Northern Californians
have an irrational fear of the ocean. Our water is beautiful, swirling blue
under the flippers of sea lions and lying calm in bays on the distant horizon,
but it is FREEZING. On even the hottest days of the year the water shocks the
nervous system when it hits, and only complete guppies like my brother can
stand splashing around for any length of time. Going to the ocean was always a
natural and frequent event but in my whole life I barely ever got in past my
ankles.

I thought about that
as I sat on the edge of a small covered motorboat and stared into the faceted
crystal Solomon waters, the bright yellow sun already warming my snorkeling
mask. I had to screw my face up to remember my hemisphere and threw myself
flippers-first in to the -thankfully warm- water.

It was like falling
into a different dream- the light changed and the scenery fell away and through
the spray of bubbles caused by my own fall I could make out the coral wall and
all the things living on and around it; a glistening, busy, swaying world.

But I'm getting ahead
of myself.  

I was on the motorboat
with Connie's mom and cousin, watching Roycie take pictures of  the Gizo waterfront. There was the Gizo
Hotel, the warf, the market, a row of shops, PT 109, and then the Petrol shop
owned by Mike, Connie's Dad and another Peace Corp lifer. As we went Connie's
mom pointed out where the Tsunami had washed away houses and where the
earthquake had exposed coral. At the petrol station someone had drawn a stick
figure human and house about to be overtaken by a wall of spray paint
water.  The fear in the flailing stick
figure limbs and the menace in the blue curve of the wave was real.

We drove into the main
Gizo drag and Roycie and I bought Connie's mom lunch at the PT109 Restaurant
and Yaht Club, which was frequented by the same retired over-sunned white
couples that probably inhabit small corners of every island in the world. I
thought it was pretty rich of them to move to someone else's country and start
a club that only they could afford to belong to, but what do I know. Lunch was
the standard fare for the islands: sandwiches, Hawaiian and Thai inspired rice
dishes, and fish and chips (with sweet potato, not real fries). Since the
islanders don't often eat out there isn't really any "authentic" food to be had
for the purchasing. But it tasted good anyway.

Now that we were on
Gizo Roycie and I were dying to be in the water. The cool ocean that was all
around looked inviting but was filled inconveniently with rocks and ships and
probably not all that clean. Alas, there was enough civilization even in Gizo
that getting in the water required more preparation than merely getting in the
water. So we went instead to the small office of Dive Gizo, through a storage
shed filled with air tanks and wetsuits, past a dimly lit room full of
overpriced carvings and sunken treasures, and finally into a cramped office
flooded with paper and heat from computer screens. We sat down on broken rolly
chairs and watched a small terrier chew through some spreadsheats while a
freckly-armed Australian woman ignored us for ten minutes, undoubtedly assuming
(correctly) that the two American girls in front of her were too poor for the
$500 beginners diving class. With many meaningful glances at the price menu and
at each other, we settled on snorkeling early the next day.

Connie's family's
house in Gizo, while too far up the hill to have been affected by the Tsunami,
was seriously damaged by the earthquake. Connie's mom drove us up the very
bumpy hill to where it stands empty, the 360 view of the island, the sea, and
the sun, enjoyed only by the family dogs who still hang around. Unscathed,
however, was the "old house", a perfectly comfortable cabin down the road with
a working toilet and rain tank for showers. Roycie and I set up a mosquito net
over the biggest bed, poured mosquito repellent on everything and headed back
down the hill again.

We decided to eat at
the Gizo hotel, both because the gas in the kitchen was broken and because we
heard that there would be entertainment that night.  The night wasn't cool enough to justify the jeans and long
sleeved shirts we were wearing, but neither of us were taking anti-malarial
medication and were living on the safe side. We walked slowly down the steep
muddy road, marveling at the clear starred sky while taking care not to step on
any frogs or trip over the many potholes and rocks.

The dining room at the Gizo hotel is all bamboo and gold-toned wood, and
ceiling fans and open space. We were greeted at the door by a tall islander
with a face so pretty it made me doubt his gender, and a tight-fitting orange
shirt that made me doubt it more.  But a
decidedly male, albeit honey-colored voice said, "Hello. Welcome to the Gizo
Hotel"

Roycie greeted him in
Pidgin, and they began the usual ritual of discovering mutual acquaintances and
distant wontok in common, and he introduced us to the other expats in the room;
two New Zealander RAMSEY (peace keeping forces) guys, and one case worker for
unicef who earned a permanent spot in Roycie's black books by making fun of her
major in English.

