Friday 09.05.2008
We are sailing tomorrow. It is like Gary has been hit by a sudden, convulsive fever – nothing at all can dampen his enthusiasm and, I admit, despite my exhaustion, it is contagious. Richard, our crew, arrived yesterday. He seems charming and intelligent with a good sense of humour – boy, will he need it! Marina has not had a daytime sleep for 4 days now & her tantrums are adding to the craziness of the preparations. Elliott is having quiet fits of crying in his bunk, sad to be losing his school friends. Friends continue to drop by Neptune 2 to say goodbye, leaving books, wine, sailing gear, much treasured gifts, but most of all, their sincere faith and hope in our adventures. We are casting off with the dreams of many tomorrow.
We have done all we can, and yet we could easily spend another week sorting, cleaning, stowing. I had a system but it has gone to the seagulls in the last minute effort to keep this flock flying. Richard helped me stow some fruit and later insisted he did not put the bananas on the bottom of the fruit nets. Perhaps it was only the relentless swinging at sea that shuffled them to the bottom after all. Anyway, our deadline is here. Tomorrow we will begin the journey we have been dreaming of all our lives. Tomorrow, we will become adventurers.
Sat 10.05
Casting off! What a beautiful occasion – very special people waved goodbye from the dock, just as we had imagined. The entire Poulter family, who have become our second family; the upbeat and beautiful Peter and Bev, and many of the M row live a boards, whose own memories float like phosphoresce along with us, out of the North east channel and into the wild expanse of the Pacific. As we turn right at the end of the channel, past the last marker where all East coast Australian sailors hang their dreams, there is a quiet moment of disbelief.
We turn to each other with wide grins, in love with the moment. It is only a moment. By 6pm, excepting for Richard, we are all throwing up all over the boat – the kids in buckets in the stern cabin below and Gary over the rails. I run between the two, finally succumbing to the other side of the washing up bowl with Marina in a tandem orchestra of violent heaves. Mother daughter bonding was never like this in the baby manuals. It is the only time, apart from in pregnancy, that I have ever been seasick and I'm not sure yet if it is a relief or a frightening signpost of things to come. Still, after some rest with the kids and constant assurances to them that THIS really will be their last chuck (or maybe the next one), I am able to feebly keep going with the help of a packet of saltines and occasional leaps to the cockpit for some fresh air. The back cabin smells like a sewer, but at a 45 degree angle of heel, what can a mother do?
Gary and the kids continue to throw up through the night as the swell rolls our little boat like a cork and the wind ploughes her bow up and down. Good thing no one could eat a thing because I could not prepare it.
Gary and Richard do the night watch with Richard earning his stripes doing the lion's share while Gary lies half comatose on the lee rail. He assures us he is always this ill on the first night and not to worry, he'll be better tomorrow.
In the morning Gary rests in the back cabin while I read to the kids, keeping watch from the coach house. Richard thinks he has blocked both heads to add to Gary's woes but fortunately the forward one is just a closed seacock so we can sort that one quickly. At 4pm the kids are still throwing up, I am as worried as any good mother should be and poor Elliott is crying and begging to go home. Gary too, is still very seasick and I ask him and Richard if it might be a wise thing to turn back considering the state of our crew. I might as well have suggested the English put up Welcome to the French signs at Gatwick. As long as Gary feels he can go on, then the stiff British upper lip will prevail and we will continue to fight them in the trenches. Tally ho!
Sun 11.05
This morning, feeling somewhat more steady on my feet, I decide we all need food. This takes until lunchtime to organise, but eventually, chunks of ham are thrown between a piece of folded bread, and voila, we have moved on from crackers. Except for Gary and Elliott. Marina ate a whole sandwich and then happily settled into her bunk (the kids fold up couch wedged between lee cloths between our bunks in the stern) to watch a Dora the Explorer DVD. Pah, Dora's got nothing on this girl. This afternoon we see three pilot whales close to port, but apart from that, there is very little sea life out here as yet. All the dolphins are happily playing back in Manly harbour – always said they are much smarter creatures than we. At 5pm, after feeding all of us some more crackers, I realise it is Mother's Day. I dare not mention it. We are all thoroughly exhausted – I am shocked at how much our little boat seems to roll and pitch through the seas, and it is only day 2.
