DYB DOB Donkey

This week I’ve been in Bangkok attending a global summit of influential minds on Disaster Risk Reduction, which is all about trying to prepare communities, governments and countries generally to withstand and recover from the effects of natural and man-made disasters.  I was thrilled to be attending the meeting, not only to hear from the world’s leading minds on DRR, but also because I had been asked to present a key note address on the last day, which I was hoping was going to be my big chance to make myself known to these power brokers and who knows, maybe even nab a high-powered, important job in the future.

The discussion topics on offer at the summit have encompassed lengthy soul-searching on setting-up Early Warning Systems which can be operated as soon as the initial signs of a disaster are imminent, so as to alert communities and other parties to prepare for the coming danger.  There have also been detailed explanations of working with communities and various groups on Disaster Preparedness and Response, so that they know what to do when the Early Warning System is activated, and Disaster Mitigation and Resilience, which is all about putting things in place to limit the impact of the disaster on people and their livelihoods.

But as is so often the case with these high-level discussions, all the theoretical jargon and technical know-how immediately get thrown out the window when a real disaster hits, as I discovered this week when my world was thrown into utter chaos by a series of unanticipated, catastrophic events.  

On the last day of the meeting I was up well before the sun, diligently preparing for my presentation.  After finalising the materials and practicing my speech a couple of times, I ironed my shirt and trousers, and headed off to the magnificent hotel breakfast buffet which is a common, essential element of these kinds of global meetings, concerned as they are with improving the lot of those with barely enough household resources to feed their kids.

In the Disaster Risk Reduction biz, when we talk about developing Early Warning Systems, we encourage individuals and communities to look for any unusual events or changes in their surroundings.  Hindsight is indeed a powerful tool for reflection, and through this I must concede that my ability to recognise and comprehend a significant change to the breakfast buffet that morning could well have spared me from the debilitating effects of what followed, however I failed to recognise the significance of the bowl of small, ripe cherry tomatoes which had replaced the more common-place, large, pre-sliced tomatoes on offer during the previous four days.

Failing to heed this important Early Warning Sign, I obliviously sat down to my greasy breakfast and with the sharpened points of my unsuspecting table fork, I pierced the shiny outer skin of a cherry tomato, unleashing all manner of damnation and hellfire in the form of bright, red tomato juice all over my crisp, ironed shirt - my last clean shirt for the week – all within a few short moments of the professional and reputational reckoning upon which my future career in international Disaster Risk Reduction was to be built.

Within a nanosecond of the destructive cocktail of juice and pulp being sprayed from hip to shoulder where moments before there had been nothing but sharp, starchy creases, I was on my feet in the middle of the public thoroughfare, absently wiping sticky yellow seeds from my scalp and ears, while my shrinking spleen emitted an involuntary, guttural groan which rose into the lofty chamber before disappearing into the same, intangible locale as my future career prospects. 

In reflection, it’s quite possible that all may not have been lost at that point, as there may have been some individuals of influence who’d not yet become aware of the destruction my heedless actions had unleashed upon the early morning diners, however my voluble anguish was released with little heed to the number one rule of Disaster Response planning, which is to Remain calm – DO NOT PANIC!.  Instead, I projected a shrill, piercing scream like a couple of over-weight drag queens fighting over a pair of fourteen inch, red sequinned stilettoes, attracting the full attention of every member of the largest gathering of influential minds on international humanitarian responses ever to have been assembled.

Realising my mistake, I made a beeline for the door, only to slip on the organic mess I had created on the shiny parquetry with my clumsy upturning of a breakfast bowl, causing me to land flat on my arse and generating for those influential global minds a close-up view of the world’s first ever edible, indoor tsunami, which proceeded from the epicentre of my soiled behind to the far corners of the restaurant.

Crawling now, I lowered my head in shame and slowly reconstructed a Disaster Escape Route in my mind to guide me out the door and out of sight.  Back in my Safe House hotel room a few moments later, I waited for my hyperventilating to subside and began analysing the situation.  I had come to Bangkok for a reason, and I was not going to let this incident impede my Recovery to a lucrative, fat-cat position on the international stage.  I threw open my wardrobe to take stock of my provisions, only to remember with horror that my Disaster Preparedness for this high-level talk fest had me Stockpiling only the required number of outfits through which to get me through five days of looking as professional as possible, and like I knew what I was talking about, however I had not allowed for Contingencies.  Added to this, I had been schmoozing so much with the ‘Big Wigs’ each night … until well into the messy wee hours, that all previously worn shirts were stained with Guinness and sweaty underarms.

This was truly an unanticipated, catastrophic disaster of career-limiting proportions, but despite the dire circumstances in which I now found myself, I took a couple of deep breaths, gulped down my rising panic and I resolved to make something of this.  “Hadn’t I spent the last twenty years working hard and building my reputational Resilience?”, I reasoned, “Sure I had.  I have what it takes to impress these people with my skills, Knowledge, Attitude and Practice”.  I impressed upon myself that these brilliant DRR practitioners weren’t interested in how I was dressed; they’d carved out their careers through the sweat and tears of responding to some of the most severe humanitarian disasters in recent history: working twenty hours a day for weeks at a time while living out of military-type barracks with limited water and supplies.  They knew what was important in this industry, and it wasn’t the cut of a man’s Armani trousers.  I was going to show them that I too was like them; Responsive in the face of a Disaster.  I grabbed what I could from the closet, and boldly headed for the auditorium.

The Inaugural Global Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction is unlikely to be remembered for anything other than the Global Head of UNDRR, demonstrating the military precision upon which his reputation as a leader of international Disaster Responses was built, directing the Conference Facility Security personnel to chase down and brutally apprehend a scruffy, scab-faced maniac dressed only in a stained Singha Beer singlet, a pair of yellowing y-fronts and army boots, who had burst into the opening session of Day 5, shouting like a lunatic about Dyslexic Rock Renditions.

Attack of the Career-Limiting Tomatoes: Donkey comes a cropper to a pesky fruit at a Bangkok breakfast buffet.  Pic: http://www.bigmike-productions.com

Radio Therapy

Say what you will of Western European nations as ruthless colonial oppressors and exploiters of some of the world’s most vulnerable people; indeed their legacy in many African, Southeast Asian and Pacific countries comprises physical and cultural displacement, racial and political power imbalance which frequently topples into bloody civil war, and economic ruin either through depletion, or forced signing-over of valuable natural resources.

But it’s not all bad.  The Western Europeans may have been a bit heavy-handed on the governance side of things (and possibly a little discriminatory in their national view and treatment of their colonial citizens), but they did leave behind a commitment to fine dining which is truly a welcome aspect of occupational exile in some of the world’s far-flung locales.