Actually, he was pretty much an asshole all around, and when he left the
conversation went much smoother. The guys told us about being peace keepers in
a relatively peaceful place, and explained (at least a little bit) their
reasons for joining up with an organization that could have practically sent
them anywhere. Royce explained her background (which took a lot less time in
the Islands than back in the States), and then I had to relate my fairly
unusual tale about being American but living in Japan and deciding to come to
the Solomons because "why not".

The RAMSEY offered us
some SolBrew "Well you two certainly seem well- traveled and windswept and
interesting."

We sphinx smiled at
them but were interrupted by 8 nearly naked boys covered in paint that came
dancing into the restaurant. They made their way to the front of the tables and
formed a line, stomping and miming and chanting occasionally.

"Oh, I know this one," Royce told me "it's a fishing dance."

About halfway through
the dancing she elbowed me and directed my attention to a greasy-haired American
with a camera who was staring at the dancing boys with an intense, nearly
lustful stare. We made round eyes at each other and giggled, and nearly died
when he snuck his way to the front of the tables and crouched behind a chair to
take closer pictures at loincloth-level. We winced and made pedophilia jokes
but I at least wasn't serious. The man wasn't a child-pervert. He was a
cultural pervert, who traveled from far away to take the overtly exotic back
home in 35mm form for bragging rights and a general glow of superiority. In
either case it was creepy.

The RAMSEY left after
the show and Jafa came to chat and invite us to a buffet the next night. We
promised to come, although we warned him that we would both likely be
water-logged and burnt after a long day in the water. "Oh honey, don't worry
about it" he cooed, so we didn't.

"And make sure you put
sunscreen on your legs", the freckly armed woman warned in her particularly
Australian drawl. People always cover up their top halves and forget about
their bottoms and then get scorched. You might want to drape a towel over your
knees even."

An Auzzie couple was
hefting oxygen tanks into a wheel barrow and letting some islanders take it
away.

"So, you guys
snorkelers or divers?" they asked.

"Snorkelers." I said.

"Can't you tell?"
Roycie giggled. They said nothing.

We were both wearing
lava lava's (sarongs) and her boyfriend's old dress shirts on over our swimsuits
and had bought some coconut frond hats from the souvenir shop to further
protect us from the sun.

"And remember that the
water acts as a magnifying glass for the sun" The woman continued as we climbed
into the covered motorboat. So keep covered even when you're in the water, as
much as you can" We nodded but she eyed us skeptically, as though we hadn't
really understood her. "OK then, have fun."

And we were off, away
from Ghizo and into the open sea.

I was beginning to
love motorboat travel. The tiny islands zipping by on the horizon, the cool
spray of blue from the sky and water, the barefoot native standing by the motor
and directing its course on order from the barefoot native at the front of the
boat squinting his eagle eyes into the sun and crooking his finger. just.
slightly. Its just enough motion, just jarring enough to remind you that you're
moving. To make you feel like you're really going somewhere. I tried not to
waste too much film on my special underwater camera but Roycie and I found it
hard to resist on the 20 minute ride to the reef. Our guides dropped us off at
one place and took the scuba couple someplace else and we were left to our own
watery devices.

Snorkeling was
strange. I can't even really describe it. Once the mask was firmly secured to
my face and my breathing calm and regulated, I could float upside- down for
indefinite lengths of time, moving slowly over anemone and coral, watching
pairs of angel fish or a gang of guppies, and looking out occasionally into the
depths to see huge schools of comically cylindrical fish. It was like being
there but not being there. The scene was so perfect- the water was teeming
with life and color and movement. It was exactly like a nature program. My
goggles were the screen and the fish were just projections and all I needed was
some lightly accented baritone narration.

I realized how
wonderful it was that such a huge portion of the world has access to little
boxes that can bring the arctic to the rainforest and the ocean to the desert,
and how we can know what things look like that we've never seen and what things
sound like that we've never really heard. 
But simultaneously I thought that it was a bit unfair to the person who
actually took the trouble to ride an elephant or see a polar bear or swim with
clownfish that she should finally experience something wonderful and find
herself thinking that it was just like watching TV.

