12-24 Steph’s Wedding

HUGE CAKE!!

Having a number of other white people around has been nice. It means we can get some down time with people who (at least mostly) share our culture. Recently, it also meant an interesting blend of developed world and ni-Van culture when one of our white neighbors married a local.

Steph’s family has been coming here since she was little. They have a church connection to Ranwadi school, the anglophone secondary near us. A few years ago, the principal at Ranwadi asked if she wanted to come teach there. Once she finished high school herself, she moved here to do so. Six months later, she was engaged to the deputy principal.
On the truck down to the weddig

This wedding was more of a combination of church and kastom than usual due to the white people and their different expectations. Firstly, there was a ceremony to adopt Steph into a family here. This is standard when a woman from another island marries into the area. I was not back from Vila yet and didn’t get to see the ceremony.
The day of the wedding started with a walk to Ranwadi so I could jump onto the truck to the village. I considered wearing my loincloth but Steph may have actuallykilled me. I settled for having Georgia tell her I’d done it, which was almost enough to get me un-invited anyway. After meeting her family, I jumped in the truck to the village.
First up was the kastom ceremony. This involved her new papa talking a lot. Partly in local and partly in Bislama. Most of the Bislama was about the families and countries coming together. Then the relatives walked circles around them and took the token presents – mainly luggage, baskets, and food. Then red mats and money were given to her family. This involved a lot more talking by the chief which was mostly in language. After that, Steph’s Aussie father walked circles around everything and took the gifts. I believe he may have given them to the community, school, or couple. That would have been in private but I know that he was uncomfortable taking gifts from the community when he comes here as a volunteer. This concluded the kastom portion of the wedding.
For some reason she got poked with sticks.

Next we went to the church and waited for people to change into their fancy clothes. I am always astounded at the nice clothes that come out at church weddings. It is the only time they are worn and it looks so out of place. Once the bridal party got there, they started the church service. It was very similar to church weddings I’ve been to back home. Except for the cameras. There is no camera etiquette here. During the ceremony there were half a dozen or so who would get right up on the dais where everything was happening to take pictures. I was reminded that I have been here for a while when I looked over from among them at the white people standing back to take their photos. With my willingness to get right in and my new shutter-bug tendencies, I was basically the official photographer. After A LOT (and boy do I mean a lot) of worshiping and singing, the ceremony was done and the receiving line started outside. At some point, the rain started. This being Vanuatu, some umbrellas were held up over the party so the line could keep going.
The wedding party

Finally, everything was finished and we moved to a makeshift “tent” for food. There was a whole lot of food to be had, even for Vanuatu. Big parties here often have food I would have found tasty back home but with the white people in town they out-did themselves. There was even champagne and cold cokes. Then there was the cake. It seemed like there was as much cake as there was food. Yum.
The strangest part of the whole thing was the difference in attitudes. In the developed world, weddings are exciting. Here, the woman is leaving her family and will generally have very little, if any, contact with them. People cry at weddings at home, here they wail. The Aussies were excited and the ni-Vans were crying. I’ve noted the difference before but seeing it right in front of me really highlighted the gap.
Slightly damp receiving line.

There was also Steph’s nephew. White kids are babied. The ni-Van kids his age are mostly running around on their own and often waving knives around. (Some of the babying is a good thing.) The white kid had constant parental attention and did things like tossing a shell he found and looking to his parents to get it. I honestly couldn’t tell whether he was actually being bratty/demanding or if it just seemed that way compared to the kids here.

Nothing shows differences so starkly as seeing them juxtaposed. All-in-all, it was an interesting combination.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to Steph since the wedding and am curious to find out how she is liking village life. I hope that they have a successful and happy life together.

