Savo island

Hello again!

This weekend all the residents of Kiwi house (which is now a total of 7, including 2 new girls from cardiff uni) went to Savo island. Its a very small island which was supposedly only and hours boat ride from honiara....WRONG! it was an hour and 40 minutes on VERY rough waters in a tiny tiny boat not really designed for 7 passengers! it was very entertaining for the first half hour...but eventually the bumps, sea spray and scorching heat began to take their toll! we all wobbled off the boat at the end feeling quite abused by the elements! luckily we were greeted on the shore by the staff of the lodge we were staying in with coconuts with little flowers poked in the top - definitely not the type of service we have been used to in honiara! the lodge was situated right on the shore of a beautiful pebble beach. It had amazing snorkelling really close to the shore, we only realised afterwards that we had spent all afternoon snorkelling in shark infested waters! apparently they are only littlies though... I saw one roaming around the place whilst sat on the shore.
Saturday - I went on a little walk (much more manageable than the previous waterfall hike!) to nearby hot springs (savo has 2 active volcanoes), which i actually found fascinating! the locals apparently cook over the steam of the springs because its so hot.
In the afternoon we went swimming with dolphins which was AMAZING! i loved it, despite the numerous jelly fish stings which weren't so fun! The only down side to savo was the abundance of flies! absolutely everywhere.
The boat ride back was much less traumatic! and we spent the entire of sunday afternoon at the honiara hotel pool - where else!

In terms of other general news - we have found a resident 'dad's band' within the hospital compound - they were playing at the end of one of my shiftsthe other night so I went over and they had a full set of drums, a keyboard and 2 electric guitars with a whole crowd of people that eventually gathered to watch. it was really nice to shill with the locals! they askled if i could play anything, i had to say no, but jokingly offered to sing, and then REALLY wished I hadnt! ha! i managed to get out of it. they played requests - lots of bob marley!
Kiwi house is still standing, but the water supply becomes more and more temperamental as the days go by... I';ve taken to showering in the hospital operating theatres most days now!
This morning I have been to book flights to Gizo - a western province island where they have another small hospital which Alex and i will be working in for 2 weeks (in between diving and snorkelling!). So we're flying there on the 15th august and coming back to honiara on the 30th august for a last few days before oz!
Theres been a general election going on throughout the Solomon islands the past few days, there has been lots of speculation about whether any trouble is likely to kick off, but as of yet only a few ballot boxes have been burned... apparently any potential trouble will start when they announce who the prime minister is out of all the elected candidates for each region...luckily, by that time I will be in Gizo which strikes me as somewhere which has a less significant mob culture! There is a big police and army presence around at the moment though in case anything kicks off so I think it should be fine!
Spent last night in 'club xtreme' again last night....its becoming a regular occurence! but the music is just so good! shame about the expensive drinks though...but this problem has been solved on several occasions by befriending certain expats who throw their money around!

All in all, things are still all good, and we are loving the Solomons but REALLY looking foward to a change of scenery in Gizo.

xx