For lunch our guides took us to a small island and made us broiled fish, veggies and flavored rice in a huge pot. We piled the rice into rolled banana leaves and ate with our hands. Roycie combed the island looking for her favorite kind of coconut; the kind with a sprout coming out of the side. She found several and began a long shucking attempt with some help from our guides. The Australians tried their hand at it as well, and laughed about being able to brag to their kids that Daddy spent his weekend diving and breaking open coconuts with his bare hands. The coconut was at the stage when the liquid inside had hardened into this weird sponge-y cream. The Australians weren't fans but Royce and I loved it and used the coconut halves as rice bowls once we had eaten it all.

We got back in the water in the afternoon, although Roycie freaked out and went back in the boat after we spied a small black shark lurking in the depths. She lazed around on the boat talking to the guides while I continued swimming. When she finally got back in the water she said. "I think I'm related to the one with the dreds."

So the fish swam in the water and swayed with the tide, and the sun beat down on the small of my back- the one place I had forgotten to cover- and gave me the worst burn of my life, the salt water stayed salty and the islands stayed all white and gleaming and covered in coconut trees. And I was there to see it, and I smiled.

Going down the hill to town
 
Tsunami damage

Cooking fire smoke and the view of town from the hill. Actually there was a dude outside of this house taking a bath and I was trying really hard not to photograph him


Sunset up near Connie's quake damaged house



Dancers and Musicians at the Gizo Hotel


Cultural Pervert

Islands

These pictures really don't capture how colorful and lively it was down there, but here they are anyway
 

 

I think Roycie is channeling Audrey Hepburn here

I caught the flexible fabric disc by hooking the hole in the center with my wrist and letting it float gently down my arm. I then stopped abruptly as a Japanese youth chasing a white frisbee stumbled into my path not 2 feet in front of me.

"Thats the thing about Tokyo", the Canadian I was with said as I threw the disk back at him. "Even the parks are crowded."

It was one of those busy Tokyo weekends; I was making an appearance at a friend's birthday picnic before a study group and dinner with a friend from out of town. I was just glad I hadn't opted for a lazy Sunday at home; The sun was glowing behind the trees that had finally turned their fall colors, and it was warm enough for a light jacket or no jacket at all, and everyone in the city was out enjoying it. Our picnic blanket was completely surrounded by dance groups, drum circles, children's playgroups, chattering students, and dog walkers. It was busy, but not oppressive. I sat on the blankets trying my Vegan friend's homemade falafel and soaking in the English, Japanese and Spanish that was melding around me.

When it was time to go I made my hug rounds and headed by myself back onto the main cement path. I passed a huge group of drunk College students, and two girls practicing a fan dance. Farther out there were several soccer games, and three girls with jimbeis playing for one Japanese girl clearly trying to do some kind of African tribal moves. Another American and I stared at her and then gave each other a look as we passed on the trail. When I was nearly out of the park I came across some fuzzy rock n' roll and a group of Japanese men in tight pants in a circle around their motorcycles. They were twisting and dancing in their leather jackets while tourists watched and snapped pictures. They had no rhythm, but their hair was immaculate.

As I dodged skateboarders and boys in loose pants jumping from their one side of their bike wheels to the other, I remembered the violent longing from the Lady Orlando. "Life! And a Lover", and I breathed in a measure of the cool clean air. Well, this is Life, at least, I thought, and continued on towards Harajuku Station.

On April 2nd of this year an earthquake rocked the tiny island of Ghizo, and then the ocean itself receded sharply away from the docks. Most of the residents knew what to do; they ran up the hill as fast as they could go, some stopping to insure the safety of their loved ones, some perhaps tarrying to save a treasured possession. But the poor fisherman who lived on the tiny islands away from the city saw the fish and turtles flopping desperately on the ocean floor and could not resist going out to gather them. When the first wave hit they were carried off by the tide and perished. The first wave flooded the main drag in town, filling Gizo Hotel up with water, and drowning the deck of PT109. The second wave hit higher up the mountain, and the third higher still, and then the intensity diminished. There were 7 waves in all. The water claimed the lives of at least 26 people; many more are still missing. It took the homes and gardens of many families, damaged or destroyed most of the buildings downtown, and wrecked the hospital.

