Mr. & Mrs. MacGyver – Adventures with Avocados

by Martha

When we bought this house more than 20 years ago, we did not realize it had an avocado tree. That’s because initially, it did not bear fruit – it takes quite a few years before avocados produce. Then one year, surprise – big, beautiful fruit. And we are talking really big – 1+ pounders (400+ grams).

A few years ago, the tree started looking poorly. The leaves were not fresh and green and the tree didn’t have as many avocados. We were concerned that perhaps the tree was dying. Last year, Martha took a branch from the tree to the Ministry of Agriculture to see if they might be able to help determine what was going on. The officer looked at the branch and offered to make a site visit. The next day, she came to the house and determined that the tree had an infestation of whitefly, and suggested fertilizer and possibly an insecticide spray. 

We dumped lots of leaf mulch around the tree, moved our compost pile under it, and waited. After a few weeks, we could see the tree was looking healthier and it was blooming. We were feeling hopeful!

The tree began to bear fruit, and we were surprised to have fruit ripen in December – over a month earlier than ever before. And the tree was loaded with many other avocados in various stages of development. 

The tree is quite tall – too tall to pick the fruit by hand.  And besides, we like to eat the fruit when it is naturally ripe. So now, several times a day, we hear this massive ‘bang’ on the roof, then sometimes a ‘bumpity-bump-bump’ down the corrugated iron and then a large ‘thud’ when another avocado hits the ground. Often there is a split in the fruit, but there is still plenty of good, healthy, yummy flesh to enjoy.

It’s a blessing to be able to share the fruit with friends. At the moment, we are getting lots of fruit but we are in lockdown, making it difficult to share the fruit. So, Mrs. MacGyver has been pulling out all the avocado recipes she has collected through the years. And Mr. MacGyver has been experimenting as well. Click below to see some of the MacGyver’s avocado treats:

Avocado Chocolate Truffles - Amazing!
Avocado bread
Chicken Avocado Stir-fry
Avocado 'Egg in a Nest'
Avocado Chocolate Fudge Brownie
Avocado Papaya Salad
Beautiful fruit!
Avocado Chocolate Pudding
Happy Avocados!

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Sorry!

by Martha

It looks like someone hacked our account and sent out some spam emails. We have taken measures to put a stop to that and hope the issue has been fixed.

Have a safe last day of 2021 and a blessed 2022!

Martha and Tim

A Workshop for Kwaio Preschool Teachers

by Martha

Buma Catholic Mission Station – Malaita Province – the rainbow and moon

In our last newsletter, we shared about a new opportunity – to help develop a curriculum for an ECE (Early Childhood Education) program in two schools. The first step was to hold a workshop for ECE in a Kwaio-speaking area on Malaita Island. The venue for the workshop was a beautiful Catholic station where we were welcomed warmly by the Sisters of Charity.

3 of the 4 of us in the photo are named, Martha!

This ECE project is under the direction of two local non-profit organisations, LASI (Literacy Association Solomon Islands) and COESI (Coalition for Education Solomon Islands). While we taught most of the workshop content, three trainers from LASI were observing, as they will be responsible for the ongoing training of teachers in the program.

The training included looking at principles of early childhood education and preparing a ‘cultural calendar’ for their community. This involves a process of thinking about weather patterns, seasons, growing seasons, etc. in the local community. The teachers then used that cultural calendar to choose weekly themes for the curriculum.

The list of themes

The teachers practiced writing stories in Kwaio.

One of the next tasks will be to develop storybooks for the various themes. We have enlisted the help of the Kwaio Bible translator, David Fonosimae, to help translate some books into Kwaio, using the Bloom Library, which was developed by SIL International. You can look at the books that David has translated here: Bloom Library – Kwaio books. We are looking forward to adding more books to the Bloom Library.

In early 2022, we plan on going back to Malaita for a writers’ workshop where the teachers will write original stories to coordinate with the curriculum.

The teachers left the workshop excited about the things they learned. Their village community will be working on building a classroom for the many small children who will benefit from this new program.

Workshop staff and participants

The kids along with the visiting Australian and New Zealand High Commioners, standing where their new ECE classroom will be built.



We enjoyed traveling to Malaita and working together.

A visit to Sinasuu

by Martha

When the opportunity came up to travel to Malaita Island with my friend, Priscilla, I jumped at the chance. Priscilla is the National Coordinator of the Literacy Association of the Solomon Islands (LASI) and she was going with some colleagues to visit Sinasuu Village, where LASI has had a successful literacy program.

In addition to the visitors from LASI and COESI (Coalition for Education Solomon Islands), the village was preparing for the arrival of the Australian and New Zealand High Commissioners (within the British Commonwealth, this is the equivalent to the position of Ambassador) the next day. 

The successful Sinasuu Village Literacy Program was originally designed to meet the needs of illiterate adults, but kids started coming to classes as well. The nearest school is 2 kilometres (1.25 miles) away, so it was too far for young children to walk. By the time they were old enough to walk to school, they had already missed the foundational years of kindergarten and first grade, so many never went to school at all.

LASI helped the community start a preschool program. The community built a classroom from local materials and the kids were able to attend class. But the building is small and there are a lot of kids in the village. 

Australia and New Zealand agreed to help fund a permanent school building and that is why they were coming to visit the village. 

LASI and COESI agreed to help provide a curriculum for the kids that was appropriate for their age, in their own Kwaio language, that would be culturally appropriate. They were able to find funding to cover the costs of curriculum development, teaching materials and teacher training. 

As you can imagine, the village is excited to be getting a school building and program which will help educate their kids right in their own village and in their own language. 

We are pleased that LASI and COESI have asked SITAG (Solomon Islands Translation Advisory Group) to write the curriculum and Tim and I are excited to take this on. Martha having seen the local situation will certainly make writing the job easier. 

We feel excited and honored to serve the people of Sinasuu and help develop a curriculum that we hope will be helpful to other communities around the country.

Savo Island Alphabet Tour

by Martha

The moment we completed the circle around Savo Island.

On July 4th 2021, we traveled to Savo Island to start a ‘walking tour’. The purpose of our tour was to visit all the village communities around the island while also taking the opportunity to meet with people and share some information about an upcoming meeting.

The meeting on the following weekend was to bring Savosavo speakers together to talk about their alphabet. Not much has been written in Savosavo, but more than one alphabet has been used to write the language. In order to move forward in Bible translation, there needs to be ONE alphabet that everyone can read. We were hoping for wide community participation.

During the week as we walked around the island, we held 8 alphabet awareness meetings. We also encouraged people to come to Kaogele Village on the weekend to participate in the discussion on what letter symbol(s) should be used for each sound in the language.

We had wonderful weather all week long as we walked from village to village. Please enjoy this virtual tour of the island through some of our photos:

Walking

Image 1 of 39

Walking on the beach or on a path through the bush, Savo is a beautiful island!