Tiusde 23rd Novemba 2010

….I know, I know…..what has taken me so long to get this blog going? I have few excuses only that I forgot to buy credit for the electricity meter two weekends ago and ran out of electricity and then I forgot to buy credit for my dongle and so I couldn’t access the internet last weekend. I have to stop forgetting…no electricity because of a power cut is one thing, but no electricity because you forgot to buy ‘cash power’ is incredibly annoying!

Ok, so it’s been five weeks, what have I done…

House no.5, Central Bank Area, Mbokona
(technically this is my address but don’t send any mail here it will not arrive)

I moved into my house one week exactly after arriving in Honiara. It is a very spacious house for one person. I have two bedrooms – one with a double bed and one with a single; a bathroom and then an open plan living/dining room and kitchen. Oh, and a lovely veranda on the front of the house.

I am about a 10 minute bus journey from the centre of Honiara where my office is. Luckily for me, the bus stops right outside the central bank compound in Mbokona and about 100 metres from the front of my office, so getting the bus is very convenient for now. Also, the buses often have some good Solomon Islands reggae playing which makes for a good journey to and from work! (I will try and upload some or get a link so you can hear it too)

Maravagi, Central Province

Three weekends ago I went over to Maravagi, an island in the Central Province, with 13 other young expats (you would be surprised how many there are here). The journey to Maravagi is about a 1½ - 2 hr speed boat journey from Honiara. I’m told when the sea is rough it can be a very bumpy journey but we were lucky and both journeys were calm (although it did rain on the way there so we were covered by tarpaulin for the journey over there – Paracas style! I think you were there right Robs?).

Anyway, it was a very relaxing two days. I wish I had a waterproof camera so you could see what I saw snorkelling over the coral reefs…it was like a spread for a magazine article about paradise! I hope some of the pictures I took during an island village tour give a good idea of how amazing the place is.

 

Solomon Islands Pijin

You (most probably Ry) will be happy to know that I have started Pijin lessons. I have had two so far so I am not much beyond being able to ask you your name and tell you mine, but I’m really hoping to be able to speak Pijin by Christmas and so…..mi nidim fo stat practis pijin!

I will have to probably stop there, but I have an interesting fact for you (from the lonely planet guidebook). I am not the first Peruvian (well, I know only semi Peruvian) to visit the Solomon Islands:

“In the early 1560s in Spanish-occupied Peru, there was a story about a group of Islands in the far western Pacific that was visited by an Inca king called Tupac Yupanqui about 100 years earlier."

……how impressive Tupac Yupanqui! How did you get all the way here?….