by Jane Story

25 July 2006

Jane Story of Ontario, Canada, served as a UNV volunteer in the Solomon Islands where she worked in post-conflict and communications with the UN Development Programme (UNDP). She completed her six-month assignment in June 2006, which was funded through the UNV-Canada Corps Trust Fund.

One of the great things about being a Canadian in the South Pacific is being able to tell fantastic stories about winter. Taxi drivers, neighbours and my colleagues at the United Nations in the Solomon Islands, where I was posted as a UNV volunteer, would listen in rapt disbelief when I described how people in northern Ontario, where I was from, would cut a hole in the ice on a frozen lake to fish, sitting on old car seats in tiny huts. Or when I told them how the hair on their heads would freeze if they foolishly ventured outside after a shower.

But while the weather in Canada is dramatically different from that of the Solomons, located as it is not far from the equator, there were climatic conditions for which we shared a common concern. While I spoke of how the Arctic permafrost was melting due to global warming, they told me of rising seas, swamping and inundating the gardens on which people here depend for all their food. Just as the Inuit in Canada may soon be forced to shift their homes and abandon their traditional hunting grounds, Solomon Islanders are facing future evacuations, which are bound to cause severe social disruption in a country where all land is owned by the tribe, and there is no public property on which displaced people can be resettled.

It is a small planet; one that I share with the Solomon Islanders despite the long distance and our cultural differences.

The other great thing about being a Canadian in the Solomon Islands is that instead of having to distinguish myself from being American, I had to distinguish myself from being an Australian, of whom they are many here. And thank goodness too for when riots broke out following the election of an unpopular prime minister, and half the town was burnt down last spring, it was the Australians who sent troops to quell the unrest.

The Australian and other military forces from the region were already in the Solomons following, “The Tensions” as they are called here – years of social unrest resulting from the disparities in development and ensuing migration of different ethnic tribes to the main island, Guadalcanal, once a major battleground during the second world war.

It was because of this conflict that I was posted here as a UNV volunteer to work with UNDP as a post-conflict resource manager and communications officer. Much of the focus of the UN here is on governance and I assisted with a number of projects designed to improve the performance of both national and provincial parliaments.

One of those projects was to organize international observers to monitor national elections, the first since foreign forces intervened three years ago. It was a real introduction to the Solomon Islands as I gathered and prepared briefings for the international observers on the country, its people, geography, political system and history. I spent time interviewing many of the observers, all eminent people including an Australian senator, a British lord and a former prime minister. I then wrote up my “observations of the observation” for publication to promote the work of UNDP. The observers were real troopers, committed to democracy and regional peace, and I was delighted to meet several old acquaintances from Papua New Guinea where I had spent two years as a Canadian volunteer.

Following the elections, and the resignation of the prime minister who had provoked the protest, I assisted with an induction course for newly elected parliamentarians who, because of the failure of so many politicians to get re-elected, held half the seats. The induction was a real learning experience for me as I listened to discussions about how the Westminster system, the same as in Canada, was applied in an ancient society with its own long-held systems of reciprocity, kinship obligation and for choosing “big men.”

Cultural differences were not the only challenge I faced: the lack of resources was also formidable. Assigned to give a workshop on writing for the media for provincial civil servants, I was stumped and had to adapt quickly, when I found out that the people of this outlying island had no newspaper, no television, no internet and only occasionally could pickup radio broadcasts.

Still people can talk and tell tales and perhaps the most lasting benefit of a Canadian volunteering to work overseas with the UN is gained from the friendly chats and interesting conversations she had with people who, while half way round the world, nevertheless have so much in common. That’s really what globalization should be all about.