Western Adventure

To break up the smelliness, noise, heart-ache, and Dispair of life in Honiara City I ventured to the beautiful Western Province of the Solomons (New Georgia Islands).

This was the plane.

Nah just kidding it was this one, you know what they say - two engines are better than one..

The place is postcard perfect. Brilliantly clear water, coral reefs, white sand beaches, etc. The only thing missing, is Tourists. I guess civil war will do that. The resorts and fancy accommodation are there, standing waiting, but the place was completely empty of foreign visitors.  Perfect!

 

Postcard perfect, I'm not sure how many places there are you can go like this without having squillions of tourists to ruin it. 

To the bewilderment of the locals, and with true Kiwi enthusiasm we elected to join a group of friends (we hadnt met half of them yet) to climb the top of the second highest mountain in the Solomons.  Kolombangara Island (which kind of looks like Rangitoto Island come to think of it). 

Kolombangara Island

...and here is Rangitoto for comparison.

The intention was to climb this grand volcano and get a brilliant panoramic view of the surrounding islands and reefs... we quickly discovered that the ‘cloud’ aspect of ‘cloud forest’ tends to obscure any potential view from the top.

Jane and D'Anne finding it hilarious that rain forest generally means that rain will also occur

If you cant see the top from the bottom, it is very unlikely that you will see the bottom from the top.

Not to worry though, because I was in a forest enthusiasts heaven. Tramping for a couple days through the rainforest forest was defiantly a highlight. The preservation of this particular forest is due in a large part to Kolombangara Forest Products Limited (KFL).

Me in forest heaven

KFL work in partnership with the S.I. government to protect all forest above 400m elevation, as well as preserving a third of the land below this as ‘kustom’ land for the indigenous communities who live on Kolombangara.

KFl are also one of the only forest companies in the Solomons who maintain an extensive replanting programme. While I was there I was impressed to see replanting of a wide variety of species and silivicultural tending regimes to maximise the future resource. I got to see plantation Mahogony, Teak, Spanish Cedar, and (my favourite) Rainbow Eucalyptus (Eucalyptus deglupta).

Rainbow Eucalyptus (not my photo, but this is what it looks like!)

This is exciting to see in a country where international logging is devastating much of the forest resource, and only a very small portion of the profits are being retained domestically. As the staff member who showed us around said, “Soon all the trees will be gone in Solomons, but we have been replanting, so our business will remain” not to mention the fragile soils, species and ecosystems that will also remain through their efforts toward sustainability.

Awww.

From the 'Disaster' Zone

In the past three weeks since floods there has been a lot going on!

As the flood waters were receding, the action started. It was like a bureaucratic humanitarian start-gun had fired, and the race was on...

Flooding along the banks of the Mataniko River. The foundations you can see here belong to a two story house which was swept away with a family inside.

All the NGOs kicked it to gear faster than a fast thing, albeit in a slightly uncoordinated and confusing manner. To be fair there was, and still is, an urgent need for basic humanitarian aid, food water shelter and medical assistance. But it seemed that even before the dust had settled the organisations were scrambling for top position, to see who could save the day the fastest and get the best media coverage. 

Mud from the floods inside a Ngalibiu School  classroom

Many of the displaced peoples in Honiara, legitimate or otherwise (approximately 10,000 at one point) were accommodated in designated evacuation centres. Most of the centres were schools and evacuees were packed in like sardines. It was 100 people to a single classroom at one of the worst I visited.

Using the schools as centres presents a big problem for the ministry of Education. The main goal of Ministry is to provide continued safe education opportunities for children, which is very difficult when half of the schools in Honiara now contain 1000’s of evacuated peoples, defecating, cooking, sleeping and generally living in them.

Ngalibiu School completely inundated with mud.

I have spent most of my time following the floods assessing which schools were damaged and to what extent, compiling this information and trying to formulate a rapid repair contract with an international project/construction firm. It seems that the vast majority of schools are fine, and basically structurally undamaged by the floods. However they are still, after many years of neglect, in state of disrepair and need urgent maintenance. Deciding where to draw the line on what is or isn't flood damage is very blurred indeed, and the opportunity to use this disaster as a catalyst for maintenance and repair work is very tempting.

With most of the bridges severely damaged on Guadalcanal,  the easiest way to get to remote schools is via motorised canoe. Safety and comfort are not their strong points

Some of the schools I have visited have been quite remote, like Ruavatu Provincial secondary school which needed a two hour motorised canoe ride to get there. The bridges were washed away by the floods and the only reliable way travel was by canoe. On this trip, we had about 10 people in the little boat and conditions weren't the best. Comfort was minimal. I had serious concerns when, about a km off shore, we hit a log which was partially submerged and nearly lost the out board motor!