12-23 Melsisi had a Birthday

Presents were given out, though not to the school
College Lyceéde Melsisi (that’s the full name of Jason’s school) turned 25 this year. We had a birthday party.
Every term is opened and closed with a party. This year, the school closing party* was joined with the school anniversary to make one great big party. They held it on a Sunday and moved church two hours early to have more party time, it was that big.
We started with some opening talks while people laid out lunch. All the teachers and important people from the community got fed, which was great. While we were eating, there was lots of talking. I sort of zone out at these functions now, it is safer for my sanity.
There was a cake-cutting ceremony. It was a big fancy cake made by one of the nuns. They symbolically cut it and inaugurated the monument at the same time. I didn’t see any of that as I was busy eating the cake they’d put inside and didn’t make a big deal of cutting. I prefer cake I can eat to cake I can watch someone else cut. Can you blame me?
These boys did a very nice song and dance for the party.

Around that time, the band started playing. The band is a local group comprised mostly of guys from Lalbateis, the village next to mine. My co-facilitator from the PHAST workshops is one of the key members of the band. They recently went to Santo and played 3-4 nights a week for two months. The amount of practice time they got in really shows. They have improved. They also learned some new songs including Hotel California. There is something unique about a Francophone-Bislama accent singing Hotel California. “Wel-kem tu di otel kaleeforniya, suj a lovelee ples, suj a lovely fes….”

They start the dancing young.

After the band played, some more people talked. There was thanks to the founding headmaster, the first chairman of the board and the first teachers, all of whom still live in Melsisi. There were talks by each of them. There was a group of boys who did a song specially composed for the 25thanniversary, with hand gestures and everything. There was a speech by the current headmaster and the current chair of the board. There was some people who just seemed to want to talk into the microphone. A lot of it happened in French, so I really wasn’t listening. Then they had the awards ceremony.

She stepped out to watch for a few minutes.

Sometime during the awards ceremony, it started raining. When I way it started raining, I mean it looked like someone opened the fire hose. It was even falling at about that angle. The wind was blowing at about 45 degrees, just to make sure we were all as wet as possible. The students receiving their awards had to come running through the rain to get them. Here, it is hard to get people to do things that make them stand out, like go receive an award. For these awards, they had to run through a downpour to get to it. A lot of the awards were put in the office to be picked up later.

At some point, a guy went off on a tangent about a new bank that is opening in Melsisi. I think it is an investment bank but I’m not really sure how they plan on getting their promised returns. He was talking about 15% interest rates. Vanuatu doesn’t have stocks much less a stock market. I’m not sure how they are planning on pulling that one off. After way, way too long, he finally finished detailing each of the 8 products currently on offer and how this would be great for Pentecost.
Then we got to the good part, the part where they give us kava. Alexandra, Jason, Hayley and I drank kava with the guys from the band and the teachers who were willing to brave the rain. It was good fun. Jason pulled out the computer and started showing music videos. Michael Jackson was a big hit. Jason has the full version of Smooth Criminal and Thriller. Some of them knew the Thriller dance, though not all by any means.
There was kava.

And more kava

We topped of the night with a well-balanced meal of dry ramen and leftovers. Don’t judge my dry ramen. If it were as much of a pain for you to boil water as it is for me to boil water, you too would love your dry ramen. Especially when stoned on kava.

*Also called a break up party in Bislama, which makes me giggle. Some other PCVs were joking that it should be “we’re just taking time apart” party. What? I live on an island. I lack amusements.

12-19 Kastom blong Mared

Weddings here are complicated. There are so many parts, I don’t even know if I’ll manage to catch them all. I was at the post-engagement but pre-marriage ceremony for a woman who is getting married next week. It got me thinking about how there really are different stages to being married here and how much I like that. Let me try to lay out the stages, as far as I know.

1. Frend. The verb “friend” means “to hook up with” for a very broader definition of hooking up with including talking and holding hands. Think of that next time you ask someone to friend you on facebook.
2. Stap tugeta. Just living together. Not totally kosher, but people do it anyway. Maybe not a stage in getting married, but well, it happens.
Red mats are a big part of all kastom ceremonies

3. Blokem woman. The papas of the boy go talk to the aunties of the girl and they determine that it is a good match and both parties are interested. Then, they make a small ceremony where the boy gives the family of the girl a red mat, some other stuff and some kava. Then all the men drink the kava together. Any time after they are blocked (engaged), they can have kids. A lot of people hang out at this stage for a few years and a few children.

