Went to have some coffee this morning after my swim…I wandered into a quiet town–it is 90+% closed down on Sundays but there is a little café that is open. I figured, hey, it’s Sunday! I’ll act like Benjy and read the paper and drink coffee. My first foray into the paper was excellent. I want to share some of the news with you:
- international news that is in regards to anywhere outside the immediate neighbors or Australia seems to come from the U.N. facebook status updates
- health and safety tips, “seasickness can ruin a great day on the water” and “sprinkling a few grains of sugar on a burnt tongue can alleviate the pain”
- on the island of Kaiwi the chief’s family has petitioned the government to force him into retirement and elections for a new chief are underway–I suspect this is one of the many islands nearby where the Chief does not talk directly to anyone except through an appointed person. Can you imagine trying to lead without talking directly to the people you are leading? There might be something to the enforced pace that would lead to…
- I do not know what the two pages in French are all about, and I peeled through the four pages in Bislama and understand that some documents were exposed that were top secret and the paper has now published photographs of said documents sitting on someone’s desk
- an outboard motor was stolen by a man with no get-away plans. He eventually hailed a cab, loaded the motor into the taxi while wearing a face mask and then told the taxi driver to pull over in a grassy area where he unloaded the motor into the tall grass so that it was hidden. He then instructed the taxi driver to take him to another destination. When they arrived he said he would pay the taxi driver when he sold the stolen motor. The taxi driver didn’t like not getting paid and punched the man and then drove off. Two days later he decided to find the owner of the boat and he told him where his motor was.
- Over in Papua New Guinea some ding-dong and his ding-dong girlfriend had romantic notions of visiting the natives without any guides in a remote village. Unfortunately for them one of the tribesmen took a liking to the girlfriend and decided to marry her. Of course they don’t believe in bigamy so he shot two arrows into the boyfriend and hit him over the head with a large rock. She activated her emergency beacon and they were rescued. He is in the hospital recovering from surgeries which closed his wounds. Yes, he pulled the arrows out of his abdomen by himself for all of you Grey’s fans…and a note to all: these are real people with real lives and real belief systems. Many a missionary and well-intended or romantic fellow have been eaten in this part of the world in the not so distant past. Be smart when you are traveling–you can still travel and visit remote places but do it the way everyone locally recommends you do, they seem to know what they are talking about.
- Mice in southern Australia are ganging up on and eating the pigs on some farms
- Just the title of the story will do: “Steak made from human excrement: Is it Safe?”
- A hospital patient (not at the hospital I work at) got tired of waiting and grabbed a box cutter and asked a nearby dr if he removed a cyst himself if the dr would kindly stitch it up. He is now in jail for causing fear in public
- A group of conservationists is setting out to an uninhabited island to spend three days killing 30,000 plus rats who are eating the eggs of endangered bird species and sea turtles
as you might have guessed, I lost interest in my coffee right around this point
- the foreign minister to the UN from Vanuatu is being recalled because “he is a very old man and we have a full report on his performance and it’s very weak…”
- In great news, there is a long article on the UN agency tasked with promoting women’s rights and the French government is coming back to do a third round of Chlamydia testing and treatment research here
- The old government is back again after about 10 days with a new government…they are busy reinstating all of the ministers
I spent the day getting ready for the next 12 days when I expect to work 8-12 hour shifts daily. I don’t know how to get ready for that so I painted my toe nails and took a long walk around the neighborhood and then sat with friends and stared at the stars which are really stunning. I didn’t see any of the constellations I have come to rely on as permanent fixtures in the sky above me. It was really strange and wonderful.