Mon 12.05
3 days at sea. Gary is still throwing up and insisting he's fine, really. Marina has had another bout and poor Elliott is still begging to turn around and go home. We try to convince the men to return but no, that would be defeat. Gary still isn't holding anything down and I insist that if he is not over it by tomorrow morning, we will either turn this boat around or I will send out a mayday and say I have been hijacked. It is dangerous to even make a cup of tea; the yacht lurches and rolls through every wave side on and two hands are needed to hold on every minute. In a brief spell this morning, however, I managed to fry a slice of ham and cheese in some bread for Richard & the kids. Richard said it was the best toasted sandwich he's ever had in his life. It was tricky, but added immensely to to my feelings of accomplishment, so necessary to sustain on a journey like this. Each small thing is another hand hold on the mountain. To cheer up the kids I handed out a little gift each I had packed ready for such despondent times. Elliott's was a Simpsons DVD which cheered him no end. Marina's was a Wiggles jigsaw which kept sliding or bouncing off our laps which made her very cross. We can't even sit up straight, after all. The challenges are many. Toilet training has gone completely backward & we have used so many nappies because we are eating so little I am compensating with milk, another challenge. I can't open the fridge on this tack, so I am simply spooning powdered milk into water straight into marina's bottle over the sink & hoping enough bounces in. It ends up lumpy & she is not impressed, but hey, I'm not exactly on the gin and tonics here either. Tonight I managed to reheat our first casserole for dinner and Gary ate a little of it. The kids just had rice. I'm eating ok but still a tad queasy at times but the worst of it really is just how exhausted and low the constant jarring of the boat makes me feel. We were meant to be taking our anti malarials, but no one could keep them down anyway. It is worrying me but there is little yet I can do. Gary has kept down his dinner, which is reassuring. For the first time, I hear the men chatting on watch together and I know everything will be ok. It is only later we learn that the Australian East Coast has been battered by huge seas and a couple airlifted from a yacht when the husband was hit on the head by the boom. It was a good thing we did not turn back and I give a prayer of thanks at how well Neptune handled the conditions. She is a strong and determined boat, we are safe in her arms. Bitterly cold on deck tonight.
Tues 13.05
Things finally begin to look up. Gary has found his sea legs, as he says he would, and everyone manages some porridge for breakfast and I, of course, am delighted that I could cook it. Dinner parties of the past fade into oblivion in comparison to my culinary feats of the past few days. I am master chef of the universe. I might be starving Richard though because when I mention there is some porridge left, he grabs the pot and stirring spoon and wolfs it down before I can ask if he'd like milk with it. We have a pork, chickpea and orange casserole for dinner. Elliott is no longer begging to turn the yacht around but is now meticulously planning his flight home from Vanuatu. Which airline, seat allocation, meal choice, what he will see from the window on that ever so short flight, who he will stay with when he gets back to Brisbane while he waits for the rest of us to sail back. I humour him and help him plan it. It passes the time. We look out the window and say, flying a bit low aren't we commander?
The sea state is still swelly with huge breaking crests. We heave upward and over in what feels a most unpredictable manner. I make a mental note note to never start a passage to windward again. Tonight, the boat rolls along in the dark, squall after squall pulling either Richard or Gary from their bunk to put out or pull in more head sail. We have kept one reef in the mainsail the whole way, and it seems to have been a good choice, despite the moments when there is not quite enough sail up to cut the pitching, it compensates for the squalls when it would be dangerous to reduce sail in the dark. It is a 2 handed job even to furl the head sail and co ordinate the sheet and halyard so that it does not flog in the squalls. I got up to help a few times to let the men get some sleep but by morning we were all a little fractious from the extra loss of sleep. Gary was cranky with the kids, I became argumentative and Richard retreated into his shell looking thoroughly pissed off. Last year, on the rally, Richard had sailed with the yacht Divinity. He had been able to have a hot shower every day, adult company on an early night watch and enough crew to get plenty of sleep. Now here he was on a yacht with tired and scared children, a seasick captain and an exhausted mother. Still, he handled it all with grace. He wasn't as careful with the boat as us and he couldn't sleep at all during the day, which was a bit of a liability, but he certainly managed to keep going with a sense of humour despite it all. Like us though, he was counting the days until we got to Huon Reef.
