But there is something rewarding about doing simple tasks such as washing or cooking in such a situation. It slows time down a bit, the task itself takes on far more importance, it’s always rewarding to look at the clothes on the line that you have just spent the last hour washing or sitting around the fire chatting about small daily issues, what was on sale at the market, what people have planned to do tomorrow and maybe hear what’s wrong with one of the kids after they went to the doctors that morning.
There is an older relative here, an uncle in his late 70’s that came in from a village to go to the main Hospital to check out a health issue. As I sit on the balcony of the office working on my computer I watch him walking around doing various odd jobs, cutting firewood, building a makeshift looking table/seat in the kitchen house, always endlessly busy. As he walks around rather stiffly I realise that at that age here your well and truly old, it’s so damn physical that by this age all the years of working on raising a family, gardening, fishing, making and repairing many leaf houses, have pretty much taken its toll. One of the kids told me that he was speaking to the ‘old man’ as they always call him and he said to me that "he wants to die now, but Gods not ready for him just yet". As I watch him I think that guy must have seen some amazing sights, he would have seen the end of the war, the Solomon Islands achieve independence from the British and must have stored in his head many of the customs of his people. But maybe most of all what he created was with his own two hands; supporting his family and his community through what he could make, grow and work.
