Tuesday 12 October 2010

The first thing was an early flight to Auckland, leaving Nelson at 7.45am, followed by walking to International Departures. Everything went smoothly through customs and the 3 hours flight to Brisbane went also with no problems. After going through security and customs there was plenty of time to relax, while waiting for the next, 2 hours, flight to Port Moresby. After my arrival in Port Moresby, I phoned the Weigh Inn Hotel to ask if someone could pick me up from the airport. The first thing is the temperature, which hits you straight away, if you are hitting a brick wall and it feels somewhat uncomfortable. I had to wait about 20 minutes for my ride to the hotel and the first thing that I notice is to see people everywhere on the street, doing nothing, playing touch rugby, or selling and trading all sorts of products.

Driving over the hill towards Port Moresby, with the sun straight in or eyes, we arrived at the hotel around 6.00 pm, a complex secured by a high fence and plenty of people around, basically doing nothing. Entering the lobby of the hotel was an experience in itself as well as intimidating whereby local people are sitting around and observing you from top to bottom with no smile or any other form of acknowledgement. Later on I realised that these people were staff members of the hotel. The young lady at the reception was straight to business and after a short conversation of how I was going to settle the bill, she gave me the key of room 11. The room was small without any form of luxury, one tap worked with some water trickling out of it, the shower cabin was dirty and almost falling apart, and the air-conditioning system was very noisy. Overall the cleanness of the room was reasonable but also well overpriced at 280 Kina for one night. After my room experience I had no motivation to go to the hotel restaurant to grab a bite to eat, instead I went to the hotel bar for a few beers. The bar was full of “white” people and several local ladies looking for a conversation and free drinks.

Wednesday 13 October 2010

As arranged with the reception lady, I got a wake-up call at 4.00am but I was already sitting in the starting blocks to go to the airport, the hotel bus was going to drop me off at the domestic terminal. Here again going through security and lining-up in front of the counter for boarding the flight to Buka. I had to pay an extra 47 Kina as I had 24 kg with me instead of the allowed 20 kg. After all this done I had again to go through security, turned right into a large waiting lounge with comfortable chairs, waiting another hour or so for my flight to Buka. The gate opened at 5.30am and the aircraft was in the air at 6.00am, arriving at 7.45am in Buka. I was one of the first out of the aircraft and to my surprise there was a bamboo band playing at the entrance of the terminal. Unfortunately, this was not for me (duh) but for a UNDP delegation arriving in Buka for a weeklong conference on economic development issues for Bougainville. After watching all the developments and welcome of this group, I went to look for Murray Benbow, who arrived with several others, as the “official” welcome committee. They invited me for a breakfast at Tony’s place in Ieta Village, the same village where I have my accommodation. After picking-up the three boxes from Murry’s place I made my way to my own apartment, right in the corner from the L-shaped building where I occupy the first and the second floor. During the day, the temperature in the living and bedroom is a constant 33 degrees, even with the ceiling fans on full. Late in the evening and night, the temperatures in the accommodation will drop to about 28 degrees. This is something the body needs to get adjusted to, which varies from two to four weeks or even longer.

Ieta village is about three kilometres from Buka Town or half an hour walk, there is also the opportunity to pick–up a ride from one of the many PMV’s going up and down the road transporting people for about five Kina (NZ$ 1.60). The village shows quite a few contrasts of how people live. My stay in the accommodation is luxurious compared to many other people in the village, who have no electricity or easy excess to drinking water, these villages have to rely on candles, torches and water from a well. This is the way the people live and by observing their habits and daily routines or even talking to the people, it seems that they are happy and proud, whereby I have not seen anyone who had nothing to eat. Agriculture is the main form for the villages to earn their living by growing different types of vegetables and selling it at the market quite cheaply. For example, I bought a bundle of little bananas and a pineapple for 5 Kina (NZ$ 2.80)

