A week in Honiara, Solomon Islands was approximately six and a half days too long. For all of the pleasant surprises Timor offered Ash, Honiara presented a dire and depressing scene that was quite confronting for all of the team. The devastating poverty, pollution and sense of hopelessness within communities was an abrupt reality check. The project site includes a dump community - people with nowhere to go, deemed illegal settlers and consequently having no rights. Already facing an impossible situation, these communities are also in the flood plain. It floods frequently. On days such as when they visited the community, it is hard to advocate for focusing on that which needs to be done to address climate change.
The Solomons also meant no telephone access, limited and outrageously expensive internet and a full on work week helping the national team achieve goals when they are so restricted by basic access to everything we take for granted in an office. Running electricity for instance. Of course, out of Honiara, there were actually quite beautiful areas. And decent Japanese restaurants, who knew. For the large part, unfortunately though, Honiara plays into all of the images that come to mind, demonstrated by car burning on the shore in the photo above. Consequently there are few photos to share from the Solomons (there may also have been an issue of forgetting to charge the camera battery...) but there are some more snaps from Timor that we will put up.
Suva, capital of Fiji is home for this week!
