Friday 7th December.

3 days to go.

The former Prime Minister Sir Allen Kamekeza was sentenced to; surprise surprise, 5 months in jail. He was also fined $7000. Here in the Solomons, if you are sentenced to more than 6 months in jail, you cannot enter Parliament. Sir Allen is the person who holds the balance of power. The PM and the Opposition each have 25 votes. Sir Allen is the remaining non aligned Member of Parliament. He must serve 2 months as 3 months was suspended. He has also appealed the sentence.

I have been trying all day to confirm my flight. Solomon Airlines do not want to confirm it. I just get handed around from phone to phone. Maybe I will have to alter the “days to go” number.

We had a farewell get together this afternoon. Tweety and I have only been here 3 months, Duke, will be leaving after 18 months on the same flight as me.

We had plenty of food and drink; beer, wine and soft drink accompanied with rice, curries and stews as well as vegetables and trays of banana, watermelon and pineapple. All functions like this have strict planning. An agenda was printed and passed around.

The MC organised everything, we then have Grace. This is followed by eating which is led by the guests of honour then the important people!. After that is complete we have a couple of speeches. This is followed by the presentation of gifts to the outgoing advisors. The final speeches are from the outgoing advisors.

After the speeches the locals sing traditional farewell songs. We then have the closing prayer and everyone stays until the drinks have finished.

It was a great ceremony. Most of the local staff made sure they came up to the three of us and thanked us individually, not only for our efforts, but for coming along as a friend of the Solomon Islands.

After this came to an end, Tweety and I had a dinner engagement with one of our friends we made here. She is a nurse from the Medical Centre. We headed off to the Iron Sounding Bum, in the middle of the biggest storm we have had since we arrived. It was just like a typical Tropical thunderstorm. I wonder why that was? We got soaked in seconds even with an umbrella. The water was about calf length when we got out of the car. After dinner there was no standing water and it was just a wet looking parking area.