Getting through the break in one of these things is similar to a surf lifesaving surfboat, except if you stuff it up there is a lot more at stake and nobody is wearing speedos.

At Ruavatu school we also assessed the local health clinic for flood damage. The clinic was fine, but I really enjoyed meeting the nurse there who casually mentioned he delivered a baby the day before, by himself. 

The nurse outside his rural health clinic in Ruavatu

The room he delivered a baby in, by himself, no biggie.

Over Easter I managed to get away from the chaos and stress of Honiara and go in search of the tropical island life I signed up for when coming to the Solomons! I’m not going to lie, it was fantastic, I took a canoe out to the Central Province and did some exploring, as well as spending the day on a private island resort playing volley ball and... this one’s for you Dyson... drinking coconut cocktails. 

Safety first, it's in the VSA contract that volunteers must wear life jackets when on any boats...

.. so it pays to bring your own unless you want the local ones- which I think were salvaged from the Titanic!
 (Fellow VSAer Emily Steel rocking the 60's PFD with style)

I would highly recommend visiting the Solomons. If you manage to avoid floods and earthquakes the place is an absolute paradise! I think that the tourism opportunity here is huge, and the Solomon’s could very well be the next Fiji or Hawaii with an adventurous take on the island getaway.

Not a bad spot for a BBQ! 

Flash flooding in Honiara

Somebody has played a terrible April fool’s joke on the Solomons. The ‘happy isles’ are in a state of national emergency, after extensive flash flooding on the afternoon of Thursday 3^rd April.

The flooding washed away entire communities and has severely damaged/ destroyed vital infrastructure.  To my knowledge, the event has been covered well in the New Zealand and Australian media. So, rather than give you the general details of the situation in the face of conflicting reports, I’ll tell of my experience -the facts of which I am certain.

The Mataniko River in flood, Chinatown below, Honiara to the left and Henderson Airport to the right.

 On Thursday it had already been raining for three days solid. I was at work in town on the fourth floor, we had spent the morning putting buckets under the drips and etc and rescuing computers from water that was leaking from the ceiling. Fairly standard stuff for the Solomons. So we didn't notice that the wind was now coming up, and rain intensifying. The power went out at about 12.30, which in itself wasn’t very alarming. So oblivious, I just continued with work.

Houses that survived the peak of the floodwaters along the banks of the Mataniko.

At about 1pm I heard from other Volunteers that there was flooding, and to consider going home, soon after I was contacted by the VSA in-country manager and asked to evacuate immediately. Luckily I had my running shoes with me, I put them on and left the building.

 In order to get to my house I needed to cross the Mataniko river, a kilometre North of central Honiara. There are two bridges across the Mataniko, one 'temporary' single lane WW2 Bailey bridge with a single central pier and the ‘main’ bridge; a two-lane threespan concrete bridge.

The Chinatown Bailey bridge before the floods.

...And after.

Firstly I went into the City Council to collect another kiwi volunteer (my housemate) who works there. I encouraged him to come with me across the river on foot and home, but he elected to wait for a lift, I did not protest and left immediately.

I got halfway to the Bailey bridge before the river was visible. It was just beginning to break its banks, and the bridge deck had water washing over it. It was only really at this point I realised how serious the situation was.

The view to Chinatown today across the river. Our house is on top of the hill behind

Without too much deliberation I crossed the main bridge.  On the other side, there were people trying to pull their longboats out of the rising waters. I helped, with loads of other people,  pull a few boats up onto the road. Then we saw a woman and child rush past caught in the river. The group abandoned the boats and rushed across the road, through the riverside settlements, trying to get to the riverbank or beach where we might grab them somehow, but it was useless.

The Mataniko today from the mainbridge.

After those first two, I saw maybe 15 people get washed out sea. There wasn't anything we could do without a rope. The flow was too strong and full of debris that jumping in was out of the question. The water was still coming up and I thought the bridge might collapse. Along with some others we tried to close the bridge, we succeeded for maybe 5mins but there wasn’t much we could do to stop the people who really wanted to get across.

In the end I decided to go up the hill to our house and regroup. Three of my other housemates had made it home, and we watched from the balcony as the river tore through the villages by the river I had just been in. The Bailey bridge was swept away but the main bridge did not collapse.

Debris and a ship washed ashore at the central market

Since then, we have for the most part, remained in our house. Our fifth housemate was stuck on the other side of the river, at a safe house for a couple of days but has since made it across. Amazingly the power is back on and the cell network is still running. As refugee centers and aid stations pop up in the next few days hopefully there is opportunity to assist with a more coordinated relief effort. For now donating food and sanitary supplied to collection points is all we can do.