Wed 14.05
After another squally night we were all careful with each other the next day. I was seething inside, resentful of the men keeping up more head sail than necessary in the squalls, sending the kids rolling and pitching in their bunks. I could not even make Marina a bottle. The kids had hardly slept through it all and now they were tired and cranky and Marina had wet the bed through her nappy. The back cabin smelled disgusting and I could do nothing on that angle of heel. To the men, it was a chance to make some gains but to us below it felt like an episode of Survivor. It was with wry humour then, when we reached Huon reef on Friday to find somebody had planted a pole in the sand, decorated Survivor style with shells, feathers & twine. We had not been the only sailors to have faced these conditions on the way to this lonely stretch of paradise.
We grumbled our way through Wednesday and by late afternoon, after a chicken and lentil casserole and freshly squeezed oranges, the wind clocked slightly to the south putting us closer, but not quite on the beam. Reason for celebration.
Thurs 15.05
This morning I was up at 4.30 am to quietly watch the sunrise with Gary. The wind was finally on our beam and the eastern light poured a deep golden syrup over the milky sea. A burning orange ball emerged from the ocean, so bright, it made me squint. It seemed to be the iris of the world, surrounded by blue, looking straight into our souls. I cherished the moment of peace alone with Gary. With two small children there is precious little of that. We watched mountains of cumulus wisp and build around the eyes of the ocean and knew that mother earth was not far away.
Today Elliott astounded us by saying that this sailing was actually quite alright after all and that really, he didn't want to fly back, he'd much rather sail. Would I? Yes, I said, I would.
And that, in essence, is the difference between a windward sail and a reach. How easily we forget. Rather like childbirth really. I shall start counting my ocean passages as children from now on.
Friday 16.05
We have anchored at Huon Reef. It's amazing. But, that story will have to wait. As I type this up, we are preparing to sail through the northern isles of Vanuatu for the next three weeks in company. Already our stay here has been remarkable and more than made up for the ocean crossing. The most amazing thing of all though is that we actualIy did it.
We did it!!!
Thank you God. And we would do it all again tomorrow. But, my friends, I will tell you all about beautiful Huon reef and the wondrous isles of Vanuatu later, hopefully with many pics so that you can see that what I say is neither a nightmare or fantasy, or perhaps a little of both.
Fair winds.
Venessa, Gary, Elliott & Marina.
Neptune II
Sunday 18.5.08
SWIMMING WITH SHARKS.
Huon reef at last. We arrived yesterday, riding with the rays of a tropical dawn through the gap in the reef. Wildlife suddenly appeared in droves as though we had switched our monitor from the sports to the nature channel. Eagle rays sprung from the ocean, coiling high in the air and then disappearing with a loud splash, birds hovered, attempting to land on our masthead but giving up dodging the swinging arial aloft and the sea came alive with flashes of bright silver. We went ashore and walked around the islet, carefully picking our way through the thousands of nests scattered like easter baskets in the thick emerald grass. Each nest contained half a dozen or so speckled eggs, ready to hatch into fluffy white booby chicks. Both parents sat proudly on the nests, only waddling off with loud squawks of indignation when we bent to have a closer look. The environment felt Darwinian, where birds and fish had yet to learn a fear of humans. We felt as though we were walking through evolution, one eye on creation, the other on the modern yacht electronics that helped us reach this wild and remote destination.
Later we combed the windward side of the island, marveling at the paraphernalia washed up by the lonely ocean. In all this time we had not seen another ship, and yet here were old tyres, countless rubber thongs, ships bottles, ceramic floats and old ropes and netting. Marinas favourite piece of flotsam was a tiny plastic spade, which she clutched firmly all the way back, filling any empty nests with chunks of pumice from the beach.
Richard took an excited Elliott for his first snorkel in the leeward reefs. The colorful display of live coral and the variety of reef fish poking their beaks into shallow caverns filled Elliott with wonder. His confidence in the water increased to the point that when I saw a three metre leopard shark cruising a short distance away, he merely pointed and nodded, not bothered in the slightest. One of the rally crew aimed his speargun at a large reef cod, and I knew it was time to leave the water. Reluctantly Elliott swam to shore, making us promise to return the next day. This is a child who has detested swimming lessons and is not the slightest bit interested in churning up the pool with the other kids in his class. Here, on the reefs, he had found his own skills. Marina, ever the adventurer, found her fun in jumping from rock pool to rock pool, squealing as moray eels poked their heads from hidden caves and then shot out in furious, writhing groups, sending Marina laughing and running and splashing to find more. It was a day of magic, of nature at its magnificent best with every tiny part of the food chain existing in its most perfect form. It felt the greatest privilege to bare witness to the extraordinary miracles of life at every turn. from the distance the reef had looked only like a lonely and desolate patch of sand topped with a spoonful of flat vegetation. Up close, it became a wriggling, writhing, screeching mass of life. The boobies, sooty terns, noddies and ganets whirled about us in their thousands, blackening the crystal sky, diving back and forward from the ocean, regurgitating tiny fish for their chicks, nestled into sparkling blades of grass. Bright pearls of cowry and clam washed up victoriously on the beach, testifying to the wonderland below. That night, after a social gathering on Mirrajem, a large catamaran in the fleet, we dreamed only of paradise.
