David Gardner is a former US Peace Corp who has served in the Solomon Islands from 1998 to 2000.
He shared his experience with Solomon Asia Pacific Times reporter.
The day that I sailed to Allardyce Provincial Secondary School in Isabel was the night that I will never forget.
It was January 1999, I boarded a ferry known to locals as M.V Ligomo IV from the capital Honiara to the Island of Isabel Province.
Crossing the open waters was not pleasant, the sea was rough, rocking the tiny ship side to side, water came up and over most time.
After spending some time at the deck of the ship, I eventually sliding into my cabin bunk bed, getting sick and passing out only to wake up in the morning with perfect weather and calm seas for the rest of the way up other side of the island.
My Peace Corps experience in the Solomon Islands from November 1998 through June 2000 was much like that trip with some rough patches and also some of the most amazing experiences I have ever had.
After spending two month training about the customs, cultures, language and much more about the people and country of the Solomon Islands we were then posted to parts of Solomon Islands.
For me and others, we spent time in many locations including a month on the other side of Santa Isabel province in places like Poro and Buala.
Coming back to my story about Allardyce, I was a science teacher at Allardyce and also was asked to teach math as well as take on some secondary projects which included but were not limited to reopening the school library and finishing the multi-purpose sports court.
Some days, I had to be the teacher on duty or make sure the students were provided with their proper workline orders and this is a drastic difference to how schools were run in the United States (where I have also continued to be a science teacher for over 20 years) where instead of the school employees such as maintenance workers, janitors or grounds crew keeping up the facilities, it was the students who fix things and kept the grounds tidy with their machete’s.
Allardyce was one of the most remote locations for teachers to be placed in the Peace Corps as the ship only went there every other week (which also made for getting mail and communications from my friends and family back in the United States sometimes delayed, even by months in some cases).
With limited resources as well with which to teach and/or use with my students I relied on my own experiences or Solomon Islands issued materials.
I would love to go back now knowing what I know after many years of additional teaching to be able to see what I would come up with in regards of teaching science labs and experiments.
As I was possibly the first person that some of my students saw that spoke English, where they might not even know Pijin, there was often a lack of communication or things that were said may have been lost in translation between one of their Wantoks trying to explain what I just said if they understood English a little better.
Sometimes I would try to explain something again in Pijin, though I always thought that in many cases my students English was better than my Pijin. This could be frustrating at times with people perhaps not understanding and thus not able to successfully answer a question so I always had to keep that in mind as well with their scores. While at Allardyce, in my free time I loved walking to the waterfalls or to the beach and running along the shore and most of all enjoyed trips out to the reef to spearfish and look at the amazing things swimming around.
Whether it was reef sharks, parrot fish, lobster or many other things it was usually a remarkable experience. I also read a lot and learned how to play the guitar a little as well when I was not storying with the other Peace Corps Volunteers (Kevin Grant during my first year and Armelle Casau during my second year at APSS) as well as other teachers and staff at the school at the time like Mr. Ghender Simbe, Mr. Nelson Drummond, Mr. Forest Gilbert, Mr Bart Sanau and his wife Mrs. Jenny Sanau, Mr Wesley Kuma, Mr. David Dawea and his wife Rose and Ms. Aggie Alliton along with many of the students as well.
One of the most amazing experiences though was taking a group of students to see the nesting leatherback turtles.
These massive animals have been laying their eggs on the beaches by Allardyce long before the school existed and it was my only hope to educate them on the need to conserve the species.
To see that work is being done these days with programs like the Arnavon’s is a great testament to the desire of the people of the Solomon Islands to have resources continue to last and exist in some parts of the country.
While I was there I often had health ailments perhaps due to the different climate, hydration issues, taking anti-malaria medicine and many other possibilities so I made the decision to finish up the first semester at school in 2000 and would head back to the US to try and get better medical assistance.
The sad thing was that the whole time I was in the country there was also ethnic tension growing and the capital became a place of distress for our Government and within a few days I left.
All other Peace Corps Volunteers were also evacuated and removed from the country and the Peace Corps has not been back since.
In 2010 I actually had the opportunity to sit and eat dinner with the US Peace Corps director as well as the Director who was in charge during my time in the Peace Corps and he also said it did not look like Peace Corps would be back any time soon due to continued struggles within the country as well as how remote it is for safety concerns of the volunteers.
I for one do not feel we as PCV’s were ever in danger and that the people of the Solomon Islands always appreciated our services and help there.
So in early 2020 I was extremely excited to hear that people were going back to explore areas for possibly sites to re-establish Peace Corps in the Solomons…only to be totally stopped when the COVID pandemic hit.
As things are clearing out worldwide and Peace Corps is starting to send people back into countries around the world it is my deepest hope that the Solomon Islands is one of those places.
It is also my deepest desire to one day come back and visit the Solomons and spend a few months touring around all of the wonderful locations I was able to explore over 20 years ago and see how things have progressed since then.
Having recently seen there are now two-storey permanent buildings at Allardyce I can only imagine what other improvements have occurred since my days there.
