Hi everyone,
I'm creating this file in the hope I can get it sent by Email in the next couple of days. Even if that's not possible, maybe writing it out will help me remember all the stuff that's happened during this incredible trip.
Henry and I left Albuquerque on Southwest Airlines Monday afternoon (4 PM 8/9/99) for LA. The plane was jammed full and we had to sit in the facing-each-other seats. What a drag. Not an auspicious start to our trip. The transfer at LA was not much of a problem and we had a long wait for out Air New Zealand flight which, of course, was about an hour late taking off. Things then started looking up because this plane wasn't full and both Henry and I had vacant seats next to us. The movies (3 of them) were bad and the food was just blah. Free booze, a temptation I successfully resisted. Went to sleep OK and seemed to get about 5-6 good hours sleep. We arrived in Aukland 6 AM on the 11th (after 13 hours). Cleared customs, stored our bags and went downtown. Stayed downtown from about 7-9:30AM and it seemed to be just coming alive when we left. Aukland is not a really interesting place to spend a few hours. Back to the airport and flew out on Air Vanuatu around noon. Had a good lunch and generally felt good.
We arrived Wednesday afternoon in Port Vila and were met by 80 degree 100% humidity day. Instantly
dripping. We were also met by Bruno & Mem. Went to Bruno's mom's (Fancoise) apartment and it turned out there was a vacant apartment next door that they manage to rent for the month. It had beds and a table and a few chairs...just what we needed. No mossies (mosquitoes) in evidence, and Francoise keeps the windows wide open at night (of some concern to us at this point). Henry is worried too, so he is burning the mosquito coils. No hot water. But water is supposed to be drinkable (don't yet trust). We sit around for a while, talking about stuff...Mem reveals she had to be evacuated last year and spent 3 days in hospital, (didn't really help our feeling of security). Then we walk downtown (about 1/2 mile) shop for some food and trip stuff. We go to the open air market and they show us Laplap which we will be eating for a week. It's the most disgusting looking stuff I've ever seen. This really begins to worry me (Henry too and he's more used to eating "rough". Maybe I'm just tired. Then we take a ferry (free) over to Iririki resort to have a drink...nice. Then they tell us we'll have to drink Kava in Malakula so we should go to a Nakamal here to try to get used to it (I'm not enthusiastic). So we go to a place called Ronnie's Nakamal...just a little house with about 4-5 people out front (at this point, it's about 7 PM and pitch dark outside). We drink the kava which tastes a bit like astringent weedy mud. Kava is a mild narcotic. Effects don't seem to be much, although we're already fairly zonked from the plane trip. We go back to the apartment and go to bed. No dinner because we really don't want it after the 4-5 meals on the various planes. I put my fancy sheet on the bed, crawl in, try to cover up and go off to sleep, hoping there really are no mossies because I'm too tired to set up the net. The night is very very humid but cool...in fact too cool....too tired to get out sleeping bag.
(Thursday)
Up about 7:30. Weather is dryer. Wheetabix for breakfast....yuk. Work on computer stuff then off to the Vanuatu cultural center. We try their generator and it doesn't work...a source of some concern. Work on forms for a while and try to call Jo....the phone system seems to not know about the US and a regular call is very expensive. Lunch is bread and cheese from the supermarket eaten on the esplanade by the harbor. Work on trip preparations some more... then do some shopping (don't picture Walmart, mostly the stores are run by Chinese who speal Bislama poorly and have no English. Then Cultural Center (still no generator), then more work on forms. Dinner by Francoise is good but a little late at 9:00PM. Afterwards fall in bed.
