From memoir series JLeahy. Part 2
Click link below for Part 1.
https://tribalmystic.me/2014/11/12/an-eel-escape/
We had split the number of holes we saw on the creek beds as early as 8am this morning. Grandma took the right and I took the left. Each hole we dug into would have at least one eel. I was very excited. Sometimes I would find the eel and try to grab it before it knew what was happening. But they all got away. I knew Mother was waiting with our nets for them, so I was not too worried. Most times, the eels could sense the vibrations and make their way out very quietly. The eels were 20-30 centimetres long and had yellow and white bellies. Their backs were pale grey, dark green, mouldy grey and sometimes greenish black.
After at least two hours, Tinang, my grandma, called out to Mother in Bukawac.
“Have you seen any eels?”
“No! Nothing came down”, mother called back. That did not sound right and I peeked through the leaves at my grandmother.
“Keep digging Kalem”, Tinang said and pointed to the next hole.
We both worked our way upstream. We needed to at least catch a dozen baby eels so my two uncles would throw their lines for the ocean fish.
If we had gone to the river, the eels wold have been too big and hard to catch. The creeks were the best place for baby eels. Three hours later, I had exhausted every hole.
“Ok grandma, I am at my last one”.
“Good girl, finish and wash, we will sit down and have a betel nut”, Tinang promised me.
I tried to reach into the last hole and the eel quickly went out the other way. I saw it with my own eyes.
“It’s coming, I yelled out to Mother”.
“Ok, I am waiting”, Mother said.
I sat into the creek and threw the cool fresh water on myself, removing all the mud, rubbish and wiped the insect bites. There were red and swollen. I could not take all the dried leaves and rubbish out of my hair, so I left it there. I cleaned up, and walked out to the side of the bank. Mother and Tinang were seated under a shade. No words were spoken.
“Where are the eels?” I asked. I was excited to see how many we had caught. Mother was very quiet. She had no expression.
Tinang looked at Mother and then me.
“Would you like a betel nut?” Tinang finally said.
Mother did not respond.
“Yes please”, I said. I wanted to chew and warm up, the water had cooled my body temperature.
I turned and looked at my mother. I searched her eyes and she looked ashamed.
“What happened?” I asked Mother.
Grandma was silent. I could see that “I knew it” look in grandma’s eyes and it was like, she could almost laugh.
“I am sorry. I lifted the nets and let all the eels get away”, Mother said.
“Why?”
“Because I could not bear the thought of touching them”.
It was too hard to get angry. I popped the skin of my beetle nut and sat down with grandma and gave her a hug. I knew how she felt. We sat awkwardly together. Then, I reached for the lime pot and the mustard to add to the betel nut. I had already mashed the betel-nut with my teeth. I began to chew. Grandma reluctantly reached over to mother.
“Here!”, she said, offering her daughter a beetle-nut and mustard. Mother relaxed and accepted the peace-offering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvyC1xo3v1A
In the South Pacific Islands eel farming is quite common. In Papua New Guinea, eels are farmed and also treated like pets. Here in New Ireland Province Cathy’ Larabina’s eels are some of the biggest pet eels. They have become well-known in the PNG tourism industry.
From memoir series JLeahy. Part 1
I stuck my right fore-finger into the freshly dug sandy, mud holes. A crab must have tried to invade this hole and got chased out. It left tracks in the mud. I imagined how it happened, and smiled. There were other holes, all about bottle-top size. The sandy mud was soft and pale brown. We needed food so my uncles had to fish tonight. My job was to catch bait; baby eels.
“Kalem! Ampom!”, Tinang called. Tinang was my grandma. She used both my names meaning, a welcoming joy, and light-skinned.
“I’m here!”, I responded softly, trying to not disturb the eels nor other life forms.
“Go there!”, she directed me, pointing to the other side.
