In response to the post I did last week on “Melanesian Quirks!” - I got the following response from my friend Nick:
You know you are an expat ‘gone native’ in the Solomons when: (I reckon we can replace the Solomons with Melanesia in this case)…
- 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.
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