While some colonial powers set fire and/or bombed fields, towns and livestock as they made hasty retreats ahead of angry, spear-wielding mobs of pro-independence activists in the ‘70s and ‘80s, the French chose instead to throw toasty, golden baguettes, flaming crepes suzette and sugar-crusted crème brulee in their wake.  This seemed to do the trick in Vanuatu, as the satiated masses embraced this culinary legacy, and such delightful treats are available in every corner store, often at any time of the day or night.

Great news for Donkey in some respects, but not so great for the ol’ waste-line, as evidenced during a recent clothes shopping expedition with Mrs Donkey while on holiday back in Australia.  Mrs D was in the change room trying on some little black cocktail number while Donkey stood outside the closed door, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible amongst the frilly lace and tiny bows of women’s lingerie hanging all about him (why do they put the change rooms amongst the lingerie?).  As I stood stock still, embarrassingly avoiding aggressive, accusing eye contact from the other customers queuing to try on their garments, an attractive young sales assistant wandered-up behind me and enthusiastically asked when I was expecting.

That was it!  As soon as I got back to Port Vila, things were going to change.  No more hazelnut praline-filled baguettes for breakfast, no more pain au chocolat with chocolate ice cream and fudge on the side for morning tea, no more brie and bacon pies aux frites for lunch and definitely no more garlic snails followed by duck a l’orange for dinner.  True to my commitment, my life since returning to Vanuatu has become a thrice daily monotony of breadless lettuce sandwiches washed down with a straight glass of tepid water (the temperature being conducive, so the diet gurus tell me, to more frequent bowel movement).

On top of this gruelling feeding regime, in order to both divert my attention from my groaning abdomen, and to try to shorten the period of time I shall be subject to this dietary boredom, I have also embarked on a sustained exercise program which I must grudgingly admit, is finally starting to yield results.

But the selection of an appropriate form of exercise was not an easy process in this country where the roads and traffic are not conducive to safe cycling, and where the forty-eight-degrees-in-the-shade summer heat renders traditional, vigorous exercise such as sit-ups and push ups completely out of the question (after a single lift, the sweat pouring off one’s body makes it impossible to get any purchase on the floor, and one is left floundering on one’s back like an up-turned tortoise).

The only option left was swimming … in this country with not a single serviced swimming pool greater than ten metres in length.  I did give it a go, but after seventy-three strokes and as many tumble turns, I blacked-out from dizziness and had to be retrieved from the bottom by a burley construction worker and his heavy-duty crane with which he’d been laying building foundations nearby.

A week later, with the humiliation of front page local news behind me, I realised there was nothing for it; if I was going to lose this massive paunch, I was going to have to embrace the concept of living on an island, ignore all the horror stories and take to swimming in the ocean.

“What’s the big deal?” I thought to myself as I launched out from the sea wall one fine morning.  All about me was a kaleidoscope of blooming coral formations and a menagerie of brightly coloured tropical fish.  “This is fantastic … so peaceful.  I should have done this months ago”.  I pounded confidently out from the port and was still congratulating myself on having discovered this wonderful, submarine paradise which was going to turn me into a herculean specimen of manhood, when I suddenly came to my senses above a deep, blue, murky darkness.

I’d left the drop-off well behind and was now floating vulnerably above an abyss from which I imagined all manner of deep sea beasties zeroing-in on my fleshy white thighs.  My panicked brain convinced me that if I was desperate enough, I might just manage to outswim a giant squid, great white or whale shark, and feeling pretty desperate at that point, I set to pounding back towards what I thought was home.

Of course, one’s sense of direction in open water is never an easy concept to grasp, nor is one’s ability to stroke strong and true when driven by sheer panic.  In my desperation to get back to the reef, I was floundering like a harpooned killer whale (perhaps not a great analogy, given the circumstances), and heading in a completely different direction, towards the rocky headland at the opposite end of Port Vila harbour.

After a while, the forbidding black depths changed to a more palatable, murky blue, and I managed to reign in my debilitating terror.  My stroke improved and before long I was powering along; back into that monotonous trance one gets from the relentless plodding of right arm, left arm…

right arm, left arm…

right arm (“Oh how nice, Angel fish”)…

left arm (“Wow, coral trout”)…

right arm (“Gee, that’s a big fish…”)…

left arm (“Aaaaaaargh!”). 

Back in first year physiology, we learned about that basest of animal instincts, the ‘fight or flight’ response.  When an animal senses danger, their body reflexively gears-up for ‘fight’ or ‘flight’; the options for success are weighed-up and the decision made by the creature’s very fibres at near supersonic speed.  Obviously, ‘flight’ gets them out of danger, and ‘fight’ is the only alternative if the former is not possible.  The body’s essential systems fire-up for the selected action, and all extraneous functions shut down to preserve energy.

How is it then, that when Donkey looks down to see a massive tiger shark swimming towards him, his body’s fight or flight response includes the immediate release of two malodourous, bulky, fright nuggets into his Speedos?  How can that be fight or flight?  For a start, the extra drag from this oozing pouch would surely slow my flight to a messy, mortal end, but even if I did manage to get the jump on my sinister predator, if sharks really can smell blood like they say, then he’d have no trouble tracking my stinky wake all the way to shore.

Stewing in my own mess, then, I resigned myself to meeting my maker, and with calm resolve, I turned to face my toothy assailant.  It was then I noticed the horizontal, not vertical tail moving slowly up and down, and realised that rather than meeting my end in a bloody, mashy mess, I’d found myself with the rare privilege of an encounter with a peaceful dugong, slowly meandering along the sea bed, snuffling away at sea grass.

An hour later, I emerged from the sea before a crowd of alfresco diners tucking into breakfast in one of the town’s fashionable cafes.  Although my life was intact, my dignity before the shocked crowd was sagging lower than the saddle of my laden Speedos. 

Defeated and resigned to life as a fat bastard at that time, I now have Mrs Donkey to thank for helping me to get back in the water.  She did so thanks to the wonders of modern technology, which have enabled me to strap on a waterproof iPod and crank up the volume of power ballads enough to distract me in the water from mortal fear.  Now I churn along the coast three mornings a week to the spurring drums and guitar riffs of such fire-up classics as:

·  Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger [shark],

·  ELO’s Don't Bring Me Down [to the dark depths with your massive tentacles to chew off my head],

·  Deep Purple’s Smoke On The Water [Humph],

·  Hunters and Collectors’ Throw Your Arms Around Me [and get me out of this school of killer jelly fish],

·  The Choirboys’ Run [for your freakin’ life here comes a manta ray] to Paradise, and of course

·   Great White’s Once bitten, twice shy.

