Category Archives: lifestyle

10-13 Bridal Showers and Bachelor Parties, Pentecost Style

There have been a lot of weddings since we got to Pentecost. Some have been well-planned in advance, some have been a bit spur of the moment. One of them was an arranged marriage and one of them was a bit of a shotgun wedding. For the last month, we’ve had one wedding I was really invested in. My coutnerpart, auntie and friend got married to the father of her two children.
This wedding was supposed to happen December last year but got put off until May. When she got pregnant with the second child, they did special kastomto make it ok for her to go live with him without being married, which pushed the wedding back until this month. So, we had a month of full kastom for their wedding.
The groom sharing out mats.

I’ve written about the red mat ceremonies a bit before and it many ways this was more of the same. The bride and groom had to give red mats to their father’s brothers and sisters. To get enough mats, they had to ask their mother’s brothers and sisters for help. This is the normal web of debts here.

So, on the red mat kastom day for the groom, we all wandered up to the village around lunch time. Sometime after that, the mother’s family showed up and formally gave the mats to the groom. The nuclear family whisked the mats off into a house and we all ate and made merry while they worked. The men ground kava and the women attended to screaming children until shortly before dusk. The nuclear family came out and called out to all of the mom’s sisters (sisters in this case includes female cousins and women married in). Each of the sisters received a small red mat to tie around their waist as a thank you for their contribution in making the big mats being shared out. Then each mat was unfolded, the name of who was receiving it was called out, that person had to be found, they circled the mat and the group of women three times and then refolded the mat and they did it again for the next mat. The groom shared about 100 mats. We ate communally and the men drank a lot of kava. (And Jason dropped his iPod in the bush toilet.)
The ‘bridal shower’ part of things.
Those are the standard gifts given to
women when they are married.

The next day, we repeated the whole thing for the bride, with a few variations. It was her las kakaeor farewell feast, which is sort of the equivalent of a bridal shower or maybe a funeral. Before cell phones and easy transit, the women who were married away from their villages went and probably didn’t come back. Travel was too difficult and there was a high maternal mortality, so for many of the people in the village, the girl who was leaving was going forever. So, the communal meal had a more organized feel to it. Rather than everyone getting a leaf of food and finding a convenient piece of ground to eat on, we laid out coconut leaves in the nakamal, brought plates and silverware and sat down to a giant family meal.

The bridal shower part was a bit awkward. (My whole life is a bit awkward these days.) Because weddings are causes for grief here, the bridal shower involves a lot of crying. The bride sits in front of a mat with two of her mamas. Everyone gets in line and drops the gifts on the mat then hugs, kisses the cheeks or just shakes hands with the bride and the two mamas. In some cases, that involves long embraces and much, much crying and bawling and wailing. In this case, she’d only going twenty minutes up the hill and already lives with the guy, so she was a bit less put out than most. Even the gifts are given in a desultory manner, they aren’t excited about giving them or about receiving them and the gifts are sort of dropped as you walk past. I think part of it is being flas. If you do something too outside the norm, people judge you for thinking you are above yourself. So, if you give a really nice gift, they assume you are showing off. To keep that from happening while still giving nice gifts, you have to drop it like it doesn’t really matter or isn’t important.
Her mother’s family had to walk a fairly long way so they were late getting down to us. They didn’t do the formal acceptance of the mats until about 3 pm. I followed the pile of mats down the hill and parked myself in a corner. I have been curious for two years how they decide who the mats go to and who gets which one and I knew Leslyn wouldn’t object to me sitting there. (Actually, I parked myself on top of a pile of already-designated mats. It was like a couch!)
Leslyn, covered in baby powder, with the tags for the mats.

