Thursday June 2nd - Saturday June 4th: Big Mama Comes to the Party

Thursday 2^nd

Today two boat-fulls of mothers from the Kia Mothers’ Union arrived at the Arnavons along with their two supervising priests. When I say ‘boat-fulls’ I don’t mean that they filled the bench seats, they filled every inch of the boats and left the gunnels barely showing. They were keen alright; keen, excited and ruthlessly efficient in their preparation of a spectacular dinner on the night of their arrival.

‘Ruthlessly efficient’, now there’s a characteristic that I never thought I would ascribe to a Solomon Islander. But when I think about it, it’s not often that I see women sitting about chewing betel nut with the men in the village. Though I hadn’t realised it at the time, this was my first clue as to where the real action potential of the Solomon Islander’s lay.

Roaming.

Friday 3^rd

This morning we all walked around to the turtle nesting beach where we listened to Dickson, a conservation officer from Kia, talk to the ladies about the turtles and the work of the conservation area. As he explained how many eggs were in each nest, how many hatchlings would make it out to sea, and how many would live long enough to return and nest themselves, I chatted to the chairperson of the Mothers Union, Christina. She estimated that ten turtles were eaten in Kia each week, and commented that if each of the three adjoining communities did the same, that makes thirty dead turtles per week. Dickson explained that nest numbers were going down each year and it was obvious to the ladies that this reserve couldn’t sustain the turtle population with such intense harvesting – they were frustrated and inspired; worried and determined. This was successful conservation work in action, no poacher patrol needed.

Awaiting the hatchling run.

This evening, after stuffing our faces with crab and megapod eggs (a megapod is like a cross between a pukeko and a weka), we had a tok-tok on the beach and Gary and I delivered a presentation each. Gary spoke about the handover of the management of the project to the communities, an interesting prospect which got them excited but also fired up at how useless their current board of management representatives were. 

I delivered a little slide-show on my lap-top and spoke about issues with sickness, food availability and income in the village, and offered my thoughts on some possible solution. They were quietly reserved during my talk but afterwards we had a chat about their ideas and it all came out.



The issue of income was another interesting one. They didn’t seem to care much for increased wealth, what got them going was their men wasting money on beer. They also enjoyed hearing me say (the older ones especially) that I thought traditional foods were way better that those from the store – they had benefits for health, sustainability and savings. There wasn’t much that I could promise to do about these issues through the conservation but I told them to “talk-strong” to their men and then crossed my fingers that it wouldn’t incite a riot in the village.



Tree climbing isn't just for kids.



Saturday 4^th



The ladies went home this morning after releasing another nest of turtle hatchlings on the beach. It was great to have gotten some reassurance of energy and ambition from within the community. If we could get some of these ladies into positions of power in the community or even on the ACMCA board we could make some real progress. I couldn’t help thinking though, how impossible it all seemed given how low they stand on the village ladder. There was some hope though in their collective actions through the Mothers Union. Time will tell I guess.



Ready for the 2 hour trip on the open ocean - safe as houses.