The distraction seems to have worked, and everyone’s happy.  I’m happy because I look and feel great, and Mrs Donkey’s happy because she’s no longer getting around town with a pregnant hippo on her arm.  But the happiest person of all is Ms Nicole, the unfortunate soul who is tasked with doing my laundry – as she’s told me in no uncertain terms, any day without having to scrub the gusset of my Speedos is definitely a good day!

The Western Europeans may not have been the most culturally sensitive of masters, but they certainly managed a mean chocolate dessert.  Pic: http://www.comicsalliance.com/2012/12/11/belgian-court-rules-tintin-not-racist-just-gentle/

Would you like balls with that?

What is it about working in the food service industry that makes transvestites so angry, uptight and aggressive?  In most other aspects of daily life, cross-dressing men seem to be the life of the party; for instance, stick ‘em in a pair of sparkly, pink-sequinned, eight inch heels, pack ‘em on a bus and send ‘em into the Australian outback and they’re everyone’s heroes; wrap ‘em in a powder-blue feather boa and send ‘em out on a carnival float and the crowds will flock for miles to see their happy grins; or simply whack a diamante g-string and a fruit-laden headdress on ‘em and watch Australian bogans on bucks’ weekends in Bangkok descend upon their lively floorshows like shit-hungry flies to exchange clumsy homophobic slurs for witty, gregarious taunts delivered with a flirtatious wink and a quiver of a massive Adam’s apple. 

But what is it about dressing transvestites in civvies and standing them out front-of-house in classy restaurants and eateries that makes them so friggin’ surly and offensive?

My first experience with a grumpy transvestite waiter/ess was many years ago while working as a lowly volunteer in wonderful Samoa.  In those days, Apia wasn’t quite the bastion of fine dining it pretends to be today, but even then, with the right financial backing, one could aspire to some quality fare in either one of the two-and-a-half star hotels overlooking the harbour.

I can’t quite remember what the occasion was that saw the yet-to-be-Mrs Donkey and I deciding to splurge three week’s pay on a slap-up, pool side lunch, but it was with great excitement and culinary anticipation that we found ourselves deliberating at length over what seemed to us to be an extraordinarily diverse menu.  In reality the selection probably wasn’t all that spectacular given that on this occasion I opted for a BLT, and I was already salivating like Pavlov’s dogs the day the dinner bell got back from the repair shop when the grotesque fa’afafine waiter/ess finally condescended to lift her enormous muli off her groaning stool and to waddle over to take down our order (which she did with a frosty scowl and neither small talk of her own, nor acknowledgement of ours).

An age later, we were alerted to her return by the air of inky black storm clouds her demeanour impressed upon the atmosphere, and despite the warning, we both jumped with fright as two catering-strength crockery plates angrily crashed onto the glass table top. 

Immediately I noticed that my BLT had lost some ‘L’ along the way, that its ‘T’ had been replaced with orange processed cheese and that the ‘B’ had morphed into a thick slice of Spam.  I turned to my happy waiter/ess to alert her to the mistake, only to discover that her massive behind was already thumping off into the distance to get as far away from anything resembling a customer as possible.

After some minutes of mundane deliberations with Mrs D about whether I should alert the surly old cow to the mistake or just to ‘suck it up’ and eat the congealing mess before me so as not to offend, I finally decided, in recognition of the cost and excitement of the occasion, to stick to my guns and ask for my BLT.  I strode purposefully across the concourse to find our congenial Miss, who barely listened to my complaint before dismissing it with an offhand, yet aggressive, “You ordered a cheese and ham sandwich”.

At this I nearly choked on the angry sobs leaping to my throat, but I reined-in my fury by firmly assuring her that I certainly did not, and heaved against her anchoring bulk to drag her over to inspect my soggy meal as some kind of proof that I would never have ordered such a mess.  Firmly, and with no small hint of steel, I demand she take the dish back, and return with my “Bee-Elle-Tea!”. 

Perhaps sensing that my levels of anger and aggression were approaching her own, she tried one more sly parry to ward off the exertion of having to walk the full ten metres back to the kitchen.  “Well who’s going to eat this, then?”, she spat, to which I finally lost all composure, “I don’t care … why don’t you eat it?”.  And she literally stamped her massive hoof in anger as she ungraciously snatched my plate off the table (sending a congealing glob of orange cheese across the condiments and onto Mrs Donkey’s glasses) and tut-tutted off to the kitchen.

After what seemed many hours, my BLT finally arrived and was smashed onto the table in front of me with a thundery stare that made it all too clear what sort of response I’d receive if I dared any further exchange on the issue of my meal.  I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that while lettuce and tomato were now present on my plate, the ‘B’ remained a thick slice of Spam with curious orange butter-knife striations along its surface.

Upon our exit, our wonderful hostess mumbled one last grumpy remark regarding our failure to leave a tip … I wish I’d thought to retort that an untouched BLT was more tip than she deserved … but I’m no Oscar Wilde.

Jump ahead 12 years, and the culinary delights of sunny Port Vila, with its French-inspired cuisine and bustling tourist traffic, is bound to entice.  But there comes a time when even Donkey can have too much of a good thing, and after 10 weeks straight of eating lunches of Vanuatu beef sautéed in butter and drowned in blue cheese sauce, I was looking for something a little … less heavy.

So I wandered along to the most popular patisserie in town and stood for an agonisingly long time to be noticed by the surly maître’ d, who when he eventually turned his heavily-shadowed lids in my direction, gave me an unimpressed once-over and simply walked-off towards an empty table.  Upon reaching his destination, he turned and fixed me a filthy stare in reprimand for my failure to follow, and as I clumsily closed the space between us, he had already slapped the menu down on the table and disappeared.

Menu read and decision-made in 1 minute and 17 seconds … waited to place order with angry transvestite waiter for well over 7 minutes (he only consenting to leave his podium when I stood up and waved him over).  He managed to take my order without ejecting upon me the bile that my presence seem to be generating in his throat, but I waited for almost an hour for my sandwich to arrive.  When it did, it was delivered to my table with all the aggression and clattering pomp that only seven years of study at the Pacific Regional Hospitality Training College for Surly, Disgruntled Transsexuals can instil.

Owing to the lack of choice for reasonable lunch options in the town, I have become exposed to this waiter’s angry countenance at least twice a week, and I run into him in the town at least every couple of days, yet despite my attempts at jovial exchange, his demeanour remains unhappy, unimpressed and decidedly unfriendly.

