Saturday was the day that Phil, the Australian co-ordinator,
and Terry, the in-country co-ordinator, were meant to arrive in our little
slice of Pentecost. We got a text saying they were coming on Sunday, giving us
a free day.
I discovered the name for the eight shaped donuts is
“gateau”, just like French cake. We helped make 47 of them for breakfast and as
a result didn't eat until after 10 because it takes a while to cook them all. I
ate two without blinking. The rest of the morning was spent lazing around and
reading. Kesia, my sister in year 3, came to collect me to go to the garden. We
left Courtney sleeping off a headache and I grabbed my bush knife. In case you
haven’t guessed, I love my bush knife.
Turned out I was going to the garden with my family, the
ones that are not Courtney’s. Kay dropped me off at my family’s garden. I
hadn’t seen a great deal of my family. I taught two of my siblings, Hensley and
Firenze, but they live down at Wosak village and my Daddy is a francophone so I
had to learn Bislama. My baby sister, Nikki, was not at all impressed with me
and spent a lot of time crying. Weird, white girls, I know right. By the end of
the day, she was better but I still didn't get a cuddle.
I spent that afternoon with them, eating sugar cane and
answering questions before lunch. They had a lot of questions about family and
Australia. Daddy is very talkative, Mammy would help when we got stuck with the
language. We had banana laplap for lunch with island cabbage. Island cabbage
will never be on my list of favourites, but I ate all of it and most of my
laplap. I also had pawpaw which I was truly in love with. Firenze, who is in
class one for the first time, and I ended up sitting outside while Mammy
roasted taro in the garden hut, baby Nikki did not want to join us.
On the grand tour of the garden, I quickly discovered that
they grow just about everything. Sugarcane, kava, banana, manioc, yam, taro,
kumala, pawpaw, island cabbage and coconut. I planted a banana tree which I was
assured would grow big and strong. I also helped Mammy pick island cabbage and
wrap it into the packages to be carried back. I didn’t carry the cabbage but I
did carry a piece of sugarcane longer than I was tall all the way back to Level
and I didn’t fall over once. Mammy informed me that she was going to teach me
to weave. They were going to make a proper island girl out of me.
Daddy came to visit a little later and gave me a tin of
corned meat, meat blo taro. This was after I had showered, so I was clean and
wearing different clothes. He thought I was Courtney because I washing clothes
like she had been when he walked past earlier. We both laughed when we
established that I was in fact the daughter he was looking for.
This is the time that I had discovered that there was a rat
eating my sandals. Turns out that leather sandals are a tasty snack for the
rats who lived in our house. I had to keep finding new hiding places for my
shoes because everywhere I thought up seemed to not be as rat proof as I
thought. I didn’t wear my sandals for the most part anyway. My thongs broke in
Mangaliliu and it took a lot to explain why I didn’t wear shoes, so I needed my
sandals to stay in one piece for when I did need some form of protection.
Sunday dawned on us with excitement in the air and pig on
our breakfast plates. We didn’t go to church because no one really knew when
Terry and Phil would be arriving, instead we stayed on station and made banana
pie. It amused everyone passing by as we were still fairly hopeless at making
fires. My Mammy came past and gave us a hand with that. She also gave us taro
and kumala. A lot of the local kids came with her and were intrigued by our
cooking. The best part was baby Nikki holding my hand twice!
Terry and Phil arrived in style as Courtney and I were
drinking tea. They were walked to the school from just outside the station,
surrounded by a group of the men who were singing before they were presented
with flowers and baskets. Many speeches were given by board members, Phil and
Terry, Dad and a letter from a previous volunteer, Nikki, was read out. The
year 1/2s sung the choruses very quietly but word perfect. We were all given
morning tea and we presented Phil and Terry with the banana pie, topped with Nutella.
Everyone laughed at the pie, not because it was funny but because they were
proud of us and impressed that we had tried something like that. Phil was
amazed we still had Nutella.
Lunch had the two of us eating out of banana leaves and not
being treated as guests anymore, we sat with the women and kids after a bit of
talking with the men. The mixing of the cultures was a bit funny. Shortly after
lunch Phil and Terry had to leave and life returned to relative normal. The
afternoon was spent painting nails, playing ukulele, painting Courtney’s
ukulele and writing out the words to Christian songs we could remember so we could teach them to the kids.
That evening all of our sisters started getting sick with
coughs and shivers. They had been fine while the entire village system was
about but they ended up falling asleep in the kitchen, poor things. It was a
busy weekend for everyone so maybe they were just worn out, the kids were often
sick though. Didn’t seem to stop them enjoying themselves for the most part.
Love from Me and My Backpack