Friday 23RD May
PARADISE FOUND.
Land ho! Paradise, it seems, is only a matter of perspective. Today she arrived cloaked in the dawn sliding over the mountains of Vanuatu. Mists swirled in the bubbling seas through the Segond channel and our spirits lifted to the peaks beyond. We had made it! Is there a name for an emotion encompassing all? Releif, wonder, humility, excitement, awe? Today we have crossed oceans with our small children and become at one with a universe. Landfall is not a destination, it is but a vision of enlightenment beyond the physical. It is something everybody should be blessed to experience at least once in a lifetime. We have arrived, not just in another country, but in another place in our hearts. I hope it is to become a familiar place. I want it to. I want this understanding to settle like volcanic dust on the plains of my most mundane thoughts. I want to genetically encode it into my children. I have found already my reason for doing this journey and now the challenge is simply to imprint it on to my everyday tasks. I am ranting, I know. Life is worth ranting about right now. I am riding the rainbow after the drizzle.
June 2008
MISSIONARIES, MAGIC AND MEDICINE MEN.
A pretty young girl holds out a woven garland of red and emerald leaves. She grins shyly and places it around my neck. There is a garland for each of us - myself, Gary, Elliott and Marina. Eight year old Elliott looks the girl in the eye and says proudly, Tankyu Tumas. Nem blong me Elliott. She giggles and turns, gesturing us to follow her toward the tiny restaurant. Attached to her skirt by a length of fishing twine is a monstrous fluttering moth, pierced through the belly. The girls brother walks behind, dragging the severed head of a flying fox with him, bleeding red into the black sand. My children stare and ask what we are having for dinner.
Chicken, I say.
We have sailed to this remote anchorage on the island of Pentecost in the company of five other yachts from the rally. A few weeks into cruising Vanuatu and already we are catapulted into an exotic land where the shadows of ancestor spirits preside over the childrens church choir practice. Toothless smiles of gentle village elders watch picanninies scamper up coconut trees and slice off the fruit with bush knives longer than their thighs - even the two year olds carry machetes here. A child is rewarded at school for remembering to bring his knife with him - these mini rambos help to keep the jungle encroaching too fiercely onto the sports field.
Elliott informs us he would like a machete for his birthday. Gary actually considers it and the two of them bond over machete window shopping together in dusty downtown Luganville. I make references to the reaction of Australian customs and am told the machete will be called yacht equipment. I try pointing out the massive scars on some of the arms and legs of the Ni-van children and are informed that they must be accidents and of course, strictly supervised, Elliott wont be having any accidents with his machete. It is only when we are anchored in the volcanic crater lagoon of Lolowai, and our rally host Alan slices his leg open with a machete whilst cutting down the trees obscuring the leads, that Gary concedes that in a place without reliable hospitals perhaps a machete for Elliott may be a little foolhardy. Elliott will not be dissuaded so easily and takes up every possible opportunity to play with the island kids bush knives, hacking at everything in his path.
I decided to rescue Marina from our pirate crew and took her for a morning of local kindergarten, which turned out to be housed in a small concrete block, about the size of Neptunes coachhouse. A boy of six, about the same size as three year old Marina, gave her a small chalkboard to join in writing their ABCs. She happily scribbled on the board while I took photos until another smaller boy sighted her, screamed shrilly, and leapt onto the lap of his teacher who could not dissuade him to let go for all the coconuts in Vanuatu. He is a little scared of white people, she apologised. Some of the little ones have never seen a white person yet. He thinks you are a ghost.
When we toured the small primary school at Asanvari, on the island of Maewo, I asked the teacher, an Australian teenager on an aid program, what the hardest thing about being here had been foe her? Was it teaching the children, the change of diet, the humidity, the threat of malaria during summer?
