Honiara Daily

Living in a place like Honiara one gets to see times changing: you see it in people. Those closest to you and strangers alike. You can also feel many emotions: you feel it in relationships. Those most personal and initmate as well as of others you haven’t met but observe from behind those dusty louvres and  window nets. This is a small town. Nothing is too private. Everything is just a story waiting to be revealed. If there is a secret. It will be a secret. Shared among everyone, passed from one to another in quiet whisper. That is secret enough. Gossip enough. Gossips. Burning like those candles in the scattered neighbourhood betelnut markets. Slipping into evening story story like those cool evening breeze we love so much in this town.  

In the back of our mind we all hope for something better. Something much more. Some escapism. While those pirated DVD Hollywood movie is not enough to distort our realities, maybe something more poisonous. Like alcohol. Is that why I hear those screams in the middle of the night? Walls banging and things breaking when the world should have been sleeping peacefully. If the night can bring all these, should I pray and wait for morning before I pack my bags to walkagain  the road to public bus stops. To see and feel again among the wave of people coming out of their shells and battling alongside me in this war of daily survival…….You all know this is just to fill in the gap. Feeling a bit poet writer lost today.

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10 things that still costs $SBD1 in Honiara

Im still raving about the food price here you might think. Well we really can’t allow the country to starve you know. This recent list is of some light though, there still some things in Honiara that you can still get for a dollar. One of the best things in life, apart from a good sleep, is getting a bargain and buying things for a dollar. So here is the list of things that you can still get for a dollar in Honiara …well for now.

10  things that still cost a $1 in Honiara

10. A box of match- yep you can still light a fire for $1 ..put away those rubbing sticks!

9. Lollipops- sweet tooth be happy

8. A cigarette roll- ok this is unhealthy but for smokers it is a break

7. Betel Nut and Leaf- Betel nut chewing is still alright if its a dollar…or whatever.

6. Chines fruits- preserve fruits from China, a favorite and nice treat.

5. Ice Block (small)- who in Honiara does not crave an ice block once in a while.

4. A small packet of cool aid- make colourful and sweet drinks that children love.

3. Cucumber- real small ones, healthy and ready to eat, wash first of course.

2. Ngali nuts- Yes… those nice small parcels of fresh nagali nuts are still affordable!

1. Heap Peanuts-  get a heap of peanut instantly at the central market fresh and fulfilling!

Something to think about

Time out: I was going to post this yesterday but the internet was just too slow to load that I gave up half way..hope its still sounds fresh as yesterday.

The weekend was okay. I did everthing weekend as possible, sleep though most of daylight and woke up the whole night, you can probably guess the effect of that on my Monday. I like getting as many information as possible on Monday about whats going on in Honiara ( that means reading the four page local news of Solomon Star and the recently added whole page of Western Comics- nothing comical happening in Honiara I presume) and the world as soon as I hit the office on Monday. This is probabaly the effect of lazing around the whole weekend and starving for ideas and inspiration after two days of spells.

The local news- not much happening, that is if you called nomination for a Lord Mayor of Honiara City Council headline news ( these HCC guys never do much so I dont know, who really cares?). So I was flipping through the newspaper and loading the internet as well. Then an article caught my eye! It says “How the Rich Starved the World”, well that ticks my curiosity and I clicked opened a world of crisis. Ok I promised that this blog will be free of anything that is going to sound I-hate-the-world but just bear with me here for one post. According to the article, the  world(the poor especially) is going to starve if the rich country keep making policies to increase more bio-diesel fuel it says. Simply means that more food goes into processing biofuel and less for food consumption. We are talking about clearing a whole forest to plant crops for bio disel.Hhmmm that sounds environmently friendly. As a result food prices will double in 2008. It will be much better if I’m reading this article in 1990 so that I can stockpile or something but we are talking the very present here. Well to make it worse, I have been talking with a couple of friends about the food price dramatic increase in Honiara recently because thats the only thing people in town are talking about right now. Everything has become double expensive. The price of rice especially because its a main staple diet here. There are already some food riot in countries such as Haiti ( see the article ) becuase food price are rising as much. Now we have history of riots in Hoinara and I hope nothing like this comes up , since we are just recovering from a recent one.

In Honiara the rising dependency on Western influence food such as wheat, diary and rice means most of the money people are making will be spent on food in shops. Hey don’t worry I hear some say we can just improve the local domestic market and keep away from rice easy. Ok but let us consider the prices for domestic food transportation  and why the prices of local food  are also increasing …it is because of rising oil prices more thatn $100 a barrel!

I am appalled at the greed most rich countries are showing. it comes to light that as was in history, and is now current, we developing countries are still oppressed by global factors that is beyond our control. I have idea though…Do you want to start a food rio..ok stop that is a bad idea! Nothing is going to come out of that except exhausting the already under nourished resourced police force. In fact I cannot think of a solution other than hope that whoever is responsible for informing our leaders have access to such information and that they can voice this with other developing countries in those ever important overseas trip they keep taking ya!

Best Laughter in Town

Currently scientists are taking very seriously the study of laughter and humour. No this is not a joke. They are starting to make research and evidence linking factors of the brain to body chemical gas ( there are many types of gas in the body not only…never mind) with this phenomenon called laughter. Ok why are we talking about this? Because I owed much to the laughter and humour in Honiara as an individual. I am not saying we are the most happiest people on earth, but our humour and laughter are important antidotes to most of our hard realities ( and I really want to reflect this very much in this blog as well). Don’t get me wrong there are moments of heated disagreements that totally displaces humour in our society. But this can always be replayed in some instances with humor injected into the disagreeing moments as a substitute for resolving hurtful situation for  people who find it awkward to openly display any hard felt deep emotions, opinion or affection to random groups of people. It is okay with close families and friends but not erradic in public as this is improper and deviance. Someone who can take up laughter and humour in hard times not during, is very much admired in this society. Times are changing though and not everybody is holding on to this essential skill. A form of art practiced less, probably. This is more visible in Honiara, the only place where most of the diverse cultural groups in the country exist together in a single geographical location.

It goes to lesson that while there are many remedies(new age, technology, fashion, etc)  offered for modern life difficulties and perceived obstacles, simple solutions that gave one calm,  peace and contentment requires no expenive or complex solution. Often the simple things in life make far greater impact. Like laughter and Humour. Cliche. Maybe. But true. Just checking to see if you are checking your selves. or myself too.