Tuesday 15 July – ladies making water music

What an action packed day, apologies in advance for all the photos.

As it was getting dark last night we were visited by a local guy in a canoe, it turned out he was the Anglican priest for the village a couple of bays away. So many different religions on the islands, each village has a different religion. He was asking for a lift for some parents whose daughter had been sent to the hospital at the main town at the northern top of the island. The weather is not looking great tomorrow and we certainly don’t have spare petrol for him, so we said we would dinghy over to his village in the morning and let him know our plans. We couldn’t believe he was going to paddle back so far in the dark with breaking reefs around. We gave him a cordial drink from our soda streamer, and it resulted in him having the most spectacular burps, which he was mortified about! We woke up and decided we were not moving on today, too windy, so we would go and let him know that we couldn’t help. His village was a couple of kms away, and surprisingly had a white coral beach not like the jet black volcanic beaches in front of us. I held onto JeldiJeldi while Rowan climbed the cliff to see if he could find the priest. In the meantime the kids were on break from school and roared down to join me. We had a skimming stones competition counting the amount of skips they made. They were having such a great time. Rowan found the teacher of the kids but not the priest, and she knew nothing of his story! We arranged with the teacher to come back at 3pm to trade for fruit and veg, and as the priest had suggested the ladies would do some water music for us.

We then went back to Jimmy’s home at the black beach in front of PolePole, he was the guy with the extraordinary electrified hair style! We were met at the beach by his grandfather Chief Jomo (very hard to catch their names), a very dignified man, with an old radio in a leather case hanging from his shoulder. Sadly the batteries had run out and we have no spare big size D batteries to give him. He took us up to his homestead. This is not a village, just his family living here on this beautiful bit of jet black powder beach. I will let the photos do the description, it was an amazing collection of traditional homes, for various members of the family. Loads of animals roaming around, the whole place beautifully kept. An idyllic spot. Jimmy was not there as he had gone in a banana boat (the local outboard boats) to the town up north to pick up his brother from the supply ship. Jimmy has the only modern house. The chiefs wife was delightful too, she arranged to get a couple of other woman to do some water music for us. They went into the river just near where it enters the sea, and gave us a spectacular performance. It is a tradition of Gaua island. They manage to get such rhythm and different noises slapping and cupping the water. Really fascinating. When they had finished we went back to the chiefs kitchen and shared out our big box of presents – rice, tinned meats, hammers, pliers, torch, cooking tongs and chopping knives, plus a bundle of Rowan’s old clothes. They were thrilled and gave us two big bunches of fat stubby bananas that are absolutely delicious. We have discovered that they all like to trade rather than get money, I suppose it is so hard to spend money here, there are no shops about or in the little villages nearby. We felt like stretching our legs afterwards so walked over to the nearest village where one of the music ladies lived. Amazingly they have their own little primary school here too. It was a great clamber up and down the cliffs and along the beach.

We returned to the boat around lunch time to replenish our presents to take to the priest’s village in the afternoon. Yesterday the German boat Trinity was in touch with us to say they were coming to our bay today. Full of trepidation, as he had been so bombastic last time we met, we invited them to join us going to the village. They brought along a big barracuda they caught coming in, from what we gather these big barracudas are full of ciguatera, the poison, but the locals seem very happy to eat it. We arrived at the beach, the teacher and the priest were all there to greet us plus loads of kids and 4 other ladies to join in the music making. It was far more relaxed here and full of laughter and the kids thoroughly enjoying themselves. The teacher was just so lovely and jovial, the kids all adored her. After the ladies’ music, this time performed in the sea, the kids were persuaded by us and the teacher to do a performance. It was a great effort after they overcame their shyness. Our big box of goodies was shared out with loads of writing books and pens for the kids. We have a huge stash of presents, all the same sort of things we gave out this morning.

On our return to PolePole we went back to the chief with a pair of reading glasses, we had seen his broken pair this morning. He was very touched. We were pleased that Stefan the German guy was a bit calmer today, we said our farewells as we will leave in the morning.

The white coral beach at the priest’s village

Kids having a skipping stone competition

Kids waving goodbye from the top of the cliff when the school teacher called them back

Chief and Rowan with his box of presents

Big trees on the black sandy beach

The chief’s wife says they were given this sign and have no idea why their place is called 477

477 at their entrance, definitely not for the postman!

Tangle of tree roots

The old kitchen

Beautifully decorated

Fire place for cooking, looked like a museum until we saw the new kitchen!

The houses for children and grandchildren

Little rooms everywhere

The new kitchen, inside doesn’t look too different from the old one

Huge chopping board for their laplap

Kitchen work bench and seat

Huge grater for coconuts

Tiny little puppy, the size of Rowan’s shoes

Amazing traditional buildings

The beautifully swept courtyard

Chief sitting in the verandah meeting house

Grave yard of past chief

Some of the pigs look pretty wild

Jimmy’s yellow house, the only modern house

Piglets everywhere

Mum tied up as she just had these little tikes

Can’t get over how they are all so differently coloured

Their cava pestle and mortar, with a bottle ready for the next brew

PolePole alone out in the bay

Decorative home

The water music making ladies

The river running out to sea

The black beach is dramatic, hard to capture in a photo

Fresh water making its way out to sea, cut out stair case in the cliff we took to walk to the village

Clambering up

Lovely home all on its own at the top

Looked like a cooking house carved into the cliff

Back down again to the next bay

Trees strangling the boulders

Nature’s colours, dramatic volcanic geology here

The river in this bay

The river’s tiny trickle into the sea

One of the music ladies lived in this village and proudly showed us her new roof

The next bay

The teacher and her music ladies

The kid’s performance

Everybody huddled around the box of goodies, they sent us off with pamplemousse, limes, pawpaws, snake beans and some other very strange looking beans

Rowan handing out books and pens

A lovely sunset