Nomads
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Thu 18 Jul 2013 06:51
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It is an interesting thought, that most people
living here are anscestors of brave seafarers.
One day, long ago, the first people stepped ashore
here and decided to live on this atholl.
Thor Heyerdahl tried to prove they came in rafts
from Southamerica. But he has been proven wrong.
Genetics can trace anscestors with no doubt, and it
seemes they came from Asia.
And rafts? No they had huge outriggers and where
good sailors that knew how to get around without compass.
So we are probably modern Nomads, sailing around by
choice. And it feels that there is a nomad deep inside some of us.
There is always a feeling of freedom to lift the
anchor and get moving to a new place, new possibilities, new
experiences.
But there is always a question asked in the
background, would we want to live here? I guess an etnocentric way to measure
the quality of what we see.But also a sign that moving around takes a toll
(Atholl). You are not only a voyageur, you are also a voyaeur not being part of
a society.
And there is a big difference to visit an atholl
far out on the ocean, and maybe live here. We are spoiled with a lot of choises,
everything from food to culture. Right now we are using the resources that are
loaded in our hull, food we bought in Sweden, England, Spain, Columbia and
Panama. But then? Coconuts and fish?
Crabs and Lobsters? In the store you can find a
piece of french cheese that weights 200 g and cost 20 Euro!
So yes there is some choice here, at a
price.
Everything has a price and here the choice of
things coming from the outside is high.
We walked though the village in the dark the other
night, it was nice to be in a place where the only TV we saw was in the village
store.
It is nice to be able to see the stars with no
interference from street lights.
And yes it is funny to say hallo to a dog in the
darkness and the dog answers with an oink oink (nöff nöff).
But how fun would it be to live here without
internet ?(there is none)
To live in such a small community where everybody
knows everybody?
Islands are some kind of voluntary prisons,
especially when thrown far out in the ocean.
The community is probably strong, and even here we
see people that are different but do not look left out of the
group.
Even a 16 year old boy trying to look like a girl
was around with his friends, we have talked to the group of youngsters and he
was just as talkative as the others, and they listened to him just like
everybody else.
I have no image of a society that is better than
any other, I think all families and societies have their underscore, their rules
and their black spots.And somehow an island is very interesting since there is a
very clear border, a very defined area where people live. You do not get lost so
easy when the island is small enought. But when you have walked around it once,
do you do it again, and again?
The island where the village is ( we are still in
Manihi) can be walked from one end to other in 30 minutes, with a five year old
that has to pick up every stick and stone on the way. Yet still people have
cars... Not many, but I guess 10? And when a car is moving from one end to the
other it is fully loaded with people. So they are getting there, dependence on
fuel (they only drive outboard engines now), dependence of more clean water,
dependence on electricity, dependence on getting rid of garbage. So even a small
island with 600 people have their part in world consumption.
Now when the economy is bad, turism has vanished
and the hotel is closed. Pearl farming is bankrupt.
So back to basic, fishing and copra harvesting. And
fishing is getting hard to keep up with consumption in Papete (thats where it is
sold) and consumption on the island of Manihi (the fish is sold so they get
money that is used to buy gasoline etc).
Well just some scattered thoughts from a nomad that
is stuck now because of the weather.
It will get really nasty so we decided to stay put.
We have no problem with that.
The kids threw a party for all their pets, and they
have been very busy all day.
On top of that we had no wind so they could go
kayaking on their own (well I keep a check on them)
Erika even saw a shark from the kayak, big
fun!
Ellinor is cleaning our curtains (mold) and I have
been lazy (tired after anchorguarding all night, it was a mess with winds movng
us around and getting very close to a reef, at the end we had to reanchor in the
dark, no fun, but we know the area to say the least)
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