These are just two examples of grumpy transvestite waiting staff I have encountered throughout the world.  There have been others; the grimacing burger flipper at the Elwood Fish ‘n’ Chip shop, the huge café proprietor in Kolkata who unashamedly serves up whatever she wants to timid, pasty backpackers, regardless of their order, or the young transvestite working at the Phuket eatery who simply refuses to wait on any white male unless he is quite openly gay.  This is not Donkey’s imagination, nor is it some kind of homophobic slur … I am just surprised that these lady boys bother with food service when it quite clearly doesn’t agree with them.  Let’s face it, there’s nothing glamorous about serving sandwiches to upstart white tourists with too much money, but surely there are other jobs they could be doing?  Alternatively, if transvestite waiting staff by day decided to lend their night-time, floorshow flare to the taking-down of sandwich orders, they may just receive more of a smile and an equally affable tip at meal’s end.

Of course, there is every chance that the demeanour of these transvestite waiters is just a reaction to me.  My friend Brad once told me that I am way too butch to be an attractive option for a gay man … maybe my attempts at friendliness with gay waiting staff are mistaken for overtures, and like a heterosexual male bogan from Ipswich receiving unwanted approaches from a drunken, ugly broad while he’s trying to watch the rugby league game, their response is one of aggressive rejection.

 

Get your own f’ing coffee!  Pic: aaronandandy.com

You live and learn

Not being the most hirsute Donkey in the barnyard, it stands to reason that I'll rarely be spotted out in daylight without a hat.  Currently I'm sporting a pretty awful, woven straw number which makes me look like the scariest, pig-rooting yokel in the County, but better that than a scone coated with weeping sores and liver spots like C. Montgomery Burns.

This latest headdress is just another in a long line of amusing and sometimes controversial cranial garments that have become somewhat of a characteristic feature since my early teens (yes, yes ... the baldness started pretty early on).  Like most teenage boys, I too went through that phase of not washing my clothes, but I took the practice to a very unsavoury extreme by not cleaning or changing my hat for many years, and only swapping it when the dirt, sweat and hair gel (not a typo – my comb-over started early, too) no longer held the various panels together.

From dirty cap to dirty cap I went.  Over the years, I employed nails to hold various clips and visors on, which in turn went rusty and smelly and left ugly stains on my skin.  Sea salt crusted edges cut through my upper ear and bird shit was left to fester into blooms of new bacterial strains the likes of which modern science was yet to classify.  Put the pieces together and you're noticing just one more amongst the many reasons why young Donkey was never quite able to land a lady!

Anyway, it happened that after living in Solomon Islands for a couple of years, I managed to misplace my hat just before leaving the country, bound for India.  I'd loved that cap.  It had been with me on jungle hikes, mountain climbs, river crossings, open sea travel and more than a few torrential downpours, and each and every one of these was evident from the crud and muck casing every stitch and groove in the fetid fabric.

It was a great loss, and I was horrified that I was about to set-up a new life, in a new country, and attempt to break into a new social network wearing a BRAND NEW HAT!  Urgh – everyone would assume I was one of those wankers who would only be seen wearing a shiny new hat.  I'd be alone forever!  A social outcast.

There was only one thing to do.  If it had to be new, I was going to make sure my new hat at least had Edge.  So when I hit Kuala Lumpur for a 48 hour, en route shopover, I kept my eyes peeled for the prefect lid.  Things were looking pretty grim as I trawled through markets sporting nothing but knock-off Nike and Adidas caps, Department Stores with exclusive rights to Tommy Hilfiger and Gazman, and tourist centres with embroidered renditions of the Petronas Towers. 

I was desperate by the time I got to a food court for a final meal, just hours before we were due to take-off for New Delhi.  But as we pushed through a huge crowd amassed outside, I caught a glimpse of what they were all looking at, and my cold heart immediately warmed in a lovely, bright yellow and red glow – Maggi noodles!

In typical KL, gangbusters-market-economy fashion, some self-made entrepreneur had taken basic, poor-man's street food and was marketing the MSG out of Maggi Noodles through a massive, open-air gourmet cook-off, using a smorgasbord of fresh ingredients and Maggi noodles.  The noise was deafening as the crowd of onlookers ooh-ed, aaah-ed and cheered as the exuberant cooks served up dish after dish of Maggi noodle based delights for their consumption.

For me, it wasn't what was on the plate that I was interested in, but rather the Maggi noodle uniforms of the cooks and their assistants, and in particular, the sparkling, pale yellow caps adorned with the famous red logo.  I was over the moon with excitement and relief as I man-handled my way through the crush to one of the cook's assistants, and started waving handfuls of ringgit in his astonished face.  At first I was surprised at his reluctance to take me up on my offer, but by the time I was throwing the equivalent of about sixty Australian dollars at him, I was becoming both outraged and panic-stricken that I was going to miss this one chance at obtaining the object that would lubricate my introduction to New Delhi society.

As the crowd pushed past me to get their chopsticks into a plate of Maggi noodle-enriched Malaysian chicken, I was both fuming and perplexed at this young man's refusal to take my money.  He was clearly poor; he was skinny, dressed in pale, Maggi-noodle yellow from head to toe, and sporting a massive smile despite the physical and verbal abuse being showered upon him by his more senior counterpart demanding various ingredients and Maggi-embossed condiments.  I was perplexed, angry and dejected.

Within months – perhaps even weeks of living in India, I came to understand all too well why the young Malaysian man would not give-up his hat, even for the small fortune I was offering.  As I came to understand the way big business treats poor people in Asia, I realised the kind of retribution Mr Maggi would have dealt out to that young man, his family and perhaps his whole community if he'd so much as damaged his corporate uniform, let alone lost some of it.  My sixty bucks would have been nothing compared with his not being able to afford schooling for his kids, or fresh water for his family.

As embarrassed as I was to have been so aggressive towards him, particularly for something so frivolous, I was able to reflect on my changed understanding in such a short time.  It hadn't taken me very long to learn about this particular subtlety of domestic economics once I arrived in Asia, but it came as a shock to me.  I had been living in a very poor country for two years; living amongst malnourished, poorly resourced, rural communities, and observing the challenges they faced in accessing health care, education, livelihoods and cash.  I thought I had understood all these issues; I thought I was an expert; I thought I would have been doing this young man a favour ... but in fact I hadn't had the faintest clue of the issues at play during our interaction.

What I took from this learning was a very clear message; it is not possible, or at least it is extremely difficult for foreigners visiting and/or working in other countries to become experts on what local people think, feel, do and say.  This reflection taught me that every day, I learn something new about my surroundings, and everyday, this learning turns what I thought to be true right on its head.  It taught me that I am no expert, and I never could, or would be.