No, she said, it was trying to make friends. The women here are suspicious of young white females in their village. If a girl over the age of twelve talks to a single man they must be planning marriage. Since this is unlikely, they think we must be sexing. When I found this out, I had to stop talking to anyone except the kids. It can be lonely work.
Travelling with a husband and young children in Vanuatu guarantees I personally have had no such difficulty. The women, although shy, have been welcoming. In the morning, I usually do the schooling with Elliott on the yacht while Gary and Marina do the laundry. Gary particularly has endeared himself to the local women by taking the laundry to the local streams. Laundry, in Vanuatu, is strictly womens work and the ladies always assume he is either a single father or that his wife is very sick. Why else would he do this work? They cluck and fuss around him and then nearly fall out of their mother hubbards when he says a few words of Bislama to them. Usually they begin to help him with the rinse and twist cycle until he offers the ladies a few vatu if they would like to do the laundry for him. They always say yes with shy grins – it is of some status to the other women if they are able to interact with a nice, harmless, white male like Gary. I can almost hear the conversation among them: What if this mans poor, sick wife were to die? Who would do the laundry? It is a different story though with the men. They fall off their kava stools laughing when they see Gary lugging the washing to the river. They think he is gay and are not concerned with their wives tok-tok with him until they learn he has a wife and children. Then they are simply outraged, not because he is talking to their wives (read property) but because doing laundry is a major threat to their masculinity. Gary loses much status in the nakamal (mens meeting hut), which he finds funny, but in the meantime, he gains much status aboard Neptune II.
Otherwise, the men are always polite and friendly unless they drink alcohol, which you would never offer them. In fact, the Ni-van men all love kids and most men play a major role in village childcare. In Asanvari I asked a young man, cooing over a baby in his arms, if it was his baby? He shook his head. I asked him who the baby belonged to? He shrugged his shoulders, took a cursory look around and said Picanninie blong Asanvari. The men always smile and wave at Marina and Elliott, often trying to pick Marina up. She resists, but has got to the stage of letting anyone stroke her hair, which is a major source of village entertainment. Meanwhile, Elliott runs around with his arms outstretched chasing the other kids while they scream and giggle and when they tire of that, he becomes Elliott Marceau, silently acting out the most elaborate scenarios in his lead role as a cat, a pig, a chicken or a chief. He has developed his own kustom dance too, which always draws a good crowd.
If it takes a village to raise a child, it also takes one to kill a man. While we were in Asanvari, the Anglican village chaplain told us a story while he dished kava into coconut shells for us at at the nakamal, men standing on one side of a dividing line and white women on the other. Ni-van women are not allowed in here.
He said: After cannibalism had been banned in the village in the 1960s, there was a man who secretly took a popular boy of the village for his cooking pot. The villagers confronted the man, who denied taking the boy and to show no hard feelings, invited the villagers to his hut for dinner. One of the villagers found a human bone in his stew and so in retaliation, the villagers murdered, and buried, the last cannibal and his wife on Asanvari.
Later, the chaplain showed us the cannibals grave. In fact, you can still see the skeletal remains of cannibal dinners on the island of Malekula, where the Big Nambas people will happily show you a few skulls and the stone carving table used for the corpses. This was only in the late 60s!
Are there any old cannibals still alive here? I asked the chaplain.
His brows narrowed and he said darkly, Not in Asanvari. On other islands, maybe.
I pressed the point. Was it always warring tribes that were eaten, or sometimes innocent people, like the boy in your story?
He thought hard about this and then explained that sometimes a villager must cross another village to get to some good kai kai (food).
He must be very careful, if he is seen, he might be eaten. Mostly though, he said, it is chief fighting over land ownership. Land is passed down through the womens family and grade taking, to become chief, is passed through the mens family. Sometimes, with more than one wife and many children it is not so clear who the kastom owner of the land is.
We pondered this as we swallowed the bitter kava from the shells. A few nights ago our rally had left another anchorage in a hurry when the previously trouble free bay became a hotbed of village dispute. The chief had recently died, a new French resort was being built on the land, and now several men were making claims to kastom ownership. One fellow had sent men out to our yachts in dug outs demanding money, another had waved them off telling us it was okay but later the men had returned. We felt uncomfortable and left the next day.