I nodded and stepped to the other side of the creek and my eyes canvassed the freshly dug holes. I was in my blue shorts and T-shirt. At seven I was tall so mosquitoes loved my long bare legs. Even when they had filled their tight blood bellies, I could not smack them for fear I would disturb the catch. The mosquitos were also too ‘drunk’ with the blood, so I rubbed them off.
There were crab holes and eel holes but there was a difference. The eel holes did not have a messy gathering at their entrances. From the size of the hole, you could tell how big the eel was. These were small. The eels had two exit points. I started digging into the top opening and then feeling my way to the ending at the second hole. Where I had interfered, dirty water trailed down the footprints to the clean running creek water. I looked back to see where grandma was. I stepped carefully to avoid the small openings. Then, I picked one and I inserted my fingers into the hole and followed with my hands. I trusted my instincts and repeated the process until we had enough eels.
As early as you could, most children in the village were taught how to catch an eel. I was around seven and very good at catching eels. Catching eels was always exciting and scary at the same time. Physically, the eels scared me, but they were beautiful when I watched them gliding through the water. There was a certain peace and calmness about them. We were not allowed to catch very large eels. I have watched many get away. The large eels were considered landowners, art of us and our ancestors.
The trick to catch the eel was all in the hands. You reach the eel in the hole by touch, and caress the eel until it relaxes, and you can catch it. Sometimes you can catch the eels with bare hands, but they were slippery and difficult. My aunts were better at hand-catching the eels. The way we were catching today was by scarring the small eels back into the creek and they swam down into a hand-held net.
My uncles and grandma’s brothers would use the eels on large hooks for the open and deep-sea fish.
About six metres downstream, my mother was waiting with the open nets ready to catch the eels. I could not see her, but I could hear her smacking mosquitoes and flies and trying not to curse.
There was bush and wild banana trees between us. Vines from cane and pandanus crisscrossed above me, letting rays of sunlight spill onto the sandy bank. Not far from me, I could see the eels easing their way out and following the creek downstream. We only had to catch a few. Tinang was a few metres behind me, digging on the opposite side. If she started a song, we would sing together quietly.
Sometimes we just hummed in low tones while we fished but we were in a little creek and catching eels so we could not sing. It was very quiet except for the silent scratching noises on the sandy bank. I did not even hear one bird sing.
“Tinang!” I called in a whisper.
She looked at me.
“Did you see?” I asked, excited about the eels that swam down.
She just nodded and kept digging.
Earlier, I had asked Tinang to hold the net. We always fished together. I held the net and she brought the fish into the net. Today, Mother came along. I don’t know why because Mother hated eels. Just like snakes and anything that looked or shaped like snakes, she would run if she saw any. Mother even hated lizards and lizards had legs.
I didn’t eat eels but I didn’t mind them. My uncles said, the eel had a special smell that attracted fish-just like blood drawing sharks under water. An eel was the best bait.
“No, let your mother hold the net Tinang had told me earlier. You are better at catching the eels”. Tinang said.
“You go with Tinang” Mother said, smiling at me. I gave her my net and followed grandma up the creek. I knew mother was up to something. She wore her evil eyes in her funny smile.
The nets were cut out of small knitted nylon fishing nets. They were shaped and sewn along the sides. The top part was held in a hoop by a cane/rattan stick. To catch an eel, we got all our three nets and plugged their mouths halfway into the muddy base of the creek. Half of the mouth of the net would be open to catch anything that floated downstream. The three nets joined and combined at base, blocked off the width of the creek. The creek was about three metres wide.
Mother had bent forward and held onto the three nets. Where she was positioned, Mother could see everything that came downstream – fish, eels, yabbies, nuts from the trees and any other floating rubbish.
TO BE CONTINUED..tomorrow.
Author: Thin Lei Win
BALI, Indonesia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Under a full moon one night in 2006, 30 machete-wielding men surrounded Aleta Baun in the middle of a forest as she headed home to breastfeed her youngest daughter.