Which brings me to a recent, wholly unpleasant evening; just another in a series of difficult social interactions Mrs Donkey and I have experienced since we arrived in Port Vila and embarked on a quest for new friends we can rely on for a good 'bitch and moan' about poor plumbing, moonscape roads and the rising price of duty-free gin.

On this occasion, the potentially warm, intimate dinner party conversation was violently arrested by a mouthy young woman who couldn't help chiming-in at every opportunity (and even sometimes when there was clearly no opportunity at all) to tell anyone within ear shot just how good she was at ... well, everything!  From varsity sports tournaments, to dating celebrities, to maintaining lifelong friendships, to being down with 'the youth', to being a damn fine crusader for humanity ... basically, albeit by her own admission, this chick was 'The Shit'.  Sadly, judging by their screaming body language, everyone else in the room considered this description an unfortunate typo.

Now at this stage, it's gotta be said that the Donkeys aren't the most popular animals in the barnyard, and as beggars can't be choosers, we are quite willing to put up with the idiosyncrasies evident within a small social pool in favour of spending yet another night alone together watching re-runs of Packed to the Rafters.  But there's only so much one can take when the (one-person) conversation shifts up a gear from single-handedly leading the world revolution against poverty, to that dangerous red zone in which they claim to be at one with those very same poor-folk they claim to be emancipating.

It was at about the time when this la femme expertista, her crystal goblet of expensive Bordeaux sloshing with each agitated gesture, launched into lengthy explanatory diatribes of what life is like for local women – "and I know because I have lots of local female friends and I have a really special, trusting and open relationship with my house girl, who shares everything with me" - that Mrs D and I began making noises about over-worked baby-sitters, early morning starts and even (without word of a lie) that we were planning to visit a Seventh Day Adventist church service at 10am (now if that wasn't a thinly veiled scream for help, then I'm walkin').

As we were beating a hasty retreat out the door, I threw a sympathetic look to our male host whose chest was being pummelled by a mood-ringed index finger jabbing-out a painful list of the crimes that local men inflict upon "us women".  His returned glance comprised a peculiar mix of lost-dog's-home imploring and explosive fury at my leaving so suddenly – he must have seen our escape as somewhat akin to that mountain-climber who cuts the rope on his dangling friend in order to save his own skin.

Mrs D and I drove home exasperated and fuming at the way our pleasant evening had been hijacked by this 'expert' who had lived in this country for barely 12 months.  She'd claimed, through her penetrating opinions, to have the definitive knowledge about every aspect of life here, and particularly, the good oil on all issues facing local women.  Her unsolicited lectures, apart from being annoying, were to my thinking, offensive to the very people for whom she claimed to advocate.  I know from bitter experience that her opinions are unlikely to be fully informed, and I am embarrassed for her at the effect they were having on those gathered. 

Most of all, I am pissed-off that she ruined what would have been a nice, pleasant evening comprising interesting and lively conversation.  Lady, if I want to know about issues facing local people, I'll ask them.

Expect to see this on the Milan catwalks this season as the new face of emerging street cred.  Pic: http://marketingstrategy-sai.blogspot.com/2010/03/maggie-noodles.html

Myths and Myth-conceptions

There’ve been a few changes in Honiara since I last dropped-in, and a particularly noticeable one has been the opening and maintaining of the two pedestrian subways under the [only] main road through town.  Today, these are well-maintained with clean coats of paint courtesy of the new, controversially-appointed mobile phone operator, and are gated and locked after hours to ensure they don’t become a meeting place for miscreants to gather in the dark night to drink kwaso (illegal, distilled home brew) and indulge in other ‘unsavoury’ acts.

Although I’ve not been game to enter one of these yet, I have seen others using them, which is a tremendous contrast from five years ago, when anyone reaching within ten metres of their entrance would be repelled by the smell of stagnant mud, rotting garbage and other forms of refuse, both human and organic.  In some cases, this festering mess reached half-way up the stair-cases, and provided a reasonable indicator of the functionality of the Honiara Town Council at the time to maintain the city generally.

Now anyone understanding anything about the aid and development sector will appreciate that in many settings, expat aid workers rarely have much to do with the indigenous population, and never was this more so than in Honiara, circa 2004, when the population of the city doubled overnight with a foreign military and civil police force intent on returning this ‘rogue state’ back to peace and economic stability, as well as an additional handful of development workers concentrating on the re-establishment of the health and education systems.

In this high security environment, where for a foreigner to even look a local man directly in the eye was seen as a potential trigger to provoke aggressive confrontation, allegedly resulting in the foreigner’s likely maiming or even murder, it became very convenient for expatriates to adopt a mandatory policy of civil movement restricted to the air-conditioned comfort of sparkling, white, Toyata Hiluxes, and ‘as a security precaution’, to frequent only those public sites designated as ‘safe’ by security forces, such as one of a handful of cafes, bars and restaurants serving only ‘Western’ coffee, food and drinks, and whose prices were too exorbitant for local incomes.

As a result, in those days, aside form the daily, patronising engagements with national staff [as few as possible, I should note] foreigners had very little interaction with local people.  Now, as you can imagine, drinking crap coffee in the only espresso outlet in town and eating spaghetti with tomato ketchup from the only ‘Italian restaurant’ will only occupy a foreigner’s complete attention for so long, and after a week or so, even the most alcohol-befuddled middle-aged male, or meticulously manicured and groomed female expatriate aid worker will eventually gaze out the window of the Toyota, and wonder aloud about some curious structure or local practice for which their own experience and upbringing (in New Zealand or Australia) can offer little explanation.

Without exception, such an utterance or question will be eagerly leapt upon by the expatriate’s colleagues or peers in order to establish the latter’s superior field credibility, and an answer to the query will be confidently provided.  The questioner will then lock that piece of information away and have it ever at the ready to drop surreptitiously into the next conversation over a steaming, muddy espresso (probably at morning tea that very day) in the hope of promoting their field credibility, and at least two of these caffeine-enhanced individuals will rush back to the office to casually drop their ‘long-established awareness of local customs and practices’ into the conversation.

And by Saturday night, at someone’s exclusive, invitation-only party [attended by every expatriate in town], there will not be a soul present who doesn’t know the reason behind the curious observation from the cab of the Hilux, just a few mornings ago.

In the ‘high security’ humanitarian setting, when interactions with local people should be kept to a minimum [or preferably avoided altogether], this is how expatriates learn about local customs and practices.  While one may consider that it’s as good a process as any other, the obvious flaw is the extent to which the original ‘authority’ had any factual basis for their confident explanations or, as has often been the case, they simply made them up.

