the post man, fresh pineapple, and vip chickens

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so. two nights ago i received not one, but two new letters from sher! both were post-marked with the same date, but about 2 weeks apart when she wrote them. the one i'm about to post looks like it had a pretty rough trip getting here! i apologize in advance for my little typing errors; sometimes my fingers get so excited as i'm going along, that they get a little jumbled! i will hold posting the other until next week. oh the suspense...-b

january 12, 2009

it's the second week of january, but we're still celebrating christmas. the plane was able to land yesterday for the first time in about three weeks, and on it came a load of mail; we're talking letters in the double digits! instead of tearing into them all right away, i've rationed them out: one a day for the next two weeks. a little nook in our house has a small clothesline with seven clothes pins - one for each day of the week. so now, i'm sitting on the porch with a lap desk made of pecan wood (thanks grandpa!) jamming to my favorite christmas songs (thanks b!) and basking at the potential of all that mail! christmas music definitely can be justified all year long.

justin says some of you may be wondering why the plane hasn't been able to land in a few weeks. well it all started with rain. lots of rain. and then, since the runway for the airport is a flattened field of grass, that rain inspired some vines and other plants into a burst of growth so thick that even when it was dry, the plane couldn't land on the overgrown runway. now maewo has about five trucks, one tractor, and two push mowers, but it doesn't have the equipment to clear bush that thick. so a mowing implement was sent by boat from ambae (a neighboring island) and attached to the tractor to clear the runway. then it rained some more. but not too much; so the plane finally landed!

you always know when the plane is going to land because you'll see (or hear) the island's five trucks heading for the airport. then, about an hour later, no matter where you are, you can hear the plane land. this is not because the plane is big and noisy. in fact, i think the plane sounds rather like a fly buzzing around in an empty pop can and that's probably a more accurate size comparison too. no, the reason you can always hear the plane land is because a sound that metallic and automated is a rarity, and i love that. any time a truck or generator or ship or plane is running, virtually everyone knows and most can probably tell you where it is going or why it is running.

so the plane lands and all the passengers and cargo are unloaded. this is where it is key to be in good with the truck drivers. if you're not there to pick up your mail from the plane (which for us would be a $35 trip), then your mail is handed to one of the truck drivers. if the truck sees you on it's way back from the airport, he'll stop and pass along your mail. if not, then your mail probably ends up at wherever that truck parks for the night. once we just happened to be going to the store for rice when the lady said, "oh yeah! here's some mail for you too!" usually, we know when to be expecting mail so we can get the word out to the drivers and tell them where we'll be that day. one little exception: if a package comes that needs to be signed for, then all your mail will be taken to the post office. the post office is a building that i have never seen opened. a nice, cement structure with a classy little sign, but i think it's just for looks. luckily, we're in good with the post master too.

this morning, the post master came mosying into our yard. he is easily recognizable because he is the only ni-van i have ever seen who regularly has an upkept goatee. that and he never wears a shirt, but always carries one. that and he has a nice pot belly and white streaks in his hair and beard. so he comes over with a handful of nafel nuts and starts chatting with justin while poking around the yard, looking for a sturdy large stone. he finds a good one and carries it over to a chunk of coral in the yard and starts splitting open his loot. he and justin story on and on and fifiteen minutes later, he gets to the point of letting us know that we have mail waiting at his house (yes, house, which is right behind, but definitely not, the post office). the mention of mail makes me giddy and i bustle about, tucking away the leftovers from breakfast so the ants won't come and toss things in my island basket so we're ready to go. but island time doesn't work like that. i pull shut the door and try to appear nonchalant as i take a seat on the porch with our distinguished teddy bear post master and my wildly bearded husband. moments later we're on our way down the road to retrieve the mail. and that, my friends, is a glimpse at the postal service on maewo.

we went to the market on saturday. every saturday some villages hold a market in the afternoons. we went with justin's host mama to check it out, our mouths watering for some fresh pineapple or pamplamoose. we started walking around 10 am since it would take about two hours to get here. luckily, one of my "bumbus" (grandpa's brother) drives a truck and was going to he market to pick up a pig for an upcoming wedding. to market, to market to buy a fresh pig...anyway, he drove by as we were walking and offered us a lift. so we bumped and jostled down the road and picked up justin's mama and got there way too early. jusitn's mama took us down the road a little further to meet some more extended family. it would be no exaggeration to say that everyone on maewo is related. we sat and chatted under a hot tin roof on a slab of cement, eating slices of watermelon. then, we borrowed a mat from the auntie who we just met and headed back to the market house.

