Unfortunately, the cancelled ship journey meant that
we were going to miss the west coast of Malaita with Auki
and Laulasi. We were sort of mentally prepared for that
sort of thing before we started out, though, and always
tried to do the best of the situation.
In addition to this, the supposed 5-6 hour boat trip
was transformed into a much longer one. After returning
to Honiara, we took the ship Ramos 1 at 1800 in the evening
which took the long way round the Florida Islands group
in order to make the first stop on the northeastern coast
of Malaita at 0600 the next morning.
Not the most comfortable
trip, but it certainly got us to sit in the second class
compartment among
a lot of interesting
people
through the night.
Fortunately Ronnie had also booked
the two first class cabins where we could store our luggage
and take turns on the beds through the night and the next
day. They also had almost working
toilets.
Ramos made in all five stops, at one of them we got to
see a small island we were returning to later.
At every stop, small boats come out to the ship for exchange
of passengers and cargo. Our stop was the last, at around 1600,
because this sort of thing isn't done in darkness, then the
ship was going back to Guadalcanal, so it only covered half of
Malaita's east cost this time.
Actually, at our stop there was a stone quay on the other side of
the ship, so while it looked like we had lost part of the
group, they were actually ashore. But had I used the regular
gangway, of course I wouldn't have seen the action from
the other side.
We were still not quite at Sinalanggu where we were to spend
the night, so we were picked up in small boats and met by
Ronnie's sister Binnie who was to be an additional assistent
(we already had one) during this part.
(The man in the boat was his father (or one of them at least,
since to the Kwaio one's father's brothers are also one's
fathers and their sons ones brother, and similarily for one's
mother's sisters and their daughters)
but we weren't introduced to him.)
When we arrived in Sinalanggu, which is the village where Ronnie grew up in, we had to stay in his parents house and could only go to the shower just outside or the toilet a bit off in the forest, so as to leave the villagers alone. Ronnie was born higher inland, but his mother wanted to move down to the coast, so that the children could go to school. To go to school you also have to be nominally christian as there are no schools run by anyone else than the different churches.
Practically everyone in Salomon Islands is christian. The exception is the Kwaio people, or at least the very traditional ones who don't live on the coast. However, even the christian ones have very strong traditions which are sometimes very peculiar.
The next morning we started the climb up the muddy
path to the Kwaio Cultural Centre where we were to stay
three nights.
The cultural centre is really two huts, one for the tourists
to sleep in (and a guard outside on the porch) and the roofed over
foundation (for cultural events like music and singing)
of an earlier one where an anthropologist lived
for several years. It acts like sort of a staging point
from where one can make day trips to neighbouring villages.
It is Ronnie Butala's creation and intended to allow for
careful interaction between foreigners and Kwaio. He's had
a modern education in New Zealand but he puts great store
in the traditional Kwaio life which he doesn't want to
disrupt (he has no trouble not letting people who can't
behave the right way don't visiting the villages at
all and get them out of the Kwaio Cultural Centre)
more than the minimum necessary in order to educate
tourists about the culture.
This respect for example means that you're not really
told all about their religion and absolutely cannot visit
some places.
To some extent you also have to behave
as the locals, for example are there two paths leading
off to two different toilets, and you have to use
leaves instead of paper. For washing, one goes off
a bit to a small stream with a beautiful waterfall.
And off course no walking off by yourself.
The first evening we were invited to a nearby village to
attend
"a drumming".
This isn't "music" as such, but sort of a message, in this
case the message was simply "we have guests", which we got
to hear more than once.
One in our group nearly went to stand somewhere we couldn't. I'm not sure exactly what would have happened, but in Kwaio there can be serious consequences if you don't behave right.
This is one reason none of us used the theoretical opportunity to sleep over in a village. Another that it'd be quite impractical even if you're used to travel roughly. For example, you cannot bring anything to the toilet. Or rather, you cannot bring anything but your body back from it, so it's kind of difficult in the middle of the night or if you happen to need glasses and don't know the way very well. This sort of thing comes more naturally if you're used to very little in the way of clothing (actually unmarried women aren't supposed to wear clothes at all and the traditional married ones don't wear much more) and no stuff like earrings and the like.
The next day we took a walk through the forest to some
nearby villages. There were sort of paths to follow, but
traditionally Kwaio and other groups did not use paths,
as a path is a convenient place for someone else to place
an ambush and a way for them to find your village.
