A Few Givens

There are a few givens in the Marquesas.  One is that the wind will swing from sea breeze to a land breeze at night.  When we anchor, we tend to face the south or east, where the prevailing winds come from.  Regardless of direction, however, the winds will shift around at night to be coming from the land, usually blowing down the valleys at the mouths of the rivers that form the many bays that punctuate these islands’ shorelines.  For the past few nights, we’d been staying in a bay whose village was located about ½ mile up the river that forms the cove, a part of a larger bay.  The water was a silty brown, partially the product of the basaltic dust that flows down off the mountains that climb steeply form the waterline.  In addition to the basaltic dust, the vegetation surrounding the bay also gave it a coloration, like you might find in a southeastern swamp, where the tannin from the cypress and mangrove trees colors the water a translucent brown.  (I read somewhere once that sailors would gather barrels of this tannin-laden water, since it tended to keep unspoiled longer. We’re happy with our reverse osmosis watermaker’s water.)  Jennifer and I will miss these mountains, but we are looking forward to the low white coral islands of the Tuomotus, with their crystal-clear waters.  We took a walk ashore after a few days, to scout out the village, landing at the outrigger canoe shed that dots each bay in these islands (more in a coming blog on the outriggers!)

That night, after scouting the village, in a very "African Queen"-like trek, we took our dinghy upstream to the village dock, passing through a narrow opening in the beach, brushing away floating coconut fronds and banana leaves from our path as we passed under several jerry-rigged low-hanging telephone wires, and rowing between waterlogged banks with the aforementioned trees overhanging our passage.  Unusually, this river sported vertical banks down which ivies grew.  Once every three weeks, a small lighter (boat) arrives carrying supplies from the bigger supply boat (itself tied alongside a much larger town in Nuku Hiva) mentioned in an earlier post.  Like other ports, the arrival is a big deal, and “much larger” must be kept in context.  Our village this evening is perhaps home to 200 people.

We made the waterborne trek because: a) it’s faster than tying up at the canoe landing area and walking; and b) we were on our way to the spring fundraiser for the local school.  Which brings me the second “given” in the Marquesas:  if it’s a post, and if it’s a special occasion, then the post has got to be wrapped in an ornate palm weaving.  Most buildings here lack appreciable sides; the weather is such that the combination of sun, wind, rain, and temperature make sides a kind of irrelevancy.  Sure, most houses are fully enclosed, mostly, but many are not, and most public buildings are a simple roof with supporting posts.  And we’re back to the posts.  These public buildings – school auditoriums, town halls, canopies here and there, are all supported by posts, and to date, we’ve seen virtually every post wrapped carefully in palm fronds.  The frond, with its center stalk and evenly spaced leaves, make an ideal wrap.  The center stem runs lengthwise up the post, and the leaves are then weaved as one might weave the long hair of a girl, in and out, with new leaves taking up the volume of the ending leaves.  Once woven, flowers are inserted into the braids.  The final effect is stunning – a green tapestry of woven leaves, with exotic flowers, extending from floor to roof.

The third given is a universal given:  all schools in all parts of the world raise money the exact same way:  the spring fair.  We had the chance to visit two school fairs here in Nuku Hiva (it’s May Day!), and, recalling times with our own kids’ school fairs, there’s the ticket booth where money is exchanged for tickets, and then there are no shortage of things to spend your tickets on:  food, drink, games, raffles, grab bags, etc.  At the evening fair after our jungle dinghy ride, we were also treated to the boys and girls performing traditional Marquesas dances.  The girls – between 8 and 12 years old – performed the native dances – filled with flowing arm and hand gestures, all the while waving, and, at times, shimmying their tiny hips in a rapid flutter that belied their ages.  The boys were the flip side of the stereotype:  in grass skirts and bare chests, with thrusting arm motions and loud aggressive calls, they recalled their long lost elders’ dances that foretold conflict.  One guide book I read said that warring tribes would sometimes simply meet and dance AT one another.  Faces tattooed and bulky arms and legs in proud display, the book asserted that sometimes just the sight of a neighboring tribe’s dance was enough to call off the conflict.

 

No danger of conflict that night; we watched the kids, laughed with the parents, and enjoyed a nice barbecued meal of beef before heading back in our dinghy, under a dark night through a twisty river, to return to our boat in the bay.  The tide had gone out in the interim, and what had been a quiet motoring turned into a rowing exercise through the pitch black night.  Jennifer sat on the bow with a flashlight, calling out directions, and the river gravel scraped the bottom of the oars from time to time.

 

Arriving at the mouth of the river, entering the bay, we experienced the magic of this water laden with the detritus of the adjoining hills’ vegetation.  With every stroke of the dinghy’s oars, the water burst into a bioluminescent glow, with swirls of light passing behind our dinghy as we rowed.  Each passing swell – without even breaking – bore the same eerie light, and all around us, the bay was on fire with twists and turns of light, so that the entire surface was aglow with light.  Each drop from the paddle, as it struck the water, spawned a pinprick of light.   The water was alive – visible in the pre-moon darkness, with the wake of our dinghy lying like a glow-in-the-dark rope behind us.  So the final given of these islands:  they can surprise you with their wonder, even when you think you’ve seen it all.