I reckon; I take it as a good omen for the year to come. The united women’s rest house is pretty cool; simple but clean and nice people around. Chatted a bit to Betsie and Rose (?), and got very embarrassed messing up PNG/SI pigeon.
The first night we went to a go finis party (don’t know if you actually say that in SI Pigeon) for a couple of other volunteers at Big Daddy’s house. Big Daddy (Emanuel) is a DJ on the local radio station. He’s part African, Kiribatian and Western Provincial (?), and he may take over the In Country Manager when Charlotte leaves in two weeks. He seems like a really nice person from first brief impressions.
An ex-AYAD (Ben) will act in the position until it's filled (by tender process which seems surprising).

The party was pretty impressive – people contributed money for drinks, and there was heaps of food BBQ’d up too (huge plastic carton full of rice, bread, greens in coconut, tuna, chicken, sausages, salad, fruit…). There were other volunteers (mostly of the Aussie variety as far as I met), a few people working for Govt and other mobs, lots of members of a local triathlon club, family of Big Daddy and others in the house, and others that I’m sure I missed altogether. And there were lots of display dances (from Kiribati, Samoa, and a few others) and some fire dancing. It was great to meet lots of interesting people, but a bit overwhelming in such a big group with lots of noise and activity. I hope noone takes offence for the many times I’m sure I repeatedly asked what peoples’ names were…

I was ready to drop by the time we came back (still a bit before pumpkin time), slept reasonably but actually got cold during the night and had to put my only warm top on! Apparently it’s not usually this mild (I hope not).

Today we went to Bonegi Beach, which is about 20 mins drive west from Honiara. A really nice spot – stoney beach with reef about 10 minutes out. Had a great time snorkelling, but got fairly badly burnt on my legs. Thanks to restrictive swimwear codes my knees are in the clear, so at least bending isn’t a problem. And maybe it will keep me warm tonight…

new toys, much playing

2006-08-14T20:53:00.000+11:00

Right, so this is how we load an image then. I'm sure there must be another way to add a photo to your 'profile'... guess I'll figure all that out some time (along with changing the colours and the layout of this template!).

Good excuse to play with the inbuilt camera on my laptop though, and a fine distraction while loading CS2... slow slow slow. Will I regret going for Intel, or not waiting until the next chip comes out?

I can't believe people find time to post so much on their blogs. I seem to have trouble finding time to do much post-work computer stuff, 'though I have to admit I can see that this could become addictive!

into the ether

2006-08-13T20:07:00.000+11:00

The first blog post... not really at large yet. I sure hope I can change this colour scheme...