So do men still get killed over land issues? I asked the chaplain.
The chaplain looked down at his toes. Maybe, he said. Then he looked up, brightened, and said quickly, Tomorrow you must come look at my new church.
We had already seen a number of beautiful wooden churches in Vanuatu. Our favourite was the large, sunlit structure on the little island of Atchin, where you can find the best dug out canoe craftsmen. A large sign inside the church proudly proclaims, From Cannibalism To Christianity.
A chaplain is very rarely a kastom land owner or a chief. It appeared to me, after visiting a monastry on the island of Ambae, that men who either have no interest or no chance of obtaining chiefdom or kustom ownership, might well consider the clerical life. Without a good education, its that, kava farming or working on a copra plantation. Kastom ownership guarantees a future.
If he can, there is good reason for a man to chase up on the kastom ownership of his land. Since the government began allowing the sale of leasehold land only to ex-pats to protect Vanuatu for the future of the Ni-Van people, the kastom owner now gets a wack of the rent from the seventy five year lease so there is much scrabbling to prove maternal ownership. Around seventy percent of the main island, Efate, is leased by ex-pats. Most older Ni-van people do not even know their own birthdates, so how ownership is proven often seems to be more of a contest between brothers and cousins than anything else with secret feudal wars commonplace. Instead of cannibalism, we have now heard of poisonings, drownings and knifings occuring between villages looking to establish their kastom ownership. The village chief then, often not the same man, is responsible for putting that money to good use in his village so it is important that the right man here is appointed. That, however, is dependant on a complex series of grade taking ceremonies, such as circumcision and land diving, which include a lavish feast, and varying greatly between islands. Eating at the feast puts you in debt to the chief, who builds up a party of supporters. It is only a son who has acquired enough pigs for many ceremonies, and taken many grades that will be considered for chief. As a man moves higher up the social rank, his role will change along with status. Hence, there are many chiefs in Vanuatu and not so many Indians. There is the household chief, village chiefs, island chiefs, province chiefs, the council of chiefs and their chiefs and chiefs of everything in between and they all have relative levels of power. As you can imagine, local politics are important nakamal conversation in Vanuatu. The Ni-Van hierarchy goes in order from the village chiefs and medicine men to clerics, government and police, then pigs and finally women.
Tonight there is kastom dancing on Pentecoste before dinner, arranged for us by Alan, the organiser of the rally. For a small charge we are shown kastom dancing, entertained by the local mens string band, (every boy over the age of eight plays guitar in Vanuatu) and served up a meal of vegetables in coconut milk, freshwater prawns, rice, water yam, taro and fruit salad.
The dance begins with a loud thumping of feet, a sudden swish turn of the body and a yelp. The mens skirts, made of hibiscus branch and decorated with croton leaves, jump up and down to the beat of the tam tam. Huge flat feet pound the sand, slowing the pace to a long forward shuffle, before another timely jump sideways joined by more yelling. They stamp their feet, clap their hands, shuffle some more, skip around a bit and then repeat the performance. The dance goes on until finally Alan spontaneously begins to clap. This seems to signal the end of the dance. At my request, Alan asks the chief for the meaning of this ancient ritual.
Is it an ancestor worship ? A rite of passage story? A warrior dance?
It is a love song, replies the chief, somberly.
This is not our first experience of kastom feasting and dance. After we had arrived on Santo, tired but elated from a week of fifteen knots to windward and another three days under the iron headsail, the islanders helped us celebrate our safe arrival at Alans home. The men strung up a pig the size of an oxen and an oxen the size of an elephant over the open flames. We helped the women wrap yam, taro and manioc in banana leaves. The air smelled of vanilla and cacao from the drying sheds on the beach. Picanninies presented us with coconuts topped with pawpaw branch straws and decorated with hibiscus flowers. The string band started, a sound not unlike large violins playing reggae, and the men called out high pitched songs in nasal tones.
On the sail over we had tried to learn a few words of Bislama and so we attempted a little tok tok with the Ni-Vanuatuans at the feast. We asked what the Bislama word for violin was? The answer seemed complicated. Alan told us Bislama has so few words compared to English they must use many words to explain things. Later, we found the translation in Miz Mays Cruising Vanuatu guide by Nicola Rind. First though, you must know the translation for piano, which is Wan bigfala bokis-i got tith. Sam i waet, sam i blak. Taim you killem i singaot. Literally this reads as One big fellow box, he has teeth. Some are white, some are black. When you hit him, he sings out. The translation for violin now makes perfect sense. Wan small sista blong bigfala bokis – taim you scratchem beli i kri, which means One small sister belonging to big fellow box. When you scratch his belly, he cries. Makes you wonder what the translation for orchestra is, doesnt it?