justin's mama took the mat and sat it square in the middle of the one room house. along the edges of the room were about a dozen small, desk sized talbes with benches behind them. as women came in with something to sell, they chose a table and set their goods out on it, taking a seat on the bench. women came in with food parcels made of banana leaves, large metal waste basins, and island baskets. although justin and i were in the market for some fruit, most of the women generously offered portions of their laplap or baked water taro for us to munch on. somehow we wound up just sitting on the mat with women carrying samplings of their food to us and setting it on the banana leaf plate beside us. we sat back and watched the dynamics of market life unfold; nothing short of dinner and a movie.

the market concept is an interesting one to watch, especially on an island that does not depend too heavily on currency, or at least i think that's why the transactions seemed so different. when someone came with food to sell, everyone in the market, including fellow sellers, rushed to the newcomers table to check out what they had brought. interested buyers may sneak a peek inside a banana leaf bundle to reaffirm its contents. usually a seller would sell out in about ten minutes; then sit at their bench until someone else came along. people going up to the tables with the intent to buy were giddy, fingering their money as if it was something awkward and foreign. after buying something, it was either stowed away at that persons table or eaten right away. in addition to laplap, which sold for 20 vatu plain, 40 vatu with meat, there was raosted corn, watermelon, baked taro and crabs at the market that day. just as we were about to leave, a late comer showed up with pineapple and justin quickly bought her out; 3 fresh pineapples for 150 vatu (about $1.50). happy with our haul, we loaded back into the truck; carefully so as not to distrub the pig that was tied at the legs and nestled next to the spare tire at the rear of the truck bed.

the truck dropped us off in front of the store close to our house. inside a woman was selling food to raise money for school fees. school fees are one of the few things about life on maewo that requires a fairly substantial amount of money. especially for students who have to pay to travel to another island for secondary level education. in this case, the woman's daughter was going to the capital for universtiy level classes at the vanuatu institute of technology. for 100 vatu, we bought a bnana leaf bundle of rice with chunks of beef, onion, and pepper on top. a pretty good deal to get some beef in your system!

in closing, here are afew little news blips. they may seem trite, but they are the run of the mill small things that keep life interesting around there. our chicken population has been reduced by one. the remaining five justin has tagged using electric blue hair elastics from my stash. our chickens proudly strut around with them like they are vip passes to a night club. our kitchen counter/cabinet is now boasting a new set of curtains. i busted out the old needle and thread and sewed them by hand to conceal the clutter of plates and cups as well as our stash of snacks that are stored on the shelf beneath our counter top. with the extra fabric, i made an elastic waisted skirt that i can pull up under my arms like a strapless dress. it's big enough that i can soap up and rinse off underneath fairly easily. it will come in handy when i shower at the faucet in our yard and all the teachers and students are here for school. until then i'm enjoying showers with nothing but me, the stars, and the coconut palms.

we're continuing to experiment in cooking with local foods. justin has found some small red peppers that grow wild by the road, so we each grab a handful every time we walk by. he's got some soaking in oil for stirfrys, some drying out to be chopped up and used as a spice, and some he has reserved for seeds to try and plant in our yard. our families are all impressed by our zest for "aelan kakae" (island food). they give us things to cook and we return the favor by baking some banana or papaya bread every once in a while. we get lots of water taro, island cabbage, and bananas; then there is the occasional big green gord looking thing that no one seems to know the name of but everyone swears you can eat.

there is what used to be a storage shed for a boat right next to our house. the man with the boat moved, so we took advantage of the roofed area and hung a clothesline. it is right in line with the ocean, so our clothes get tostled around by the ocean winds. this is huge because clothes here can take days to dry in the constant rain and humidity. now our clothes are often dry in the same day that we wash them!

i'm working on a theory that there are about five differnet kinds of mosquito bites. i swear, there are different sizes, shapes, and amounts of pain depending, possibly, on the mosquito. some disappear within minutes, some the day, and some of the little boogers itch and scratch and carry on for days. then, it seems that a certain kind of bite always appears on the same place on your body. small square bites with large red blotches around them frequent the arms and chest, super scratchy ones with raised middles like a mountain peak cover my ankles. if anyone has any info on this, send it my way.

-sher

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Comments

[Heather]

Hi Sher and Justin! I love reading your blogs...kudos to both of you for the fantastic adventures you're having! Your descriptions are great and it makes me wish I was there to see it. Can't wait to hear more...in the mean time I hope to get a letter headed your way. :)