I first came across this list mid 2005 and have since seen it circulated making reference to Papua New Guineans, Solomon Islanders and various other pacific folks. It’s probably reasonable to suggest that these quirks apply to melanesian people across the board.
* you can have coffee mix and rice for breakfast
* you have betel nut for lunch
* you still live with your parents even though you’re 30
* you bring your boyfriend/girlfriend to the house and everyone’s concluded that you’re married!
* you wear board shorts to cruise in town even though you’renot going for a swim
* you share one cigarette with five other people
* you have about three families living in one house
* still keep drinking even though you can barely talk and walk
* at any major function, instead of a plate, your food comes in aplastic container
* you run into a mountain of slippers blocking the front door
* your staple diet is rice and Taiyo ( sol canned Tuna) withnoodle
* you have a huge gap between your first two toes (excessivethong wear..)
* the swimming pool is filled with people wearing t-shirts andshorts
* you can sprint barefoot on sharp stones and rocks
* you wake up and go straight to work or classes
* at crossings, you’re supposed to wait for the car to stopbefore crossing, not the other way around!
* your first names is always from the bible (John, Mary, Jacob,Peter ) or ended up being named with RAMSI, tension, or Tsunami.
* you have a perpetually drunk uncle who starts fights at every family gathering
* you call a friend - ganga or gangs..
* you have sat in a 4-seater car with up to 8 other people
* you can speak with your face - eg. twitch like a rabbit to ask, “how are you?
* your grandmother thinks Vicks Vapo-Rub is the miracle cure for everything
* you’re a tycoon on your payday by shouting everyone and scab money off people ’til the next fortnight
* you invite people over for dinner and your family all of asudden say the grace
* you’re at your aunty’s and see your six year old cousin doing household chores
* your aunty visits and she’s talking to you at the same time as looking in your pots for food
* you go to your village rich and come back poor
* you have lavalava for curtains in your house
* your house is like a dormitory full of students
* your wantoks in the village think you have a lot of money because you work in town
* you receive a letter with $50 enclosed from your uncle at home, asking you to buy a carton of noodle and to buy a 20kg rice with anything left from the $50 . . you meanim?
* your uncle drinks although there is no food for the family for dinner
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That sounds like the Solomons to me! Iu meanim?
Trust a “Solomon Islander” to pick that up!
R
This was my come back when I originally read this a few months ago:
You know you are an expat ‘gone native’ in the Solomons when:
You haven’t had a hot shower for over a year
You start to think that coffee-mix and Mamee noodles taste quite nice
You give up trying to accumulate any possessions other than some kitchen pots and a broken chair
You call one of your drinking acquaintances ‘Uncle’ because you’re married to one of his wantoks
People can mix Roviana, Pidgin and English together and you still understand them – perfectly
You get really cranky that you can’t smoke in Brisbane airport
A beer at ten o’clock in the morning doesn’t seem like a bad idea
You book a plane ticket from Honiara to Gizo on the 8a.m Saturday flight, but you only plan to get to Gizo ’sometime on the weekend’ – you hope
Whenever you travel more than 5km from your house you take a backpack containing a good book, bottle of water, crackers, a tin of chilli taiyo and cigarettes for at least three days
You make sure you have enough cash for the weekend by 3pm Friday
You look forward to going through the latest arrival of second hand clothes at XJ-6
You buy your frozen chickens from someone at the Yacht Club and store them in the beer fridge until you’ve finished drinking
You think that someone who has just managed to get the lease on a broken shack in Honiara that doesn’t have power and costs SBD$4000 a month “lucky”
You arrange to meet someone “in the morning”, rather than at 9a.m.
You are outraged that a bag of rice is SBD$140, when you know you can get it for SBD$138 at the other end of town