An Embarrassment of Tim Tams, Part Two: Chocolate in a Hot Suitcase
I arrive in Brisbane at 6:40am and make my way through security and customs before heading to the transfer desk to pick up my boarding pass for Honiara. The lady at the desk informs me that Solomon Airlines doesn't provide boarding passes for their flights until the plane arrives, and they only do it at the gate. I check the flight board, but there's no listing for Solomon Airlines yet, so I find a spot to set up and connect to the WiFi.
I find Kim online and let her know that I made it to Brisbane. We chat for a few minutes, and I'm able to get just enough bandwidth for a very brief voice call over Google Hangouts. There's a long lag, which makes conversation difficult, but it's nice to hear her voice. She tells me that she's cooking dinner. After a few minutes we get disconnected, so we wrap up our conversation via text chat. Finally, I notice Solomon Airlines flight 701 appear on the flight board, so I say my goodbyes to Kim and head toward the gate. Sohel finds me as I wait in line to get my ticket. He already has his boarding pass, so he finds a seat nearby and waits for me. I chat with the lady in front of me, who is going to the Islands for a diving trip. I reminisce about my own experiences diving around World War 2 wrecks off of the northern coast of PNG. Once I get my ticket, Sohel and I grab some coffee and tea and catch up on the last few months. He's had a bit more leisurely of a trip than me, having spent some time in Kuala Lumpur followed by a few days in Brisbane visiting with friends. I’m glad that at least one of us is coming. We hear the boarding announcement for our flight around 9:20, and make our way to the gate.
The Solomon Airlines plane is small and fairly full, but the flight is uneventful. When we arrive in Honiara, we exit onto the tarmac and are instantly assaulted by the humidity. Sohel asks me to take a selfie of us in front of the plane before we head into the terminal. Honiara's airport is small - about the same size as the Jessore airport, and just a little bigger than the Goroka airport in which I had spent so much time as a kid. Sohel remarks on the heat and wonders why there's no air conditioning in the airport terminal. I explain that, from my experience in PNG, air conditioning is pretty rare in these islands.
There's a group of Australian teenagers behind us in line, and I immediately peg them as missionary kids. I mention this to Sohel, and he asks how I can tell. I respond that it takes one to know one: all of the girls are wearing baggy t-shirts and long skirts, several of the boys are carrying guitars, and there are a handful of conservatively dressed adults directing them through the line. I stop one of the kids and ask her if they're a mission group, and she confirms my suspicions.
As I pass through immigration and customs, I try to speak Tok Pisin with the officials, but they all respond to me in English, and none of them seem interested in engaging beyond official business, which is understandable. I begin to feel a bit unsure about how people here will respond to my Papua New Guinea style of Tok Pisin: will they understand me? Will they be offended that I'm speaking to them as if they're from a different island?
Once we're through customs, we exchange our money. I only have about US$30 at this point, which amounts to just a little over 200 Solomon Island dollars. Outside, we flag down a taxi and head to the Honiara City Council building. Since the workshop starts tomorrow, we have to hit the ground running. Along the road, everything looks very similar to PNG; in fact, if I didn't know better, I might assume I'm riding through Lae, Madang, or Wewak. I ask the taxi driver about Tok Pisin to try to assuage my concerns. He confirms that Solomon Islanders speak the same language, but that there are slight variations in pronunciation and spelling. I ask him for an example, but he can't think of any. I go back to watching the landscape pass outside of the window. I notice several billboards written in Tok Pisin, and it seems that, in spite of a few spelling differences, it's easily recognizable.
We arrive at the City Council building around 3:00pm and are introduced to the Mayor, the Deputy Clerk (Fred), and a consultant from an organization from New Zealand called Honiara Economic Support (Megan). I immediately begin setting up Minecraft on some of the city council members' laptops while Sohel discusses the logistics and budget with Megan and Fred. We're only given access to four laptops, which won't be enough for the workshop, but Fred assures us that they will get a few more for us to use on the day of the workshop. Of course, this means that I'll have to rush to install the software tomorrow morning before the workshop starts. One of the laptops requires an administrative password, and when I ask someone to punch it in so that I can finish the installation, they inform me that: a) they don't have it, and b) the IT manager (who does have it) is currently out of the country. This leaves us with only three usable laptops. I've gotten the installation down to a fairly quick process, so I'm not too worried about doing it tomorrow morning, but without being able to see the computers, I'm a bit nervous about whether they'll work for our purposes.
