Fundraising - Solomon Islands Style

Last week while we were still in Marulaon (was it only last week?!?), we learned that one of the young ladies from Marulaon attended a school in Honiara that would be holding a fundraiser. Sarah Kiko is one of her aunties and George Hensey (or "chairman" as we all call him since he's the church district chairman) both came in and brought shellfish and crab to help make money at the fundraiser.

We've never seen fundraisers like the ones they have here. Each class in both the primary and secondary schools had a booth where they sold food that the parents prepared. There was rice and chicken and cassava pudding and fish and green coconuts and cake and lots more. The booth for our friends was the only one that had shellfish, so we hoped they would raise extra money. After the opening speech and prayer by the school board chairman, each booth opened for business.

We bought pudding, fish, watermelon, and green coconuts for our family to eat and to share with Sarah Kiko. We visited for a while with them and met a couple of other people from the Russells who live in Honiara. Then, Aaron had the great idea to buy lunch for each of the four ladies who work as staff for SITAG. In this culture, everything has to be fair - if you can't do it for everybody, you don't do it for anyone. We constantly have to guard against seeming to play favorites, yet being generous at the same time.

So, we bought some fish, pudding, and shellfish strung on a stick (both the halea and the bei were from the Russells!). We also discovered that the crab (kafol) was still alive and kicking, so we bought two to take home and enjoy later.

Yet another step outside the realm of the familiar as we attended our first fund raiser and everybody gawked at us. We had a blast, though, and hopefully cemented some relationships with Sarah Kiko and Chairman.