April came went and it was all a bit of a blur really. There were trips to Simbo Island in Western Province as well as Gorabara and Sepa, both in South Choiseul.
There also seems to be a bit of a pattern happening to my visits to villages in Choiseul I have started to notice. It’s based around a three day cycle and goes like this; Day 1 travel early from Taro, arrive and spend time with the people that are hosting you in village and then go fishing. Day 2 is usually a full day of the activity that you actually came down for either a workshop/training event or walkabout in the bush and then in the evening its fishing some more. Day 3 is either finishing up with a workshop/training or just chatting with people who want your input on something, then it’s time to head back; more often than not it’s with a whole lot of extra people as well as bundled up sago palm, cassava, taro or sweet potato, green coconuts for drinking and maybe the odd chicken. Once we have dropped off all the passengers with their various cargoes, I like to do a nice detour out into the ocean chasing schools of fish by following were the seabirds are going.
Cruising up and down Choiseul in an open boat is a privilege that few ex-pats have and I still even now just in awe of how beautiful this place is. There is nothing like coming up from the villages from along the coast of South or North Choiseul and approaching Taro as the sun is setting over the Shortland Islands and Bougainville, those sunsets are well and truly etched into my brain.
Getting out into the communities and away from Taro (often referred to as Taro Station) is to experience the real Choiseul. The issues that come up in communities are generally universal for most communities around Choiseul; its sanitation, water supply issues, sea level rise, population growth, finding sustainable opportunities for using natural resources, infrastructure etc etc, but there is always a local twist on how these issues are related or prioritised.
After what feels like so long here you start to see very clear patterns in all things, especially with the work that I have been doing which is essentially trying to help out organisations strengthen their internal structure. You start to see why some organisations are clearly failing, while other NGO’s who are doing similar work are succeeding. You start to see where the aid industry and donors are creating dependency and where they are creating innovation. As I approach the end of my tenure here I feel that it’s important to communicate what I have witnessed in the hope that someone or some organisation will use it to improve things for the better of the people here. I think it’s reasonable enough to say that there are issues around people not directly confronting organisations and individuals head on that need to be held accountable if change is too occur within a short timeframe (I would argue that with Climate Change, time is short) . As time goes on and I come nearer to the end of my contract I feel it’s more and more appropriate to communicate these things. There is a quote from a book that covers stories of three UN volunteers working through various countries in the 90s that I keep coming back from the book Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures;
“Who has the authority to resolve the dilemma, to place it on the moral spectrum? Who makes the conscious decision to bear witness, to tell the story? We need a volunteer”
Although this comment was in relation to UN volunteers in vastly more dangerous situations than I find myself in here, I think the principle is the same for any volunteer.
I often wonder that with all the big statements from organisations and governments about helping those who need help such as the Solomon Islands, I think about what is really being committed to this province and realise that in many ways I’m it as far as help on the ground is concerned, when I make this connection, I’m blown away. Millions get pumped into supporting the Solomon’s and most goes through government agencies or NGO’s, a great deal of resources probably never make it out of Honiara, actual people helping out on the ground from other countries, basically me, priceless.