Leslyn, her parents and one of her mamas spent almost 3 hours matching names to mats. We kept getting interrupted by Leslyn needing to breastfeed her 3-month-old or by the 22-month-old waking up from her nap screaming, but all in all I think it went smoothly. They had prepared a list of people they wanted to give mats to which they matched with the pile of mats they’d just been given. The value of a mat varies based on how much ‘hair’ (fringe) it has, how well the dye took, if it has any damage, how well cut the pattern is, if there are yellow-orange strips in the fringe and the weaving of the mat itself. The more important the relationship is, the higher value mat they get. So, the men and women who have looked after Leslyn since she was a child get high-value mats, except they often contributed a mat or two as well, in which case they get a thank you mat which does not have to be high-value. Any family who has taken rank in the chief system gets a higher value mat while younger or unranked people get lower value mats. People who live further away don’t necessarily get low-value mats but if they didn’t show up to the las kakae, they might get booted down on the importance list. The priority ranking was truly baffling.

HUGE heap of mats.

By the end of the 3 hours, we had 108 labeled mats and 3 deemed unacceptable to give out. We then had to go back through that huge stack of mats and double check the names to be sure that no one was forgotten. They checked the two lists against each other and we were off, back up to the nakamal.

Sharing out the mats went the same as it had for the groom. That process with 108 mats took about another 3 hours. I got bored and wandered off to read a magazine for awhile. I came back and they were still at it. The aunties who were standing in support of Leslyn were mostly sitting in support by then and some were actually breastfeeding, eating or changing diapers in support of Leslyn. Still, they stayed through to the end. We had to have the generator on to finish it.
Both ceremonies ended with another round of food, given in a leaf because the nakamal was full of kava-drunk men, and a lot of kava for the men.
Halfway done, half still to go out.

The sharing of red mats is not necessarily supposed to happen back-to-back like that, but because the villages are geographically close and relationally close, they did them together. That way families related to both the girl and the boy only had to come once. Don’t think too hard about families being related to both the bride and groom. It is a small island with complex family structures that extend out to third and fourth cousins.

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9-23 Following a Deadman

Funeral procession, the flowers are covering the coffin

After our last trip to Vila, we came back to Pentecost at the same time as Eric, the PCV in the southeast corner of the island. I’ve been wanting to get down to visit him more or less since we got to Pentecost. The idea of going to the east side of Pentecost is fascinating and I’ve heard a lot of wonderful things about his village.

The truck driver he called to take him to Ranwas was the same driver we usually use. The driver lives about an hour’s walk south of Vansemakul. Since the driver was taking Eric down to Ranwas and then going back to Waterfall village, we thought we’d tag along for the ride. We all agreed on this plan in the Vila airport.
Remember how well planning transport has gone for us in the past? Yep, still works that well.
We got to Pentecost and found out that Eric’s uncle in the village had died. He’d been in the hospital in Vila so the body was coming back on the plane behind us. We had to wait for the body, or the people with the body, or something. I chatted with a group of women and got the post office opened up to get our mail. We waited for a few hours.
The body came with seven people and a truck’s worth of Chinese bags, suitcases, mats and other such things. We danced around trying to figure out how to get a coffin, seven crying people, three PCVs and all the stuff up to Ranwas. Jason and I volunteered to walk to Vansemakul and not go to Ranwas. In fact, we started walking. We got about three minutes down the road when the truck came and got us. They’d called a second truck and now there was plenty of room. Sort of.
We ended up on the same truck as the coffin. Not my favorite place to be, less because of the coffin and more because of the intense grief and grieving process here. I mean, I can’t say that I’m a fan of dead bodies, but they don’t squick me out too much and this one was firmly covered in a coffin, so there really was nothing to squick out about. The wailing, screaming grief on the other hand, I haven’t learned to handle.
The truck went slowly, as befits a funeral procession. It was not the usual pace for the driver who seems to believe in two speeds- “crossing the river” and “try to toss everyone out of the back of the truck.” We arrived in the first village twenty minutes later. The truck stopped next to a gathering of women. I saw the wailing coming and jumped out of the truck. I had a nice sit down on a tree root while everyone cried over the body. Then I got back in the truck and on we went.
After the third village, I switched to the second truck in the caravan, the one that was full of all the things. That was much more my speed. I like inanimate objects when my other options is a coffin full of deadman. Not that that was animate, either. That would be a zombie.
The football team carried the body from the truck up to the
house.  I don’t know if they were in uniform anyway
or if they kitted up  to be pall bearers.

