5110 This is the second type of road I mentioned. The harsh contrast between sun and shade makes it difficult to see how jouncy this is and it’s level compared to type 3.
5129 This is the Chief of the Lysepsep Village on Espiritu Santo in Vanuatu. His eyes are not closed but are squinted to avoid the glare of the bright light. You can see, in profile, the boar’s tusk on his necklace. I really like his profile.
5132 Diana and I with the Chief. Like I said, he’s not tall but he is sturdy. I’ve got the talking stick and Diana’s got the conch shell.
5144 The black and yellow spider. It was about 5 inches across.
5173 This is the flower I mentioned that blooms in serial fashion. You can see that the flowers above the blooms are wrinkled and open on the end. They’ve bloomed. The buds below the blooms are smooth and closed. They have yet to open.
This will only be the first half of our day as I have a lot of pictures to send about both halves.
Nov 14 – At Sea. This morning our onboard port lecturer, Barbara, had a copy of the Solomon Islands Star newspaper. In bold type the headline was “Honiara hoses biggest cruise ship”. The full-page article goes on to say that no one can remember a cruise ship of the size of the Amsterdam ever being in port. They get about one ship a month, usually a small, with fewer than 150 passengers. Our guide told us that. If you want to see the picture and read the article, it’s at www.solomonstarnews.com. I told you they loved us. If you are a WWII buff and don’t mind flying, you have to head to Chuuk, Manila (to go to Corregidor), Guam and Guadalcanal. None is that hard to get to and the people are great. The accommodations may be a bit rustic but they are clean and well cared for, just be sure to do your research. If you SCUBA, each of them is also great, except for Manila. Although there is great diving elsewhere in the Philippines.
Today we are sailing in the Coral Sea, site of one of the great naval battles in the Pacific along with Midway.
I was so tied up on what to write about Guadalcanal that I didn’t comment much on the culture there. Sorry! I’d already written about 14 pages on the battle sites before I realized I didn’t want my journal entry to be that long. That’s when I started the separate journal just for them.
The people are great!! They speak a Pidgin that’s a mixture of Melanesian and English. I noticed that if they will speak slowly you could understand them, especially if you’re already used to hearing Hawaiian Pidgin. It’s so much easier to get if it’s written. For example, “Yu bilong wea?” If you keep all the vowels short that’s pronounced U belong weah or You belong where? Where are you from? How about, Mi no save. Remember always keep your vowels short. Same, as “Mi no undastadem.” I don’t understand. My personal favorite is, “Yu go wea?” Where are you going? While we’re in the spirit, let’s try some Hawaiian. “You go, I stay go, I come bimbi.” Not sure of the spelling on bimbi so I wrote it phonetically. Means, ‘You go, I’ll stay here but I’ll come later (by and by). How cool is that? Remember, all this is what I figured out and some of it is likely to be wrong.
Nov 15 – Luganville, Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu. Today we are on the island that Pappy Boyington hated because it was his Commander’s HQ and if there’s one thing he didn’t like, it was regulations.
Luganville is the largest city on Espiritu Santo. Its population is a little over 13,000 out of the island’s about 30,000. It’s one of the country’s busiest ports. Much of the activity involves the transshipment of copra and cacao. Loganville’s main street, Boulevard Higginson, is very wide because the American base commander insisted that four trucks should fit on the road side-by-side. Knowing the name of the street you want is not very helpful because there are only about two street signs in the whole city. The port is at one end of the street and the markets are at the other. There are two types of shops along the street, tourist traps and all-in-one stores, a cross between a supermarket and a hardware store. Think of them as very small Super Wal-Marts.
The residents of Luganville are a diverse group made up of NiVanuatu (the locals) and small communities of descendants of European and Chinese extraction. Vanuatu became independent in 1980.