It was in this setting, some seven or so years ago, that a younger, thinner and certainly more naïve Donkey uttered a query about why young men and women, clutching their babies and young children, were taking their chances to run across the busy main road and only narrowly escaping being run-down by the speeding, shining, white Toyota Hiluxes which seemed to have recently doubled the number of vehicles on the road, when there were much safer, pedestrian subways and overpasses they could be using.

My esteemed colleague riding beside me (who I later learned had only been in the Solomons for a month, and until that time had spent his entire, thirty year career working in a regional branch of an Australian bank), assured me that the reason for their lack of use was that in many indigenous Solomon Islands communities, it was inappropriate for anyone to be positioned higher than a ‘Big Man’ (an elder or chief).  This, he informed me, meant that women could not cross the overpasses in case a Big Man was below, as she would have to pay compensation, and likewise, a Big Man would not use the underpasses.  Further, if a Big Man wasn’t going to use them, then why would anyone else?  And so, they remained unused and poorly maintained.  My colleague added that these structures had been built by the World Bank ten years before, and were a prime example of the poor outcomes of foreign aid when the community is not consulted in the planning of activities (pretty rich words from this bloke, given his performance, or the lack their of, over the proceeding years, but that’s another story altogether).

Now while I have been guilty of furthering the propagation of these kinds of myths in the past, in this instance, I do not believe I shared this information more widely, however I did believe it.  So I was admittedly surprised to see that since my last visit, the subways have been cleaned, painted, maintained and are being used.  Is there any truth to the words of my former colleague?  Who knows?  But one thing’s for sure, if it is indeed true that the reason for the lack of use of the pedestrian overpasses is that a lesser-ranking individual should never be positioned higher than a Big Man, then you’d assume that it would also be taboo to take a dump above his, and considering the amount of human excrement strewn across the overpasses each morning, for mine, the ‘official’ explanations are rapidly losing credibility.

Not much [day time] traffic along here, and on investigation (rather than swallowing unsubstantiated here say), perhaps the reasons are clearly obvious – yes, that is poo in the bottom right corner.  Pic: Hagas

The Horror, The Horror

It's so hard to remain young and funky when you've got kids; the cool, hip pubs and bars which you once habitually frequented, although just as geographically close to you as they'd been but a year or so ago, seem completely inaccessible these days. 

It's not enough that caring for and raising a child keeps you tied to the home in terms of being there to watch over them through waking and sleeping, but even when you do have the opportunity for a free night away, you're completely knackered from the day's responsibilities such that you know it's gonna take chemicals a damn sight stronger than mere alcohol to even get you into the front bar, let alone on the dance floor ... and that's when the allure of half a DVD movie and an early night is just too good to pass-up.

The only consolation to the passing of your misspent youth is that your fellow offenders of yore, ensconced as they are in their own breeding programs, are experiencing the exact same social  isolation and troubling passage of time as you.  And like you, they are just as happy to let one Saturday night after another pass on by without so much as setting foot out their front door.

But there's something about our culture which demands that at Christmas time, one makes an effort ... kids or no.  The problem, though, is where can a bunch of people, once famous for their selectivity towards cutting-edge venues and significant staying power possibly get together and maintain their hip and groovy status?

The answer is ... no where!

And so, a couple of weeks before last Christmas, in a determined effort to get together somewhere that was both kid friendly and licensed, we all bit the bullet and descended upon the 'dining room' of an inner-city hotel, complete with pokies and bar maids wearing the mandatory, low-cut bodices and push-up bras that any self-respecting, red-blooded, TAB-going Aussie male would expect from someone pouring his $2-Happy Hour pots.

We were the first of our group to arrive, and had to wait in the front bar for 10 minutes until the dining room was opened.  It was here the realisation dawned that this wasn't the kind of place one was wont to frequent in one's wilder days; there were four men at the bar, each wearing Christmas break-up Santa hats and were very, very drunk.  They were all speaking at the same time; their different conversations creating a loud moan that seemed to buzz around the bar and, as if by telepathy, would come together in unison to utter the phrase "f@*king c@nts", before heading off again on murmured, indecipherable tangents.  It was kind of like this,

Drunk Man #1:  "Murmer murmer murmer murmer    - f@*king c@nts -     murmer murmer murmer".

Drunk Man #2   "Whah blah whah blah whah blah    - f@*king c@nts -     whah blah whah blah".

Drunk Man #3:  "Wang wang wang wang wang       - f@*king c@nts -     wang wang wang wang".

Drunk Man #4:  "Yarda yarda yarda yarda yarda      - f@*king c@nts -     yarda yarda yarda yarda".

So, not quite the kind of place we cool, funkmeisters would once have sought-out for a drink, and not quite what one might have had in mind for one's child.  Still, the dining room looked like it might be a little more civilised, so we surreptitiously slipped in, and hid in a dark corner until the booking Nazi was ready to throw open the doors.

Within five minutes, the place was packed with large groups of pre-Christmas revellers ... and their kids.  At every table, there were as many high chairs as there were seats.  We could tell by everyone else's assured movements that we were clearly the only newbies in the place; as we tentatively sought-out our table and tried to work out whether we were yet allowed to sit, we saw other couples stride-in with great purpose and resolve, and once inside, without even making eye contact, the acid-wash jeaned man would head to the bar while the peroxide blond, pink-spangled boob-tubed woman would dump their kids at the indoor playground and proceed to the table where she would fidget anxiously in anticipation of the impending delivery of her bourbon and coke (by the industrious Mr Acidwash) – all this executed with brilliant timing and precision.

Hang-on a minute, Donkey!  Did you just try to slip something by us, and think we wouldn't notice?  An indoor playground ... in a pub?!

Heh heh ... yes, I was getting to that.  One of the things that makes this place kid friendly is that it has an indoor playground [ie: a place you can dump the kids while you get schickered].  This is quite an elaborate set-up, completely sealed-off from the dining room with glass that, while not great for ventilation, does allow one to keep an eye on one's offspring while downing one's pre-Christmas beers and Bundy chasers.

Our friends all arrived, and with similarly haunted looks, we sat down with our kids to order dinner.  This was our next shock, and the second string in this venue's kid friendly bow.  Y'see, it wasn't just the indoor playground that had this place buzzing at 5.10 on a Tuesday evening, there was also the sentence in big, bold, red letters staring back at me when I picked-up the menu, "Kids eat for free!".  Uh oh!

Yes that's right.  Kids are able to select - for free - from a menu of deep-fried goodies, PLUS get a free 'red-lemonade', PLUS a free 'frog-in-a-[red]-pond' desert.  "Sure, it's not the most nutritious feed in the world for a growing body and mind, but hey, it is great value and...", I was suddenly warming to the whole experience, "with the money we save on Hambones' meal, we could try our luck on the pokies".