“Each of the men slapped me, pulled my hair and kicked me. They banged my head against a tree. I now get headaches often,” she told Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It was very, very painful but I just prayed. I still feel thankful they just hit me and did not kill me”, Baun, now 54, told Reuters.
Baun was leading protests against mining operations in her West Timor community. Baun was protesting against the miners for destroying the land sacred to her people, the Molo Indigenous people. Baun’s attackers told her blatantly that night; they had been hired to kill her.
Baun’s husband was at home tending to their children when she was attacked. Baun had called her husband before she was attacked.
“He(husband)said, ‘We will come and help you,’ and I asked, ‘How many of you are there?’. When he said ‘Five,’ I told him, ‘That’s useless. Don’t come. Stay at home so if something happens to me there’s someone to look after the kids”.
Baun’s attackers took the only $20 on her. After discussing they would gang-rape or kill her, they hacked her legs with machetes, and left her to die.
Baun survived the attack but the threats continued, placing the lives of her husband and children in grave danger. She was finally forced to leave home for a year.
Read more about Baun and other heroic women here:
http://www.trust.org/item/20140818092642-qdpr9/?source=spotlight
Ryan Lobo has traveled the world, taking photographs that tell stories of unusual human lives. In this haunting talk, he reframes controversial subjects with empathy, so that we see the pain of a Liberian war criminal, the quiet strength of UN women peacekeepers and the perseverance of Delhi’s underappreciated firefighters.
Short story, JLeahy, Tribalmysicstories
I stepped outside the doctor’s room into the surgery. The air felt warm even though the air-condition was on. It smelt clinical and I felt nausea. My mouth dried and suddenly, I felt I needed to drink a whole tank of water. From the red seats, amongst the other sick patients, and their loved ones, Bill dutifully stood up. He walked to me. I saw the water cooler near the receptionist but resisted the urge to stop and drink. A toddler, covered in bandages was crying in pain. I needed to get out.
Bill wore a black T-shirt and a pair of old Levis. His hair was messy.
“Yes?”, he asked when his eyes met mine.
I didn’t reply. I walked past his glaring eyes to the lift. I felt his previous night’s anger slicing through my back as I stopped in front of the lift. The lift arrived on the 13th floor, and I stepped in. I pressed the green “G” button set on the silver squares inside the lift door. I tried to get a space as far from Bill as possible. It was close to midday and already the lift was full of office workers and sick people.
“What did the doctor say?” Bill asked as he squeezed next to me. He reeked of Old Spice and alcohol. I turned away.
“I’ll tell you at home”, I mumbled as I looked at the people in the lift.
A beautiful 5’ foot 7” blonde with popped China Red lipstick gave me a weak sympathetic smile. Her make-up was flawless. She had my height, but her red high heels put her at least two inches taller. An old Muslim lady, head covered in pink cotton stood next to the blonde. The old lady only reached three-quarters of the blonde’s height. In contrast to the blonde’s green slimline dress, the old lady wore a brilliant blue Mama-dress, and a pair of flat, soft, black shoes. The old lady was holding onto two girls, about three, and five years old. The three had beautiful olive skin and deep-set eyes. The girls were looking at the blonde. The old lady looked at me with no expression.
“Why don’t you tell me now?”, Bill broke my thoughts.
“I don’t want to”, I said.
The middle-aged man, Indian, dressed in a fine, light grey Cashmere suit stared at me. He was on the other side of the blonde, and directly opposite. I looked down. The Indian man’s right hand-held
a briefcase by his sleek pants. He should look at the blonde, not me, I thought. On the floor, next to the Indian man’s black Italian leather shoes, my eyes caught a pair of white crocodile-skinned shoes. It had a pointy tip, just like a real crocodile’s mouth. Who wears crocodile skin shoes?, I wondered. My eyes travelled back up his green tight vinyl pants into the eyes of some 17-year-old wacko with pink shirt. He had stood his pale two-inch blonde hair up in an attention with strong gel. He slipped me a fake smile when I caught him starring. Croc-shoe boy wore a small gold earring on one ear, and a diamond stud plunged into his narrow flat nostril. He exaggerated his eye lines with some make-up. The croc-shoe boy’s friend was twice his size. He seemed to be the same age but looked unhealthy. He was pimply, scruffy and dirty; a complete opposite to the croc-shoe boy. They were saying something and giggling. They both looked at me, mocking. Why is everyone looking at me?, I wondered and kept my eyes down.