Thursday 14 October 2010

Murray picked me up at around ten o’clock in the morning to go to Buka to do my fist shopping. Visiting the shops is also an interesting thing to do. There are several small “supermarkets” who sell a selected range of products and to buy what you want you have go the several of these stores. It is evident that there is no shortage of the basic products but sometimes they run out of products like rice or two minute noodles. There is only one bank in Buka and people are prepared to queue-up for many hours to receive the service they want. It took me little more than an hour to open a bank account and it will take another two weeks to get my ATM card, but nobody is complaining, just standing in line and wait. We had a bit of a tour through town whereby Murray was pointing out other businesses of interest. Imaging the Buka Town with lots of small shops, whereby there are no footpaths, tar sealed roads and lots of deep potholes accompanied with dust and the high temperature, and by the way, people everywhere. Later in the day I met my new boss and CEO of the Division of Commerce, Albert Kinani who is well known within the Bougainville government. He expressed his content to have the assistance of a “right-hand-man”, which would enable him to concentrate more on larger projects and more time outside the office to lead those projects. After the meeting Murray and I went back to Ieta village where he had to perform the last administrative actions to conclude my induction.

Friday 15 October 2010

This was my day off, no appointments, no one to see, just……relax. The rest of the day I spend on unpacking my belongings and to arrange the accommodation to my likings, as much as possible. In the evening we all met at Tony’s place from where we left for dinks at Kina Resort in Buka and for dinner at another place, to welcome me officially in the group, whereby my dinner was paid for by the organisation. It was interesting to meet all the other who were telling about their projects and experiences. We all left for home about ten o’clock.

Saturday 16 October 2010

His was another relaxing day, whereby it was also time to check-out the washing machine followed by doing the first load of washing. For the rest of the day I spend some time wandering through the village, making some photo’s at the airport a bit of reading.

Sunday 17 October 2010

Sunday morning I had an early call from Norah who is a physiotherapist at Cullen Institute, an Australian organisation who specialises in assisting disabled and intellectual disabled people in developing countries, to go on a boat trip to Christmas Island, which I greatly accepted. The boat trip was interesting siting on a small hard wooden seat for an hour out of Buka towards Christmas Island. This is an idyllic small place surrounded by corals with tiny bright blue fish swimming all over the place. During the trip we were accompanied by around 20 dolphins jumping out of the water showing of their skills where they came right up to the boat and almost could touch them. We were back at 4 o’clock.

Monday 18 October 2010

My first official workday in Bougainville, I meant to be picked-up by Albert between 8.00 and 8.15am but at 8.30am I started to walk in the direction of Buka Town learning a quick lesson that punctuality is not one of their strong points. Arriving at work at 9.00am Albert was already at work mentioning to me that he just send someone to pick me up, yeah right.

Workwise there was not much that could be done because most of the staff had not arrived at this stage. Apparently, the six staff members come and go whenever they please depending on if there is anything to do or not. It is already evident that there is a lack of leadership from the CEO, who most of the time is snowed-under with apparently more important issues than leading and monitoring his staff. The whole atmosphere has a negative sort of feeling, whereby the work environment itself does not help. The division is operating from an old shed with no air-conditioning, proper lightning, internet, signage, and equipped with one computer and two small printers from which one is affected by a virus as well as the computer itself. This is the most in-efficient and in-effected set-up I have seen for a long time with a low productivity, no follow-up and monitoring of past “projects” resulting in a division that has no real connection with the business community. The lack of connection is evident by the fact that a recent short survey conducted by the division had three people responding from the hundred, nothing came out of it, therefore the project failed. According the staff, a lack of funding to conduct a proper survey was the main reason for not further carrying-on with the survey.

In the meantime it is a quarter to eleven and the CEO orders everyone together for a meeting, which also included James Biscoe an AusAID economist who I will have to deal quite a bit with over the next two years. The CEO orders a person to buy some refreshments in the form of biscuits and drinks for the meeting. After a rather long speech from the CEO, who welcomed me in Bougainville and the Division, it was straight business indicating to the staff members that coming late would, from now on, no longer be tolerated indicating that the consequences would be a reduction in pay. James also did his say on economic matters and pointing-out the close relationship with the Division of Commerce on policy matters. I was asked to say something, which I did indicating the challenges ahead for Bougainville as well as new business developments stimulating overall growth. Everyone else also had the opportunity to say something but to my surprise, no one, with the exception of Raymond wanted to see anything. The meeting ended at 12.30pm whereby everybody disappeared for lunch. The rest of the day I was trying to settle-in and get familiar with the overall surroundings and left for home at 4.00pm.