Hang-on, did I just say that?  Or did I just think that ... blimey, what's happening to me?

So, brushing aside a strange, unexplained, nagging feeling of alarm in the pit of my stomach, the kids ate for free, and we ate our own, larger but equally deep-fried slabs of meat with sides of deep fried potatoes and bright-green, oily garnish.  I was feeling thoroughly ill myself by the time Hambones'd downed his red lemonade and jelly, but it was only fair to let him have another run around the indoor playground with the other kids before we headed home.

As I followed him in to take-up our group's supervisory post (our revolving, continuous presence in the 'fish bowl' constituting the only adults to visit the room all evening), I was nearly struck down by the visceral wave which hit me in the senses as soon as we opened the hermetically-sealed door.  It was at this time when I came to understand the instinctive unease which had been gnawing at me since I first laid eyes on the words, "Kids eat for free!"

Because the thing about kids is that if you feed them high-fat food prepared in bulk, in conditions of questionable hygiene, and you combine this with immediate, post-ingested physical activity in a humid, poorly-ventilated room, one of three things are likely to occur; i) they will vomit, ii) they will shit themselves, or iii) they will vomit and shit themselves.

And another thing about kids is that if you feed them red food colouring (in lemonade and jelly) and you send them into a humid, poorly-ventilated room with brightly-coloured plastic play equipment and rubber floors, they will go nuts; run around and scream at the top of their high soprano little voice boxes.

And another thing about kids is that if they have been fed red food colouring, and been sent into a humid, poorly-ventilated room with brightly-coloured plastic play equipment and rubber floors, and they are going nuts, it won't be long before these kids start pushing, hitting, punching and biting each other like little savages.

And another thing about wild little savages who have been force-fed artificial stimulants and placed inside a glass prison to fend for themselves while the prison guards go off duty to immerse themselves in cheap liquor, is that like any group of beings fighting for their survival, they will factionalise; with the biggest, strongest inmates asserting their dominance, and surrounding themselves with flunkies through which to inflict real, physical pain on the weakest individuals sharing their cell.

So with my sauce-enveloped, fat-saturated meat products sitting rather precariously just above my liver, I entered into this maelstrom of writhing, screeching, vomit- and shit-reeking madness, and physically shuddered as I witnessed two bigger boys beating the absolute living daylights out of a much smaller child, and an older girl clothes-lining other kids in the neck as they were pushed down the slide by one of her accomplices.  In one corner, a little boy was curled-up in the foetal position, screaming as another boy unwrapped foil from a dozen, soft cubes of butter he'd misappropriated from the dining room, and was smearing them in his victim's hair, while in another, a little girl {demonstrating how her sense of taste was inversely proportional to that of her parents for bringing her here] was throwing faecal matter leaked from her bulging nappy at the flat-screen TV belching-out vintage Britney Speares music videos at megasonic volume.

Needless to say Hambones and I didn't last too long in there; by the time we'd dragged him out of that horrendous glasshouse and bundled him into the car, Colour 123 had expended its influence and he'd fallen into one of those post-party hypoglycaemic comas which make it almost impossible to pry a child from a car seat at the other end.  Never-mind coming down from ecstasy a couple of days later, this night of chemical inducement took our wee one a week to recover from.  OK, it was Christmas – a special occasion, and we got to meet up with our old friends ... but everyone else in that hell-hole were regulars.  Given the time it took for Hambones to 'come down' from his trip, these other kids must spend their whole week like brain-dead zombies, before doing it all again, and again, and again.

The experience has definitely placed mortal fear deep into my heart.  My next trip to the pub will therefore be with Hambones and his mates, aged 18 ... and we'll be going somewhere cool.  I just hope I'll still be able to squeeze into my drainpipes.

Under the influence of artificial stimulants, it's only a short jump from indoor playground to juvenile offender. Pic http://cakeplow.com

Road trip IV: Encounters with the dead, the un-dead and the soon-to-be-dead in Napier

Something we Euro-descendant antipodeans suffer from is a lack of our own, tangible history.  Sure, we have indigenous history, but no one's really happy about our claiming that as our own, and these days, harking back to tales of the ol' country's not considered all that PC either.  So we meander through life not really sure of ourselves; who we are, where we've come from, and when it comes to vacations, rather than head 'out back' to see the natural wonders which are the envy (and desired destination) of our kindred in the northern hemisphere, we take off to Europe every few years to get all aroused and drooly over 14^th century gothic churches.

Apart from history and natural beauty (the latter often combined with outdoor adventure sports), the other main thing that travellers are looking for when they hit the road these days is excellent, modern cuisine.  Unusually for any single place in the world, New Zealand's Hawke's Bay has managed to land the Trifecta, boasting fantastic, rolling green foothills, sweeping, misty sea views, fine wines and dining and, thanks to a fatal natural disaster eighty years ago, an intriguing history which has resulted in a fascinating anomaly of town-planning such to induce rare, south-of-the-equator stirrings in the gussets of architecture aficionados.

Coming down off the putting-green foothills to the plains was pretty lovely; the bright blue, sweeping bay views were spectacular and the abundance of vineyards gave that whiff of promised fun over the coming days.  But as we got closer to the town, we ended up on a highway bypass, looking at the high back fences of new housing developments such that you'd see from any such arterial, anywhere in the world ... except that these fences were really, really high.  "What are they hiding from?", I enquired of my colleague and former Napier resident, Madge Q, shortly after my return to work.

"Everyone visits Napier and spends their day walking around marvelling at the lovely art deco streets, taking happy snaps and joy rides in 1930s motorbikes with side-carts; buying Old English Toffee and pretty bags of lavender-infused potpourri from the souvenir and gift shops," responds Madge Q, "and they head-away in the late afternoon thinking that Napier consists of only two square blocks sitting on the shore.  But," she adds, now very animated, "Napier's a big centre, eh?  And beyond those few, sculpted streets, there're a lot of people living in pretty poor conditions; unemployment's at 462% and rival gangs go each other with clubs and chains in supermarket carparks every night.  That's what the glossy tourist brochures don't tell you about, but there's a lot to be read in the heading, 'Visit Napier; one of New Zealand's great day trips' – get out before dark, everyone!".

Useful words of warning, Madge Q, but delivered two weeks too late!  T'was true enough, though.  With the exception of the tourist-industry bolstered, main thoroughfare, every second store-front in Napier was empty, and those that were occupied comprised charity op-shops, Chinese import stores selling an array of brightly-coloured plastic household 'essentials', and a surprising number of employment brokers (each handily located just a few short steps from the unemployment benefit office).  Napier was truly a down-and-out town!