4. Seraotem sese. The boy gives red mats (sese)to his papa’s brothers and sisters. The girl does the same.*


5. Mared lo juj. The missionaries have been very effective around here. Just about everyone is some form of Christian. There are a few Ba’hai and a few John Frum cult and a few kastomvillages, but mostly people are Christian. So, they get married in the church. That seems to happen mid-morning or so and involves a white dress and matching bridesmaid’s outfits as well as the aunties (sisters of the father) of the girl hiding under a red mat, as per kastom. Sometimes this happens and the marriage is done, they never get to the kastompart, or sometimes they wait a few years for the kastomto happen.

6. Mared lo kastom. I’m not sure quite where this section stops and the next one begins. I think the marriage ceremony is when they “pay” for each other. They say that they “pay” for the woman, but it is really more of an exchange. The aunties of the girl give a red mat to the papas (brothers of the father) of the boy. The papas all give a pig in return. I think there is a rank order to who exchanges with who and what form of pig** they give, but I’m not totally sure yet.


7. Barate. The kastomgoes all night long. After the pig/mat exchange, the women retire to the house of barateand do the women thing while the men retire to the nakamal to get stoned on kava. I think I’ve written about baratebefore but in short it is “teaching” the new wife what she needs to know about married life, aka sex.


8. Sawakora. When the barate is finished the women go join the men outside the nakamal and they dance until daylight. The dancing looks a lot like a Native American pow wow. The men chant in a call and response and stamp their feet while facing the center post. The women circle around them, also stamping and occasionally joining the call and response.
9. Putum gud tufala. One papa and one auntie take the married couple to their new house at dawn. Theoretically, this is the chance to really explain what it is to be married, though I’m not sure that really happens anymore. The papa and auntie should explain sex, baby care and conflict resolution to the new couple, but I don’t think they do. I think they just leave them at the door and go to bed.
By the end of all that, they are married completely. They can take most of the parts in stages if they can’t afford to do them all at once, or they can do everything after sharing the mats together. Each of the ceremonies requires a feast, which the entire family contributes to. The feast is usually pork or beef, white rice and baked taro. They aren’t big into complicated meals.
*Brother and sisters are rather loosely defined here and include everyone out to second and third cousins. Since the woman moves to the man’s village, I think they share the mats with the father family because the mother’s family is likely far, far away, or at least in the next village over.
** Pigs come in many forms. They can be piglets, which have a pretty low value. A large pig has more value. A pig that has been fed on scraps has a lot more value because its tusk grows longer instead of breaking in the ground. A pig with a tusk that curls around until it grows back into the jaw bone has an extremely high value and is used for things like rank-taking ceremonies and bride prices. I’ve also heard that there are hermaphoditic pigs that have a really high value, but I haven’t had that confirmed. I’ll work on it.

11-5 Happy Halloween!

I was helping it to find its higher calling

I have been growing pumpkins in my yard for the last few months.  Mostly, I am happy to eat them.  I don’t get a lot of food these days so the pumpkins are great for both variety and bulk.  Occasionally, I do something fancy like make pumpkin bread or attempt pumpkin pie, but mostly I make pumpkin soup or just slather pieces in coconut milk and eat them.  There was one pumpkin in the patch that appeared exceptional.  It was bigger than the rest and turned a brighter orange.  I knew it had a higher calling in life. 