I overhear Sohel discussing the workshop schedule with Megan and Fred. They both laugh and inform him that the workshop will begin on "island time" - i.e., whenever the participants show up. To be honest, I feel some relief at hearing this, since it means I'll have more time in the morning to get the computers ready; however, it also means we may have to rush to get through the first day's material. Megan also mentions that the chairs and tables for the workshop have not yet been procured - apparently the city government had neglected to pay some of their workers the previous week, so they went on strike. As with the computers, though, she assures us that the tables and chairs will be at the location tomorrow morning.
With our business at the office concluded, Sohel, Megan, Fred, and I ride across the river to visit the workshop site - a sports facility called Multipurpose Hall. The bridge across the river is a single lane, so we wait for oncoming cars to pass before heading across. When we arrive, I immediately recognize the site from the pictures and the Minecraft model. It's a smaller location than Solar Park in Khulna, so the job of consolidating the models will probably take a lot less time, although I imagine I'll have to do a lot of editing to make sure everyone's ideas fit in the limited space. We meet Victor, the facilities manager, and he shows us around. As we survey the location, I notice that it's poorly maintained: the bare foundation of a demolished building sits adjacent to tennis courts where children are playing, and piles of garbage lie scattered around, with very few rubbish bins in sight. The land on one side of the building is just bare dirt, and we're informed that it's regularly used as an informal parking lot for the football field next door. I also notice the telltale reddish-brown stains of betelnut spit on the sidewalks and the outer walls of the building.
Inside the building, I can see the potential of the site. There's a large wood-floor basketball court surrounded by stadium seating. Several children are playing indoor soccer while others watch and converse with each other from the seats. The natural light from the windows gives everything a warm glow. Victor shows us the room where the workshop will take place - a meeting hall on the second floor of the building. It's about the same size as the room at Solar Park, and it seems like a promising spot for the activities that we have planned. One positive difference between this location and the one in Khulna is that the windows are all covered with curtains, which will reduce the glare on the projector screen and computer monitors. There are three small window AC units and several ceiling fans, to keep the room cool.
Our survey complete, Fred drops us off at the King Solomon Hotel, where we will be staying for the next few days. The hotel is small and picturesque with an entrance guarded by large carved wooden statues of nude tribal warriors and a lobby designed to resemble a tribal hall. We check in, and I ask about the Internet access. Although the website advertised WiFi in the rooms, it neglected to mention that you have to pay for it in 50mb chunks. Alternately, there is free WiFi in the lobby, so I decide to just make do with that. The hotel is set on the side of a hill with rooms laid out like cabins on the hillside and connected by boardwalks and stairs. There's also a cable car that travels from the lobby at the base of the hill up through the different levels of rooms. We gather our bags and hop on. The ride up the hill to our rooms takes us past a series of man-made waterfalls that emanate from a small swimming pool. The landscaping features a wide variety of tropical plants and flowers. Our rooms are small, but they are air conditioned, which offers some much needed relief from the humidity. After over thirty hours of travel and work, I'm sticky with sweat and I smell like shit. Once I put my bags down, I strip out of my clothes for the first time in two days and immediately take a shower, brush my teeth, and shave.
Feeling refreshed, I grab one of my Tim Tams and take a look out the window to admire the view. The Tim Tam has melted in my bag, so I do my best not to get chocolate on my fingers. On the balcony of the room across from mine, a naked Australian man is sunning himself in a deck chair. I close the curtains and head to lobby to try out the WiFi.
I spend a few minutes responding to student emails and grading essays. The connection is slow, but workable. Sohel walks into the lobby around 7:00pm and tells me that he met with the local UN-Habitat agents. I ask how it went, and he says, with exasperation in his voice, that they are not going to be helping us with the workshop, because they're too busy working on another project. He heads off to get some rest. I realize that I'm getting tired as well, and that I haven't eaten in about eight hours, so I stop by the hotel restaurant and order a small pizza and a water bottle and take them back to the room. I try to calculate the exchange rate in my head and realize that food at the hotel is pretty expensive, so I make a mental note to try to find an alternate place to eat. In the room I eat my pizza in bed and browse the channels on TV. The third channel I get to is EmTV, the national network of Papua New Guinea. This was literally the only TV channel I had access to growing up. We would watch syndicated reruns of old shows like "Airwolf" and "Bonanza," compilations of music videos by local Papua New Guinean bands, and Australian soap operas like "Neighbours" and "Home and Away." Sadly, there's nothing interesting on, so I end up switching it off after a few minutes and finish my pizza in silence.
After dinner, I try to keep myself awake long enough to catch Kim online when she wakes up at 10:00pm my time, but I've been going for about 20 hours, and exhaustion overtakes me. I pass out shortly after 9:00.