Reflections

So I found myself reading a report I drafted during my time at the Ministry of Education. It's always funny going back through previous work because I find myself pondering whether I've gone forwards or backwards.

Moving here was a huge change from life in Wellington. I went from being surrounded by friends and family and having a job with professional support to living in a foreign country where no-one was close to me and where skills in policy development were seriously lacking. It didn't take long before I was right in the thick of things and feeling under pressure.

12 months on I feel that I have grown a lot – and I've had to! The professional and personal challenges have been numerous and at times intense. I'm not one to back down so the only choice in my mind was to climb the mountain, and I have to say, the experience has been both rewarding and humbling.

And after all that hard work I'm finally starting to get some positive reinforcement: my CEO has said he wants to extend my contract, the head of the Administration wants me to work here as a local and I hope my volunteer organisation would like me to undertake another posting.

Personally, being offered a position to work as a local Bougainvillean with local Bougainvilleans is about the highest honour they could pay me, so it feels good to know that I'm being considered. I'm not sure what I will do next but for now I think I can say I'm moving in the right direction.

Media

Yeah g'day :)

I'm back in Buka after a few weeks muckin' about in PNG. Was a good break and desperately needed.

For those interested in the Carteret Islands issue you can find some work by photojournalist Bjorn Hansen here: http://www.bjornstighansen.com/?p=92

For those interested in Bougainville in general it has come to my attention that there are plenty of videos to be found on You-Tube.

More from me later.

Going offline

Heya,

So I'm off on holiday next week which couldn't come sooner. Very relieved and looking forward to having a bit of an adventure. The plan is to head to Goroka then swing through to Madang afterwards, basically my attempt to see PNG while I am here.

Work wise things have been very busy. Recently got involved in a small side project with Marilyn Havini, a human rights advocate living in Buka. She and her husband Moses put in a heroic effort documenting the human rights abuses taking place in Bougainville during the Crisis, which are summarised in two reports and a database.

Unfortunately Marilyn does not have any of these backed up in digital format so I spent a bit of time last week scanning and touching up the reports so that we had a digital copy that closely resembled the original. The database work has hit a snag though; it is saved on floppy disks with a format that conforms to a now out of date operating system. Hopefully we will be able to recruit some help from an Australian university to recover the data. Will let you know how it goes.

Databases

I hate them

Society

Oh, it's a mystery to me
We have a greed with which we have agreed
And you think you have to want more than you need
Until you have it all you won't be free

Society, you're a crazy breed
Hope you're not lonely without me...

When you want more than you have
You think you need...
And when you think more than you want
Your thoughts begin to bleed
I think I need to find a bigger place
Because when you have more than you think
You need more space

Society, you're a crazy breed
Hope you're not lonely without me...
Society, crazy indeed
Hope you're not lonely without me...

There's those thinking, more-or-less, less is more
But if less is more, how you keeping score?
Means for every point you make, your level drops
Kinda like you're starting from the top
You can't do that...

Society, you're a crazy breed
Hope you're not lonely without me...
Society, crazy indeed
Hope you're not lonely without me...

Society, have mercy on me
Hope you're not angry if I disagree...
Society, crazy indeed
Hope you're not lonely without me...

Eddie Vedder

And now…

Quick post to fill you in on recent events…

Finally launched the Administration's Corporate Plan, which I first worked on waaaaaaaay back in August 2008! Good things take time… Launching went very well, Vice-President was happy. Saved a few bottles of wine for the end of the week with my boss, went down very well.

Also conducted the fourth and final public forum on restoration and development in Bougainville, so relieved to finally have that over with! Turn out was a bit low at 70 people but had really good engagement and debate, which kinda makes up for it I guess. One of the highly paid AusAID advisors managed to fall asleep in front of the chairman though, both feet up on a stool and chin on chest, which was poor form…I expect a higher standard from those guys.

So with those and the Health Summit behind me I'm feeling a little more relaxed. The hospital project looks to be set aside for next year and is a big maybe, which is also a relief to be honest. Don't have the staff for one anyway so hopefully the focus will be a nursing school, which seems to be the way things are heading at the moment.

And my holiday is coming up. Hooray.

Online

The ABG intends to be online. http://www.abg.gov.pg/

No, she is not participating in illegal activities.