Hanging out in Honiara

Some of the weird and wonderful hand out moments in Honiara and beyond! 

On a hot (so many things Honiara rhymes with), chilling out in one of the more longer serving expat gangs on the Island we start to go bit mad! Between discussion of the content of a radio show and keeping a French man entertained.. there was a strip show of sorts! 

My animal loving friends in New Zealand will love this video! While blissfully house/cat sitting myself and my other (non cat loving) housemate are loving the air conditioned situation! But all too soon we loose one of the new kittens. Our super plan to carry the mother outside to sniff the kitten out ends up  with a lost cat and kitten.. (Fantastic) Worst house sitters in the land!A good hour of searching with the security guards in the dark, we get a call from one of the kittens new mothers to arrange collection (yes the one thats lost of course)! At this point its time for one of those gin and tonics back in the house, and as we walk in the door we find the artful dodgers .. the kitten asleep in a shoe and the mother, eating the dog food! Our responsible adult status was restored, with our respect the cats cunning!

Check out the women from MEHRD doing their Solomon thing at the leaving party for the Permanent Secretaries advisor. So much fun had with an unreal feast at the Mendana Hotel in Honiara! I was at this point crippled with an ear infection but still raved on due to the excitement of the crowd!

New offices for Education

First day I arrived in MEHRD, everyone I was introduced to was told the I would be giving them their new offices! And three months later I left the disappointment who didn't deliver! 

Things that happen in Solo time are things that don't happen in three months! I tried, we all tried but at the end I left it to a taller New Zealand man to sort out! 

I really can't wait to see the finished result, it will be an amazing asset to the education team in the Solomon Islands and I'm excited to hear how my new friends are loving their new space.. so get a move on Fraser! Seriously!! :P 

Fraser in Charge now! 

The end of the red road

My final school on a very long journey around Western Province, I think its pretty obvious that we were nearly not functioning at this point. 

The logging camp was a situation in itself, a dangerous place and a very destructive effect on the natural vegetation. 

Mere on a Mission

Mere on a Mission (Women on a Mission)

When I arrived in Noro, I wasn't prepared for what I was about to get into. The principle of Noro School was such a brilliant vibrant and inspriational woman. She was getting her school classroom if she had to climb up trees, through ditches, over rivers and thats exactly what she did.

Flip Flops are not my friend when it comes to hiking, I wish I was more ninja stealth like the rest of team doing the walk about of the school. I'd like to see them navigate a bog in Mayo though, I pretty sure I'd school them on that one!

There were machetes to cut the RAINFOREST down on our way through (Ok big shrubs). The principle was unstoppable though bringing us to every corner to make sure we got the best spot on the land showing us all of the area we had to work from.  

Clearly loving it! 

She is actually up a tree in this photo!

What a lady! 

The School in Noro was beside SolTUNA, the main tuna manufacturing plant in the Solomon Islands, there was a lot of interest in the school as SolTuna would be taking on a lot of the graduates from the school. There is already quite a big increase in numbers to the area since the plant opened and there is now a big expansion plan for the school. Our job was to assess the expansion plan for the school and scope out the works. It was not an easy task. With other schools there may only be 60 students there and so placing a classroom 'anywhere' in the area is not that big of deal. But this school had quiet a big role in the community and it was very important to get it right. We spent a lot of time discussing the expansion of the school and what the plan was. There was no definite plan, which is what I had become used to in the Solomons and could work with that this was different. This school needed a plan, this would be a hub in a couple of years, potentially expanding like Honiara and they principle and staff needed to have a maps showing where the new classrooms would go and build them one at a time using whatever funding sources they could get. So we spend about an hour doing this, and for that hour we all became planners! Using paper, pens.. no fancy gadgets to plan the future of the school. It was very exciting and very unfamiliar, in environment I was used to this was insanity! But what else could we do but our best!

After all the work was done and we had hiked the hills around the school, we had bit of fun while we waited for a lovely lunch that the staff had prepared. The principle was a linguistic and was fansinated that I was from Ireland and that I spoke Irish (ehm... badly), but its only when you know absolutely that nobody is going to catch you out that you are .. OH YEA! 100% Fluent! A mix of pidgin and Irish comes on when summons to speak! When she heard my name she grabbed a pen and paper and sounded every syllable out and repeated it in every conversation we had together. I tried the old trick of getting people to pronounce irish names, but you couldn't get anything past her. After she had mastered my name the rest were in her grasps! 

