Carls words, posted a bit late, sorry...

Alright! Its been 2 and a bit weeks since we got off of that damn boat and I think the only muscle in my body that doesn’t ache constantly is my arsehole. Every morning I get up and realise what it must be like to be 80! Talk about a baptism of fire. I am only just now starting to accustom to the heavy work and the heat that it has to be done in.
My cousins ceremony, to mark the end of 1 year of mourning is over. Preparations had been going on all week but the night before was the big one. Its lovely to see how people all come together when there is an occasion that requires a lot of a work, to see how they can help. We made the underground oven the day before and waited till midnight before we lit it. At about 3am we killed the cow and the 3 pigs, wrapped all the meat up in coconut fronds and put it in the oven at about 5am. 3 women then went to the shallows in the sea and cleaned the intestines, which were then put into there own separate underground oven. The main meal was served at about 10am,after the placing of the headstone and the presentation of the ceremonial mats. Coconut fronds are placed on the ground in rows with banana leaves placed on top of them. People then sit down and the food is placed directly onto the banana leaves and everyone goes for it. These people can eat a shitload food at any time of the day. Everyone finished eating packed a doggy bag in a coconut frond basket, and hit the road. Its amazing to see the speed at which the food is devoured and then people get up and go!
The ceremony took place on Monday and every day since has been jam packed with work. We have finally finished the garden for the vegetables that will be planted. What would seem like an easy process takes a lot of work. First we needed to cut back the jungle, then rip out all the roots and weed the area, and then finally turn over the soil and make plots to plant the vegetables. When you see the photos of pre garden and then post garden it will become clear, the work involved. Now I am not scared of a bit of hard work, but the last 3 years working at the bridge have made me, lets say a little soft. They say that hard work, never killed anybody. The last 2 weeks lead me to seriously doubt this.
The work for the house has started. Like everything else here, you don’t just order what you want from the shop and they deliver it to you all nicely prepared for one to install. I wish!! For example, we are building retaining walls out into the ocean and then backfilling with sand, so as to enlarge our block of land. This requires us to go to the piggery which is a large area in the bush, carry the rocks to the side road. We then get a truck, which we then hand load the rocks into and then unload them again at our house( you guessed it, by hand), and then we can start using these rocks to build our wall. By the way these are not small rocks. About the only relief in this process is that there is a truck, otherwise it would be done by wheelbarrow. We have done 2 days of stacking rocks on the side of the road, and I am a broken man. My cousins wake up every morning with dread at the prospect of carrying rocks for the day. We have only managed 2 days this week, but will probably have all the rocks we need on the side of the road, by the end of next week.
No work gets done on Sunday. So this week has looked like this: Monday- ceremony for cousin, Tuesday carrying rocks and work in the plantation, Wednesday- went spearfishing and then work in the plantation, Thursday- work in the plantation and carrying rocks, Friday-spearfishing, came back exhausted, rested for the rest of the afternoon, Saturday- plantation to finish off vege plot, too exhausted to carry rocks. Tonight we will be going spearfishing again. Tomorrow day of rest! The first few goes at spearfishing were a bit of a joke. The first night the rubbers that I had on my speargun were way to large for me to be able pull, so the gun sat on the beach whilst I held the bag full of fish. Needless to say the rubbers were changed promptly the next day, to something more befitting my strength and ability. The second night I didn’t see one fish worth pulling the rubbers for. For those of you who haven’t seen my speargun, it looks like something you would take down a whale with. So it would be a little bit embarrassing coming back with fish only a little bigger than my hand. The third attempt was during the day, and this seemed to bring a bit more success. 5 decent sized fish. Yesterday was the best so far. I caught 9 decent sized fish and bagged my first largeish parrot fish. This combined with the haul that James who I went with caught, which meant that the neighbours ate fish as well. Those of you who enjoy spearfishing, would wet yourselves at coming here to fish. The fishing that we have done so far has been on the edge of the reef. We swim in the deep and then dive down ,along the edge of the reef, looking for or chasing fish.
Its been a week now since I started this entry and quite a bit has happened. An old woman in the village died on Tuesday, so the village has spent the last 5 days in preparation for the 5th day, which is today. Same sort of deal as my cousins Placing of the gravestone, in that we have been busy doing work for her funeral arrangements rather than do work towards the house. So although we have been busy not much has been achieved, although we have managed to build the workshop out the back in preparation for the arrival of the last of my tools on the government boat. This boat also brings 2 more cousins to help with the house.
The other activity that has been taking up time has been gathering food. This mainly involves going spear fishing for up to 4-6hrs. I must be getting better at it, as my last attempt of a few days ago came up with over 20 good sized fish. The guy I went with is very good! He bagged over 50 fish. His wire was full of fish. The wire is usually a length of wire tied around the waist and the fish are then threaded onto the wire. I am still not completely comfortable with this way of holding fish, as you can imagine I am always on the lookout for sharks. So far I have seen 4 sharks, but they have only been small reef sharks , more scared of me than I of them. Last trip to the sea I saw 4 turtles. I refuse to eat or kill turtles, so the big one that I saw sleeping on the bottom under a coral outcrop I scared away as I knew that Ieli would come along and shoot him. Apparently it is very nice to eat. Its about the only thing that I refuse to try. I am trying to get one of the chiefs in the village to teach me how to catch octopus, hopefully now that all the work for the funeral is over we will have time to go onto the reef and get some. Its beautiful cooked in coconut cream. The coconut cream is so fresh that it is actually sweet. Once you have it freshly squeezed you can never have it out of a can. As a matter of fact that goes for most of the fruit that we get here. The bananas are super sweet and the pineapples are so huge and sweet that they would kill a diabetic.
I am hoping that next week will be the start of a more productive week. Until then take it easy and I hope that my writing gets more interesting as I get more practice at this whole blog thing.
Later carl..

 

Vegie Patch to be

 

                                                               Building the shelter