We continued that way for another few villages until we got to the last one before the ascent to the east. There, we stopped and took the body off the truck and brought it into someone house to cry properly. The people not busy crying were busy cooking so we had some rice in a leaf while we waited.

They brought the body back out and onto the truck. The truck in the back, the one I’d been riding in, turned around to go back to the airport. We took out all the stuff and stood around in confusion. Another truck came, which no one else was surprised about. I guess the usual ni-Van telepathy kicked in and I missed the memo. Still, we jumped on that truck and off we went.
The drive up was very, very pretty. Stunning views out over the ocean or across jungle-covered valleys. We saw a few people from Bunlap, the kastomvillage in the south. They are recognizable as being from Bunlap because they don’t wear clothes. As we arrived in Ranwas, they started the funeral. We continued on the truck until it stopped, then we left the funeral party and the falling-down grief.
Ranwas is a tidy village with about three times the population of Vansemakul. They have their own Aid Post and primary school up to year 6. There is a main nakamal and several smaller ones, which seems to be the normal layout in the south. The other villages I’ve been to there have a similar system. I got told that being a vegetarian is the best option because it means I don’t eat whiteman food. I don’t think the person telling me that noticed the irony of me being white.
We went to the internment part of the funeral and then hung around for awhile longer and chatted with people. We got given some more rice in a leaf. That is the standard at funerals. After about two hours, it was dusk and the driver was impatient. We jumped in and waited another half an hour for the rest of the people following the truck down.
Sunset over the mountain.  Yep, still beautiful here.

The drive down the mountain was more beautiful than the drive up had been. We were driving into the sunset which cast crimson and sapphire shadows through the valleys and created silhouettes of the black palms. The sun set completely before we got back to the shore.

We didn’t make it back to our house until well past dark. I think it took about two hours from when we reached the shore to when we arrived in Vansemakul. The day was full of travel, but it was worth it to take that detour. A bit of kastomand a bit of sightseeing always make a good day.

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10-22 Transfer Complete

Fresh news! Not a month and a half old!
Office at the Big Smoke

We have moved to Vila. We arrived on Efate on Saturday, October 20th. We immediately moved into our new house, or at least we left all our stuff there. Due to the help of some lovely friends, most of our bags and boxes that we shipped ahead of time were already in the house when we arrived. I have great friends.

Saturday we spent in Vila Shock. (It is a unique syndrome in which the early symptoms combine a fear of crossing traffic with an intense urge to sit in the Peace Corps office and waste time while alternately craving and gorging on cheese and ice cream. Late symptoms include dairy-induced gastrointestinal distress, confusion about the loss of hours of productive day time and the sense that you have misplaced all of your last paycheck.) We made it over to the office in the afternoon and then goofed off on the internet for awhile. We celebrated our move with dinner at a new Indian restaurant.
Sunday morning I ‘slept in’, cooked and ate breakfast and showered then looked at the clock. It was 7:30. I guess I’m still on island time. Still, that meant we had plenty of time to work on moving stuff into the house before we were expected to be anywhere.
Jason started pulling things out of bags while I reorganized the kitchen. It didn’t take very long for us to decide that what we really needed to do was move a bunch of furniture which somehow led to me removing two pieces of trim. On the up side, the fridge is now in a much better place than it was and the kitchen has a bit more space. Somehow, the six bags we’d brought off the island managed to explode enough stuff to cover every flat surface in the apartment. I’m still puzzled about how that happened. We’re getting things moved in and put away pretty well. There is still several hours of work to do, but that will have to wait until the end of the week.
Carla, the previous denizen of this house, left us really well set up. The apartment itself is pretty nice but she left it fully furnished and well furnished. We have 4 sets of good American sheets, 4 fluffy towels, as much cook wear as I could want and high-quality pots and pans. The only things we will be purchasing as kitchen knives (she took hers back with her), a blender (I love smoothies!) and maybe a book shelf or two. Oh, and I have to put the trim back on the wall, which means I need a saw to cut it the right length.
I am pleased with the new house. I’m excited about the new job. I’m looking forward to getting to know the new trainees and help them adjust to life in this wacky place. I miss Pentecost and free mangos, but life is looking pretty good at the moment.
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7-11 The Beer Saga