I don't know if those huddled together in the hills watched as the ocean swelled and crashed on places they'd always thought of as safe. I don't know if they were too worried about their loved ones to feel betrayed by the bright band of blue that had always sat peacefully around them. Their source of food and transport, their scenery, their backdrop, had now risen up malevolently against them. And even now that what was destroyed is being mourned or replaced, a paranoia of the ocean seems to linger, a sort of wary mistrust.

A few days later, the news crews arrived. They decided there was "too few deaths to make a story" and left.

Coconut Crab

We love Coconut, a lot. (This is a horrible pic of Royce; Sorry Roycie)

Betel nut and Parking lot

Honiara

I can't help taking these; it never stops being pretty.

The Plane, the Plane!

Gizo Airport (yes, really)

Connie's mom and cousin in the boat from the airport to Gizo

Every day in Honiara I
would hear the same thing from everybody, "Just wait until we get to Gizo, it’s
so much better." The ocean is cleaner, the people are friendlier, the coconuts
are sweeter. I imagined a magical land called Gizo that was everything Honiara
was not, a place under a totally different sky.

So it was not with too
much sentimentalism that Roycie and I passed our last night in Honiara, despite
passing it pleasantly. Connie’s mom treated us to a surprisingly authentic and
very tasty Chinese dinner at a huge restaurant near the main drag in town. We
ordered too much of everything, and had high expectations of the coconut crab,
but the star of the evening turned out to be the salt and pepper squid, which
was perfectly seasoned and not at all chewy. The food was really good, much
better than American Chinese and leagues better than Japanese Chinese, which is
so bland it’s nearly inedible.

As we rubbed the belly
of a gigantic Buddha on the way out the door, it may have occurred to us to think
that Honiara hadn’t been so bad to us after all, but we were going forward,
forward.

As diminutive as
Henderson International Airport seems, in comparison is actually a giant modern
edifice that is hiding the old Henderson International Airport, which
now functions as the main Domestic port. The old Henderson Fields is basically a
concrete shed surrounded by banana leaves that happens to have a runway behind
it.

We arrived early and
submitted our baggage- and ourselves- to the scales to see if we made the
weight limit. Let’s just say that I was lucky that I was with a very small girl
and a woman with no luggage. We sat down on some benches to wait while Roycie
ran across the parking lot to get us coconuts. The waiting room walls were concrete
netting, the hot sunlight and air slipped easily through the small square holes
stained with betel nut. We sipped our coconuts and talked about Gizo, until one
of the few staff members opened the heavy door in the back, making a bright bar
of sun on the dirty floor. We chucked our coconut shells outside and made
towards the tiny toy plane.  

When our bags were
stowed and all ten of us were comfortably seated, two darkhaired auzzies
climbed down the center aisle and sat in the cockpit. One of them turned around
and said:

"Good morning
everybody. Welcome to your Solomon Islands flight from Honiara to Gizo. Our flight time
will be about an hour and a half and it looks pretty clear the whole way. The
emergency exits are located behind you on either side. Make sure you buckle your
safety belts and enjoy your flight."

Then he turned around
and switched on the engine.

This no-bullshit
concept of flying was so refreshing I forgot to freak out about sitting in a
flying tin can. We scooted down the runway and rose into the air with no
problems, the small propellers making a deafening roar a few feet away from my
exit aisle window. Honiara came into view and then shrank away as we reached cruising
altitude above the ocean.   

All I could do was
stare down at the vast, strange blue, while Royce sat behind me snapping
picture after picture. The sky was wispy and weak and Guadacanal Island as it
crawled next to us was uninhabited, thickly forested and thinly lined in white.
Just when I was getting frustrated with the monotony the island ended, and the
ocean widened into a seemingly endless twinkling carpet. Then without warning,
it shallowed. Mounds of turquoise rose up to just below the surface, peaking
into tiny white islands. Coconut trees grew like weeds to any tiny patch of
land they could cling to, and the utter ethereal strangeness of Morova Lagoon
continued like that for miles.

After a while the tiny
white masses firmed up and expanded. They grew coastlines and beaches, and
showed signs of rocks and, eventually, settlements. We began our descent over
Ghizo, but didn’t land. Instead, we hovered over a smallish island that was
shaved down the middle and swooped onto it. We almost met the ocean again when
we ran out of runway (and island) but stopped just in time.