During World War II about 40,000 United States military personnel were stationed in Luganville and it is estimated the between 400,000 and 500,000 military personnel took R & R on the island, operating 3 bomber airfields, a huge wharf and a nearby dry-dock. This era in Luganville's history is evident in the military-constructed Quonset huts still scattered around town.
One of the big attractions here is the wreck of the SS President Coolidge. It was converted to military use in WWII and struck two mines as it entered the harbor here. Only one life was lost because the troops could wade ashore from one side of the ship but all the equipment and material it was carrying went down with it. It’s a very popular place for divers. It’s so big and so open that you could do over 10 dives on the wreck and still not have seen everything. In fact, it’s the largest accessible WWII relic anywhere. Some of my friends on the ship went diving there during our visit. Also popular is Million Dollar Point where tons of military equipment saw thrown or driven over a cliff into the sea. Rusty jeep and truck parts still like the shore for miles.
Our day is split into two parts. First, we are going to a cultural center to learn about the local’s traditions and life. Then we are going to see what’s described as “Mystical Water Music’. We’re not sure what that is but it’s something different and that’s what we like.
Our morning started out with us getting into vans for the trip to the center. The vans could hold about 12 people but HAL only put 8 in each one. Yea HAL! The trip started out on a blacktop road but that quickly ended. Our guide told us that any blacktop road was put in by the US military and no one is maintaining them except for a small part by the port going into town. We are going out of town so the blacktop ended about 1 mile from the port.
At that point, the road was sort of graded and gravel with potholes and some ruts but for the most part it was fairly level and some maintenance was done occasionally. Most of it was at least two cars wide but it was bumpy and the potholes made the practical width only about one car wide so many time we had to stop for the passible side of the ‘road’ to get clear. These driving conditions lasted about 25 minutes and then the road became little more than a one-car wide dirt path through the jungle. It was rutted, never level, and had huge bumps I’d say were moguls if the surface had been snow. The only positive thing you could say was that, because the road had no real surface on it, there were no potholes. There wasn’t any place flat enough for you to notice if there was one. The ride wasn’t bumpy, it was jolting or bouncy, let’s call it jouncy. However, the driver went slowly and carefully, so it was actually fun.
After another 20-25 minutes, we arrived at the Lysepsep Cultural Center. That’s when I got the big surprise. The Cultural Center is a work in process. The local village has put together a program that demonstrates some crafts and skills of their people as well as dances and woodsmanship or in this case junglemanship. Back home in PA when I was growing up I did pretty well in the woods. I could build an impromptu shelter, start a fire, find things to eat, etc. I might be able to stumble along in the jungle but there are a million things I don’t know about the flora and fauna. These guys know it. That’s not the big surprise.
The big surprise first came to my attention when we got out of the vans and I noticed that we were parking and walking on a large slab of concrete that had been poured in sections. The sections were peeling, cracked and moss covered. When we arrived at the entrance to the center, inscribed into the concrete was “U.S.A. 1942’. An Army hospital had been built on the chief’s land during WWII. The buildings are long gone but the slab foundations and concrete walkways are still in pretty good shape. The village uses them as demonstration areas and when you move from one area to the other you are following in the footsteps of doctors, nurses, medical staff and patients from WWII. It’s entirely possible that when my dad was returned to the US after the Battle for Bougainville he came through this hospital because he was very sick with malaria at the time. He told me one time that a doctor told him that the malaria bugs in his blood were at the highest concentration he’d ever seen.
Back to the tour. After we went through the entrance, a covered walkway with large tikis carved into the bottom section of each supporting log, we met the chief on what was probably a small building’s slab, maybe a lab or storage room. Was not a tall man but he was very sturdily built and had a great beard. His hair was mostly black on top but slowly changed to grey at the tip of his beard. A very distinguished look. He was ‘dressed’ in belt about 3 inches wide and a thin leather thong around his neck with a large boar’s tusk and shard of ancient pottery attached. I guess for modesty reasons he had inserted two large palm leaves in the back of his belt frond side down to cover his buttocks. The front was a bit unusual. He had made a codpiece from a rolled up leaf of some sort. This covered the appropriate body part and then was folded back on the upside and inserted under the belt. It formed a V pointing frontward. His family jewels were swaying in the breeze however since the rolled leaf item just covered the penis. I’ve seen some odd costumes here in the islands of the Pacific but this one was new to me. Three leaves and a belt are about as minimal as it gets. Next step is just nothing at all.