Halloween is not celebrated here.  I think there was an extra church service for All Saints Day, but I’m not quite sure.  I don’t get told about these things, which was fine by me, I didn’t really want to go to extra church.  On the other hand, I was unwilling to let Halloween pass unremarked.
I invited over the other volunteers and had a Halloween party, island style.  My giant pumpkin found its higher calling in the form of a smiling jack-o-lantern while we snacked on popcorn, roasted pumpkin seeds and tea biscuits covered in frosting.  If we’d had hot cider it would have been perfect. 

We drew a crowed.  For once, I didn’t mind.

When the English volunteers from Melsisi showed up, we added four green popo (papayas) to the jack-o-lantern line.  They had a mask of Prince Phillip, which was passed around for the evening so we could all get dressed up.

I put the jack-o-lanterns out at dusk.  As I was lighting the first one (the pumpkin, of course), a few people took note.  By the time I had the last one lit, we had a crowd of close to fifteen people standing outside my house staring.  The crowd didn’t go away, either.  The women got bored first and wandered off after about 20 minutes.  The kids followed ten minutes after that but some of the youngfala men stayed and storied for over two hours.  I guess it was a good hang out, I don’t know, I had to go cook dinner.
Sarah and Melvin cleaning the pumpkin guts

The best part was how word spread through the villages.  Someone from Lalbateis must have been up in the nakamal when I lit them because all through the evening, men from Lalbateis were being led down by my neighbor, Mesisio, and shown the jack-o-lanterns.  The explanation in language seemed to consist of “they’ll chase away bad things, see?  It’s a face, a hat for a witch, a flying fox (giant bat), a spider and a pusscat.”  Then they’d stare for awhile and eventually go back up to the nakamal for another shell.

We had many visitors, they brought costumes.  Or at least costume.
To top off the evening, we had exactly one trick-or-treater.  During their English class, the Melsisi volunteers had talked about the tradition of trick-or-treating.  I guess they explained it as “You come and say trick-or-treat and we give you something nice,” except the give part got confused.  Our trick-or-treater brought us a ripe mango apiece.  I gave her a handful of candy, so I think we all felt like winners in that situation.
It’s supposed to be a cultural exchange, right?  Well, I think Vansemakul just got introduced to a bit of American culture.  Even better, I got to carve a pumpkin.
Higher. Calling.

10-25 Information Economy

In this society, material wealth is communal.  The idea is that everyone in a family shares what they have within the family.  This makes sense when you talk about gardens, food, mats and baskets.  These things take a communal effort to produce, so it makes sense that they are communal property.  In more recent times, this has extended to include things like clothing, phones or any form of material wealth.  Of course, a family here consists of your parents, your brothers and sisters, your parents brothers and sisters, your parents in-laws, your nieces and nephews, your second cousins nieces and nephews, etc.  It doesn’t take long before the whole island is family and you are sharing your material wealth with all of them.  It is like communism in action.
The problem comes when we, as humans, expect to have some kind of personal belongings.  We get attached to a specific mat or we really like the fruit that falls from one particular tree.  Here, that isn’t allowed.  You can go more often and collect that fruit, but you have to share it.  So, to have some sort of personal possessions and functional economy, the going currency is information.
People have to “buy” their way into information.  For example, while cutting the patterns for a red mat, the artists is literally paid mat by mat and if a young man wants to learn to do it, he has to pay to learn.  In my mind, information is free.  Information is to be shared, to be given freely and willingly in hopes that that piece of information will lead to another piece that will lead to another piece that will lead to an improvement in all our lives.  I don’t think about information as an economic commodity, which does frequently bite me in the ass.
I missed a wedding because no one told me it was happening.  I hadn’t “paid” for the information so no one shared it with me.  Sometimes this feels like a simple oversight.  They forget that I am not in the loop of conversation, that I don’t know language to be able to eavesdrop.  I miss fundraisers that way all the time.  If they’d tell me, I’d be happy to go spend money and support the school but frequently no one tells me which is their loss. 
Other times, I know it is an intentional choice not to tell me, even when I ask.  Usually, that is information about kastom or reasons to do or not do something.  Everyone knows why the pig pen has a taboo place in it, it has been that way for years and years.  Except I haven’t been here for years and years and no one is quite willing to actually tell me a straight answer about why that place is taboo.  I can’t get a straight answer about why the namwele leaf is the chief’s leaf or why some people live in the bush and others live in the village. 
Teaching is sometimes considered odd.
Why would someone give away all that information?