I also asked her, Hopeful and Anita to sing Happy Birthday to my little brother who was having his 18th! Check out the harmonies! :) Happy Birthday Hutes XX

Galavanting in Gizo

So you always say in life... Sure when am I going to get the chance to do that again! And many times your right, you will literally never be there again. And I could have put a right arm that I would never be in Simbo Island again. I travelled there with a bunch of expats after being in the Solomons for about 2 weeks and it was indescribable, some where so untouched and so unique. All I saw was open mouths and twinkly reminiscent eyes when I said.. Guess who's going back to Simbo guys! OHH YEA!! 

Western province in the Solomon islands is THE PRIME time location for holidaying, beauty and everyone wants to live there. It has amazing snorkelling, surfing, resorts, beaches, diving.. need I go on. And Simbo island is one of the Islands part of Western Province in the north east part of the Solomon Islands. And it along with about 6 other schools were on the list of inspections/assessments for 2015. 

It was a work related trip again, and the starting phase like the rest of my travels around the Islands for implementing the 2015 infrastructure plan for schools. Again we had a very tight schedule and this was my last trip and my last two weeks in the Solomons. I had to get all of the schools done, reports completed and ready for funding and contract signing before I left (an impossible task, which I didn't fully completed on my own). 

So we hit up three primary schools to assess the needs and amount of funding and I three secondary schools to assess specialised classrooms and complete the scope of works for all. Anita, a lovely lady from the accounts department who had family in Ghizo (the main island in Western)  accompanied me on the trip, and two absolute legends from the ministry of education in Western Province. 

The condition of some of the schools as always were shocking, none more so then Simbo island. There had been a tsunami a couple of years ago which had left the main building uninhabitable. I found it really hard to focus and make decisions when I saw the condition that the students were in. I really couldn't concentrate on the job at hand and scoping for the amount of money we had this year when really the whole school needed to be rebuilt. But that in itself is the very reason that the school was in such bad condition, the previous school had been built by a voluntary organisation and the village themselves had no input of ownership in the school and so it was let to run down to an unusable state. The tsunami of course had a massive impact on the village but it was evident that there was a huge disconnect between the community and the school where in a lot of other places they were on in the same. 

I discussed this with hopeful and we come up with a strategy to part fund section of the project, the community would be responsible for the other sections. This had not worked well in the past and had lead to donors who had given funds and expecting finished completed schools to be disappointed that progress was significantly delayed due to communities not completing their part in a suitable timeframe. Understanding both side of wanting to get the job done for the students to have classroom to study while building the interest and commitment of the community in that place is difficult to achieve. 

Above is where the students are currently studying and what we scope for repair. We plan to remove the existing walls and replace with timber with open window with wire mesh for security. The classrooms sibilation will also be replaced. The roof will also be extended to provide shelter for the students and a walkway for them to enter.



The Tsunami Damaged Building where students were still being taught in is behind the team from the ministry, the school principle and some students who were loving the visitors to the Island. I saw so many kids from my previous visit who thought it was a dream that I was back on the Island.

We visited the island volcano on our trip back to Gizo, and had as always a very bumpy ride back. The trip to Simbo is a trip that is taken very seriously even by the locals. It is opens sea and the waves can get extremely dangerous. The time of day you go and the swell is very important. On my trip Honor (and education officer) told us of the story where two local guys started their kayak from Simbo to Ghizo island to see fresh fruit and veg at the market. They left in the morning at 5am to kayak back that night but were not seen for a week. Everyone on the island presumed them dead, a week later they heard they two were alive on a different island. The current and waves had been too strong of them and they ended up drifting to another island about 6 hours away and were on their way back. Solomon Life!! :)

Hanging out in Western Province with Anita..

Sasamunga and they yellow T Shirt

Well this was one of coolest places I have been in the Choisuel.. There had been a lot of missionaries and humanitarian aid in this part of Choisuel and it was so great to how great the community was at getting involved and owning their infrastructure.

We spent about 4 hours in Sasamunga assessing what their needs were for specialised classrooms, and like almost every other school we had visited Science was a priority for the school.

The building below had been completed a number of years ago and the new science building will go underneath the existing building. It was very common on our trip to see a lot of the structures built like this. The reason was so that the school could expand when it needed to and to also add shelter from he sun to the students. I am sure there are lots more local reasons for building on stilts like the classroom below.

 Planning out the location of the new Science classroom with the vice principle (Yellow T Shirt). A very interesting man  who had worked in Australia for over 30 years and returned back to his home to teach in the school there.

