Mi araev long Solomon Aelan

Mi barava hapi lo raetem mi fas blog leta long Solomon Aelan !!

(I am very happy to write my first blog post in the Solomon Islands) – easy as eh?!

We have had pigin lessons each afternoon for a couple of hours. It’s really easy to pick up and so much fun to speak!

Here are some highlights;

-          Iumitufala= lets you and me

o   Iumitfala go long kilim dae bulumakau

o   which means: ‘lets go and kill a cow (or a bull)’

-          Pikinini = children/child:  

o   Eg: pikinini hem krae olowe bikos hem hanggere

o    Which means: the child is always crying because they are hungry

See its fun eh!?

On my second night here I had to catch a taxi on my own back to the house where I am living. Honiara is not too big but after dark it sis best not to walk around outside, especially alone. It must have been a hilarious (and very profitable) experience for the taxi driver, as I didn’t know exactly where my house was and was hopeless at pigin. So much confusion. But we got there in the end!!

There are 12 other Kiwi volunteers living in or around Honiara. They each bring a different set of skills to wide range of organisations. There are people working in NGO’s, central government ministry’s, and provincial government.

I am so excited to start work properly on Monday. I had a brief meeting with the team I will be working with at the Ministry of Education and the job sounds amazing. I don’t know enough about it yet to say too much, but safe to say it sounds exciting and way bigger than anything I could be involved with in New Zealand!!

Tomorrow I am going to stay in a rural village for a couple of nights. Im looking forward to getting  out of busy dirty urban scene of Honiara- its pretty full on here. There are so  many people here(which reminds me of another great pigin word. staka- meaning lots of). Staka smells, staka people staka cars, staka poverty long Honiara.

I am imagining my stay in the village will be all swimming in the sea, gathering coconuts and fanning myself with a banana leaf... but all will be revealed tomorrow.

Lukum iu (see you later)