Sakao, and Several Other Drinks

This blog is a long one.

On Friday, walking back to work from lunch, I was steadily and consciously taking in the vastly changing scenery. When I first arrived in August, the “commute” from the Jesuit residence to MicSem was a 3 minute walk down some slick, crude stone steps through relatively dense jungle. For a few minutes each morning, I was able to pretend that I was lost in the Amazon or the bush, listening to the calling sounds of those deep red birds (I don’t know exactly what type of bird they are) and the rustling of bright, glossy lizards in the fallen palms. Recently though, our maintenance workers and a family we call “the Mangove People,” whose last name I can never remember, have been chopping and tearing down trees like the demolition of an entire city. The Mangrove People, aptly named after constructing their shoddy home in the mangroves directly across from MicSem, have been involved in a tumultuous affair with the Missions for quite some time. They offer help (as with this new foresting project), they are friendly, and in return we give them water from our catchment and limes from our tree. But they are also a source of uneasiness. They are poor, by Pohnpeian standards (though I have some hang ups about the actual meaning of the word “poor”) and they are the leading cause of the thefts that have taken place at MicSem and in our house. I think it is usually the children and younger ones that have the audacity and guiltlessness to do such things, but it has nevertheless been a point of disconcertion for me since I arrived. So far I have been here during three break-ins and quite a few more attempts, though nothing of mine has yet been stolen. It’s strange to have someone wave and smile at you when they have tried to slash through your window screen with a pocket knife. Anyway, there is now a combined effort to chop down this jungle area, and I am surprised at how quickly it is happening. Already, the path from the house to MicSem is nearly blank – a flattened field. The area has been subdued and become transparent; no longer wild bush. The benefits are twofold, I think. One reason is safety – it would be more difficult and uncomfortable for thieves to sneak to our house if there was no jungle to hide them. It seems bizarre that the same people who steal from us are currently helping to heighten security, but like all things political, the circumstances are not so simple. Not everyone in that family steals, and in fact some of them are embarrassed about the transgressions of others. Some of the children who steal most likely do it because, well, they are children and all they know is that the mehn wai up in that big house are not very good at sharing their toys. I have seen them dancing and playing in our carport while it rains, happy and carefree, and it’s hard to imagine them being devious and malevolent. It is a fraught and complicated situation. The second reason is planting, which is mostly to the benefit of the Mangrove People. So far they have successfully planted cabbage and cucumbers, which are growing wildly in the fertile shoreline soil. The plates of massive, bright green vegetables constantly appearing in our kitchen are testaments to the compromises we have been trying to erect.

Anyway, during this mentally eventful walk to work on Friday, I was thinking about the benefits and detriments of this project. It’s sad to see the jungle go, and I’m not the only one who thinks that. On the surface, it seems irresponsible to destroy yet another natural area, sanctioned, at the highest level, by the white people wanting to secure their stuff and at the lowest level, by locals who do not understand the environmental repercussions. But every time I see women harvesting vegetables to eat and sell, and making such productive use of land that keeps giving, I remember that these events are not so black and white.