The chief blew on a conch shell to call the gathering to order. He was carrying his ‘Talking stick’ in his right hand. The talking stick tradition exists on many of the islands, especially in the South Pacific. We first encountered it in 1991 on the Island of Tonga. It’s a key part of the “Robert’s Rules of Order” for the islands. In a meeting with the chief, you are not allowed to talk unless you are holding the stick and the chief determines who gets it and when. Each culture has rules that govern the chief’s behavior in allocating the stick but in the end, he decides.
Through an interpreter, he welcomed us to his village and cultural center. He told us a bit about its development and the history of the hospital that occupied the site during WWII. He said he was sorry that the center was not yet fully complete but that it was a work in progress and they were completing it as funds allowed. It was a well-organized presentation and when he finished we all applauded. I know that’s probably a potentially hazardous thing to do because you can’t be sure from culture to culture what a particular behavior might mean. Nevertheless, someone started it and we all joined in. I guess if the chief is going to run a cultural center for visitors to the island, he has to expect some behaviors on the part of visitors that may seem odd to him. He offered to pose for pictures with anyone who wanted to take one. Diana and I stepped forward. He handed her the conch shell and I got the talking stick. I was about to make a presentation but the guide took the picture quickly and I never got the chance. Kidding of course.
The first demonstration area was used to show us some of the passive hunting techniques they use and display some of the local fauna. The have a small feral pig, a sea turtle (looked like a loggerhead, our guide didn’t know anything but the island name for it), a small bird that looked like a Guinea hen and a couple of large spiders. The spider display almost got some of our fellow travelers in trouble, not with the chief but with the spiders. They had set up four, six-foot tall, thin sticks vertically about 3-4 feet apart. I guess they capture some spiders, place them on one of the poles and rely on the spider to do his or her thing. They had success with two spiders occupying the outer two spaces created by the four poles. Since our fellow travelers are mostly city folk, they wonder around the jungle as if they’re walking on a street in the city. In simple terms, they are totally oblivious to their surroundings and potential hazards. (I assume that’s why the chief chose the former hospital site for his center. The concrete slabs and walkways remove most of the need to be alert.) While our guide was explaining some of the passive methods the villagers use to get wild game, snares, drop traps and nets, I was admiring the spiders. This is one area in which the woodsmanship I learned and the skills of the jungle don’t differ. As a child, I used the same three methods to catch woodland creatures myself. Mostly we trapped box turtles (catch for later release to keep them from eating all the wild strawberries before we could pick them), chipmunks (catch and release, they never ate as well as when we had them), red squirrels (varmints that kill the useful grey squirrels, so they were not released) and grey squirrels (to eat).
After the trapping demonstrations were completed, we were given some time to look at the animals and several of my fellow travelers had to be prevented from walking face first into the spider displays. According to our guide, the island doesn’t have any seriously poisonous insects or animals, but there are several that can inflict a painful bite. Not sure if either of these two 5-inch beauties were among them but I didn’t want anyone to find out. They looked like they were related species. Both were mainly black, one was yellow at the leg joints and had small yellow stripes on its body; the other was orange in the same places.
We followed the path to the next display area. Here a mat had been placed at the center of the slab and several samples of the local fauna had been place upon it. Our guide said that they were some of the herbal remedies they used. One of the leaves he had on display had hemostatic properties. You roll it between your hands to mash it up and then apply it to the wound. He says that it stops the bleeding right away. There were leaves you chew for upset stomach and pain relief, others that you apply for antipruritic and antibiotic purposes. It was one of the better presentations of this type I’ve ever seen.