The
air outside was hotter, thicker and, away from the plane, cleaner. We were in
Gizo.

Solomon updates are long overdue and forthcoming. Where was I even?

Oh yes, when last we saw our hero she was waiting to take the plane from Honiara to Gizo. We have left her, regrettably, suspended in the air, the sound of the propellers boring into her brain and the white, black and emerald islands of morova lagoon slipping beneath her before she could even formulate suitable similies for them.

I'm afraid we must leave her there for the moment. Gizo is so much harder to describe than Honiara. Or rather, things that are more fun, more meaningful, and more natural are harder to describe in the way I have chosen to describe them. That is; chronologically, factually, deliberately. Its an uncomfortable disconnect, and the going is slow.

Unfortunately, in the month since I have been back I have had more to do than sift through my vacation. Japan is happening, and it is happening all the more vividly now that the end is so clearly in site. This weekend a friend organized a tour of the Tokyo Edo Museum. I think its a worthwhile stop for anyone in Tokyo for any length of time. The place is huge and contains lifesized models of Edo-era Tokyo houses, as well as a half-size model of the Nihonbashi bridge, the stone version of which is quite close to my work.  Among the many detailed dioramas was one of Chuo-dori, a long mainstreet that now runs from Kanda eki to Nihonbashi. I instantly recognized the long avenue and oriented myself. There is a bank here, an indian restaurant there, and, just before the bridge, the house of what appears to be a moderately wealthy merchant, standing right where my office is now.

Tokyo has a hard time being the historic city it ought to be, having been razed to the ground more than once by fires, earthquakes, and war. But those with a history in the city, "children of Edo", know the places and events where history surfaces, know that Mitsukoshi department store has hundreds of years of history in the exact same place in which it stands now, know which temples and shrines are still performing the same ceremonies and festivals they always have, despite the repeated destruction and reconstruction of the buildings itself. The physical continuity between old Tokyo and new Tokyo has been broken irrevocably; but the dynamics of the city are surprisingly similar. The main roads are still the same; the commerce, pleasure, and political districts are roughly in the same areas. And 6 tatami mats is still considered an acceptable size for an apartment. Yes, wood has turned to stone, carts turned to cars, and more land had to be created to hold all the people and buildings, so the shoreline has actually migrated southeast. But you can still find a family that has been making the same dish for 200 years, if you only know where they are. And, though the sumo wrestlers walk around in gangster jeans instead of robes and short swords, I bet their soft smell of sandalwood and baby powder overpowered the passerby even way back then.

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Roycie's jet lag woke her up fairly early in the morning, and I got up earlier than I'm accustomed to on vacation, but that didn't stop us from lounging around till nearly noon watching satellite TV from Indonesia and eating peanut butter and green banana sandwiches.

We emerged into the heat just before lunch and Connie, Roycie and I took the bus down the hill from Connie's house. The "bus" just a white Toyota van with three rows of seats that made its circuit down that hill, into town, and back up again; 2 Solomon dollars will get you anywhere on the route. All the roads leading from town away from the coast go up hills, which have names, but the houses don't have numbers. Connie lives on what I'm sure is one of a handful of paved roads in Honiara. Connie flagged down the bus with a wave and a "Tsss" sound and a barefoot man crouched by the sliding door took our money. When we got into town. Connie left us for a lunch date with a friend. Royce and I headed up to Roycie's Aunt's house to pick up her cousin May. We took a shortcut straight up the side of the hill: a small dirt trail lined with weeds and ferns. On the way we saw a really big stag beetle, which I recognized because Japanese kids love to collect them, and a Mimosa fern that shrinks away when touched.

We ducked under a neighbor's clothesline before getting to Aunt Grace's house and picked up May. The divide of Betel nut on her teeth was more pronounced than it had been the day before; one half of her mouth was stained a vivid red and the other was completely clean. She said she'd done it on purpose. As we walked back into town she got another Betel nut at a stand, chewing it carefully only on the already- red side. I'm much too picky about the state of my teeth to start chewing something that will stain them, and I'm far to well-bred (ha) to spit out the juice onto the street, so I never tried any Betel nut, but apparently it gives you a little high and a little jolt that goes quite well with a cigarette, (which are often sold loose in a tin can with the betel nut).