I am not yet privy to that information.  At some point, I hope to have “earned” the privilege of knowing, but I’m not good at playing the information economy.  My job is to give away information as much and as fast as I can.  So, how can I buy my way into knowing about the school schedule for the year or when the next meeting will be?  I don’t know.  I guess I’ll continue to live in blissful informational poverty.

9-5 Lessons on Objectification

As with many things during my service, things I knew intellectually are being learned at a more visceral level. While we were still in Vila, I learned more about objectification.

I’ve been wearing a loincloth in the village for a while. When one of the other PCVs heard about this, she requested that I wear it to one of the dance clubs in town during our training. Those of you familiar with how little shame I have will not be surprised to hear that I was game.

I thought about walking in in my shorts and changing there, but that felt too much like sneaking in. Which meant I had to walk half an hour from the hotel to the club in a loin cloth. Some of the other PCVs demanded that I not walk in front of them. I guess I was “distracting.” I walked at the back of the group. I do believe I almost caused a crash or two. I definitely got A LOT of vehicles slowing down to make sure they were seeing things correctly.

Once we got into town, I had to get into the club. There was actually a bet going about whether they would even let me in. It was no problem at all, as I suspected. The security guards were all ni-Van and loved that I was taking their custom so brazenly. Inside the club, more ni-Vans were entertained and pleased to see a white man in a loincloth. The men congratulated me. The womens’ reactions were my objectification lesson.

There were a few ni-Van women who were displaying the timidity we’ve come to expect. I would feel a hand brush against my backside but if I even turned my head towards them a little bit, they would hide their faces and run away. Some of the other women were a bit more aggressive. There was one ni-Van who was definitely interested in white men (after escaping her, I saw her with several others through the night). She was not afraid of dancing a little too close and telling me how awesome she thought I was. I thanked her and moved to a different part of the dance floor.

Then there were the tourists. Apparently this group of women thought it was appropriate to try and flip up the front of the loincloth. Why they thought so, I don’t know. When I asked about flipping up their dress, they didn’t seem to think that was a good idea. Fortunately, doing so to a loincloth does not expose anything except more thigh. Its not like I was wearing a kilt. Again, I needed to put distance and my group of friends between myself and the over-aggressive ladies.

After two hours, the white owner of the place came over and told me to put pants on or leave. I had brought my backpack with pants inside so I could hang around for a bit longer until everyone else was ready to leave.

It was a learning experience for me but I don’t think it was the same as what many women experience when they dress nice or dance at a club. Being physically bigger than the aggressive women and not outnumbered by them at any point, I never felt in any actual danger. For me, this was an unusual event and something I found interesting. If I had to deal with this crap all the time, it would get annoying and frustrating. Thinking about these aspects has given me even more respect for women who put up with aggressive males on a regular basis.

The event was also quite appropriately timed due to a training we had that morning on bystander intervention. The training was a very good conversation about when and how you can and should intervene when you see other PCVs (or anyone for that matter) getting into a potentially dangerous situation. One of the things that was re-enforced for me by the experience was the importance of the group. When I wanted to remove myself from unwanted attention, there were female PCVs I could go dance with. I could also move so that the group as a whole was between myself and the aggressor.

Having made self-defense training one of the major aspects of my life, this has been an invaluable experience for me. Most physical confrontations I am likely to find myself in are going to involve containing an aggressive individual. In teaching others, especially women, I need to also understand how to deal with situations where the main focus is getting away from a dangerous situation. Experience is the best teacher and walking a short way in those shoes allows me to better understand these kinds of situations in which I would not otherwise find myself.

