I love catching the bus in Honiara. Firstly, there are plenty of them. There is a perpetual flow of dirty white mini vans up and down the main road, Mendana Avenue. I am not a patient person and so this system suits my neurotic personality perfectly. Secondly, the buses here play wicked music. Top 40 Solomon Islands-style classics pump out of them at maximum volume which means being on the bus is like being at a mobile party. Thirdly, they cost $2 SBD which is approximately 30c so you can get on and off as much as you please.
Today as I bounced along, squeezed between a lovely bunch of coconuts and several small pikinini gazing up at my ludicrous white visage, I wondered whether my uncle, Anthony, ever caught the bus during his time here. Suddenly I felt a strong desire to be able to talk to him about the buses, about the pikinini, about the colourful hand-painted shop signs, about the ocean and the snorkeling. For me, one of the saddest things about death is that it ends a conversation. This particular conversation is one I never realised I wanted to have until it was already too late.
In some strange way, being here in this small, dusty, tropical capital city, and knowing that Anthony spent time here too, makes me feel closer to him. Did he see what I'm seeing? Did he feel the same affection for the Solomon Islands that I do? Did he walk around central market and buy green coconuts? We now have in common our experience of this country and that makes me feel I know him better somehow. Maybe the conversation can continue after all...
Tuesday 31 August 2010
Sunday 29 August 2010
Transcendental Wisdom Goggles, please.
Last week I attended a South Sea Evangelical church service in a small village called Kilusakwalo. I wasn't there for a funeral. I wasn't there for a wedding. I was there simply because Solomon Islanders go to church and I live in the Solomon Islands.
I have secretly been looking forward enormously to going to church. I suddenly feel motivated by some internal spiritual clock to investigate different spiritual philosophies, faiths and religions. Here, I am able to fulfill my curiosity under the guise of cultural sensitivity. Brilliant. A cunning plan, if you will.
And so it was, with mixed motives, I found myself attending a village church service. I sat on the solid, wooden pew and looked around me at the village, dressed in their Sunday best and bare feet. A band played on stage and a man (with whom I had played a boisterous game of volley ball with the evening before) sang to his community. Outside sunlight mingled with tropical downpour. The people in the church had grown up together and gathered in this space every Sunday for their whole lives.
A man told us the story of King Solomon. King Solomon asked of God, "Give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people and to know good and evil." God answered King Solomon's prayer because he had asked not for wealth or for the death of his enemies but for discernment in administering justice. It occurred to me that King Solomon was onto a good thing with the old discernment caper and that I too could benefit from an understanding heart and the ability to know good and evil.
Sometimes when I look out at the ocean or when I see a hundred tiny fluorescent fish through my goggles, I feel an elusive sensation. It's a sensation that goes as quickly as it comes. It feels a little like a hit of serotonin that rushes from my heart to my head. As I looked out the window that morning, thinking about King Solomon, while the rain came down and the sunlight broke through, I felt a sense of transcendence.
Transcendence and wisdom. Is that too much for a girl to ask?
I have secretly been looking forward enormously to going to church. I suddenly feel motivated by some internal spiritual clock to investigate different spiritual philosophies, faiths and religions. Here, I am able to fulfill my curiosity under the guise of cultural sensitivity. Brilliant. A cunning plan, if you will.
And so it was, with mixed motives, I found myself attending a village church service. I sat on the solid, wooden pew and looked around me at the village, dressed in their Sunday best and bare feet. A band played on stage and a man (with whom I had played a boisterous game of volley ball with the evening before) sang to his community. Outside sunlight mingled with tropical downpour. The people in the church had grown up together and gathered in this space every Sunday for their whole lives.
A man told us the story of King Solomon. King Solomon asked of God, "Give thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people and to know good and evil." God answered King Solomon's prayer because he had asked not for wealth or for the death of his enemies but for discernment in administering justice. It occurred to me that King Solomon was onto a good thing with the old discernment caper and that I too could benefit from an understanding heart and the ability to know good and evil.
Sometimes when I look out at the ocean or when I see a hundred tiny fluorescent fish through my goggles, I feel an elusive sensation. It's a sensation that goes as quickly as it comes. It feels a little like a hit of serotonin that rushes from my heart to my head. As I looked out the window that morning, thinking about King Solomon, while the rain came down and the sunlight broke through, I felt a sense of transcendence.
Transcendence and wisdom. Is that too much for a girl to ask?
Wednesday 25 August 2010
This is how you do it...
Step one: get up, get out of bed, rub frangipani-infused coconut oil all over your bald head.
Step two: sing a song about paw paw.
Step three: eat some tasty paw paw.
Step four: get laughed at continuously on your way to work.
Step five: sing a song about a coconut.
Step six: mix the lime and the coconut.
Step seven: say, “Doctor,” in a high pitched voice.
Step eight: google “corruption in the Solomon Islands”
Step nine: write an article entitled “Corruption in the Solomon Islands.”
Step ten: eat one coconut and go to sleep.
Step two: sing a song about paw paw.
Step three: eat some tasty paw paw.
Step four: get laughed at continuously on your way to work.
Step five: sing a song about a coconut.
Step six: mix the lime and the coconut.
Step seven: say, “Doctor,” in a high pitched voice.
Step eight: google “corruption in the Solomon Islands”
Step nine: write an article entitled “Corruption in the Solomon Islands.”
Step ten: eat one coconut and go to sleep.
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