We traipsed along the main paved road in the heat, passing on the sidewalks women carrying things on their heads, men and boys in small groups who stared, old shirtless men, teenagers, and the occasional expat. Most, but not all the people were wearing sandals; the rest were barefoot. Everyone's feet seemed expanded, calloused. I was almost jealous; it seems to me that people who trained their feet not to need shoes were infinitely better off. (Although, I may have only come to that conclusion because I was wearing crocs which, though they turned out to be an excellent choice for that environment, are still hideous and highly embarassing.)

We completed our errands in an efficient manner; we secured our tickets to Gizo and Roycie changed her money. Then we wandered around the market. Roycie bought coconuts for the two of us and I was surprised, as most people are, at how different they taste from the coconut-flavored products or flakes you usually try. By the time I was done sucking the last of the juice from the bendy straw they so thoughtfully provided, I was nearly used to it. Then Royce cracked open the both of them on a sharp rock and told me how to get the meat off the inside. It tasted like the coconut gelatin you get at Chinese restaurants sometimes. It was great.

At the market they were selling shell earrings and necklaces; Roycie showed me the strands of small red shells that are traditionally used as bride prices (like a reverse dowry). After she pointed them out I saw a few women on the street still wearing them. Nearly everything cost $15 solomon dollars, which is something like 3 bucks, and if anyone mentioned a price higher than that May and Roycie blamed my skin and shoed me away.

Behind the shells were more long tables filled with fruits and vegetables. Raw peanuts were sold in small handfulls for $1 each; cherry tomatos were sold in a similar fashion. Roycie pointed out the edible ferns and roots that she remembered were delicious and rattled off a list of fruits that were lamentably not in season. When we had seen it all we passed again the women selling young coconuts, completely surrounded and ankle deep in coconut husks and flies. When a customer picked their coconut the women would aim it expertly away and then- whack- in one clean motion send the top flying in one direction and a spray of juice splattering safely against the wall behind them.

Sometime within the past few years, Japan's birth rate dipped below its death rate. If you didn't raise your eyebrows in surprise just then, keep in mind that Japanese women on average enjoy the longest lives in the world, and the men aren't doing so shabby either, so its not like people are dropping like flies. I hardly ever see any kids anywhere in Tokyo, and the only time I ever see a bunch in a group is when I get on the same train car as a bunch of them on a field trip. I don't see a lot of families, and I don't see a lot of hugging.

So the thing that shocked me when I entered the house of Roycie's aunt wasn't the dog and cat running around or the fact that a board in the kitchen floor was missing. It was the kids. The toddlers, the shirtless boys, the squealing girls with baby teeth. Even the kids had kids; a girl in a pink dress who couldn't have been more than six seemed to have taken charge of the youngest baby.  Roycie couldn't place who she was related to and referred to her as "the babysitter". I watched her hoist the tiny child off the floor and onto her hip, which was cocked out to the side in a weird fascimilie of womanhood.

The children were gathered around in the large living room waiting for the women to finish putting the food on the table. They were outside in the backyard, doing the last bits of what must have been at least a full day's work shaving coconut, mashing cassava, and boiling pumpkin. The mashed cassava and quite a bit of fish had been cooked overnight, wrapped in banana leaves and cooked under hot stones. When all the food was finally on the table, Roycie's Aunt grace gave a speech in English (She and her family had lived as diplomats for several years in Taiwan, so she spoke English), and then in Pidgin. Since Roycie and I were the guests, they told us to serve ourselves first, which was embarassing, and then the children went, then the men, and then the women, which is the customary order.

The food was really good and, since nothing was raw, I didn't need to worry about getting sick from it. I don't mean to sound rude, but I've only ever lived in Japan and America (remember, I lived in pre- e.coli America), so my stomach pretty much isn't used to anything. But I only drank bottled water the entire trip and it turns out I was fine. How much of this I can attribute to the antibiotics I was taking for my pneumonia I don't know.

After dinner, Grace drove Roycie and I back to Connie's house and we planned out a big day in Honiara. After a very filling meal and the unexpected luxuries of a hot shower and a soft bed, Roycie and I dropped off to untroubled sleep.