An Island Adventure: My favourite place in the world...

My new favourite place in the whole wide universe is my bed... it is right next to the window which faces out to the bay, and is the only place in the house that gets the cool ocean breeze without (many)flies and mosquitoes buzzing about, as there is a (holy) fly screen on it. This is where I have peace.

As I write this, a couple of the local ladies are in the water cleaning out the intestines of a cow. They had just killed a cow a bit further down the beach for a funeral do tomorrow, carl came home with a bloody fatty axe and knife, as he helped them chop the thing up, while Noah was watching curiously, Saulei was asleep, and I was happy to stay at home and pretend it wasn’t happening...

There have been a few of these big “do”s here since we arrived, it is the most amazing effort that the community comes together to organize. The first time I experienced it first hand was when we were here 3 years ago for Noah’s first birthday “do”. I couldn’t believe how much hard work and effort they put into these celebrations, I have never seen anything like it before.

For days in advance they start collecting the wood to burn for the earth oven, they build a shelter from corrugated iron and posts they chop off local trees. They harvest massive amounts of Taro, kill pigs and a cow, and work through the night to prepare the earth oven and cook the beasts through the night so they’re ready to eat immediately as they drag them out of the earth.

Digging food out of the earth oven

They clean out the intestines and then cook them, apparently its one of the best parts of the beast. Not to me, thank you very much. The other day, when they killed a cow for Carls cousins anniversary of his death, I asked Carl, as they were cutting the thing up if he can sneak me an eye fillet or a juicy rib... he looked at me and laughed. All they do here is kill the beast, skin and gut it, chop of the limbs, cut it thru the middle and chuck the whole thing into the earth oven. So when they pull it out, several hours later, you just get big chunks of flesh to eat with nothing more than salt. So prehistoric. So Flinstones...

For these occasions they lay long rows of coconut tree leaves for people to sit on, and on top of them, banana leaves as the “table cloth”. When its all ready the men come out with baskets filled with the cooked Taro and beasts and plonk massive chunks of it on the banana leaves in front of you, chuck a few cans of “potcow” (tinned meat) in front of you, and then you eat. You eat until you’re full, and then you fill your doggy bags, which hopefully you have brought from home, or you’re given some Pandanas leaves to use as a doggy bag, and you take home what’s left on the “table”. A “successful” occasion is judged by the amount of food you have to serve and the amount people can take home with them.

Because there is no refrigeration, everything has to be eaten immediately, so for the next 24 hours all we eat is derivatives of cow or pig meat. Bone soup. Reheated meat. More soup. Luckily I brought some dry herbs to flavour things up a bit... the worst thing about these meat fests is that I live in a house full of grubby men, and for days after eating lots of meat, I have to bear the disgusting sounds and smells of their farty bums. No respect for the ladies, or should I say, LADY, in the house...GROSS!!!!!!

The whole process of preparation for these things takes days, and a bit like Israeli weddings, as soon as everyone is finished eating, they get up and go and its all over. This takes about half an hour.

The men here work so hard, they hardly sleep through the nights, all I observe and understand of it all is that they enjoy it, they giggle and laugh and take the piss out of everything and everyone, then they eat massive amounts of food, and then crash.

Men here are REAL men, and women are like real men too. They work really hard, they never cry or show any emotion or difficulty or even dare not to talk about it. If something is painful or difficult, their coping mechanism is to laugh. The other day I was in the kitchen with Mua and another Auntie, when Mua suddenly told us that the old lady from across the road is very sick and they had called the Doctor to come over. To that, the Auntie let out a big laugh. Minutes later, someone came around and said that she died.

Within minutes, Rechelli, our neighbour started banging on the Rotuman version of a “gong”, which is a hollow carved piece of log, which they bang on with big sticks in a particular rhythm. They use this to call for prayer times at the church, a bit like the Muslim “Imam”(???), but as I just found out, they use it to announce that something has happened in the village. I watched Rechelli bang the thing with all her might for ages, and tears filled my eyes. She was going nuts on it, and I thought- what a great outlet of feelings. To bang the shit out of a big log. That is how she let the village know something had happen, and within minutes people started arriving at the deceased house.

It was the day that Mua was leaving to go back to Fiji, all morning she was preparing to leave, packing, organising loads of Taro and coconuts to take with, but as soon as the word of the old ladies death arrived, she dropped everything and went across the road to help organize the funeral arrangements.