It can be noted that every single spot of land in Solomon Islands
is owned by someone and it cannot be sold. But just as
"brothers" include what we call cousins (with no meaningful
way of distingushing between brothers and cousins), "mine" actually
means mine + my brothers together.
(This is a reason why the shops in Honiara are mostly owned
by Chinese. If a Salomon Islander had a shop, everything on
the shelves would sort of belong to the relatives so they
could in principle come there and take what they need. And
that's no way to run a business. This does however not
prevent the existance of small family owned shops in
the Kwaio area.)
On the way, we got an overview of what the differnent plants can be used for. Some was of a practical nature, but at least our guide focused quite a lot on magical uses. Which I guess is a practical use if you see it that way, but personally I don't think I will ever have a use for something you can blow over someone's house to guarantee they stay asleep while you steal their pig (or a girl school so you can do what you like to those who live there). Interesting, though.
We passed the site of an abandoned village on the way.
It wasn't abandoned because the site itself was bad, but
because something had happened to make the spot unclean.
I'm quite sure it had something to do with body fluids,
or at least something which had been inside the body.
(I told you it could have consequences to behave the wrong
way when visiting a village.)
The first village we came to consisted of just a regular house
(the one with the pig in front of it (this pig is not stolen, since
stolen pigs are eaten right away, even though the owner has
a reputation as a very good pig stealer (more than 100), which has
given him a very high status, so high that he's now going to
replace his second wife with an even younger one)), an open
space and
a small hut for menstruating women, with an attached garden
since they have to stay in or near the hut in order not to
"pollute" or "make unclean" anything. (For example, stepping
over a running stream of water instantly and permanently
makes all water downstream of that spot unusable. I don't
think you're surprised that women about to give birth go off
to a remote spot in the forest.) So in effect, this is a
single family village. I didn't quite catch the reason for
this, but it has something to do with the fact the man can't
live in the same village as one or some of his older male
relatives.
We had lunch in this village. Which brings us to the subject
of food. There isn't a lot to say about food in the Salomon
Islands except that it's bland and doesn't always taste all that
well. In Kwaio it's also simple to describe what you get to
eat. It's taro, sweet potatoes, taro made in another way, another
part of the taro plant, more taro root and so on.
Here we got got taro root which had had been in a fire, crushed
and mixed with coconut water to sort of a bun, eaten hot, with
taro leaves on the side. (I like the leaves the best on
the taro plant.
Then we went to the next village. It was just around
the bend, not 50 m away.
The newest house here was scheduled to be burned down, because an old woman had thrown up some food inside it. So it doesn't have to be some incontinent woman peeing by mistake to make a house unusable.
Here we were also invited to one of the houses. The womens'
section of the floor is next to the side of the door, there's
a fireplace in the middle which nobody can step over and
on the other side is the mens' side.
We got to try out the bamboo water containers. You drink by
pouring into your mouth, don't touch it with it.
The weather can change rapidly. These photos are taken
about 20 min apart.
The next day we went a bit further (as half of us had done the day
before) and during the walk again got some information about
useful plants. (This time the focus wasn't on sex, love and
stealing.)
This village had a hut on stilts, which is for unmarried men.
We were then taken to one of the village's gardens.
A garden is a slash and burn clearing in the forest.
It can give two crops of taro a couple of months apart and is
then abandoned, so a family needs to keep up to 15 gardens
active in rotation, with more than one worked at a single
time as you have to clear some while you harvest others.
For practical reasons there are no seasons in Salomon Islands, so
planting and harvesting can be done year round.
Large machete like knives are ubiquos and used for many tasks.
These villages are quite close to the coast, so they're not
as strictly traditional as those a bit further inland. One
sign of that they've made it easier for themselves to get
water. It doesn't have to be gotten by women going away far
off and bringing it home in bamboo tubes. But the water
is piped from "clean" places upstream. (That bit about
stepping over flowing water holds for pipes as well, more
about this later on.)
Returning from a somewhat long walk.
Preparing for later in the evening and just sitting around
talking.
One evening we were treated to song, music and dancing. Participation optional. The main instruments were flutes and drumming on a hand held pad. (To the uninitiated, it sounds very much like they play the same short piece of music more than 100 times. But it's not quite the same from time to time, and I think the important part is the participation.) One of the wonderful things about this was that it certainly wasn't something arranged just because there were tourists there, as was evidenced by the fact they continued to sing and dance for several hours after we Swedes had went to bed.