Besides, how many people can say they went to a night club in a loin cloth?

8-3 Nakhol

Before the jump

In the time before the grandparents of our grandparents, there was a woman. She was married but she was not happy. One day, when her husband tried to hit her, she ran away. He chased her. After many hours, she climbed a tree. He followed her up the tree saying, “You have no where else to run.” She jumped from the top of the tree. In his rage, he jumped after her, but in his rage, he didn’t see the vines tied to her ankles. As they neared the ground, the vines caught her and she lived. He plunged to his death.
Some people say that only men can dive for nakhol because they are remembering their brother’s death. Some say it is a promise to the women never to forget their trickery and never be fooled again. Some people claim it started with women diving but change because the whistling noise the women’s skirts made as the dove annoyed the chief. Maybe, it is that the tower is built like a woman, for the men to do impressive and dangerous stunts. The dive blesses the yam harvest and ensures a good year. These are some of the kastom stories around Nakhol, or Landdiving.

The tower has some feminine curves that
 function to keep it upright during a dive.

Nakhol is the forerunner of bungee jumping. Men tie vines to their ankles and leap head first from a tower. Unlike bungee jumping, the idea is to touch the ground.

It works soemthing like this: They build a giant tower. The tower cants backwards so that the forward pull of each jump doesn’t tip it. At various levels, platforms to jump from are installed. Each platform is built specially for that jumper. The vines are tied onto the platform and then the platform is inserted into the tower. When it is time to jump, the jumper climbs the tower and his friends or brothers tie his vines to his ankles. They take care to keep each vines untangled from either the tower or the other vine. The jumper readies himself and leaps with his hands folded across his chest. The jumper must dive head first and out away from the tower. The higher up, the further out he has to dive.

When he reaches the end of the vines, the platform snaps. It stays attached to the tower, it just breaks down, arresting his momentum. The next thing to arrest his momentum is the ground. They dig up the dirt so it is soft and squishy, and the diver has to hit it chest first. If not, he can break an arm or his neck. Last year, one man broke his arm. When Queen Elizabeth came to watch, a man broke his neck. It isn’t a safe hobby.

They jump out to get past the tower

Jason and I saw landdiving twice this year. Once by the airport and once in Pangi. The one by the airport was interesting. It was the usual Vanuatu blend of tourist and kastom. On the tourist side, we had to pay to get in and they’d set up seats at the bottom of the tower with stakes to mark out the paths. On the not-so-tourist side, no one explained what was going on, it started without warning and ended as abruptly. It was an edifying look at how tourism works here and where it could be improved.

On the other side of the tourism was the Pangi dive. They have four cruise boats a year that come and watch. Pangi is a village of 50, the cruise boat disgorges 2000 passengers onto Pentecost for a day. They use the phrase “kranki lo mone” which means “crazy for money.” It is true. There are limits to the good that the economic boost of tourism can do.

It was fun to see the dives. I think the people who do it are a bit nuts but I respect their guts. I am amazed that something so kastom can still exist and I hope that it is never destroyed. Kastom is what makes Vanuatu special.

7-4 Kaen Sik

As a Community Health Volunteer, I spend a lot of time talking about health and listening to various health statements by my community. It means I hear of a wide variety of illnesses and maladies. The belief in leaf or kastom medicine is strong and the church still supports devils and exorcisms. Western medicine is a new thing and not well proved for some of the illnesses that have been around forever. They do immunize their children, when the immunizations are available, and they know the signs of malaria and that it is best treated with Coartem. Germ theory hasn’t really gotten here and spreading sickness through coughing and dirty water or food is only sort of understood. Instead, there are dozens of other ways of getting sick and sicknesses that can happen.