The way it goes here, or perhaps I should say that this is my observation of the way it goes, I’m sure there are things I don’t know about or am missing out... When someone dies, they lay the body on a bed of mats, with the white ceremonial mat underneath them, and another one hanging on top of them. People come around to pay their respects and bring gifts, usually a mat, sarong, or money. I went with Mua and other relatives and placed a mat next to the body. I haven’t seen a dead body in a while, and I was really curious. I kept trying to peep at it coz I wanted to see what it looked like. It seemed like such a natural and uneventful thing to the rest of the people there.

In the mean time the men go and dig the hole for the grave, I didn’t measure if it was 6ft deep, but it didn’t look very deep, the lazy buggers... (Carl helped doing that- when would any of us, unless we work in a cemetery, or are trying to hide a dead body-get the opportunity to dig a grave???...). They make a bottomless coffin and place it in the hole. Lined with some colourful silk fabric, in which they place the body, wrapped in a traditional woven mat. They all hung out in the grave yard, laughing and taking the piss, the kids playing around in between the graves, and waited around till they brought the body. While the men did that, the women and the chiefs sat at the house and sang songs. I didn’t understand what they were about, but they sounded beautiful. Sounds I would like to rise to heaven with in the background...

I was really curious to see how they bring the body over to the grave yard and bury it, but unfortunately I fell asleep... so I missed it, but Carl said that they mucked around alot in trying to get the thing down the hole.

Because the death wasn’t anticipated, there wasn’t enough time to prepare the proper traditional “do” for the funeral, so they just fed everyone tinned meat and rice, and planned the proper “do” for 5 days later.

On the day of the “do”, the men were awake before light (obviously waking me and the kids too with all the noise they make!!!) and go do whatever it is they do, and the kids and I went over to the deceased house and had tea and bread for breaky. Then we waited a while, until the earth ovens were opened (one of which was right outside my bedroom window! The day before I came outside to find a dead pig lying feet up and tongue hanging out, ready to be gutted and chucked in the burning rocks. Obviously I was totally grossed out and tried to stay away until it was deep underground, but as usual, Noah was really curious and examined it from all directions...). And the feast begins...

Noah and dead pig

Meal time

The food fresh out of Earth oven

What an experience it is...

Another interesting story to tell is Noah’s rash story and its magical disappearance...

We have no idea what it was or why it happened, but he suddenly came up with this really weird rash all over his body, which within a couple of days got worse and spread and looked quite violent. If we were anywhere else in the world, we probably would’ve gone straight to the Doctors or hospital to get it checked out, but here, I asked the elderly ladies what it is and what to do, and all they said is that he mustn’t get wet, stay out of the sun and dirt, and go get massaged by the family who does the special massage for this condition. In Rotuman culture each family “owns” a massage for different ailments, so if you get sick with something, you go to the family who “owns” the massage and they massage you for a few days or however long is necessary. Carl’s family “owns” the massage for stomach problems. Very non descript, but if you have a sore tummy, you come over here and get it massaged.

So off we went for 5 days in a row to a lady in a different village for Noah to be “massaged” if you can call it that. It was very witchety-poo, if I might say so my self, and even I was very sceptical. All she did was wave her hands around him, not even touching him, then rubbed a bit of Johnson’s baby oil on him, then some oil on a special leaf and brushed the leaf down his body a few times, and that was it. About 10-15 minutes at the most. She said to keep him out of sun dirt and don’t wet him, so we had to “dry clean” him as they call it here.

I was a bit worried, coz it didn’t look good, and I was googling “rashes” to see if I can understand it more, but by the 2nd day, it had started to go away, and by the 4^th day it was gone!!! Weird but wonderful... I have to learn to trust the local medicine practices more...

I have been writing this over a few days and 3 days ago was Noah’s 4^th birthday!!!! My little baby is a big boy!!!! Celebrations included the birthday fairy delivering balloons to our room in the middle of the night, a birthday cake which I slaved over the night before, which was supposed to be a Spiderman cake, but looked more like a psychedelic version of the superhero, as I only had the colours blue, pink and yellow to use for the icing, He was very excited about the cake, even tho it tasted really bad. A swim at “Faniyuha” beach which Noah calls “Honeynoah” and for dinner a Chicken Pilaf with some of the relatives joining. I also made him a makeshift bubble blower out of a piece of metal wire I found and some dish soap...