Notice

Please do not bring your bush knife into the library

Decisions decisions

Nine books picked off the shelf, but which one to read...oh the delicious torture of deciding!!

Spit and polish

Here we are getting back to library basics, swabbing the shelves, scraping off the gecko poo and brushing away the dead insects. Many hours of fun.

Salvation

The Catholics and the Adventists compete to save the souls of Bougainviĺleans. And the former seem to offer a take home service through the local bottle store.

Curfew

A 'security situation' means that we are all confined to quarters today, Easter Monday, and can only imagine the outside world. Annoying because a walk up into the hills - which itself takes a lot of organizing - was planned.

Fashion show

Last day of term at Arawa High School, so a fashion show is held. Teacher Mrs G gets a big cheer for taking part. And the moment is captured forever on a hundred smartphones.

The spot

The blue dot marks the exact spot where I just had a really useful meeting with all the staff of the Bougainville Heritage Foundation. Loose ends tidied, plans explained, progress praised, tardiness mildly criticised...just like a regular meeting with all the usual meeting dynamics and tensions at work and the usual cast of characters: the clown, the grump, the enthusiast, the spectator...

As Young Werther has it: people really are the same everywhere.

All the staff were there except the two who haven't been paid for months and who have therefore had enough. Apparently their salary was approved but then someone at City HQ decided it would be better spent elsewhere and quickly and quietly diverted it. Diverted to which project, nobody can say.

Thin

This is how you stack the supermarket shelves - one packet deep - when the stock is running out and the fortnightly ship isn't due for ages.

Knee

To the village of Pidia to talk to chief John Duai and Carmelita Tibola. Powerful stories about the crisis and the continuing divisions in the village. The other interviewer is Patrick Keaveney, an Irish artist working here whose photographic project intersected nicely with mine.
Enjoy my pasty, and rarely seen left knee

Could get Messi

Lifejackets are strictly for sissies