“Is everything alright?” Bill asked me again, and the lift jerked off and glided down towards the front of Wickham Terrace, Brisbane.
I ignored Bill. I felt the lift stopped. A tall young man stepped in, and greeted the blonde awkwardly.
“Lunch?” he asked smiling. She blushed.
The lift took off and did not stop on the next level, nor the next. The Indian man in Cashmere tried to press the buttons. The lift kept going, and accelerated.
“It is not stopping!” he yelled.
It felt like the lift was falling into empty space and my gut was going in the opposite direction. I heard screams. My mind went into slow motion.
BANG! The lift crashed into something hard and stopped. We must have hit “G” Level. Everybody kept screaming. The lights went off and came back on. Some people fell on the floor. Bodies crashed onto me. The two girls screamed for their mother. They grabbed the old lady. The alarm went. I felt sick. I turned into the cold silver wall and let myself slide onto the floor. The last thing I saw were the white crocodile shoes.
“Jess! Jess!” I heard Bill calling.
“Jessica! Wake Up!”
I came to. It was very hot; I was drenched in sweat. It smelt. Different smells of people smell, both good and bad. I must have passed out. I could vaguely see the others in the room but they felt close. They were in various moving shapes. I didn’t know what had happened.
I felt like throwing up again and tried to focus. Slowly, everyone came back into form. I could hear the two little girls crying softly into the old woman’s dress. She was speaking very gently to the girls in a foreign language. The awkward young man, looking concerned, had his arms around the beautiful blonde. The blonde was pale. Her lipstick smeared. The Indian man had taken his jacket off, revealing a sky-blue cotton shirt teamed with a pin-stripe tie. In a large “V” shape, sweat soaked and darkened all his front chest. He looked crumpled on the floor with his briefcase in his lap and jacket rolled in a ball.
“Jess!”
My eyes turned to Bill’s face hanging over me and I looked away. I had leaned into the lift wall with my head resting on the croc-shoe boy’s shoulder. The croc-shoe boy and his friend were cursing nervously. I felt awkward. I could not move myself so I turned and looked at Bill. In place of his 40 years of age, I saw a sweaty 55-year-old wrinkled man. His unshaven face matched his salt and pepper hair. His eyes were bloodshot and his jaw line was tight. Now the Bourbon was obvious on his breath. His eyes continued to hold the question as he spoke.
“The lift is stuck. There is someone coming.”
There was no emotion in his recount.
“You have to stay awake,” he changed his tone.
What is wrong with you?”
I had no more strength to hold it back.
“I am pregnant!” I said aloud.
Bill’s jaw dropped. He stared at me in disgust, speechless. Everyone in the lift looked at me as if I had announced I had smallpox. I had kept this for three months. Bill and I have not had sex for at least three years.
The story about grass-skirts
A question I’m often asked, and I know I am being teased by friends and people from other cultures is; “where is your grass-skirt?” Many people expect you to have one and wear one because you are from the islands. May be they are just joking or wishing they could see you in a grass-skirt. Who knows? The other question I often get asked is, “where are your coconut shells?” We will leave the second question for later. May be they have watched too many Tahitian dancers.
As for the grass-skirt, let me tell you, I do have one. In-fact, I have had more than one over the years. I have one grass-skirt with me here in Australia. It was not easy getting it through quarantine, but it got through. The sad part is that I have not had a chance to wear the grass-skirt in ten years. It is now too short and small for me. That says a lot doesn’t it? I need to start thinking about making a new one.