On Saturday, Greg and I drove out to Enipein, the village in Kitti where he stayed for three when he first arrived in Pohnpei. We were visiting his family, a very friendly a down to earth people who lived relatively close to the Lehn Paipohn waterfall I hiked a few weeks ago. When we arrived, I was suddenly transported back to Chuuk – the house and its surroundings had little resemblance to Kolonia. I once again found myself in the mud and dirt, sitting on the raised portion of a one-room concrete house. I met most of the family, who welcomed me immediately and asked if I would be staying overnight. The youngest girls sat close to me, smiling and whispering to each other when my back was turned. They tried to speak to me in the little English they knew, proud of themselves for that, and taking great joy in scaring away their dogs that came to sniff me. They giggled and pointed, and inched closer and closer until their legs were touching mine, staring at my pale face – my mascara and free-falling hair dead giveaways that I was very different. We were served one of the best meals I have had since arriving: a pork and onion stew; a sweet pounded yam and coconut milk mash that was purple in color and looked unpleasant, but tasted like a sweeter version of bananas; and the biggest lobsters I have ever seen. They saw me staring and encouraged me to eat until all the food was finished; the aunt breaking a lobster with a spoon and cutting the meat into little circular slices like you would a hotdog for a small child. After lunch, I was told we were going to visit some Sakao markets. The aunt brought out a mwar’mwar made of folded palm leaves and a big, bright red flower to put around my neck, and a water bottle full of a yellow-brown greasy liquid which she rubbed all over my arms. Greg said this is a form of anointing because I was new and from the outside… and also, more practically, to keep the bugs away. It smelled like sandalwood, felt warm like massage oil, and made my skin shimmer.
Our first stop was to the lower village where we stopped to see a woman called Nona Sik (I am not sure how to spell this… “Nona” apparently means “mother,” and “Sik” is her name, though when she was first introduced to me, I thought they were all telling me she was ill which is probably why they were so confused at my expressions of sympathy). Nona lived in a traditional Pohnpeian house – a small thatched hut on stilts. It was very dark inside, and cool, and smoky from something being boiled or cooked by another woman in a big black cauldron. Pots and pans hung from the roof, and little friendly kittens scurried around our feet. For its size, the hut was extremely neat and homey. Even in Chuuk, I had never been in a house as traditional as this one. Clothes were drying, women were cooking, and in the middle of the floor sat Nona, and elderly woman with very large arms and shocking white hair. She was topless, and hunched over, yet still somehow looked incredibly distinguished. She had small eyes, and a coarse, throaty voice which, accompanied by her surroundings, made her seem like some ancient medicine woman hiding herself away from the modernizing world around her. Even though I could not understand her, I could tell she had a good sense of humor – wry and accurate and gravely. Greg talked and laughed with her for a few minutes while the two other women in the house sat and smiled and stirred. One of them looked like a slightly younger, slightly slimmer version of Nona, while the other was a beautiful girl, maybe my age, with a very Westernized look – her teeth were perfect and she was wearing lip gloss and large hoop earrings. She kept grinning at me in a haunting sort of way, like a bizarre caricature, even though I said nothing the entire time and was mostly entranced with Nona herself who fascinated me on some very deep level. When we left, Greg laughed and said “Nona is really something. She’s just like your grandmother…” I figured, then, that had to be the connection and intrigue I was feeling. I asked Greg about the girl, and he said he didn’t know her. I said she dressed like an American. From the words “mehn wai” I could tell he repeated this to his Pohnpeian uncle. The man just laughed and shook his head.
From there, we went to the first of three sakao markets. I had never been to anything like this, and thought it would be something like a farmers’ market – everyone just selling their own brand of sakao, but it was more like a bar. It was small; outside under a tiny thatched awning. People sat on benches or lawn chairs while three or four young men pounded sakao. You could “order” a serving, which was delivered to you in a coconut shell. One of the men we were with named Castillo spoke fairly good English and while Greg and his uncle talked, he demanded that the two of us keep drinking. I had never had so much sakao at once before, and it’s kind of like beer in that it fills you up very quickly. We talked with the chief of the village for a while (a graduate of Xavier who spoke English) and Greg took me to the old house where he lived when he first arrived, which was right behind the market and still in fairly good condition (considering!). It was small and concrete, like many of the homes in Kitti, with a VERY small outhouse, and a rocky, slippery path to the river where he showered and washed laundry. I stood on a stone wall that I recognized from a picture I had seen in my grandma’s house; a photo he sent years ago. I think when I was little I thought this picture was from Hawaii for some reason, and I always had such distant and fantastic ideas of what his life must be like. This past summer, my mom dug up a postcard that Greg sent in the early 90s. It was a picture of two Marshallese children, accompanied by a note that mentioned their names and explained where the Marshall Islands were. The note also said that Greg was sure someday I would be there with him. I guess realistically it’s not that strange… he has lived in the tropics for 20 years and has been trying to get my family to visit since he’s been out there. It was only a matter of time before I took advantage of a perfect situation and accepted the offer. Still though, the message of the postcard had a very poignant quality about it. It’s really weird when I actually try to recall the fantasies and feelings I had about where my uncle was living, and how I tried to explain this to people and to myself when I was young. I had shell necklaces and carvings that I knew were from some far-off island but I had no idea of where or how far or how they were made. In some senses, I thought the place was magical and unreachable; a completely different world which did not at all intersect with mine. Now that I’m here of course, it doesn’t seem that way at all.
The other two sakao markets were very similar. The faces changed, and the furniture, but the sense of familiarity stayed the same. Everyone knew Greg, and were equally fascinated with getting to know me. I mostly sat only with men, which I think evoked some disapproving stares from some older women. It was interesting, and unusual, and even though they could not really understand me, they laughed loudly and pounded the table when they figured I had told a joke. Of course, I could tell when they were talking about me – pointing and smiling and chattering away, and I smiled dumbly as well, wondering all the while what kind of things they were discussing. Greg would sometimes translate, but not often, so most of the time I was left inventing the dialogue in my head, pretending they were praising me for some unknown feat I had accomplished. I know they were pleased that I was drinking with them, and that I had eaten their food so vigorously, but everything else was a mystery. In the meantime, Callisto kept foisting more and more sakao on me, pouring more into the coconut shell from his own private water bottle stash whenever we were running low.