(Friday)
Running around shopping in the morning. Things are not cheap and are very hard to find. We have to be resourceful and find substitutes for lots of stuff (mostly recording & training stuff like tape measures, string, rope, tripod, pens, paper, etc.) Another generator that works is found...hurray! Off to Malakula...no trouble with luggage weight. Plane is a Twin Otter, the same plane we used to fly to Los Alamos...and the pilot's are good, but discussion of the plane crash last year (not our group) that killed 2 anthropologists tends to raise the stress level a bit. Take off, and flight over the islands is truly beautiful. After a flight of about 1 1/2 hours, we land on a grass strip in Lamap at the southern end of Malakula. Absolutely nothing there but a group of about 4-5 people at the end of the runway. Next a flight of about 15 minutes to Norsup (again no town) where there is a small airport building. We all
(9 of us) pile our luggage into a small Toyota 4WD truck and jump in after it. We drive 5 minutes to Lakatoro where there is a provincial finals soccer game going on with about 5-10,000 people milling about. Lakatoro is a town of about 800 normally. We go to the Malakula cultural center (a 1 room museum with kastom (old pre-Christian)artifacts, among them some really incredible old masks). Next we go to the MDC, a big store, and buy rice, john paper and chili tuna and other supplies. Since I know nothing about where we're going I buy nothing. We have to carry around our valuables at all times, which for me means 45 pounds of computer equipment. Included among the stuff I leave behind in the truck is my mosquito net....interesting
choice. We then buy a bunch of gas and kerosene and Coleman fuel, toss it all on the back of the truck with all our other stuff and the nine of us jump in for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Alpalak village, over the mountainous center of the island, around a bunch of switchbacks and back down to the seashore. The vegetation is quite incredible, a lot like Costa Rica, with paw-paws, breadfruits, more kinds of bananas, coconuts, etc, etc, etc. Some really huge old banyan trees.
Not much wildlife, although the big fruit bats and flying foxes (4 ft. wingspan) are pretty impressive. Going over the highlands there is very little sign of habitation, but along the coast (there is a road that follows the coast around the entire northern part of the island) there are villages every 1/2 mile or so. Here a village essentially seems to mean an small extended family. That seems to mean a momma, papa, a whole batch of pikininies (here pikininni is not a racial slur, but the official Bislama word for child), a few aunts and uncles and maybe a granny and gramps. For some odd reason brothers don't seem to live together in the same village. I can't imagine why.
We arrived at Alpalak village and unloaded the truck. It turned out that our hut was one sometimes used by missionaries and sometimes by archeologists/anthropologists. It is about 20ft x 10 ft and consists of 2 "rooms". It is typical bamboo screen construction, with woven reed roof (luckily it never rained here so I don't know if the roof leaked). There is one door in the "front" room and 1 window in the "back" room. Along the front outside is a 8 ft long bamboo bench which is very handy and quicky crammed with various uses. But the floor is concrete...a result that is at once welcome (cleaner) and unwelcome (how do I fasten down my mosquito net?). The concrete is covered with rattan-like mats which is very nice. I eventually find 4 rocks (there are no rocks on this island because the geology is all very new and everything is old coral (which is not very good for mossy net weights)). Anyway, we unpack and occupy the hut (5 of us, with Henry, Nicholas (Australian conservationist), and me in the back room and Bruno and Mem in the front room). We go off to see the little sand beach they have just in time to see the sunset (6 PM because it's winter here). The beach is coral, the water is beautiful blue-green as is common in the tropics. Take 5 minutes to decompress a bit. There are about 4-5 kids playing on the beach (mostly watching us) and giving us rides in their outrigger canoe (I decline because Henry who is a lot lighter almost swamps the thing.
When we return back up to the village, we find we are invited to a Kava ceremony at the Nakamal, a great honor. So about 1/2 hour later we are led (not Mem, women are tabu, so she stays home and drinks Scotch) off into the bush in the pitch dark. After stumbling along for about 50 yards we come to a hut that looks just like all the others, bamboo, 10x20, leaf roof, this time dirt floor. We go inside and along the 20 ft wall by the door is a long bamboo bench where we sit. On the wall opposite is another bench. At the back end is a fire pit alive with coals (very hot, humid, smoky, dark). In the front corner near the door is the kava preparation area. The whole kava ceremony is very ritualistic although you wouldn't recognize it unless someone told you. The process starts with the kava plants (no one really showed us any, they claim they don't grow it, but purchase it) being ground up in a mortar that stands about 4 ft high and is about 1 ft around. The pestle looks like a big club.