On Pentecost, we drink kava.  Pentecost produces huge amounts of kava for immediate consumption and for sale to other islands, Vila and a very small portion as export.  When Man Pentecost has had a bad day, he heads to the nakamal to work his frustrations out on a kava grinder and relax with a shell or six.  He does not grab a beer.  Beer is for special occasions and is drunk with intent to get good and drunk.
The French officers were not impressed with kava.  They wanted their beer.  So, they went to the big store and bought beer.  They bought up all the beer that wasn’t Tusker (local beer, worse than Coors Light); that is all 32 cans.  Yep, that was all the beer in Central Pentecost.  It didn’t take 7 army officers to go through 32 beers.  In fact, it took about four days.  The ship doesn’t come through for another week, and even then there is no guarantee of beer. 
They were extremely kind and shared their beer with us, but I think we finished it.  On Tuesday, they bought all the Tusker at the big store, all 18 bottles of that.
Because I am in Vila, and because they were nice to me and I like to help, I offered to try to bring back some beer.  Now, I’m flying which means I have a 5 kilo carry-on limit and a 10 kilo checked baggage limit.  Then I have to pay overage.  I explained that situation to them via Hannah who was kind enough to translate. 
After much discussion, they decided that yes, I should bring back beer.  After some more discussion, they decided I should bring back as much beer as I could get on the plane and they would pay whatever overage to get beer.  That conversation took about fifteen minutes.  At the end of it, I was also asked to bring back 10 rolls of garbage bags. 
Before I wandered off, the doctor came sidling over to me.  He speaks English, though he speaks slowly.  He asked me, “Do they sell rum in Vila?”  I said they do.  He asked me, “Do they sell white rum in Vila?”  I said they do.  He asked me, “Can you bring me back a bottle of white rum?”  I asked what size.  He said 1 liter.  He thought about that a bit more and asked me, “Can you bring 2 bottles of rum?”
I guess I am now an alcohol importer for the French army.  It will be really interesting trying to get all this on the plane.  The rum can go in my carry on with all my clothes and I won’t let them weigh that.  The beer is a different story.  I think I’ll have to borrow the medical office’s scale to find out how much a box of beer weighs, in kilos.  Then I’ll have to print off or write a bunch of signs with my name on them and tape the boxes up well enough that they will not be recognizably full of beer.  I’ve shipped stuff in alcohol boxes before, but I’ve never shipped the actual alcohol.
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7-9 Combat Rations

Combat Rations in all their glory

To all of my friends in the US armed forces.  You are getting jipped.  Seriously.  Your food sucks.  Or maybe you just aren’t French enough.

When I responded to Hurricane Katrina, we ended up eating Meals Ready to Eat (MRE), or US army combat rations, for at least 1 meal a day.  We would deploy from base at 4 or 5 am and get back well after dark, so lunch was always an MRE and sometimes parts of dinner or breakfast were, too.  Generally, there was a couple of packets with either powder or paste that you mixed together and then put in another packet that does some chemical reaction and the whole thing heats up.  In the case of the “Mexican” option, you would then smear the whole thing on a tortilla and call it lunch.  Otherwise, you ate it with a spoon.  There were nice treats like chocolates and powdered gatorade but the quality of the food left a lot to be desired.
We had a demo
Yesterday, we got given a French combat rations as a sample for lunch.  It contained such magical items as cheese, chocolates, caramels and good peppermint tea.  For the omnivores, there was Mexican salad with beef and beans and a chicken soup thing with significant chunks of chicken.  I did have the beans out of the Mexican salad and they were tasty.  There was also a packet of soup, pate, crackers and cookies, coffee, cocoa and 3 different candy bars for dessert.  That is a wider variety of food than I eat in about a week here.
We split that one ration pack between the 4 of us.  Another surreal moment in a day full of bizarre and surreal moments.  Hannah and I were still in our ‘church clothes’ aka island dresses, sitting in the middle of their floor eating French army rations we were heating on the included flame heater. 

