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A real garden here is not a hobby; it's the way the family will
eat (or not) for the next year, and is mostly devoted to staple
root crops like manioc and taro. We are gradually expanding our
planted area back into the "bush," and I pull the six
foot tall grass one root at a time, with pliers, as we go. A great
deal of it grows back anyway, and I have to pull it again, along
with baby acacia trees. Gardening in the rain forest is not for
sissies. But then, Montana is not exactly the easiest place to
grow food either.
One task that needed to be completed before the hot season was
the repair of our window screens. With Lora outside and me inside,
we passed a needle back and forth between us, and sewed small
patches on all the holes that the rats had chewed. Knots were
too small to anchor the thread, so if you look carefully, you
can see the little seed bead we used to begin each patch.
One day of high tide and high wind we went to Sara Beach and
the girls body-surfed. They were so fun to watch! They would wait,
and then try to time the swimming just right, and then stroke
like crazy until they were dropped, or scraped, or even rolled
onto the beach. I wish that I could have brought every student
I ever taught to that beach, that day.
We brought a few favorite Christmas decorations with us from
the U.S., and our house looked quite festive. Our tree was a tagboard
cutout taped to the cinderblock kitchen wall, and the ornaments
were taped to it. Now that it's time to take them down and pack
them away, we notice that the cutout metal snowflake has rusted,
and the star folded from reeds is moldy.
We spent Christmas Eve at Sara Top, the little cascade and pool
where the Sara River is best for swimming. The girls floated on
log "boats" that they tied onto trees along the shore
with vines. This was the first time that they had taken snorkeling
masks, and they were amazed to see all the freshwater fish we
were swimming with. In spite of sunblock and staying in the shade,
we were all sunburned a little. We still underestimate the force
of the sun here. (Note to my former students: Do you remember
how I used to hassle you about sunburn every chance I got? I think
my lectures usually started with something like "Welcome
to the third planet!" This is your big chance to pay me back!)
We celebrated Christmas morning with a small church service.
Each family shared something about how they welcome new babies
in their culture. Loloma, Pastor Tom's wife from Fiji, told of
how the mother and baby are kept inside a hut for 30 days, and
only women can visit. Not even the father gets to see his baby
until the end of the month, when the mother and the child are
escorted down to the sea and formally splashed with seawater in
a ceremony ending their confinement. A visitor shared how baby
announcements are made in the Shepherd Islands: a crier walks
around the village calling out the word for "village meeting
house" if it's a boy, or just the word for "house"
if it's a girl. Jonathon said that on Nguna, a second-born child
cannot visit any neighboring village until the firstborn has already
visited it and established the relationship between the villages.
Pastor Tom said that on Tanna, where a woman still almost always
leaves her home village and moves to the village of her husband,
a firstborn girl is simply announced in the mother's home village,
but the birth of a firstborn boy is a big occasion. Everyone from
the mother's original village comes to visit her at her new home,
and they have the right to carry off pretty much anything of value;
bananas, manioc, even pigs can be taken away unless they are carefully
hidden in the bush from the visitors. I said that in the U.S.
we often put a rosebud on the Communion table in church to announce
the birth of a new child in the congregation. The Ni-Vanuatu appreciated
the symbolism in that tradition, but thought that it was pretty
paltry. Just one flower!
On the morning after Christmas, which was Montana's afternoon
of the 25th, we telephoned my folks as a special Christmas treat
for the girls (and ourselves!). It is so strange to be able to
talk easily and clearly to family 7000 miles away! Again, I find
myself in tune with the nineteenth century, marveling at Mr. Bell's
amazing new machine. I get kind of tongue-tied, thinking too much
about the distance between us and the fact that we can talk, instead
of just talking.
December 26 is Family Day here, so the Onesua community went
to Sara Beach for a picnic. We sat in the shade and talked, and
parents floated their little kids around. The girls snorkeled
first with Maki, a Japanese volunteer who works here as a PE teacher.
