Good Morning Saturday!
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sat 27 Sep 2014 18:07
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After a week of hard work it is nice with a
weekend...
What a life we are living! Of course I have a list
to follow with things that need to be attended and fixed.
Cooling water in the outboard does not circulate-
well that was easy- poke a hole where it comes out (yes salt does break things
you want to work and build up things where you do not want them)
New spring on door handles where the kids have been
climbing - "look here kids! This is an open door handle mechanism-
Andreas, do not touch!- and here you see, that is a small spring- Andreas! No,
this is not an aeroplane! - OK? this little spring makes sure that the mechanism
closes the door- Andreas, you have to look HERE!- now you see that spring is
broken?- Yes yes you can have it, but not now! - These springs make the
difference between doors that bang around in bad weather and a nice closed door-
got it? And we only have two springs left- OK?"
Then I have to ask Ellinor for assistance to close
the mechanism with a spring that wants to get out of there, it all looks like a
brainsurgery with slightly more violent tooling. Tick.
Oh yes what more can a boat show up- the toilet
question of course - Erika turned a valve with brutal force so the whole handle
came off- thank you!
This means I had to work behind a wall with only
one hand and a headlamp that shined on the wrong side of the wall to get the
whole turning mechanism out and repair it. Tick.
Ellinor brought out the sewing machine and made us
some nice bags and repaired a pair of trousers for me that I had cracked open in
the crutch when performing the Dying Swan or some similar
balley.
Tick.
We went to school here in the village. They have
about 80 kids and 4 teachers. Every class has two classes in each.
Wonderful experience and good to see a school were
the material standard was low but the spirit was high.
The sad part is that they can only go here til they
are 13 and if they want to continue the kids have to move to Suva.
Most of them do not pass school in Suva because the
change is to big and also they are away from parents, friends etc.
Here you will find the same problem the rest of the
world is facing, young adults move in to the big towns to get a new life. And
here it is a big change. You go from a village were you live in a collective
community with almost no monetary system to a citylife with
an individualistic view point and where money is everything. I can see why
you would want to move also, here the elderly are in charge and the power is
descendent from centuries of belief in clans. Here you walk around with a
cellular phone and try to look cool but you have no coverage. Here life is
moving in a slow pace but yet it is hard. You carry your heavy casava roots
after digging them out from the earth, and walk 6-7 km and fight agressive
mosquitos.
If you are old and experienced you might appreciate
this garden of eden where you can fish and pick clams every day and get what you
need, but a youngster is longing for food from other nations.
It is beautyful, but for whom?
To newcomers like us, to people force fed with a
consuming and consumating life, but... We talked to Batai, the nurse here, he is about
25-30 and he comes from Suva, to him life on this island is dull, boring,
lonely. He has done one year here and now he had enough. Sometimes he walks up
to the highest hill on the island and waves his phone hoping for
contact.
And as a grim smile of destiny the only place
were you might get contact is next to a cave with human skeletons, like a
reminder of our future, without a prepais simcard.
As we came to Friday night we also had a "cousy
friday" on board and Ellinor and decided to see the film:
All is lost
With Robert Redford.
Dont look at it.
It is so bad it makes you seasick.
The guy seemes to make everything backwards to save
his life at sea- and not only that - you wait for some kind of plot- 1,5 hours
waiting that comes to nothing.
Must have been Redfords wettest movie
ever.
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