Welcome to Solomon Islands!

Halo Ologeta, yu how? Me orrite nomoa!

For all of you who might be a little confused: a lot has happened since last time. At the moment I am not in Perth but in Honiara – Solomon Islands. I took up a job there for 7 months, and the plan is to go back to Perth after the contract finishes. And sorry for writing in English, but meanwhile I got a lot of overseas contacts as well who I need to update too on a regular basis. So instead of writing 2 stories in a different language, I decided better to have an update in English than no update at all…;-)

For now, it seems I survived my first month in the Solomon Islands! I am still staying in the hotel, but if all goes well I move to the nice house with Jason from my office this weekend. Its about time, I am starting to feel unhealthy. Sleeping in the hotel sounds great, but meanwhile I have tried all the meals on the menu...plus not to forget how am I suppose to go straight home to my room from work when I have to pass the bar first?

Other than that, life is pretty relaxed. One weekend I was invited to Jason's open air cinema night, which was great. About 30 people rocked up at Jason's place with chairs, beers and food. Jase (guy I work with) put on a sheet on the rocks, took a projector from work and the open air cinema was born!
The next morning we went for an early morning snorkel at Bonegi beach at 7am , about 15 minute drive from Honiara. You can drive your car on the beach, and the main attraction at Bonegi is the wreck that is just under the surface about 50 meters from shore. Awesome! As we were very early, the water was still calm and we had amazing visibility. So so many fish, cant remember ever seeing so much at the time! So my wreck snorkelling adventure was definitely worth to repeat.....On our way back we had a nice brekkie/lunch at the Raintree cafe. Must be my favourite spot to go in the morning, its a little banana leaf hut on the beach in between lushy rainforest gardens, location location location!

As I had been in Honiara for already 3 weeks I decided it was about time to have a big night out. so we had........After the hotelbar closed, we went with the local boys who work in the hotel and the standard members of the Mendana Bar Dwellers Association to the King Sol. When that closed at midnight we headed down to the nightclub....o dear......mind you it was 90 percent locals, and there I go with blond hair and blue eyes. Lets say no lack of attention, ha ha! But the local hotel boys and the bar dwellers looked after me, and I think we somehow got home early in the morning when the sun was coming up.......

Last weekend was supposed to be a quit weekend, but it turned out not to be so quit....sunset drinks on the beach on Friday after work, Saturday a party at someone's place , sunday a very late night watching the rugby....

Beside partying I sometimes do work...:-) Work is very different here, I am responsible for a prison new development, and upgrade and expansion of 2 remote area health clinics. Dealing with local contractors in the Solomon islands I found is very "challenging". Although they have the technical knowledge, to understand the obligations under the contract is a different thing. So when I try to explain to them how what when to do when it comes down to health and safety, variations, instructions, price request etc they look at me with no expression in their eyes. And then, all of a sudden, when I think I run out of words to explain, I see their eyes light up, a smile appearing on their face, and I realise my message finally came through……when it comes down to construction, even the most simple things as delivering materials to site in time is a challenge on its own because of the remoteness of the projects. Or even the lack of communication.. I realised that I forgot how life was before we had email, fax, phone and mobile phones. Until I got to the Solomon’s…..beside managing projects in remote areas where I am not a 5 minute drive away, I am sometimes not even a phone call away…. Or how about we need contractors to comply with health and safety. Its not the unwillingness that they work barefoot on construction sites, its simply the fact we cannot find safety boots for them that fit. Because they walked bare foot all their live they got huge feet that not fit in any normal shoe....


Every day I am surprised about something. Beside the fact its stinking humid hot and the annoying mozzies…Here's just a short summary:

- shops are so not organised, chemist may sell shoes, shoe shop may sell food, Chinese shops sell everything they can stock

- news paper notifies you every week when you have no signal on your mobile due to "sun radiation". it states exactly the date and time and duration...good to know...not that these phones would work outside that period anyway..

- streets have no name, houses have no numbers

- therefore you cannot call a taxi to pick you up from home, unless the driver has been there before and knows where it is

- petrol stations on the other islands are just a gathering of jerry cans, no pumps or so ever. good thing is they do provide service and put the fuel from the can into your tank so your hands do not get smelly.....

- I opened a sol bank account. no bank card provided. no paper statements or internet.. what they do have is a little cash book in my account. every time I want to withdraw money I have to take the little bank book, and they hand write the withdrawal and new amount...

-all are chewing beetle nut, it makes their saliva red. It looks horrible when people smile at you with all this red shit in their mouth. Not to mention they are spitting the red left overs all over the place....yak...

- on the markets you can by "rollies" cigarettes. As for a lack of cigarette papers, they use newspaper or writing paper...

- there are 2 different coconuts: the green ones, they are soft and you can drink the milk directly from the nut, very refreshing. and the brown hard one from which you can eat the flesh..

- roads and infrastructure only exist on the main road of Honiara. outside the city there is only gravel and dirt roads. that's why all drive 4wd here.

- airport landing zone...there is none...its just a cleared strip of jungle free of trees where the little plane lands. and with little plane I mean little...it fits 8 people, even the flying doctors one is bigger I think!

- you think WA = wait awhile? Sol islands is worse. They all joke about aussie time or sol time, as for sol time is in general 2 hours later than agreed. It works for everything like that, the taxi who picks you up, your flight, meeting someone in the bar....sol time...

- for some reason no one can tell me why taxis' drive only 30km/hour....some say it is to save petrol, who knows?

- I became an official member of the Mendana Bar Dwellers Association. We have daily meetings in the Mendana hotel bar....ha ha!

- there is no police alcohol control - don't drink and drive. so everyone just drives home in second gear?

- why again did I spent 2 years in Australia trying to upgrade my English to a higher level, when now I can pretty much get away with anything, since Pijin the national language is very poor broken English.

- the 80's hit of the Pussycats "Doin la bamba" is one of the most popular songs you hear on the radio everyday here


Ok folks that's it for now. Hope you are all good and keep in touch!


Lukim yu, xx sabine