Discussing the existing building and looking at the old plans with the builder in the village who had completed the existing classroom we were going to build underneath.

My Mechanical engineering head was fascinated to see an old generator near the school, not much has changed in about 50 years. It still looks very similar to some of the generators I worked on before my Solomon life. 

 A beautiful guest house on the Island, absolute paradise!

The small village beside Sasamunga, where we visited the home of the vice principle.

The Solomon people feel very connected to family and its the most important thing in their lives. The  vice principle I met in Sasamunga was very interested to hear what my family though of me being so far away and asked 'how now famali blo uifella' (how is my family) so I couldn't resist taping some pidgin with such a beautiful background. 

Tripping around Choisuel

Holy Mary Mother of god, That was UNREAL!!

I will be relying on my videos and pictures to tell the story, because words cant describe! As part of working in Education in Infrastructure in Solomon Islands we spend time visiting schools all over the country. And the country has alot of sea between it.. and not alot of roads.




So I traveled all the way around Choisuel Island in a Bananna boat, and it wasn't always smooth sailing!

We gathered the gang, an education officer with a fantastic white go-t, the lovely Frances, and her two wontok including her uncle and cousin. The biscuits were bought, some tuna (standard), noodles and rice, spam, H20 and we hit the sea. The weather was already playing up about 10 minutes into the trip, but we journey on. Annnnnnnnd on.. for about 3 hours, in heavy rain, banging seas and big yellow rain coats that didnt work even a little bit. But man I was smiling! Work.. THIS is work, I was delighted with myself! And then came the lightening storm. I'm trusting enough really and mother nature has never really picked on my too much but when you can see lightening crack onto water about a km from where you are, that 1 in a million chance of being struck by lightening become 1 in 5 people very quickly! We ducked low and kept going, you really do feel alive though when your that close to be that statistic. But don't worry Kitty Kat (my mother) I wont be seeking the adrenaline rush of that one again any time soon!

Soaking and craving suger we landed in a logging camp, one of many to add to my list, but my first at the time. I don't know how the locals do it, stay clean that is.. when you are walking around in red clay soil. Frances, a Choisuel local was spotless not even a splash on her leg after walking up a slippy hill in the rain with no road. And I, well.. I have got a lot to learn. And white was a bad choice will be my explanation of that one, with a herd of women helping me clean myself when we reached the bottom again! I love the work that we did especially at this school, advising principles and boards on the new school locations risks for disasters, basic plans on how to reduce their risk and general school planning. Simple things like planting trees to protect the exposed area from wind and to reduce the risk of landslide. You really don't know what you know, until its coming out of your mouth!

After a long 6 hours on the boat that day, we settled down for the night with some instant tea (ADDICTIVE)!! And a hot meanl of noodles and rice... again.... NOODLES and RICE (full stop). How spoilt we are really, I learnt that thats the main meal for boarding school students in the country. Which I cant say shocked me, but makes your head hurt a little to think of how hard that must be for student to concentrate on a diet like that!

The trip continued in much the same way getting up with the sun at about 6am some rick/noddles for breakfast and away in the boat for the day visiting on average 2 schools a day and travelling on the boat for about 6-8 hours. Here are some of the pictures of the schools that I visited and assessed throughout the trip. 

Some more amazing photos and videos from the trip below.. 

Stopping off to use the rest room on our way around the island we just pulled into an uninhabited paradise island and did our thing! 

As we returned from a 6 day trip on the boat back to Taro, I was happy to be in the smooth straight home. The sea had been really rough for a lot of our journey at time it felt like we would fall out of the boat coming over some of the waves. There was little shelter for most of the journey as we were in the open sea. The driver was so unbelievably skilful at nativating those big waves that bucked through the boat to eject you out of your seat. When your mail form of transport it the sea its so natural to the tribes from Choisuel. 

When we returned from our big trip around the island Frances and her family took me to the waterfall on another island. We travelled again by banana boat up a river this time to get to the waterfall. Frances sister in law and uncle are in the video below walking up the waterfall.  I on the other hand was at this point holding onto a twig of a branch trying to balance on an average enough bit of land beside the waterfall. And I think I must have spent too long focusing on health and safety in New Zealand because I was genuinely shocked that they were not wearing helmets doing this! I didn't dare to step foot on the rocks (wearing my specially designed trail runners (what a loser)) because I could picture the second step being a summersault down the river. 

On our way to the waterfall up the river