Tuesday, November 12

The Solomon Islands is in the middle of a census, and today the census workers came to our house. Aaron had gone down to talk with Leonard about rebuilding our rain tank stands when the guys showed up, so I hustled down to grab him so we could answer their questions. The guys had a huge packet of papers with boxes to check and questions to fill out about us. It was fun to ask them where they were from and to discover that they are local guys who got to come back and survey their families.

One of the benefits of Aaron’s chat with Leonard is that we discovered Leonard’s family has a pig. They will be happy for us to come give our compost to their pig to supplement its diet. We’re thrilled to have a useful way to dispose of our waste! We eat a lot more fruits and veggies than our neighbors do, and I don’t think they realize just how quickly our compost bucket fills up.

It rained all day yesterday, so our big rain tank in the back is doing well. The two rain tanks on the front of the house have been taken down so they can be cleaned and the rotting stands can be replaced. Watching the rain come out of the spouts and hit the ground just to be wasted made me sad, but soon we will have hundreds of gallons of nice, clean water again to share with our friends. We’re coming into the rainy season, so it won’t take long to refill the tanks. The new small rain tank we brought had white sticky letters on it to identify the company that sold it. Those letters have slowly disappeared in the last few days, and over the weekend I saw several letters affixed to the faces of children.

After school, I went down to take some laundry detergent and bath soap to Voella, who just had the new baby. Her house is only feet away from ours. She was asleep with the baby, but I enjoyed a visit with my friend, Ofoaen, while the girls played.