The happy face of delicious food

My life has taken some truly unique twists and turns in the last year or so.

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7-5 Feminism in the Army

The French have invaded and brought with them women soldiers.  This is awesome.

This is awesome for many reasons.  The first reason is that I like badass women.  The second is that it reinforces the things I, and the other women volunteers, have been saying for the last two years.  We keep saying that women can be strong, that women can do “men’s work” and that women can be their own boss.  We keep saying that women are as smart and as capable as men.  We keep saying that women can lead their own lives and control their own reproduction.  Now, there are 16(ish) women in uniform running around Melsisi.
I hope the girls take note.  I hope the women take note.  I hope the boys and men take note.  It is possible to be a woman and be strong and independent and still be part of a community.
On a more personal note, seeing the women made me miss my badass women friends and the men who support and join in the badassery.  I miss being around women who don’t say “the man is the boss” and who aren’t afraid to speak their mind.  I miss the sense of camaraderie of accomplishing something together.  I miss having friends of both sexes and feeling like I am part of the group, not the outsider.
The French army has made me homesick.  How odd.
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7-5 Career Choices

I am not such a fan of things like war and hurting people.  I don’t think that mandatory military service is a good idea.  That’s why I’m in the Peace Corps.  On the other hand, for a select population, I think the military is an excellent choice.  That population includes people who need a steady income, could use some personal discipline, don’t find violence or the use of necessary force to be utterly abhorrent, and need a stepping stone into a career.

In Vanuatu, there are very few people who couldn’t use a strong dose of all those things.  There are very few paid jobs and fewer yet that actually get paid on time; the island lifestyle is conducive to a free form sense of time and motivation, you do what you want when you want to and there is no urgency to any of it; there is no strong stigma against things like slaughtering animals, which allows for less stigma around the use of necessary force; and many of the career jobs are based on a system of nepotism.  It makes something like the Vanuatu Mobile Force (VMF) look pretty appealing.
Which brings me to the rant of the moment.  When I ask a child in the US what they want to be when they grow up, I’d get things like: princess, cowboy, doctor, vet, movie star, singer, president, knight, teacher, nurse, pilot, postman, and the list goes on and on.  Here, I asked a fifteen-year-old what she wanted to do when she finished school.  She looked at me blankly.  I asked her what she would want to focus on if she went to year 12.  They have to specialize in year 14, but they are divided into arts and science in year 11 or 12.  She continued to look at me blankly and finally said, “Go to school.”  I asked her what she wanted to go to school for.  She thought about it for about 2 minutes and finally said, “Teacher?” like this was a question with a right and wrong answer and I was quizzing her.  I asked her what she wanted to teach- kindi, primary or secondary.  She thought about that for awhile and said secondary.
I got the impression that was the first time she’d ever considered that there are career choices.  I don’t think she realized she had options.
So much of American, and Western, society is about choice and individuality.  We tell our children stories in which the hero is a knight or a princess or the president (though never a congressman…) or a doctor and by doing so, we teach them that they can grow up and do these things.  It is something we take for granted that this is the way the world works.
Here, the children grow up on stories where there are 4 characters: chief, village man, village woman and magic person.  That’s it.  The media expands things to: soldier and popstar, but they are always white.  The community role models expand the options to nurse and teacher.  So, when I ask a child here, what do you want to be when you grow up?  They say nurse or teacher. 
What about the children who would be amazing film makers?  Or computer techs?  Or chefs?  What about those kids that don’t excel at school but are stellar football players?  Or the ones who hate reading but love to ask questions of the universe?  They don’t have a place here.  I look at the mid-class students, the ones who don’t excel but they aren’t failing either, and I think about this.  If those students were exposed to a wider variety of career choices, of lifestyle choices, would they excel?
I think the limit on the number of careers and career options here leaves those students without a goal.  They don’t know what is possible so they accept their fate and become mediocre farmers, just like they’ve been mediocre students.  I hope the army coming will open the door for a few of them to see some other career options and pursue a passion instead of an obligation.
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5-15 Fundraising skills

