Evening in Honiara
EVENING is coming. The sea takes on the colour of the sky. There’s no wind to ruffle its surface. Emma is with her family. We gather on the shore. It is quiet.
That’s Savo Island on the horizon, a longish motor canoe journey away. Beyond, well over the horizon and a little further again is the long shoreline of North Malaita island. Locals take the ferry, which we too have done. Faster is the Twin Otter — there’s a grass airstrip near the town of Auki over there.
Emma came to work on our project. Her job was to train the two local women working as seed curators. Her background with Australia’s Seed Savers’ Network brought the skills and knowledge that helped set up the Planting Materials Network, a farmers’ organisation through which seed and agricultural plants are exchanged. When she came back a second time she married a local man. They’re back in Australia now, somewhere up on the Northern NSW coastal plain close to the rainforest.
The sun sets over the forested ridges behind the town. Beyond lie higher mountains and the ridge which forms the backbone of this big island, Guadalcanal. People live up there on the traditional lands. They cultivate sweet potato and taro, their staples, and take what else they need from the forest. Do they stand looking down on the coast this afternoon just as we stand on the coast looking out to distant islands?
Somewhere a dog barks. A voice calls loudly. The sun goes down. Darkness comes quickly here. Cooking fires are lit. Their smoke drifts lazily into the still air and hangs above the leaf houses. Sweet potato and reef fish are put on to cook. Kerosene lamps are lit to push away the encroaching darkness, their light, little pools of yellow.
Emma calls the kids. It is time to come in from the shore now. This is how it is here. This is how it has been for a long time. In its simplicity it is good.
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