Celebrations

(written August 2, 2007)

The first two pictures are from a fantastic sunset in Utanlangi. The next one is next is making bunya (pig roasted on red hot lava rocks for about a day) during the Mere wedding ceremony. There were about 4 of these lava rock beds each about 5ft wide. The last picture is Dom with Abel Dick.

So I just got back form Nguna the other day and had a great week-long visit to the island. The first couple days I was up in Mere for a wedding celebration. A lot of it was pretty normal wedding stuff but there were some highlights: While Dom and I were chilling waiting for the next event to happen the day before the ceremony we met an elderly man who struck up a conversation with us. He gave us his life history in a long, drawn out story with almost every other year of his life stated and what happened during that year. Exhausting, but I couldn’t get over what this guy was sporting. He is the first old Ni-Van I’ve seen actually wearing old person clothes. Most elderly here just wear what everyone else does, old shirts and shorts with flip-flops or island dresses on the mamas. But, this guy was wearing baby blue, polyester bell-bottoms, a collared shirt, and white Keds. He looked to me like an old Cuban guy. Naturally, I had to get a picture and realized what a great find it was when, after the picture was taken, he told us his name: Abel Dick. How about that one! That ranks right up there with Dick Butkiss. After he had left Dom and I both revealed our similar strategies of not looking at one another in order to abstain from laughing out loud after hearing the name. Yes, I know we have juvenile senses of humor and guess what? I don’t care what you think.

During the ceremony everyone’s attention was thwarted from the event when one guy was being hauled away with a big gash in his head. We later found out that he had fallen on a bottle but he was alright as we saw him at Independence Day with a rag on his head. Some of the youth and young men (18&up) like to get rip shit wasted during wedding celebrations of home brew (fermented fruit and yeast). In fact, Dominique’s counter part, Tatu, a fairly professional, normal villager, caused a minor scene at the cake cutting ceremony. We, the Peace Corps guys (me, Dom, Rob & Gleny), were invited guests at the cake cutting and thus were seated in the dining hall with about 40 other family members. All of a sudden Tatu stumbles into the room and nearly knocks down an entire table of food. About a half hour later, the eating is done and some people have started dancing to the string band music. Well, Tatu comes back in and starts dancing doing this funny ass shaking thing and grabs us all one by one to dance with him. The whole thing was very funny and Tatu managed to break a glass, probably with his ass, before the dancing is over.

After the wedding the four of us went down to Rob & Gleny’s house via a mountain goat-like trail where we all were sliding all over the place. This is part of the celebration as the bride was from Mere and now she was being brought down to the groom’s village, her new home. There was to be a lafet (party) and more food. We entered the party dancing to string band music and the mamas in front of us were splashing baby powder on newly arrived people’s necks. This powdering is very common here during ceremonies. When our turn came we got doused with powder as usual, but one mama inadvertently shot me directly in the eye with powder. All I saw was a big shot of white in one eye a split second before it happened. I left for a few minutes to flush out my eye and rejoined the festivities. The party went on until the sun came up, but we fell off around 10 as only a handful of really drunk Ni-Van yangfala were left. Rob had been looking for Jerry, his host-family brother to score some homebrew, but we couldn’t find him. When we were about to go to sleep Rob said that he had found him and I should take a look. Jerry was passed out not even a foot outside the barbed wire fence that surrounds Rob’s house. We both talked of his fortune of not passing out actually on the fence. I woke up at around 5 in the morning to hear the music still bumping. By the way Ni-Vans take first prize for use of the repeat button. You’ll hear the same song in one night at least ten times at any event, and usually it’s one of three songs that are popular nationwide for the month. Anyway, I wake up and decide I’m hungry and then decide to walk down to the lafet to see if any food is left. There’s about four guys passed out around the community hall including one guy that was fading and a mentally ill man (harmless) roaming about and mumbling shit. One guy was passed out right in front of the speakers and the sound that was coming out of the speakers was so loud I couldn’t hear the sane guy talking to me a foot away. I don’t know how a person can sleep like that! Dude, at least crawl a few feet away. Turns out they’ve got some laplap and pig. I chow down, story for a few minutes, and head back to the house to sleep.