The kava is mashed up and handed to the preparer who is sitting in the corner. These positions (grinder and preparer) are apparently ones of rank in the village. The preparer grinds things up some more and pours water (who knows where the water comes from) over the mash
which is now in a large bowl to preserve the juice. After a couple of rinsings, the mash is wrapped in a cloth and squeezed to get the juice out. The juice is now poured into a small bowl (traditionally a coconut shell) and given first to an honored guest (which ended up being me). I stand up drink the whole shell worth, say "tank you too mass, good, good, nambawan", spit, spit again, and give the empty
bowl back and sit down. I sit and contemplate the effects while the others are drinking and spitting. After about a minute, you seem to get a mild numbness in your mouth, a bit like novocaine. No other really noticeable effects other than maybe a feeling of relaxation although it's a bit tough to feel too relaxed here on display. This kava seems a bit stronger that the other stuff in Vila. Anyway, I have 2 more "small ones" and then we call it a night. On the walk back to our hut, the world seems a little bit wobblier than normal.
I can't really say I was a keen observer of the effects.
Back in village, about 7:30-8:00, we have dinner which is a big plate of rice, chili tuna, ground banana and water. It is served to us only, prepared by the villagers (women, of course) and tastes pretty good. After dinner, we show them the computer, encyclopaedia, take some pictures and talk. All of this is done in the dark in a cook hut of typical construction, one room fire-pit, one room for eating.
Everybody sits on the floor( rattan-like mats ) Occasionally a
cock-roach about 2" long falls down the back of your neck.
Then off to bed...quite a day...mossy net seems like a refuge, very humid, warm but not unbearable...sleep in only the sheet-bag.
(Saturday [Rest Day])
Breakfast was bread and water and coffee. I spent some time trying to make a panorama image of the village. Then started up the generator and charged up all the batteries. Not dying of "shit-shit water" (or dysentery) yet. But feel slightly blown away. Good to have a rest day. Lunch is Laplap...a true watershed experience. I think this was banana of some type. It is edible. If I have to survive on it, I'll survive. But I hope we won't have too much.
After lunch, we go to the top of the cliff to visit the village garden. It's truly amazing. It's sort of open jungle with most of the trees cleared away, by some left standing. Nowhere is it very organized, just a sort of haphazard array of plants of every kind imaginable, intermixed with what look like weeds, but for all I know are other useful plants. There are tomatoes of 7-8 different types, 7-8 types of chili, different kinds of yams and squash and pumpkins, cucumber, paw-paw, breadfruit, beans, taro, manioc, etc., etc., etc. There is a developed water supply here, a big (10-15 ft diameter, 10 ft high) tank and a pipe going down to the village and also out to the garden. This is the only "luxury" I've seen in the village, including a cold shower. If I haven't mentioned it, the weather today is partly cloudy, humid, of course, 80 degrees, no rain. After the garden, we walk to the apialo cave. It is a couple of kilometers up the coast and we have to pass a bunch of villages on the way. At every village, a bunch (say 5-10) of pikininies pour out onto the road and follow us. So by the time we reach the cave we have a retinue of maybe 50-100 kids. At the entrance of the cave, we stop and Jimmysan, the chief at Alpalak give us the story of the cave. I was given the job of photographing everything going on, didn't hear much of the story and promptly forgot the rest. We went inside and this was to be our only visit, so we busily tried to photograph as much as we could. I made a panorama shot and took some flash test shots. Took some shots for Mem and a couple of charcoal figures. After the cave we went further up the coast to see Jimmysan's in-laws who were old and sick so the family wanted pictures of them.