But this message hadn't really hit home to us until our second day in Napier, when at about sunset (as always, Madge Q was spot-on), we went searching for some fish and chips - what's that? ... Oh, alright ... some fush 'n' chups - for dinner and ended up driving down streets now deserted of traffic, but along which entire households had emptied-out onto the pavement where they lounged on tattered sofas, drinking from brown paper bags while their dirty kids played in the gutters.

Our dinner was bought from a grubby, back-street store sporting a peeling, once-white art deco facade, and we adjourned to the grassy playground by the beach to sit and eat.  Here, even dirtier children hovered at the edge of our vision like (and with) a pack of marauding sea gulls intent on our steaming dinner, while their parents sprawled beneath windy branches shouting and swearing at each other.

Now, one likes to think one's all very equitable, inclusive and understanding of the various ways of the world, with all its different walks of life and so-on, but I can now attest to this generosity of nature; to this enlightenment going completely out the window once you've got a wee-one in tow.  "Not in my bloody backyard!".

So, scared shitless for our safety, we began scoffing our deep-fried goodies with huge, burning mouthfuls, and shoving steaming-hot morsels into our screaming child's maw in an effort to get out with our lives as quickly as possible.  Only half-finished, and with the slavering kids circling closer, Mrs D and I agreed it was time to get clear.

As we stood to clean-up and get moving, the vacant, starving kiddies looked over and started limping towards us like a pack of mindless zombies out on a feeding frenzy.  As Mrs D quickened towards the car and I picked-up Hambones in an effort to move with a bit more pace, the said pack of marauding urchins responded with a similarly accelerated, instinctive lurch in our direction.  Openly running now, all I could hear were my pounding blood booming in my head, Hambones' frightened whimpers and the hungry moans of our slavering pursuers, hot on my heels ... I was losing my grip on Hambones as I got close to the car, and I realised it was either him or the dinner; I threw down the greasy package and dived for the car as Mrs D dropped the gas and screeched off past the pink and beige, art deco arches of Marine Parade.  Through ragged breaths I glanced back and shuddered to see the young kids throwing punches and scratching at each other's faces as they ripped open the greasy white paper and gorged themselves on the fleshy remains of our ill-omened dinner.

But it wasn't all Dickensian soup kitchens and sinister run-ins with The Undead - just as long as you were in and out before dark.  As I mentioned earlier, Napier's fame as an internationally recognised art deco capital is a positive outcome of a devastating earthquake in 1931, which completely wiped-out the town, leaving the land clear and ready for a stylish re-building to reflect Napier's prosperous, industrial reputation, and to communicate the 'only way is up', great expectations New Zealand had for the beach-side holiday destination.

Within a year or two of the quake, award-winning town planning had been issued and heavily regulated, structured building was well underway on a fashionable, 'golden mile' stretching down Tennyson Street from the beach to picturesque, Clive Square.  It was all about style; it was all about image; and it was all about wealth. 

And into this building boom wandered a young Frank; our landlord for a couple of nights while in town.  I had caught Frank in a difficult circumstance the day before; turns out he wasn't quite the potty-mouth I had experienced on the phone, but rather a clean-living Baptist Minister with an eye for a real estate bargain.  So in the 1940s, once building authorities gave the 'all-clear' for the new coastal land that the 'quake had thrown-up just to Napier's north, Frank took out a subsidised building loan and built a fantastic, art deco mansion directly opposite the beach.  Nowadays, with his family grown and moved away, Frank rents out the bottom floor to savvy tourists such as ourselves, and it was here we spent our first, fantastic evening in a stylish house, with modern bathrooms and awesome kitchen facilities, kicking-back with some great micro-brews, a glass or two of Hawke's Bay Syrah and chomping on a succulent NZ lamb roast while gazing out over blustery, foaming waves.  What a find!

So after a great night's sleep in luxury surroundings, we took-in a lazy breakky and played on the windy beach before heading into town to see what all this art deco guff was really about.  While I will admit that I was pretty impressed with the stylish, two-toned architecture upon our first whip-around, after having done the two-block circuit in two minutes, my interest was starting to flag. There were a couple of key buildings which we went and posed for snaps in front of, but as buildings, well, that's all they are without a good story behind them to make 'em interesting.

Did someone ask for a good story?  As I said before, Napier's mass embrace of all things art deco in the '30s was all about style; all about image; and all about wealth.  Amongst the booming economy of post-depression New Zealand, Napier was at the forefront of showy displays of industrial might, and as big business clamoured over itself to secure newly appeared port access (thanks to the 'quake throwing-up about three metres of terra firma), the largest, best-positioned plot was secured for the stunning Rothmans (National Tobacco Company) Building; a sprawling, flawless, gargantuan demonstration of classic art deco fit for communicating the awesome industrial might of The Empire's tobacco subsidiaries.

The Donkeys stopped for a pose outside this celebrated monument to the furtherance of New Zealand's oncology industry.  The fine structure retained pride of place amongst the nation's collective consciousness for decades, long after millions of Kiwi smokers began expiring with sinister, black fluid dripping from their autopsied lungs.

In the name of celebrating New Zealand Industry, Napier's Rothmans factory became the preferred destination of field trips for primary school students across the length and breadth of the North Island.  The venue offered a great, three-in-one learning opportunity for an increasingly under-resourced, post-baby-boomer education system, combining lessons of Napier's tragic seismological history with the art deco movement of the '30s and, most importantly, an impressive display of national industry.  What better way to convince the young of New Zealand's impenetrable, economic robustness than to expose them to the production of tobacco products?

And so, through they went ... for decades.  I am assured by my informed correspondent, Salmon (Madge Q's long-suffering companion and former favourite son of Napier) that there is a not a single North Island citizen over the age of twenty-three who, as a child, has not visited Napier's Rothmans factory, and been given as many cigarettes as s/he can carry in their little hands to 'take home to their parents'.  Not surprisingly, New Zealand's tobacco industry was one of the last of its global peers to experience declining output ... in 2009!

It was shortly after this stop on the art deco trail that we went searching for fish 'n' chips.  Needless to say we refused Frank's offer the next morning for a free, additional night's accommodation.  We hightailed-it out of crazy old Napier that morning, heading for stinky Rotorua, and, as it turned out, another potential opportunity for a serial-killer thriller.

Napier's stunning Rothmans (National Tobacco Company) Building; servicing the nicotine addiction of New Zealand's primary school children for over half a century.  Pic: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/new-zealand/