The heritage of PNG women
Grass-skirts are the pride of women in Papua New Guinea and other Pacific islands. In the Melanesian region, grass-skirts are made from and dyed, with natural fibres and pigments. More women are using Chinese made dyes for the brighter colours, but often, traditional performances, songs, and dancing call only for plain grass-skirts.
Grass-skirts are made from young fibres of sago palms, bark, sisal, pandanus, banana fibres, and many other natural fibres. The time it takes to source, collect, and prepare the raw materials; splicing, drying and dying takes a lot longer than actually making the skirt. The collection of the material process could be weeks or months and the skirt can be made in a week or less.
Using natural fibres
In my tribe, women use young palm leaves for grass-skirts. The shoot is cut early morning and boiled or spliced and dried immediately to stop iodising/browning of the cream colour. This process captures the supreme creamy white colour. If you ever see the weaving of the Micronesian women, the same kind of process is used to keep young coconut fibre almost white. A tree bark is kept under water for weeks before it becomes soft enough to pulp and split into threads for twisting. The threads would then be used to sew the palm leaves into place at the waist band. When the palm leaf is dried, we decide where the colours would be on the grass-skirt design and dye the colours. For black we use charcoal and dark grey, the fibres are buried in the water for a few weeks. Red comes from a tree seed and finally turmeric is used for yellow and orangey shades.
Rhonda prepares her grass-skirt for festival
I found this interesting film on YouTube (see link below) which gives an insight into a young woman’s preparation for the Hiri Moale Festival. Rhonda Tiana, a Motu-Koitabuan gives you an opportunity to see her prepare her grass-skirt, and use it in the Festival. This grass-skirt is from Central Province.
Author: Thin Lei Win
MARABUT, Philippines, Nov 6 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Elizabeth Caramol was nine months pregnant with her ninth child last November when Typhoon Haiyan, the strongest storm on record to hit land, swept away her family’s rickety home on a coconut farm in the Philippines.
Haiyan damaged practically everything in its path as it hit land on Nov. 8, packing winds of up to 315 km an hour (195 miles an hour) and unleashing seven-metre (23-foot) storm surges. It killed, or left missing, some 7,000 people and forced up to 4 million from their homes in the central Philippines.
Caramol and her family took refuge in one of the many caves along the beautiful, winding coastline in Marabut municipality in Samar province. She feared for her life but safely sheltered, delivered a healthy boy and named him Cavein – pronounced “Kevin”.
A year later, Caramol, now 36, spoke to Thomson Reuters Foundation from her home, a newly rebuilt wooden house on stilts, about how her family is slow rebuilding their lives.
“A day before the storm, we evacuated to a cave about 200 metres from our home. It was a big cave with two levels. About 60 families took refuge there, but we stayed there until Dec. 4. We were the last to leave because we didn’t have anywhere else to stay.
“We went to the cave because we were told a strong storm was coming and there could be sea level rise from the water. Here, the water was halfway up the coconut trees and even came inside the cave.
“Many people moved up to the second floor when the water started coming in, but I had to stay on the first floor. I was due to give birth on Nov. 8, and I was starting to experience labour pains. They hurt so much I could not move.
“I thought I was going to die. I told Napoleon, my husband, to take all the kids to the second floor and leave me there. The water rose to around one foot and then it went down the next day.
“I didn’t want the baby to come out because the conditions in the cave were not good. We brought rice, water, salt and matches, but we ran out of water and matches pretty quickly. There was no other means to get water. We just had a container to collect water that dropped from the trees. There were no toilets either.
“I had labour pains for five days. When I finally gave birth on Nov. 12, I was so excited but I also had fear in my heart because of the hygiene conditions and the infections that could set in.
“Our home was washed away so we had nothing for the baby, not even clothes. We cut some blankets into pieces of cloth to wrap the baby. We named him Cavein Cuevas Caramol, because he was born in a cave.