Tuesday 19 October 2010

I walked to work at 7.30am, keeping in mind that the temperature is already 27 degrees, whereby you quickly learn to walk slowly. I arrived at work at 8.00am but had to wait another twenty minutes before someone else arrived to open-up the place. The rest of the day I was trying to work out how the system works with staff members coming and going. At 4.15pm I got a lift home from the CEO who dropped me off at Ieta village.

Wednesday 20 October 2010

Same start as the previous day but this time Jane Banfield picked me up and went out with me to meet all the other CEOs of the other divisions as well as the Administrator and the Deputy-Administrators. Jane is a government HR Advisor and knows all the people who are involved in the government hierarchy. This was quite helpful, now I can put a face to their names. One of the greatest disadvantages of meeting these people is that no one has business cards; apparently this is something that had been overlooked or never seriously discussed. After meeting all these officials, I decided to create a new business card for all Commerce staff including the CEO, who actually loved the idea. The design has been approved and I am now waiting for some funding for that. Finished work at 4.10pm and left for home.

Thursday 21 October 2010

There is not much to report, just trying to find out more about the division and the rest of the government structure and trying to put a name to every head of the different departments and ministers. The CEO dropped me off home at around 4.30pm.

Friday 22 October 2010

Trying to be creative as possible can be useful. I thought about the idea to develop a booklet for business people about the Business Advisory Service (BAS) and therefore created a cover page for the new booklet. I am also tossing with the idea to create a flyer for the BAS. Earlier in the week, every staff member has received a copy of the questionnaire to criticise on it and I told them today that we will discuss this next week in a meeting and finalise it. Apparently the wet season has just started, which means that from now on their will be more cloudy days with possible daily changes for solid one and-a-half hour rain showers with the possible heavy thunders. In the sort time that I have been here in Buka, there have only by three showers or so with the result that is quite dry. My downstairs neighbour Herman pointed out to me that their drinking water was low, especially when other villages use their water from the tank.

Saturday 23 October 2010

I went for a stroll to Buka to see if the market and any other shops were open, it was evident that overall activities were not as hectic as during the week. The market has a good supply of all sorts of vegies; smoked fish and other produce that are mainly home grown by the locals. In the shops prices vary quite a bit. Normally to get everything on your shopping list you have to go to four or five different shops and I estimate that 75% of the shops in Buka sell mainly food. Then there is the combination of food and clothing shops or hardware store as well as a variety of other small shops. The way to find out who is who can be a bit tricky especially when you are new in town, like myself, whereby 98% of the shops have no sign outside their shop premises. Most shops have “security” people at the entrance of the shop and once you are inside the shop there is the lack of the cool air of an air conditioning unit. Customer service and friendliness from the staff in the shops is hard to find, with very few exceptions. The pharmacy business in the main street of Buka might be one of these exceptions; there is air conditioning, staff greeting customers, a variety of reasonable quality products as well as a huge selection of drugs and the like. After two hours in town I walked back to relax for the rest of the day.

Sunday 24 October 2010

Relaxed on the balcony most of the day and prepared some work for next week. In the afternoon I went for a walk to the beach, which is only two minutes away from where I live, to enjoy the cool sea breeze, followed by the four dogs who always hang-around the apartment during the day and night. One of the dogs sleeps during the night on the porch in front of my apartment door and by the look of it, it might be pregnant. None of these dogs have names, and they live from leftover food that people throw-out in the evenings whereby it is interesting to see that the dogs have an order of who has to eat first. Watching the villagers about their daily routine is also interesting to see. I saw Stanley poking with a long stick in one of the coconut trees where he knocked out two ripe coconuts, took the outer shell off and put it away so it could dry. Earlier on Saturday morning I saw two ladies gathering vegetables from their home garden, loading it on a wheel barrow and making their way to the market to sell their produce. There is no rubbish collection on Bougainville, what people do is collect the rubbish in a plastic shopping bag and once it is full they hang it on a tree to be burned once in a while by, for example, one of the neighbours. I did hang my full bag on the tree last week but I saw this morning that it was still hanging there.

All the above is just a brief version of my first impressions of my early stay in Bougainville.