But our favourite translation of all is for the Solomons pidgin for the word wife – it is Cook blong me.
The kastom dancing at our arrival feast begins in earnest under the blazing sky. A group of men from the Banks islands have spent the entire morning preparing their costumes for the dance. Their bodies are first painted head to toe in thick,black mud. Around their waists they wear a few snippets of twigs and underneath, for modesty with us yachties, the men sport a variety of brightly patterned undies which lends a touch of the comic to the menacing mode of dress. A hollow musical clunk comes from the seedpods strung from the dancers wrists and ankles as they walk up the hill to pose for photographs. The men, aged from twelve to eighty, sport headpieces woven from dried grass, like miniature villages, on top of their muddy heads. The Banks dancers are more raucous than the Pentecost dancers and their tone more fierce. They stamp and jump and yell to the quickening thump of the tam tams and afterward, I am left feeling breathless.
Perhaps though, the most interesting and beautiful of the kastom dancers come from Aore island. A group of a dozen women stand waist height in the water. They wear bikini tops of fresh banana leaves over their enormous dark breasts and leaf skirts over their thighs. Suddenly they slap the water and a loud wallow echoes through the inlet. They slap again, faster, deeper, lifting and kneading the ocean into a deep, rumbling melody. The sea pounds an ancient rhythm to the spirits of the volcano spurting hot gases from deep within her belly into the sea. Above us on the hill my own children run like wild ponies with the picanninies, the older ones with tiny siblings clinging to their hips, living their own dreams of freedom and adventure.
The chaplain blesses the proceedings. Dr Alan, modern medicine man tok tok with his Ni-Van family. We eat plenty good kai kai until mi too fat fat. Island magic shines from my childrens eyes.
Tomorrow we will sail to another island, discover secrets, swim in waterfalls, climb to the rim of a smoking volcano, snorkel with a dugong, dive a wreck, raft down a river, drink good kava, be good tourists.
Or perhaps we will sit on the beach and story short with Francis in Loltong, who carved our seat for the dinner in Pentecost. He tells me his mother, still alive in the village, is one hundred and thirteen years old. I ask him her secret.
She good Christian woman. Only use island medicine. Also, he says, I think she have good magic.
I also ask him what flying fox tastes like.
Like bird.
Like a bird? You mean like chicken?
Yes, like chicken.
July 2008.
CLIMBING THE VOLCANO.
I am staring deep into the eyes of the earth. They glow fiery red, like a demon on a rampage, smoke pouring from the demons nose and red- hot magma spewing molten rock from the demons lips as I stand here, contemplating the possibility of cremation here on the rim. This particular volcano, Mt Marum, is being closely monitored by volcanologists across the world, expecting it to blow at any time. Evacuation plans on the island of Ambrym are at the ready. I am seven hours hard climb up on to this crater and evacuation would be a moot concept if she were to decide to blow while I am here. This is not a tourists volcano, like Tanna, while spectacular, easily left in four wheel drive vehicle. There is no one up here but myself, the other three climbers and the guide. We have slogged our way upward from the beach through steamy gorges, hacking our way through wild bamboo forest and seemingly impenetrable jungle, across black strips of old lava, shining like onyx, and up over the slippery, grey crust to crawl over waves of barren grey ridges. It is hot. Here there is no shade, only dense black smoke spurting from her stinking vents. My nails are thick with black grime from gripping precariously on to the razored ridge, snaking dauntingly upward to the rim. I can feel my big toenails seperating from their beds from kicking toe holds into the volcanoes slippery caldera. My breath is short from the lack of oxygen and the grimy smoke filtering through my lungs. Perhaps, I think, as I stare into the eye of the monster, if you were ready to die, this would be a marvelous place to be. To stare the demon in the eye and then be lifted to heaven would place a final seal on life like no other.
But I am not ready to die, if for no other reason than staring into deaths fiery beyond makes me feel so alive. Up here, I am choking on smoke, my limbs are failing and my eyes sting with grit but I am so wonderfully, wonderfully alive.
To be continued... try again in October.
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