“For five days, we ate nothing but rice and salt. I just breastfed the baby, like how I raised my other kids. I was worried that he is not going to be healthy but he is.
Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation – Thu, 6 Nov 2014 07:49 GMT
“I was on the seat in the back. I felt the bus moving away. I saw everybody, even Nathan on the ground as the bus went. When I turned around, no-one from my school was in the bus with me”. I remember my son’s words even to this day.
Chris Harris, five, was left in the public bus after the bus dropped off his brother (8), the staff and other children from Chapel Hill State School/After School Care.
Tomorrow, Chris will turn 16. Thanks to you, the Good Samaritan/ a stranger who helped Chris, find his way home.
It was in September 2004 in Brisbane City. We had migrated to Brisbane on July 13, 2004. As we were approaching Christmas, it would had been almost a year since the disappearance of Queensland boy Daniel James Morcombe and there was wide-spread publicity about him being missing. I was going through a difficult time, trying to settle into a new country without my extended family and my mother’s help with my sons.
The boys started school straight away and enjoyed it. They did better than I. In September, I was at work in Milton, near the city, and placed both boys at their school’s Holiday Care. A paid service run by the school. On that day, a trip to Southbank was organised so the children would be taken to the city to watch a movie. I understood at that time, there were three carers and 25 children. When the bus got to Southbank, a large amusement and entertainment park area, everyone got off the bus except for Chris. Chris is a very tall boy, even at age five. As a parent and an adult, I never understood how a responsible carer or teacher could not have done a head count of young children transported from one place to another. How did they not see Chris? None of the carers knew Chris was missing until they sat for the movie. His brother Nathan had started looking for him.
For Chris, after the initial shock of finding himself in the public bus all alone, and driven away, he said he searched in the faces of members of the public to “see who was nice”. Chris found a certain young man, he thought, “looked like” his uncle Kauc. Uncle Kauc is my brother. The bus stopped at the terminal in Myers Centre, Brisbane City. Apparently, Chris walked up to the stranger (that looked like my brother) and said; “excuse me, please help me. I am lost. My brother and other kids went off the bus as Southbank, it’s all my fault, I didn’t get off”.
According to Chris, the stranger said “Ok” and asked Chris to follow him. They walked out of the bus and through the crowds in the shopping centre, straight to the police station.
I asked Chris later if the man touched him and Chris said “No mum. He did not want to hold my hand. He told me to follow him”.
At the police station, Chris gave the police my name, number and address. Chris had memorised it, and police also found the contact details I wrote on Chris’ hat and bag. A call to the school and within a few hours, the Brisbane police brought my son back to Southbank to re-unite with his brother and the rest of the group. No-one called me.
After work that afternoon I walked to the school from the bus stop to pick up my sons. One of the carers came out to see me and told me about what had happened. Before she even finished the story I demanded to know where my children were. I called Chris over, checked his body, asked if he was Ok. When he said he was, I picked him up and hugged him and got his brother. I lifted Chris onto my shoulders and held Nathan’s hand as we walked home. I refused to speak with the carers or anyone before we left the school. I was outraged and terrified of what might have happened. I just wanted to get home. I wanted to just be with my sons. I walked and I wailed like a true Papua New Guinean woman for the five kilometres home. I remember people in our suburb coming out of their houses to see what was going on and just stared.
The next day I resigned from my job. I was afraid to leave the boys with anyone. It took me two whole weeks before I could speak to the school and the Holiday care people. We never really resolved the issue. I moved on.
This week at work one of my colleagues made a collection for Daniel Morcombe’s foundation, set up by Daniel’s parents to help other parents who have lost their children to evil people. Some parents have never found their children.
I am celebrating my son turning 16 tomorrow and I am truly grateful to God and the kind stranger who helped Chris find his way home, almost eleven years ago.
Tribalmystic Stories 