News

A snail didn’t actually deliver this parcel to the office of our Solomon Islands Country Programme manager Alexa Funnell, but given how long it took to arrive a snail may as well have.

The parcel containing various small Christmas gifts such as chocolate novelty bars, glitter glue, a Listener magazine and a useful hand-pressing flashlight was posted by VSA’s Auckland branch to volunteer Warren Nash on 10 November, 2010.

It turned up in Alexa’s office in Honiara this month – almost two years after Warren finished his assignment as a landscaper and horticulturalist in Honiara.

As it turns out, the parcel hasn’t spent the last two years wending its way from New Zealand to the Solomon Islands. It arrived safely at the complex where Warren was

living, but by the time it got there he had already left.

"The organisation we still rent the house from finally put two and two together and passed it onto me,” says Alexa.

She had to throw away the chocolate bars and unfortunately rats took to the glitter glue while it was sitting out on her desk. But the Listener has been in hot demand with current volunteers and the torch still appears to be in good working order.

“I’m waiting to give it to the next volunteer who turns up without one.”