The main way to get sick is “strong work.” Working too hard kills. Alexandra and I have talked about this a lot. We think one of the things that is happening is that in this hot, humid environment, people sweat a lot. When you work hard, you sweat even more and after several days of that, you are likely dehydrated. No one here drinks water, at least not water by itself. They will drink green coconuts or tea, but water from the tap is not really done. It makes sense if you look at the number of waterborne pathogens, but doesn’t help with dehydration. So, around here, when you are told not to work too hard, they mean “don’t die.”

The second way to get sick is not eating enough or at the right time of day. Though this is true in a wider sense, for them they mean that if someone skips lunch, they run the risk of cancer. On the other hand, the idea of eating a balanced meal really doesn’t exist. So, though there is plenty of food, there is still wide-spread malnutrition.

There is a sick that can only happen to men where the man’s penis and balls crawl back up inside him because the “strings” in his belly are too tight. (“String” is the Bislama word for veins, nerves, ligaments, tendons and any other string-like part of internal organs.) There is leaf for this which has to be administered in the first twenty-four hours or he will die. It happened in my village.

A purely female illness happened to my auntie who is breastfeeding. Her breast lactates constantly, despite regular breastfeeding. She bathes regularly but in this environment, things just grow. Her nipple grew mold. She has been trying to get rid of it for the better part of two months now, to no avail. Every time her breast dries up, she starts breastfeeding on that side again and it comes back. She is currently breastfeeding on one side and giving her 6-month-old some solid food to make up for the lack.

There is the “devil’s sick” where a devil catches someone. There are a few different kinds of devils. The first requires bathing in holy water or a prayer circle. That would be the devils that the Catholics brought with them. I’m still not clear if these devils were around before Catholicism and they didn’t have a name or if they were brought by the Catholics or just appeared when people learned what they are. These devils make people “talk crazy” and “fall down.” It sounds a lot like a TIA or small stroke to me.

There are devils that were here before the church. Those devils can make people talk crazy and fall down, too, but often they make children not sleep at night or give nightmares. The best cure for them seems to be bathing in special leaf. Each devil has a different kind of leaf to be bathed in, which means the kleva, kastom healer, has to know what devil it is that is following the child. A subgroup of that devil is the one that does bad things to anyone, but particularly to pregnant women. A pregnant woman who sees the devil or hears his bells will give birth to a white baby. This also happened in my village, and there are three semi-albino kids. Go figure.

Along with the religious afflictions, there is the chance that God will get mad at you for not being sufficiently religious and turn your fetus into a snake. The cure for that is leaf to kill the snake and miscarry.

Toothaches and rotten teeth are common. Most adults here are missing some number of teeth. For some reason, women in particular seem to be missing their two front teeth. There is leaf to take for toothaches, at least one of which is ginger. I think the number of toothaches is related to using sugar cane as a toothbrush, but I’m not a dental hygienist so I can only conjecture.

It seems like the number of illnesses are related to a lack of coherent knowledge about how sickness are passed. I realize that part of my work as a health volunteer is to combat this and try to improve their understanding of the human body. I am all in favor of that. Yet, somehow I feel like I am taking away from the richness of the culture by telling them that it isn’t a devil, he is having a stroke or a heart attack. That doesn’t mean I won’t do it, partly because I don’t see them believing that there aren’t devils any time in the near future.

7-4 Funeral Rites Part 3: Feast for the Dead Man

 After the funeral, there is a five or ten day mourning period. During this time, no one is allowed to work or leave the village. The men all sleep at the nakamal or in the house of the dead man and the women sleep with family in the village or in the house of the dead man. Though you can go out for a walk during the day, you have to be back at night.