Another there were stories, which also is music and song, but it's about something specific which has happened. In this case it was about when the Kwaio killed the tax collector Mr Bell and his assistant in the 1920's. They're still very proud of this and it seems to have worked, as they still don't pay any taxes and government representatives don't enter the area without special arrangements.
The locals were quite fascinated that most of us weren't married. One of the very few things they could ask about and sort of understand. Showing photos from Sweden didn't feel all that meaningful, since they mostly didn't even the slightest idea what the photos showed. The single photo that got the most reaction was of one of a large ferry. "How much larger than Ramos is that one?" Something to compare with, at least.
It was also assumed we were christians because the way we dressed and looked. (This assumption had little basis in reality as none of us ten Swedes in the group called him- or herself christian and a clear majority said they weren't.)
We left some gifts to the Kwaio, but not directly, all passed through the tour leader. Swedish knifes and axes are very popular.
After walking down from the highland to the coast, we were
supposed to takes boats almost right away. But first
the weather wasn't all that good and then all boat
drivers couldn't be found. So we stayed an extra
24 hours or so there. Mostly I played cards with some
of the others.
We went by the typical motor canoes to the small twin islands
of Kwai and NgoNgosila where we stayed with different families,
1 to 4 per family.
Both islands are less than 1 km across and very densely
populated with houses everywhere. One of the sights, if one
can call it that, is the graves of the tax collector Mr Bell
and his assistant.
The islands are connected by a sandbar at low tide, and the
difference between low and high tide isn't very much, so
one can usually wade between them too.
When we were there we unexpectedly met three Australian members
of the IPMT (International Peace Monitoring Team). The IMPT's task
was to travel around, this team covered Malaita's east coast,
and convince people to turn in the weapons that had been stolen
from the armouries during the tension.
In the evening we got to witness one method they were using.
It was an event which was labelled as a gathering where we
would get to hear a childrens' group sing. In reality it
turned out to be an interminable series of speaches by
the IMPT members, local leaders and gospel music. The children
fell asleep waiting for their turn and after several hours
most of our group left the place because it was rather late.
(Late for us, that is. We usually went to bed around 2100,
which was earlier than the locals.) By far the most boring
episode during this trip, but everything counts as an
experience.
The toilets on the island we stayed at were two. Each a box without
floor (just some wooden spars) nor roof on stilts out in the water.
The one for women (the one on the right) had a much longer, higher and
unstable bridge, so one of the women in our group fell down and
hurt her foot. Not good at all.
There wasn't a lot to do on these islands, but at least we could
walk around freely and the people there didn't mind contact with
us. Sometimes it could be a little irritating trailing at least
half a dozen kids wherever you went, but as they followed only
because they were curious about us and sometimes knew some
English and wanted to say hello to us, I think it that OK.
The initial plan was that when leaving the islands we were to cross to the mainland and go by truck to Auki and then by boat back to Honiara. It had rained, so the road had been partially damaged earlier in the year, so this wasn't possible (but the IPMT could go across in their smaller off road vehicles).
Instead we went by boat to the clinic at Atoifi to take a chartered
aircraft to Honiara.
From a distance we could see signs of what's sacred places. Doesn't
show well on the photo, but at the top of the ridge is a stand of
trees which hasn't been cut down, which means there's "something"
there. (This is Kwaio territory too.)
The Atoifi clinic is a clinic and not a hospital partialy because it doesn't
really have the staff to make it a hospital, for example there were no
doctors present all the time, but it's still the closest thing to
a hospital on east Malaita.
It was built in the 1960's by a religious group (as practically everything else in health care and education). But it was built completely wrong when taking Kwaio culture into account. For example, the maternity ward is furthest in and highest up the slope, so it's not just that women can pass outside wards where there are men, there's also the thing about keeping "unclean" bodily fluids downstream, so lots of people would never enter the clinic. Well intentioned, but not for everyone, so they're actually planning on building a separate ward a bit off for men. By the way, the clinic is the only thing there is at this spot.
How come we went to a clinic in order to take an aircraft?
Easy: The clinic is also the airport terminal, so that's where
we went to weigh ourselves and our luggage.
On to part 3 (of 3). (Back to Part 1.)
Photos from some of
my
other travels
Photos and sounds from 2001 July,
photos by me unless I'm in the photo myself or if the
caption says differently,
document created 2001 Dec 31
by
Urban