North abutment of the main Mataniko Bridge. You can see where the bank used to be marked on the concrete abutment.

When the rain stopped yesterday I managed to get out and take some photos of the damage. The floodwaters scoured out the North abutment of the main bridge, all but separating the bridge deck from the North bank. A ramp has been put across the gap and essential vehicles and pedestrians are still being allowed across.

Found these guys playing in a drain on the side of the road. The spirits here are still high!

The people here are amazingly resilient. The feeling on the street is overwhelmingly positive. I fear now with so many people displaced, and living in even more confined conditions, dysentery and dengue fever may be the next thing to worry about. 

If you want my advice..

Last week I started my role at the Ministry of Education. I am (apparently) an Advisor to the Ministry.

An Infrastructure Advisor... Dispensing advice about infrastructure.

Now, I know what you might be thinking.  What experience do I have to offer advice to a government ministry? And it’s a good question… But I am having a bloody good time trying that’s for sure!

So far, it has been a very busy time of meeting people and trying to get a handle on what is going on here.  I’m working in the newly formed ‘assets division’ which looks after all school infrastructure across the Solomon’s 922 Islands. The ministry is responsible for approximately 1000 schools, 10,000 teachers, and 140,000 students. So she’s a pretty big job!!

The assets division has some major issues around the procurement of construction contracts and prioritising/directing aid funding. I think most of my work will be in these two areas, helping to improve procurement processes, and directing aid funding appropriately so that building projects can run more smoothly.

This primary school, located in the middle of a squatter settlement, had 600 odd kids in two classrooms. They double shifted the lessons, with juniors in the morning and seniors in the afternoon. 

I visited a number of urban schools in Honiara last week. This was a real eye opener for me! Every school I visited had extremely poor infrastructure. The best have basic concrete shells, open windows and corrugated\iron roofs. While the worst, have dirt floors and leaf roofs.  No schools I saw had lighting, and none had an adequate toilet facility.

Yet all the kids and teachers are just getting on with it and making do. The Kids are so happy to see you, and the whole community is really welcoming. Even if they kids all think a gigantic, excessively sweaty white man is the funniest thing they have ever seen!

Picture of cool kids!

This two story classroom has been uncompleted for around 3 years, the exposed steel reinforcing on the first floor is badly corroded and there are no windows or doors. This was one of the better schools I saw!

Village life

Last weekend I was lucky enough to stay in a rural village for couple of days.

I got to help push-start a friends van who got stuck down a muddy track with a flat battery. This activity rendered me absolutely sopping with sweat much to everyone's amusement.

For the most part, the family (and whole village) lives outside the cash economy. They build their own houses out of their own timbers, and grow their own food or catch fish.

To make a small amounts of money, there are coconut and Cocoa plantations, from which they produce  Copra and dried Cocoa Beans. These are sold at the Honiara market (for an absolute pittance). Copra is the semi dried kernel/flesh of the coconut which is used to produce coconut oil. 

Copra Drying

While at the Village I was taken to see the local rural clinic which is serviced by one nurse, with bi-monthly visits from a doctor. It was very basic- but a very good building (supplied by Australia aid).

 The nurse told us the biggest health problem she saw was women with domestic violence injuries . Following this, in quite a confronting turn of events, a very young woman arrived with a clearly dislocated shoulder- which she said was inflicted by her Husband. I have since been informed that somewhere around 90% of all females in the Solomons have been the victim of domestic violence, absolutely mind-boggling.

Tamboko Rural Clinic

Village life
This little guy is three. wen were down at the river for a swim with the other older kids. Not to be left out, he jumped into the fast-flowing river from a coconut tree. He disappeared under the water, and popped up 20 meters down the bank jumped out and did it again! 3 years old!!

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)

The Visa is here!

It's official. The visa has arrived. The tickets are booked. On Sunday, at 2pm, I am leaving Nelson to work in Solomon Islands for three months! Crazy stuff!

My Itinerary

Over the past few months the details of this trip have been slowly falling into place, and now -its game on!

The Visa!

For a bit of background; I have been selected to be the first Downer graduate to take part in a new partnership with VSA (volunteer service abroad).

I will be working as an advisor to the Solomon Islands government on educational infrastructure projects. At the end of three months I will hand over to the next Downer graduate and the project will continue.

The good folk at VSA have published a great article on their website about our assignment and the Downer partnership;

Simon Trotter is the first in a series of six cadets over two years to do much-needed maintenance on classrooms and other school buildings in bad need of repair. VSA Solomon Islands Programme Manager Alexa Funnell says, “the VSA/Downer volunteers will be a big boost to the capacity of Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development, and with this extra support and expertise it is anticipated that the current projects will progress in a more timely manner.”