The country that's not quite right

Well that’s what they keep telling me about this little place in the Pacific that I’ve parked myself in for a while. The more you wonder around the island, the more the statement starts to make sense. There are a few things that have got lost in the translation somewhere along the line. While the local people are trying to make it work, for some reason the country just can’t get over the line. Whether it’s the spending of the aid from the Asian countries that coincidently have logging licences and fishing rights in the area or the saga over trying to get the cattle industry back up and running, there’s a few dots that just don’t seem to get joined. Dinner at Chinese the other night was an example of how things are not quite right here. You soon learn that there’s a trick to ordering your meal at a restaurant. If you want the entrees to come out first you order them first and when they arrive you order the rest of your meal. Although if you do this don’t expect the rice to come out early in the piece either as there’s no real pattern as to how the dishes appear. But it’s safe to assume that the rice will come out just as you’re about to finish the rest of the mains. If by chance you decided to order the entrees at the same time as you ordered the rest of your meal then you’ll get your entrees interspersed with the various mains that you’ve ordered.

Apart from that it’s not a bad place to be, not much is surprising me anymore about it and I’ve managed to slip into the “local time” way of doing things. There’s no real sense of urgency in anything that you do, because the wheels move at a different pace here and no matter how hard you try to make them move at a faster pace the wheels will still turn at the same pace, so you just accept it. The main town is just like any other capital city, it’s got a parliament house, some high rise buildings, all the government offices and a countless number of people arriving from the other islands in search of a job or to do business. Add to that all the expats that are here working in the different areas, plus all the Chinese who seem to have a finger in just about every piece of business pie there is and it’s an interesting mix of people. Having a British heritage means that it’s a little different to one of its neighbouring countries that has a French heritage and seems to have a bit more going for it. But there are some nice sites in and around town and I’m adapting well to living amongst them. I’m fortunate that I’ve been to a few different places around the world so it hasn’t been much of a culture shock. You soon get the hang of not being able to get everything from the supermarket that you’d like or having to go to a few shops to get everything you need. They’re not really big on Sunday trading here with most of the shops shutting around midday on Saturday. But there’s a reasonable number of Seventh Day Adventists here so the markets that I do most of my fruit and veg shopping at is open on a Sunday (but closed Saturday). The range of fruit and veg is somewhat different here than at home that’s for sure. While you won’t find any apples, they have cornered the market on bananas and pineapples. As for the veges don’t expect to see any broccoli or ten varieties of lettuce, it’s more like string beans and lettuce that’s got about ten leaves if it was lucky, plus a selection of root crops that I’m still trying to work out exactly what to do with them to make them taste nice.

Driving here is also a little novel to begin with, but if you adopt the “everyone’s trying to run into you” approach then it all seems to be ok. There’s only about twenty or thirty kilometres of bitumen roads around the place and what seems to be an incredible number of cars sharing that limited amount of tarmac with each other. The top speed you get to is 80 km/h if you’re lucky when you’re on the outskirts of town. Fortunately someone was kind enough to bring roundabouts to this part of the world. Previously I thought that the French had a bit of a monopoly on using roundabouts in a scary way. That opinion has changed now I’m driving here, the local approach to driving around roundabouts is dependant upon what you’re driving. If you’re driving one of the Corolla station wagons with dark tinted windows that are the taxis here the approach is start on the outside (left) lane and then take the shortest route through the roundabout that you can to reduce the amount of fuel you use while trawling the streets at 30-40 km/h looking for someone to pay the equivalent of AUD$1.50 a kilometre to be driven somewhere. This means adopting the "shortest route is via a straight line" approach, so outside lane then over the concrete around the centre of the roundabout and out the other side back into the outside lane again. The approach that trucks take is a little different. If they’re turning right they start in the outside (left) lane and then just as they’re on the roundabout they turn right across the front of anyone who’s on the inside lane, sort of a bit like that weird hook turn near trams approach you do when in Melbourne. The rest of us just drive through the roundabouts like at home except for the evasive manoeuvre when a truck or taxi sneaks up beside you without you knowing it.

While there are taxis and minibuses to move the populous around in, the most popular form of transport for moving the masses is the truck or ute. The added bonus of bringing half your village to town in the back of a truck is that for the trip home again they act as tie down straps for what you've bought. I'll have to do a count one day to see how many people you can fit on the back of a truck. My estimates at this stage are around the twenty to thirty mark. The novel sight last week was a few guys on the back of a truck carrying some bricks. Each time the truck went round a corner they would adjust and re-stack the load so none of the bricks would fall off. Fortunately none did during the five or so kilometres that I followed it into town.

---

---