A little late

Which we always were. I know you are dead and I know the day has already passed and I don’t believe in it. But…will you still be my Valentine?

Sudden tears

I had some intense flashes of memory of you last night. During a very difficult week they just showed up in my mind and were right there with me, barging their way into my head. Images of the way you looked at me a few times during that night, which seems so long ago. And the rest. Maybe those images will stay with me forever. It made me cry briefly, but I stopped myself. I wonder where you are.

Weird and wonderful

Whoooaaa. Sorcery is involved (again). I didn’t factor that one in. Learning again. As I was pondering some of this riding in the sun on my bicycle, the shouts of hello sounding out from all over, sometimes where I couldn’t even see the caller, were part of that indefinable w and w.

Will you be my Valentine?

Well, I truly don’t know who I would ask this to, but I think…for this year, it is a woman’s turn. We would have so much to talk about right now. If I believed in all that and weren’t all cynical that it is a silly Hallmark consumer holiday. The clouds cleared a little today both literally (sun sun sun all day) and…my life. I got really the very best kind of Valentine’s note I could have hoped for, which really lifted me. T, you are a lovely person and I was so hoping and expecting that you would pull through. And then my neighbour appeared with pots and had cooked me a wonderful dinner and just brought it over to me. Just to be…kindness itself. I felt overwhelmed by the gesture. I just can’t keep up with the “swing of things.”

And good news

There is often something somewhere to smile about too. Fisheries came to visit us and tell us they have them in the cell. We are off to id their stash soon. Well I never.

The bad news

It’s frustrating that this blog gets so much of the bad news. It’s to the diary/blog I turn when I am feeling sad to say hey diary, things are just not going so well right now and I have no one to talk to so I am pouring it all out to you. But putting it in words is so hard and the words feel empty. They can’t convey what the cells are feeling inside. But anyway…I am feeling sad. It is starting to hit more. Even just watching J walk past my window on one of his so frequent buai/smoke breaks. That will be no more. And I really thought we were a good team and were going to be a much better one, maybe a really good one. And how hard the trying has been. I just went out to the jetty to look down at the myriad of little fish, darting, turning one way then the other. Flashes of silver, the occasional “different one.” All that life just below me. Then inside the post that butterfly fish hanging, first one way, then another, sideways, slanting, up, down. Like one of those liquid-filled toys with plastic fish inside or a tropical version of those snow shakers, just bobbing. But still feeling sad. And I keep thinking how so many out in the villages here want so so much to know more about their reefs, to be active learning about them, playing scientists, restoring them, excited. There is work to keep 1000 of us busy in just this province and yet no one can make it happen. It just doesn’t work.

Because...

…things are just the way they are. I am sorry. D, you are a star. And it is an honour to work with you, stay on your island, help you look after your reefs. It is an honour to know you and I so wish I could help you more. And I am so sorry that things look the way they do. It really isn’t how it should be. But I don’t think I can fix it. Your disappointment was even deeper than I expected, as I sat there and talked to you and sipped the fresh kulau. Right now, it just makes me feel sad. And it will get sadder. Zipping across the water, in the pouring rain, fish jumping, dolphins just hanging, islands dotted all around (so many wonderful places for a house…), but my heart just feels heavy. And I don’t of course know yet how the week will go. I have to hope that things can only get better and new opportunities be created.

Honorary balls

Advice from a colleague and friend: I think this is just a kick in the balls (we’ve honorifically given you balls, just so you can be kicked in them). Generally when kicked in the balls we collapse clutching ourselves...at any rate we don’t carry on as we were, whatever we were doing. I think you’ll have to make a major stop and clutch also, reassess somehow and only uncurl from the fetal position when sure you won’t be kicked again.

Scottie admits that life back in Edinburgh might seem kinda dull.

Being on a palm mat

If there had been rambutans at the market that would have lifted my spirit.

At least there were no Jesus preachers.

I was thinking that the rug was no longer about to be pulled from under my feet. Maybe a palm mat to put it into a closer cultural context. I have beautiful ones from Ungakum and Milne Bay. But I guess, even though I know there is always the potential it could turn into a magic flying carpet, it can also be pulled from under me, at any time. Always. It will be interesting what the next few days bring. Maybe time to just sleep on that palm mat on this balmy weekend morning.

I think an island trip is called for this weekend, and a nice sit down and story with friends there.

