Morning all,

Bourgainvillians.

In the Other World that is Papua New Guinea it’s Sunday and I’m back from the bush.  I’m never going to complain at 3 weeks washing in rivers surrounded by forest and such an amazing array of birds ,butterflies and flowers. But it does take it out of you especially when the last week is characterised by high humidity or torrential rain.

Hey white boy…..

Suffice to say I’m still drying out as I type.

One of the people I’m training is a female elder from Nissan island an atoll about 5 hours by banana boat from Kokopau which is where I am now.

She invited me over to stay with her melanisian family whilst I write up reports and make changes to the program which I am sorely tempted to do, noting apart from adventure that the place will probably cease to exist  in the not too distant future with sea level rises caused by global warming.

Not all boats make dry land.

But the truth is I’m totally knackered and the aforementioned banana boats leave each morning around 02.00 AM from a sandy beach in front of a very local bar.

When I bumped into a guy I know last night who was waiting to leave, he along with all other potential occupants including the captain, we’re pissed as farts , and that was at 20.00

Aye aye captain.

Of course navigation is generally done by the stars or during the rainy season such as now by GPS. …assuming phones have been recharged sufficiently to last the journey.

Before Xmas a boat and most (but not all) occupants were found floating off the Solomon Islands which whilst unusual is, I am reliably told, far from unheard of.

Anyway it’s still sitting there as an idea…but I think I need to sleep on it first. zzzzzzzzzzźzzz

Training People to Talk about Shit….Seriously

The work so far seems to be going well and the team of health, education and environmental health officers I’m training up seem to be making progress.

The idea is to build their capacity to train more local teams in community decision making re improved school and community sanitation in places where most people shit in the bush, rivers or sea.

Problem Tree

Its thoroughly interesting based within a no literacy ethos and has communities amongst many other “tools” developing  community maps from leaves , berries and flowers, producing and analysing problem trees (thus looking at the root causes of poor sanitation by asking “why” to problem statements and subsequent answers) and doing shit calculations to find out how much shit is being left around their communities per day , week , month or year (the school we’ve just finished in had 176 students. A human turd weighs approx 250gs and all kids shat on the beach next to the school at least once a day……you do the maths ).

Spirit Healer.

One of my favourites is about health seeking behaviour looking at where people go when and why when they’re sick. This typically hits the use of family based medicinal plants, spirit healers and witch doctors as well as ancestor worship and the parallel world that exists beside ours.

When asked, all of the highly literate, well educated professionals who are part of the cohort I’m training had used the aforementioned service providers in the previous six months and all acknowledged that barriers to accessing medically trained service providers even for them, was a general lack of understanding as to how their “magic” worked and that you had to pay in cash not kind (I.e exchange of labour or protein or fruits) for services.

Home Sweet Home.

I’m currently staying at a small and basic family run “guest house” which is more like a family home with a few extra rooms.

There are a couple of more up market places un staff normally stay in Buka, but this place is just more local filled with the cries , giggles and play of kids,  cooking , sweeping and busying of various mothers and the banging , bashing and bossing of men.

My Local Beach

It’s also a short walk through a local village to a small secluded beach I’ve gotten used to going to for sunset and at 20 dollars a night including a cup of nescafe in the morning is just fine…though the wafer thin mattress has seen better days.

Anyway as it’s Sunday the world is shut and people focus on church , rugby or doing nothing in particular….but all at a decidedly slow pace.

Lots of war relics in Bourgainville

I’ve brought myself over to Sohano island which used to be a Japanese base in the war and still has a few rusting aircraft strewn about . I’ve managed to pick up a couple of pieces of battered fish fillets., some star fruit ,bananas

and coconuts for lunch and am sat looking out on various sized islets as far as the eye can see all covered in mangrove or rain forest.

Sohano market.