The Edenhope Nature Preserve

The structure of the shed was completed last week – and its siding/doors this week. [see photo below - note the Kawasaki Mule (partially obscured at the left) will be our means of transporting food and people up to the site once the trail is made] This building will serve as staging post for Edenhope’ bush installation. It is where we will keep our equipment, maintain it, keep our vehicles [such as they are] store supplies and materiel for the village-campus still nine kilometers further into the deep bush we are longing to make ‘home’.

We traded with Chief Titus for the piece of easily accessible land at the end of his plantation, towards the trail to the Project; it’s almost a hectare, with coconut, orange, mango and a navele [nut tree]. For our part we gave Chief a boat and motor. It was a mutually satisfying deal – all were happy with the outcome.

Over the new year and much of this past month most of our time was primarily disposed to family – our eldest son Seth brought his lovely bride, Glenda …..to be married here.  The event was amplified with our other two sons and Glenda’s brothers and friends. The spectacularly attractive couple here for two splendid weeks; the others stayed on for an additional period, affording them a chance to see the Edenhope site and camp with us on it…. Ruth took them up to our prior campsite. I stayed behind a further day to get additional gravel to the shed site which we took from the river bed where it flows out to sea. Then I came up. [Here are several photos taken en route - Easter Rojo, Chief’s brother (and our mentor) accompanied me - he’s photogenic, no?]  

1 Beach  Trail

2 Along the way

3 The small river to cross - probably 25m downstream

Well, the next hurdle is the road/trail we must make. What I had previously thought might take us less than a month ….I now see to be closer to three months, maybe two if we’re ‘lucky’.  And much more difficult than I had presumed, and beyond the capability of the equipment we now have. But we’ve made initial progress in leasing a bulldozed from a local friend and we’ll transport it up, hopefully close to the end of this month. We’re contracting another ex-pat – who’s operated a heavy equipment company in AUS for forty years – to do the work.  Note that the small river [pic attached] is the last significant impediment we must deal with as we near the Project site [less than a km further on]. We’ll probably have to make a bridge.

The small river winds down from Mt Tseumatsa just behind it [its peak is 1039m]. It feeds into the Pelapa River which abuts Edenhope on its North [current] boundary but well below where we begin.  It is somewhat fuller and swifter than normal for this time of year ….swollen by heavy rains associated with a small cyclone that passed through the Banks Islands to the North a week or so earlier.

While we’ve been so taken up, the level of tension in the world has risen considerably. What with revolution and confrontation ….and Earth changes bringing floods, drought and storms of epic proportion to us in so many places, it is clear that the ‘quickening’ is well upon us. In view of which we continue to be deeply committed to the temporal purpose of it: purification. We fully acknowledge and respect the prophesies of our elder indigenous brothers. So we hasten along this chosen path.

A couple of WOOFERs have written in to us since we offered to share our early-stage efforts with members of that Organization. They volunteer time and effort in exchange for the learning experience [part of the purpose of this international association] ….so propagating the Organic lifestyle.  But we are just not quite ready; we’ll reach that threshold once the road is made and we have built the temporary shelter we have in mind – complete with screening and raised floor. It reflects some structure I recall of summer camp some 66 years ago. We’ll use plywood half up the walls and screen above that.

Our efforts to get the appropriate government support officially in place has cost us much too much time over the last two years and we sent a sharp message to the relevant ministries and bureaucracies advising them we would waste no further time on them.  The ‘support’ we were looking to them for ….has become a moot issue, anyway, as it is no longer meaningful. We already qualify for the ‘residence permits’ we will need for permanent members of the Edenhope Project. They are available to us anyway, as a consequence of the investment the Project has made.  The Minister [ one of our earliest ‘friends’ in govt here] has replied to us by offering to chair a meeting with the Principal Immigration Officer and us next time we’re in Vila; the purpose is to grant us the permits in principle, so the procedures are enabled.