Round of applause!
Rhiann Marie - Round the World
Stewart Graham
Sat 7 Aug 2010 09:22
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Saturday August 2nd 2105 local 080
5UTC
20:30.12S 174:44.39W
Last night we had been invited to the local "dance"
on the island of Oua. The island had a population of just over 100 and there
were no roads or no cars and the village, which was really rustic - like "old
MacDonald's farm" - and seemed to be like something you might have seen a
hundred years ago.
We were not sure what to expect from the dance but
figured there would be no older people and no children there so that would leave
a small crowd. In the event the Rhiann Marie girls did not want to go, as
it was already 9 o'clock before we were ready and I had finished the business
calls I had to make. Business is becoming harder and harder to conduct as we are
now 12 hours adrift from BST and I am more than ready to sleep by the time the
office opens.
So just Craig and I went ashore to investigate
the local night life. Boy - were we in for a surprise! The "dance" was not a
dance at all and slipping and sliding on the pitch black muddy track up to the
village we were guided to the hall, which was about typical Tongan village house
size, and wandered through the darkness up to the noise and bustle. It seemed
every single person in the village was there!
The hall had louvered glass windows all round and a
long veranda to the front. Seated and standing all around outside were women of
all ages and inside there were about 50 or so men, in 4 or 5 groups, sitting
round on the floor. Sitting round Kava bowls. At the front of the hall there was
a desk with a woman behind it and a man who was acting as some sort of
"compere". She was counting and gathering up lots of money and he was shouting
out amounts and names (in Tongan of course) of which person or family had
donated what, in between the loud Tongan music playing. This is slightly odd and
in fact the same thing happens in their churches - a sort of name and shame kind
of thing. We have been told some families take out loans to make donations to
the churches to save face. Last night however,women going forward to donate,
danced their way through the men sitting on the floor and also had a
brief dance together with the previous donator who was still at the
front of the hall. We also donated and only recognised the word "palangi"
which is the Tongan word for foreigner and got a loud round of applause and many
calls of "Malo Malo" (thank you, thank you). I thought the donation was for the
community but it seemed that on this occasion they were collecting for an
islander who was about to move away to the main island of Tongatapu.
Craig and I were invited into the hall to sit
around with one of the groups and drink Kava, which to be quite honest is like
old dishwater and though they seem to think it is very potent, it is
extremely mild. There was one guy outside stirring a 45 gallon drum load of the
stuff, from which he was continually delivering bucket loads to the kava
bowls in the hall. There was very little talking and the experience seemed
almost spiritual. The men seemed mostly to be "contemplating life" or some other
such thing, but I think they were just getting mellow after a tough weeks work.
What was very difficult to be comfortable with
however, was this whole thing with the men sitting down inside while the women
all sat outside looking in. Certainly our world has for the most part moved on
from that kind of thing, though there are still a few areas which need more
equality ( the inadequate number of ladies toilets available at every
public facility to name just one - random, I
know).
Craig was getting bored but I knew as soon as one
or two of the men had a tank load of Kava things would change. And so they did.
Men sporadically burst into song, singing in a special style known as "Kava
music" - what else?. The singing was awesome and most of the hall joined in. It
was like some sort of "barber shop" type singing but seemed
more spiritual. Sort of acapello style Gaelic Psalm singing.
As things progressed, guitars and ukelele's came
out and they played to accompany the singing. All the while everyone is
devouring coconut shell load after coconut shell load of Kava. I am not sure
whether the Kava is alcoholic or halucinagenic. Either way it had little effect
on us, though they seemed to take great care in giving us small cups full, and
were very proud of us for being "men" and drinking Kava. It was a facinating
experience and yet another incredible memory to take from our
adventure.
The evening was ended by an Umu (Tongan oven) with
a full pig, being uncovered at midnight for all to feast on. It seemed all
in all to be a close knit community and this event seemed to bind the whole
village together and was a weekly event.
This morning we left or coral bound anchorage and
after the events of the past few days we decided to be far more sensible in
the future and not push the boundaries of our adventure too far. We would be
more sensible from now on. More computer geek, not venturing out of the safe
cocoon of our rooms into the real world and less Indiana Jones adventuring
to the edge of realistic possibilities. More sensible, more conservative, more
risk averse.
We celebrated our new found sensibility by wake
boarding off the side of Rhiann Marie in the ocean amongst the humpbacks on
the passage down to Kelefesia which is another challenging anchorage. It was an
absolute blast.
We started by getting the pole out to leeward and
suspending Rhiann and Amy in the bosuns chair just above and just in the water.
We then progressed to launching Craig off the gunnel of the boat at 9.5
knots with the wake board already on. This ended prematurely in full on face
plants, but for those of us on deck it was very funny.
The next technique was more successful. We dumped
the boarder off the side and with the towline trailing from the pole end we
would do a "drive by" and "scoop up" water start! Only at about two knots
but bloody hilarious. Craig got up right away and Amy went next. We
built the speed up before getting the sail out and got speed climbing
to nine knots. It was a scream boarding flat out along side the yacht under
sail in the ocean. More sensible - pah! No pain no gain that's what I
say!
I say "amongst the humpbacks" because every where
we go in the area we have whales around. Today I found the display one of
the most spectacular. A very large humpback, lying on his back, was raising
both his enormous "flippers?" vertically out of the water and continually
slamming them back down on the water. They were so huge that initially I thought
it was a whale breaching. Personally I think he was clapping his hands
giving us a round of applause for keeping on keeping on. We have now, in the
past three weeks, had full, close up breaches, a "spy hop", the tail fluke
thing, the flipper slamming spectacle and whales right up beside us checking us
out!
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