1 man is worth 20 pigs
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sun 9 Nov 2014 19:41
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Yesterday (Sunday) we went up really early to be
picked up by the chief from south of the bridge.
We stood there waiting and while doing so Andreas
made a plane with the aid of a fan that had been thrown out (yes they are not
very catious with their own environment) and a big fallen tree.
But it seemes that nothing works out here as
planned but most of the time to the better or just as good (how can you tell as
you will only experience one of them?)
Walking down the street came a tall french
gentleman and he stopped to talk with Ellinor (I was out walking to see if the
chief had stopped by the STORE, he is very very thirsty).
The French man who had stopped to chat was no less
than the Harbour Captain from New Caledonia. The real harbor mind
you.
He was very nice and spoke really good english as
he is married to an english woman (that helps).
He offered to take us on a tour as he had a car
from the local administration.
We jumped in and learned he is here to teach the
workers in the harbour to be more safe catious when working with loading and
unloading ships.
For instance it is not good to work with bare
feet...
He has been here and in Wallace on asignement for
the APS, a new organisation formed to unite the small countries in the Pacific
around issues that can be improved. The harbor masters name is Jan, and Jan had
a great _expression_ for the islands around here, they are small like
confetti.
So we had a great tour on the really bad road arond
here and as we left him we invited him for dinner on board.
It was really interesting to learn how he sees
things, how the French goverment thinks around having all these territories wich
is both expensive and sometimes very hard (I guess for both parties).
Jan used to be in the French Navy before he had a
family and then changed to managing different harbors like Marseille
etc.
One thing that was astonishing was that he told us
that with the men on the dock he spoke about accidents and how things are
settled. He was told by the locals they do not involve police or anything if
something happens, let's say you run over somebody with a car. No they settle
that in an economic fasion and to give you an idea, if you kill a man you can
pay the family 20 pigs (the more I think about it the more it becomes hilarious,
I wonder if Ellinor looks at me sometimes and thinks of 20
pigs....)
What is really amazing, is that when you are in
your own country you make a diference between somebody from Stockholm and
Gothenburg, if you go away from home to another country nearby, then you are all
Swedes. And here it is enough to be European.
Maybe EU could use it somehow???
I guess when you make a space walk and see another
human, that's what you say "oh you are from earth? We are pals, aren't
we?"
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