Because of the subsistence farming lifestyle, it is impossible to completely ban work and still eat. The rule is that you can go to the garden and get food, but you can’t work in the garden. No planting, no weeding, nothing. Just go and get your food and come back. Because I lot of the gardens for Vansemakul are several hours’ walk south, we mostly ate breadfruit from the trees near the village and rice from the store.
Every night, the men drink kava in the nakamal. Not that that is different than usual, what was different was the number of men. A normal night in the nakamal at Vansemakul will have eight to ten men grinding kava. The first night there was twenty and by the last night there was thirty. There was a lot of kava.
During the ten days, no one in the village is supposed to eat coconut milk, though a lot of people do anyway. The first day, no one eats it but after that, it seems to get a little relaxed. Depending on who I asked, the ban on coconut milk was either village wide or limited to the people staying at the nakamal and at the house, or was village wide. We didn’t eat coconut milk.
A less charming part of kastom is a ban on bathing or swimming. During the mourning period, the family and the people staying with the family are not allowed to bathe or go swimming. Keep in mind, a normal day here is somewhere around 85 degrees and humid. It was getting a little rank towards the end of that ten days.
The immediate family of the deceased can choose to give up something to show their mourning. They don’t cut their hair or beard or will give up a favorite food of the deceased. That can go on for anywhere from one-hundred days to a couple of years. When the individual is ready to let go of their mourning, they ask one of their family members to come cut their hair or make that food. The person releasing their mourning gives a red mat to the person who comes to do it. For example, if the daughter of the deceased gives up laplap manioc, she won’t eat that for a year or more. When she is ready to let go of that part of her mourning, she tells one of her family members to make laplap manioc. They bring the laplap to her house and she gives them a red mat.
I like the kastom that really acknowledges the loss to the community and the family. The way they grieve is intense and very different from our Western quiet crying and private mourning, but in many ways it seems a lot healthier. They show that grief and in their grieving, they receive support from the community. At the end of the mourning period, the grief is over. The person isn’t forgotten, but the family can move on with their lives. I like it.

7-4 Funeral Rites Part 3: Feast for the Dead Man

After the funeral, there is a five or ten day mourning period. During this time, no one is allowed to work or leave the village. The men all sleep at the nakamal or in the house of the dead man and the women sleep with family in the village or in the house of the dead man. Though you can go out for a walk during the day, you have to be back at night.

Because of the subsistence farming lifestyle, it is impossible to completely ban work and still eat. The rule is that you can go to the garden and get food, but you can’t work in the garden. No planting, no weeding, nothing. Just go and get your food and come back. Because I lot of the gardens for Vansemakul are several hours’ walk south, we mostly ate breadfruit from the trees near the village and rice from the store.

Every night, the men drink kava in the nakamal. Not that that is different than usual, what was different was the number of men. A normal night in the nakamal at Vansemakul will have eight to ten men grinding kava. The first night there was twenty and by the last night there was thirty. There was a lot of kava.

During the ten days, no one in the village is supposed to eat coconut milk, though a lot of people do anyway. The first day, no one eats it but after that, it seems to get a little relaxed. Depending on who I asked, the ban on coconut milk was either village wide or limited to the people staying at the nakamal and at the house, or was village wide. We didn’t eat coconut milk.

A less charming part of kastom is a ban on bathing or swimming. During the mourning period, the family and the people staying with the family are not allowed to bathe or go swimming. Keep in mind, a normal day here is somewhere around 85 degrees and humid. It was getting a little rank towards the end of that ten days.

The immediate family of the deceased can choose to give up something to show their mourning. They don’t cut their hair or beard or will give up a favorite food of the deceased. That can go on for anywhere from one-hundred days to a couple of years. When the individual is ready to let go of their mourning, they ask one of their family members to come cut their hair or make that food. The person releasing their mourning gives a red mat to the person who comes to do it. For example, if the daughter of the deceased gives up laplap manioc, she won’t eat that for a year or more. When she is ready to let go of that part of her mourning, she tells one of her family members to make laplap manioc. They bring the laplap to her house and she gives them a red mat.

I like the kastom that really acknowledges the loss to the community and the family. The way they grieve is intense and very different from our Western quiet crying and private mourning, but in many ways it seems a lot healthier. They show that grief and in their grieving, they receive support from the community. At the end of the mourning period, the grief is over. The person isn’t forgotten, but the family can move on with their lives. I like it.