As we walked along the WWII walkways, there were examples of tropical flowers along the way. I’m pretty sure they planted them there because they were never located more than a few feet from the walk. There were various colors of ginger, but red ginger predominated. Many of the flowers were unfamiliar to me. One plant had a long stem with small white buds attached to it. Apparently, it’s like fireweed in Alaska. The buds bloom serially, starting with those closest to the base. As those above the current bloom start to open, the blooms below start to close. Only a few buds bloom at one time. When the blooms reach the tip, summer is over. In the example here, there’s several stems extending from the main stem and each has a row of buds on it. The overall effect is like one of those aerial fireworks then explodes with several branches going downward. Each of the budded branches has blooms on it and they are not all coordinated. Some had the blooms in the middle of the stem others were just starting.
The next demonstration was a boy showing us the traditional sand drawing technique of the village. He was dressed in the traditional style just like the chief. The drawing technique works a lot like an Etch-a-Sketch. They are allowed to draw a frame in the sand in any way they want but once they start the drawing they are not allowed to pick their finger up. They have to draw continuously until they complete the sketch. The lad, about 9 years old, drew several sketches. After each, we had to guess what he had drawn. Like the Northwestern Indigenous Peoples of North America, the drawings are stylized so some are hard to recognize.
In the next area, they had a weaving demonstration. Three ladies were sitting on mats demonstrating different kinds of weaving using coconut palm leaves. The first lady was weaving mats like the ones on which they were sitting. For her task, she needs leaves that were split to a uniform width and dried using fire and aging. They turn a light tan during the process. The final product is about 10 feet long and 6-7 feet wide. The second lady was making roofing material. She was using green, whole leaves taken fresh from a palm frond. She’s attaching them to a bamboo pole about 6 feet long that has been shaved flat. She does that by folding the leaf around the pole and then pinning it with a toothpick-like piece of wood. In essence, she was making a huge shingle. They attach these to the roof just like shingles and then cover them with chicken wire to keep them from being blown off by high wind. The third lady was weaving everyday articles out of green palm leaves. She had made baskets, carryalls, hats, small mats somewhat like place mats and children’s toys. Our guide told us that these items are not meant to be long-lived. Every few days they make new ones. Oddly, he said the roofing leaves will cure in the sun and the roof can last for years. The mats, made from cured leaves, are very durable too.
The next area had a cooking demonstration. The chef was a villager dressed just like the chief but no necklace of power or talking stick. He was being assisted by a lady dressed much more modestly. In her belt, she had tucked a series of large leaves that covered her down to her knees. Around her shoulders, she had a cape made of leaves that covered her to her waist. The stone oven was already completed and cooking. Like islanders everywhere, they take a pile of river rocks, cover them with wood and set it on fire. The let the wood fire burn until the rocks are hot, then they use long tongs made of split bamboo to remove the wood, large leaves to beat the wood ash off the hot rocks and place the food on the hot rocks and cover the whole thing with many layers of large green leaves. That’s it until they figure everything’s done. They set up a buffet on a couple of huge banana leaves. The food was delicious. What is it about eating home cooked food outdoors? Yum!!
Next, we visited a small traditional hut that they have built to house the collection of WWII relics they’ve discovered while preparing the site for the center. There were live rounds for some sort of small gun, about 30mm. Lots of .50 Cal bullets and .30 Cal casings, old bottles, small personal items (spoons, toothbrushes, combs, buttons, belt buckles, mess kits, canteens, cups, mess trays, etc.) and equipment. Some mortar shells, other munitions and one complete ’03 Springfield. I’m guessing the Marines were here early on as even they had M-1s later in the war.
Our next area was refreshments and a village dance. The refreshment was a coconut that was cut open and decorated with a colorful leaf. It was cool and very refreshing.
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