I think I slept for most of the ride home, but I really just remember feeling exceedingly numb. As soon as I got back though I decided I needed to equalize the sakao with some alcohol (which, by the way, is not how it works at all). So the two new JVIS and I went to Cupids, a restaurant/bar overlooking Sokehs Bay. I racked up a quick bill on a cheeseburger, a pina colada, and a mudslide, but it was well worth it to fill my stomach with something familiar. The world here is so quickly shifting when one half of the day can be spent drinking root extract and eating yam mash in the dirt with village chiefs, and the other half can be spent drinking classy cocktails with two other white chicks at a restaurant that has tablecloths, air conditioning, and a million dollar view. So much can change in the span of a few hours.

Sunday was also centered around food as well, not surprisingly. I went out for a bagel and some coffee at a place called Oceanview, another nice restaurant, and Rachael and I stayed talking for several hours trying to absorb the relaxation of the weekend. I did laundry and went to yoga, and came home starving to an unusually fantastic meal supplied by friends of Fr. Julio. Two large mangrove crabs, pasta salad, a paella-type rice dish, crab salad, chicken, coconuts… the list was endless. What was even more surprising was that no one really wanted any of it, so I proceeded to go wild, eating like I hadn’t had food in a week. It was delicious.

On the way back to my room, I saw one of the Mangrove Children standing by the window – a tiny, shirtless, big-eyed girl with straggly hair and a pleading expression. She was carrying a Clorox bottle and was staring at me with boiling vision through the screen. I asked her what she wanted, and she said she was looking for one of the priests who wasn’t around. I told her this, and she stared at my hands – a water bottle in one, and a bowl of chocolate ice cream in the other. I felt an immediate pang of guilt. Why did I have to be carrying ice cream NOW? I wanted to explain that I hardly ever eat ice cream; I don’t even like it that much. I wanted to give it to her, appeal to her hungry eyes, but all she said was “I want to drink.” The family usually gets their water from our hose (which is the same water that comes from our faucets; all from the rain catchment tank beside the house). I told her she didn’t need to ask the priest, she could take as much water as she wanted. “Where is he?” She asked again. “I want to drink.” “He’s not here… but go! Take the water!” She looked at me sadly, and ran away, yelling to her mother, or brother, or someone that the particular priest wasn’t there. The shame I felt was immense. There was inside me, somewhere deep and disgraceful, a voice that said haughtily, “Why should you worry about this girl’s water? You HAVE water. It’s right in your hand. You can take it whenever you want – just turn on the faucet when you’re thirsty, and there’s water.” I didn’t even want to acknowledge the voice that was going on about my ice cream… the water was enough. Everyone I know, including myself, takes for granted the magic of faucets and light bulbs – they go on when you want, and off when you want, and they are always there for you. There is always water and there is always light. And for most people I know, there is always high-speed internet. There is always gas for cars and cash for expensive clothes and expensive clothes for fancy dinners. I have never had to lower myself so humbly to ask someone for water because I didn’t have it, and even when it was offered so fully, didn’t feel privileged enough to take it. I tried to deny this voice that was growing louder, urging me to shrug her off and go back to my room and forget. And if I’m truly honest with myself, I guess that’s what I ended up doing. But her face and her thin arm carrying her empty Clorox bottle was cemented into my brain for the rest of the night; her voice lingering – asking for the most simple of things. I had a dream about her that night; that she stole into my room and tried to take my things. I found her, and chased her off before she was successful, but her eyes were the same as they had been looking through that window – bottomless, full of appetite, and lacking comprehension. I wanted her to have my ice cream and my water and much more than that. How much can one person do, and how far can one person extend? Plenty of people get taken advantage of that way, or end up depleting themselves for the sake of others. I can’t always seem to find a healthy balance, but I know if I see that girl again on a search for water, I will take her by the hand and fill up her Clorox bottle myself.