Then I snorkeled some more with Kinsey, even though it was low
tide, back and forth across the reef. Sometimes we wondered if
the water would be deep enough to keep from scraping our bellies
on the coral. Other times, we floated over little canyons where
the fish hang suspended below the waves. We can communicate with
each other by pointing and gesturing, but it's easier to just
hold hands. That way, you stay close together and you know where
the other person wants to tug you. Kinsey spotted a large piece
of a lavender sea urchin shell in fairly deep water, dove to retrieve
it, and carried it cradled in her hands back to the beach.
The kids received some new computer games for Christmas, and
so now one of them plays Jeopardy or Zapper while the other one
does dishes in the evening. Harry Potter was getting a little
old, and they are happy to have something a little different for
their daily dose of civilization.
Tropical storm Zoe formed over by Fiji on Christmas Eve, wandered
just past the northern end of Vanuatu, and then suddenly squatted
down on top of two little islands in the extreme south of the
Solomon Islands for two days and became one of the strongest cyclones
on record. It had sustained winds of over 200 mph. We spent last
Saturday helping nail shutters closed on the empty staff houses,
and being grateful that we did not have to evacuate students.
Then we all just listened to the radio for updates. At one point,
it was predicted that it might stomp down the whole length of
Vanuatu, but instead of coming south, it moved back east, the
direction it came from, and is now drifting into the empty sea
south of the line between Vanuatu and Fiji. We all heaved a sigh
of relief, especially after we were down at the beach yesterday.
This storm probably never came closer than 200 miles to us, but
the waves yesterday were the largest I have seen here, including
the waves from Cyclone Prima 10 years ago, which came right over
the top of us. The high tide yesterday reached clear across the
road in front of the school. There has been no contact with the
two islands in the Solomons, although a plane from Australia was
going to attempt a flyover today and the seas should allow boat
travel tomorrow. About 1300 people live there, most of them in
traditional thatched huts.
We celebrated New Year's Eve by playing Monopoly (another computer
game) and then cards. The games had to be finished by kerosene
lamplight because the generator was turned off, same as usual,
at 9:30. Lora and Emily went to bed, but Kinsey and I stayed up
to go to the midnight service. We played some more cards and then
went for a walk. It was totally clear, and this was Kinsey's first
good look at the southern sky. I have spent a lot of time out
under northern skies, and I am always impressed by the southern
stars, which are thronged around the galactic center. It helps,
of course, that we are so isolated and so non-electrified. Moonless
nights are dark here. We walked down toward the beach, and I lay
down in the road to look carefully and comfortably. After a while,
Kinsey said, "Dad, there's a car coming!" Oh, well!
We continued down to the beach, where, vaguely visible over the
island of Emau, we could see Ursa Major's feet poking up. I could
almost feel the curve of the earth, as if I was just peering over
a large beach ball. This planet is really small! Then the generator
was turned back on, and the two of us joined a midnight service
of hymn-singing in one of the classrooms. Pastor Tom banged away
on the school bell, which is an old gas cylinder suspended by
a chain, to ring in the new year. Then he disappeared, so Kinsey
and I shook everyone's hands, wished them all a happy new year,
and walked home. It turns out that we missed the party. Pastor
Tom had gone to get the refreshments, and people ate and sang
for another hour or two. This morning they said that they were
surprised that we had left, but they thought that maybe we were
tired, so they did not call us back. They also did not come to
our house to sing, which is done here at New Year's instead of
at Christmas, because they figured that we were asleep by then.
It is always surprising to me how little we know, and how easily
we miss the cues that people within the culture take for granted.
Lora and I began the new year by transplanting three banana trees
to our garden. By 9:00 in the morning we were overheated and sweaty,
but feeling good about the future. We hope that the coming year
is rich with new beginnings for all of you, and that your work
is fruitful. May you hold hands even if you don't really need
to, imagine what lies just beyond the curve of the horizon, and
miss as few celebrations as possible.
Happy New Year!
Love and Peace,
Bruce
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 191
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