Group form

Discussions of closed economies and export vs inmport aside, finding money here is interesting. People tend to have some money from selling kava or other such garden produce, yet no one really admits to having any. Even opening a bank account is sort of an odd idea, most money is kept in a sock under the bed. So, raising money for a cause like a new school building or toilets is a mix of challenge and scripted routine.

Showing off previous training.

There are, as far as I can tell, four ways of raising money. The most common and easiest to do is a kava night. One or more people supply a huge amount of kava which friends and family help to grind and milk then is sold for 20 vatu a shell. The price is different in different places, its 100 vt a shell in Vila and most provincial centers. 100 vt is the equivalent of about $1.10. The second and almost as common form of fundraiser is selling prepared food. The mamas, with and without the help of the men, cook massive quantities of laplap, le soup(boiled cabbage, sometimes with other veggies or noodles), rice and usually fish or chicken. The standard price is 50 vt for a chunk of laplap with fish and coconut milk. Basically, a full meal for $0.50.

A Kung-Fu stick form.

The other two forms of fundraisers are a bit more complicated to put together and I’ve only been to one of each. The first is the equivalent of a school carnival. There are games of chance, like mini lottery draws, raffle tickets, games of skill like kicking a soccer ball through a tire or driving a nail into the ground in one swing and food. Usually, there is also a mini-tournament for volleyball or other less active sport. These take a LOT of planning but tend to bring in a good amount of money. The last option is the soccer tournament. The teams pay in (usually by doing their own kava night fundraisers) and then the winning team gets a goodly prize and every evening is an opportunity to sell kava and food, either for the fundraiser or for private profit.

Given the standard script of fundraising, finding a new and interesting draw is a serious competitive edge. If you can think of something that will make people want to come to your fundraiser, you will win more money. Into that environment come two white people who do martial arts, like a movie. (We’ve been told that we look like movie actors. I think they have a low bar.)
Beating up on my primary student, a classic.

It took a year but the innovation is happening. The Maorip Tae Kwon Do Karate Klub, now renamed the Maorip Hwa Rang Do Karate Klub, was asked to come do a show at the primary school. I am impressed with the innovation that it shows to do that. So, we set a date and did some practice for the show. Of course, the people who showed up to practice for it two weeks before were not the same people who showed up to do the show, which required some quick edits and a two hour morning rehearsal. Which changed again when two people who were not at either rehearsal showed up in time to do the show. We managed and the show went fine. Not great, but no one got hurt. (I did kick Jason in the face, but only lightly.)

They put up a fence and jammed coconut leaves in it to block the view from outside, so they could charge admission. They did charge, 20 vt for a child, 50 vt for an adult. We made 4,400 vt. Then we had a kava night. We finished the kava, so I assume they made another couple thousand vatu. Not a bad evening’s work.
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5-9 How to Make a Fire

I remember making fire starters out of egg cartons, lint and wax as a Father’s Day gift when I was about eight. Those remained the top-of-the-line fire starters in my world for the next ten years or so.

Here in Vanuatu, I have found a superior and more abundant product. Coconut leaves. Dry coconut leaves are high in oil, thin as paper and dry out while remaining intact. They are ideal fire starters.
Chunk of coconut leaves, ready to burn.

Building a fire here goes like this.
You rip off a chunk of coconut leaves and fold them in half. Really the folding is optional, but we do it to keep things tidier. If you don’t fold, you have to tie them together with another coconut leaf.
Apply match.

Most days, it only takes one match to light the end of the coconut leaves. On windy days or when it is raining it can take two.

