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Published: September 18th 2009
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Flying Fox
Aldayer and Tapasei with the flying fox. This one is a little smaller than average, according to the boys. here's another blog. this week flew by for me; have a fun weekend planned at a big cc meet in joplin. that's what my saturday will be. hope you have a great one and weekend. - b
25 July 2009
Today was Saturday. We had big plans; namely three buckets full of wash. We’re both getting over the flu (actually, the whole island is), so, the sheets, towels, the whole works needed a good soap and bleach treatment. But, no rush. This weekend all of the students at the secondary school, who usually sleep in dorms at the school and wake us around 5 am with their terrific singing, were spending the weekend out, so we decided to put off the chores for awhile and (ahem) sleep in.
In the midst of our nap time, Justin noticed a small head pop up into the window. My little brother Aldayer; always keeping us on our toes. He has lately taken up the habit of climbing on top of our big, five gallon wash buckets to look in the bedroom window. Slightly annoying. I was impressed Justin mustered up the Bislama phrase, “Yu huia?” (Who is it?) that early
Sophia and the Starfish
Here's Sophia holding up a huge blue starfish for a good look at how big it is to scale with a person. in the morning. The crunching coral of his retreating footsteps were the only answer we heard.
Now that we were up and around, a quick breakfast and then we started with the wash, swept the house, and reapplied fresh ant spray to the floor by the door and around the trash can. No sign of Aldayer until we were half way through the third bucket and he came running back into the yard. Now that we could see him, we knew why he had come so early this morning. Our other brother, Ronald, had stoned a flying fox. Flying fox is the Bislama name for giant bats that soar in Vanuatu. Every once in awhile, someone will stone one to eat it. I have never tasted it, but I’ve heard that the bad smell makes any chance of enjoying the meat small; unless its’ cooked with lemon. I’d only glimpsed their silhouettes from a ground’s eye view. A few days earlier, I had made Ronald promise me he would let me take a picture of the next one he got before he ate it. Now here was Aldayer holding up his brother’s end of the deal. He and neighbor
Coral
Love that underwater setting! boy Tapasei stretched the flying fox’s wings out for a few pictures. I gave Aldayer a lemon to cook with the flying fox and he was off again, saying he would see us in the afternoon for a swim in the “solwata.”
We finished the wash and Justin was off to another village about 15 minutes away to set up a solar panel. I took the time to hang out the wet clothes and veg out with a book. He came back and we had our typical lunch of tin tuna stir fried with vegetables, today: onion and green pepper, over rice. Then we got to thinking about Aldayer coming back to swim in the afternoon. Justin got an ornery gleam in his eye and started planning a bit of revenge on Aldayer for his window peeping earlier this morning.
A huge cashew tin was converted into a pail full of mud, leaves, flour, and water and strung outside the window. The string extended into the house through the window, under the mosquito net, and all the way to Justin’s pillow side. Justin strategically stacked two of the three wash buckets off to the side and placed the
Snack Time?
These are the shells Sophia retrieved for us to snack on. The meat inside was probably less than 1/5 the size of the shell and tasted like really chewy salty chicken. third right under the cashew tin full of muck; and the whole time I’m thinking, “I’ve married my Uncle Mark.” A few trial runs and a heap of laughter later, we had it perfect. And we could hardly wait for Aldayer to come peep in the window again.
We shut the front door, but left the dishes and our shoes outside so that when he came, he would know we were home but think we were sleeping. Then, we hid. Actually, I fell asleep waiting, but not Justin. He woke me as Aldayer with my sister Sophia came up to the house. Sophia almost spoiled the plan, though, as she kept Aldayer from coming to look in the window. She thought we were sleeping and they sat on the front porch chatting until we woke up. Justin stayed inside, by his precious string, while I went outside to act like I just woke up. Aldayer was asking for Justin, “Tawi wea?” Remember from the family blog how sibling in-laws refer to each other as Tawi. They also make a habit of “spoiling” each other by “tok plei” or other pranks. Here was Justin doing just that.
I told Aldayer I wasn’t sure if he was still sleeping or not, that maybe he should go check. Sure enough, he ran to the bucket to look in the window and Splat! the tin of muck splashed down his back. He was very confused, while Sophia, Justin, and I howled in laughter. A perfect shot!
We headed down to the beach, goggles, beach ball, and camera in tow. Sophia and I decided to try out the underwater mode of our camera and left the boys to clean Aldayer up and hang out in the shallow water. After a few moments in the water, it became apparent that Sophia was a lot more used to looking at marine life than I. She kept diving down and coming up with shells that I couldn’t even spot, even when she pointed them out to me. I played tourist with my camera while she got about a dozen of the shells. Her hands full, we noticed the boys heading back to the house and decided to follow.
July may be blistering hot in Kansas, but its’ Vanuatu’s winter. It still feels hot, but in the afternoon, evenings and especially when its’ windy, it can get pretty chilly. Coming out of the water was one such chilling experience. Back at the house, we rinsed off at the pipe and made plans for hot chocolate inside. Sophia thought we should fry the meat from the shells she’d picked up to go with the hot chocolate, so she set to work splitting the (beautiful, sigh) shells with two stones and picking the small, slimy creature out of the pieces. These were not much bigger around than a crayon and only about an inch log. She fried them with a little salt and oil while I boiled water for hot chocolate. And odd combination for a snack, but it worked.
By now, our little afternoon party had attracted a crowd. Tapasei and another neighbor boy, Radai, romped over to see what we were up to. The loved the story of Aldayer getting plastered with a tin full of muck so much, that they with Justin decided to set one up in our local kitchen. This, they planned, Justin could use to wash hands of unexpectant people who walk into the kitchen. On Maewo, the custom is to wash a person’s hands before they drink stone ground kava. Additionally, you can trick someone into having to drink by washing their hands. Once your hands are washed, than the kava is intended for you and its’ taboo not to drink. With this bucket over the kitchen door, a quick flick of the wrist would doom someone into drinking kava. The boys thought this was hilarious.
The sun was starting to “drown” in the saltwater when I cut through the coconut plantation/cow pasture to take Sophia and Aldayer back home. There, we laughed some more with Mami about Justin’s little prank.
Just another Saturday on Maewo.
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