The next morning we hitch a truck ride to the farthest village on Nguna, Untanlangi, for the Independence Day celebration. If we were to hike it would take at least a few hours up and down some nice size hills. We arrive at the village only to find the partially nuts guy that was partying until 6 in the morning already there. That guy set out at about 8, probably still drunk, and marched his ass without any water or anything up and down some gnarly hills and was chilling, smiling, and fully awake when we arrived. Man is a champion! This guy, Homeboy, as we affectionately referred to him as, was a source of our and many other’s entertainment for the 3-day celebration. I know what you’re thinking how mean …yatty yattah, but people here do care well for people that are mentally ill or disabled as they are fed and looked after well by the community. They just happen to be around the village rather than in some home or insane ward like we know it in the States. There’s also a kid that’s about 20 years old in my village that likes to talk to trees and the sea. His main verbal communications are a sound like a motorcycle starting up (da da da doe) followed by a few winding cat sounds (rearrww rearww). But back to Homeboy… this guy seems fairly normal until he opens his mouth and spouts some nonsensical off-topic thing at you. I think he’s got a cocktail of bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia. Although, most of the time he seems to be on the positive end of the spectrum, wearing a big grin, and enjoying life.

So Homeboy is wearing the same socks that he was wearing two days ago when we first arrived. And he’s wearing flip-flops, making the white socks become very brown over time. Although he doesn’t change his socks, everyday he comes up with a new outfit somehow, always layered and amusing selections. When he greets you he gives you a thumbs up, smiles, clicks his tongue, and shifts his head from side to side like a greasy used car salesman. Just watching his actions from a far was interesting for us. He repeatedly re-organized benches, danced his ass off for the entire celebration, and many times left people with which he had just interacted with a “What the hell?!” bewildered look.

On the day of the actual celebration the Peace Corps crew were again invited guests and as such were requested to sit on stage with chiefs and other important people. They would call your name, hang a salu salu (like a Hawaiian lei), and you go on stage. Well, when a forester, who was not present was called, Homeboy decided someone had called his name, got a salu salu, and joined us on stage sitting right next to me. I guess the people decided to just go with it. What the hell right? We sat down and I admired his attire: new outfit same socks, now 5 days worn, dark brown, and ripped in a few places. Man, just take the socks off! Its at least 80 degrees outside. When it came time to hand out a few books that had the words for the Vanuatu National Anthem, Homeboy decided to help pass some out. When he went to sit down he missed his mark and sat right on my lap. I politely moved him over, he apologized, and it took every bit of energy I had not to laugh.

Later in the day they were giving away the second hand clothes that weren’t sold in the first few days of the festival. Homeboy decided to indulge and came out with an outfit with a Gilligan hat, women’s nightgown, over his already-layered clothes. Then he got on stage, grabbed what looked like a purse, and danced for about 5 minutes.

Other than some interesting things viewed by Homeboy, the food was great and cheap too. About $1.50 a plate for such things like steak, omelets (had to special order), and chicken wings; all served with rice and other side dishes. There was also a really impressive sunset one day, and I got a chance to snap a few pictures. The kava there was also of good quality and we indulged in the spirit of celebration, sometimes with an ice cold Tusker, a novel thing in village life where there is no refrigeration.

There weren’t any flashy things like fireworks but the celebration lasted three days and a lot of activities were going on. I won a match of petangue and lost a close teams game after. We didn’t get into the volleyball tourney because we were an hour late for registration. We watched the final match though, and I think the Pele teams played at a little higher level. By the way, when I got back to Pele I found out that the Piliura team won the championship for the Pele Island celebration. Always good to hear. Some of the guys seem pretty receptive to the beach doubles tournament idea, so I’ll have to work on that one.

After the celebration the four of us (volunteers) headed back to Mere to Plan out the workshop. We’re going to hold seven 3-day workshops during September and October throughout the Nguna-Pele community (~16 villages). I’m pretty excited about it as it also really benefits Dom and me because we’ll have Rob and Gleny (seasoned workshop veterans) working on it with us, and we’ll get to meet a lot of people in the community. Cranking away on material for the workshop is part of the reason I’m going to Vila this weekend. Also need some more supplies, and catch a couple baseball games. I’ll try to email a bit if I get time on Sunday.