Ensure leaves light well.

Tip the coconut leaves at about a 45 degree angle to get the fire really caught. When they start to roast your hand, you know you’re good to go.

Place in stove or pit.

Stick the coconut leaves in the smokeless stove (pictured) or in a fire pit. Cover with kindling. Keep stuffing the coconut leaves further in as they burn away. They burn hot enough to light the wood.

Add wood, cook!

Coconut leaves are basically fire magic. When your food isn’t cooking fast enough, stuff some cocnut leaves under it. When your fire won’t light, stuff some coconut leaves in it. When you have nothing but coals, toss on a few coconut leaves. I don’t know that I’ll remember how to make a fire with all the boyscout methods like “teepee” or “log cabin.” (Side note, why are all the methods named after housing? Isn’t that just encouraging arson?)

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5-3 Grumpiest Shopkeeper EVER


 

There are several shops in Melsisi.  The are universally one room with a few shelves.  The big one, known as the Magic Shop, is a large room with about 9 shelves.  The smaller ones are the size of a closet and have one shelf.  In all of the shops, you tell the shopkeeper what it is you want and they walk to the appropriate shelf and put it on the counter.  Once they’ve run laps around their shop getting all your purchases, you pay and take your things.  I’ve seen more efficient systems, but this one works here.
One of the main shops in Melsisi is the Priest’s Shop.  (We have colloquial names for all of them.)  The shopkeeper at this shop is the grumpiest shopkeeper ever.  Seriously.  Let me relate a few recent interactions with him.
We were trying to find milk powder to make pancakes for Jason and Alexandra’s birthday breakfast.  The Priest’s Shop is about 40 feet from Hannah’s house, where we were making the pancakes and we were pretty sure it had milk powder.  It wasn’t open.  No surprise, he opens late and closes bang on 4:30, usually after taking an extra long lunch.  Hannah walked to 4 other shops, covering more or less all of Melsisi in the process.  As she was coming back, she met the shopkeeper on the road.  The conversation went something like this:
“Good morning.”
“Grunt.”
“When will the shop be open today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you have milk powder?”
“I don’t know.”
“Would you mind checking?”
“Grunt.”  He goes and sits under a tree about 30 feet from the shop.
Hannah comes back to the house.  We watch out the window until he wanders a bit closer to his shop.  When he goes in, we send in Alexandra.  She’s his favorite.  That conversation goes something like:
“Good morning.”
“Grunt.”
“Do you have milk powder?”
“No.”  He doesn’t even pretend to look at the shelves behind him.
Alexandra stands, blocking his shop line while she examines each and every shelf for the milk powder.
“What’s that down there.”
No reaction.  He pretends he can’t hear her.
“Bubu, what’s that down there?  In the blue plastic?”
Continuing to pretend he can’t hear her.  There are now three other people waiting in the shop.
“Bubu, I think I see something in the blue plastic on the bottom shelf.  What is it?”
He glares at her, sighs dramatically, stands up, shuffles over, picks up the sachet of milk powder and throws in on the counter.
“How much is the milk powder?”
Another dramatic sigh because he has to turn around on his stool to check the price. 
“150.”
“Thank you.”
I could understand if he was just having a bad day.  We all have those.  Some days you just don’t want to deal with people.  To make it clear that this is not a bad day, let me try to relate some of his more classic moves.
One of the women from the Health Center went to get toilet paper.  He gets the toilet paper and throws it at her.
For the first 6 months I was here, he would pretend he couldn’t understand me.  I would ask in Bislama for say, noodles.  He would turn to whoever was in the shop and shrug at them.  They would repeat, usually verbatim what I’d said.  Then he’d sigh and get me my noodles.  Usually with a dirty look thrown in for a tip.
Every once in a while, he will be in a very good mood.  This means that he will simply grab your items and place them on the counter.  Happy does not mean smiles.  Happy means a lack of sighing, eye-rolling, and slamming items on the counter.
It makes you wonder how that job interview went. 
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