Oh, to be in PNG

I guess this blog is getting even more personal….it just develops that way. With people out there reading who have never even met me. Strange, the psychology of it all. But…here we go…This place is fucking randomness encapsulated. (Very sorry, Mum, for swearing on my blog…but this situation does kinda deserve it—but not something for you to worry about...honest). And is that really any kind of English, anyway? Just when you think that fortunes are picking up some, then it hits…whoooooaaaaa. Wow, quite a kick in the teeth. I am blown away by it all, kinda speechless really. And what truly amazing timing. Maybe I will go and turn myself into a magic wand. I need escape. Twirly dreads, Smashing Pumpkins loud, diving into the blue, screaming out into the tropical night. Or just convening with the dolphins, who were there as the sun set over Lavongai.

Of course

Your name is June (and sometimes Peter because aren’t most people here either called Peter or John?)…and of course..the turtle breeding season when you will be sitting up all night counting them is…June. I could have guessed

No, I don't know where Mr. Heart is...Answers on a postcard, please.

Sergeant Major Redsocks

I have to hand it to you. You were the most entertaining person at the workshop today and made me smile many times. With your moustache, style and that baton you used, Scottie and I had to look at each other and nod…”Sergeant Major”. You have a girl’s name (because you were born in that month). And you were swimming with Sergeantmajor fish. With your butt stuck up out of the water as you practised your snorkelling style we could all laugh on the beach. When you talked about the oil palm company and how the community was fighting them, you too, while you were wearing your oil palm company shirt, made me smile again, and you and I smiled together. With your enthusiasm and smart questions and the big surprise of suddenly having a protected area for Green Turtle nesting (I have never even heard you mention the word turtle before, you!)…you were today’s winner. And tonight you get to watch a DVD on…turtles.

Lessons in Melanesian Pidgin (Tok Pisin)

Hotim: Literally to make hot, heat up, warm up. I have only used it so far to mean heat up food, etc. But, another use: A guy runs from under my house, obviously with something he has taken, runs across the road through the short-cut across the boys’ house opposite. A guy sitting on the balcony gets up (seeming in no bug hurry) and goes down the steps. An old air filter removed recently from the truck is the missing item. When I tell the guys about it one of them walks out of the house carrying the air filter. The guy had run after the one that stole it, chased him on his bike and slapped him around a little (no details, thank-you). Em i hotim em liklik. (He hotim him a bit). Of course.

Get spak and...

Why yes, of course, brilliant! Buy beer (preferably spend all your money on it. Well, of course, you do anyway) and have a chance to win school fees! Yay. Totally crazy, but oh so…”representative”. Don’t you think? Always brings on a wry smile. And this evening coming home in the truck I nearly hit the guy with the big hair falling over in the road. He might be the lucky winner...

Rainy Sunday

That’s what I need to figure out…short blog entries. It is the same dilemma as with writing a journal. When I am really busy doing things, especially fun and exciting things, then I am just too occupied to sit down and write about any of it. So…I write when I am not doing much, there is not much going on, and there is not much to write about. Hm. Much of my inspiration seems to be walking or biking around, all the thoughts flying in my head, but then they disappear again. It is a rainy, grey Sunday. It could be one of those Morrissey cloudy-and-grey-every-day-is-like-one Sundays. It has been really rainy for the last month. Wood in the not-so-well built purple house is splitting and peeling in the damp. But now I have more curtains (a new design!) and white icicle lights hanging (E, more nesting….), incense is burning and Scottie is baking a cake in the bread machine (it’s all hi-tech here). All domestic at the tip of this island, reaching out to the equator. It has been a weekend of hosting guests, ferrying to and fro, organising, covering for drunk people. Cooking tinfish (even if better tinfish) and greens. Talking about religion and missionaries (can’t remember the last time I could sit down and talk with a Papua New Guinean). This week there will be a workshop teaching representatives from the villages how to get more involved in monitoring their reefs. This will be a good change from the office. It might even be fun. So no, E, I am not gliding through the tropical blue with the fishes, although would love to be, as you probably would too. Maybe next weekend. I did go to Tourist World, but not on Friday. The food was delicious. But it never ceases to amaze me how vacuous the conversations are there. Truuuul-y. The temperatures dipping to perhaps 27, it felt too cold to swim with the sparkles! But it was a good week, really, just hard to describe all the small things why and how. It no longer feels like the rug is about to be pulled from under my feet. Smile. And you, two of you especially out there, I do wonder about your life and wish I knew more so I could say more relevant, encouraging and stimulating things from this little outpost.