Each weekend, we trainees had activities designed to help us get to know our families better and to more fully integrate with the village, its culture and way of life. The first weekend we were assigned the task of getting to know the family, attending church, and talking to them about their ancestry and then actually drawing a family tree – all in Bislama mind you!! So, even though I’ve been working on family trees for 25+ years, this was definitely going to be a challenge!
Ekipe is a fairly small village comprised of 75 households with ~350 people. My immediate family consisted of Mama Marie and Papa Paul – Mama Marie is younger than my oldest son, and Papa Paul is just 49 – so believe me by village standards, I am wan oldfala wuman (one old woman)!! Living at home with Mama and Papa is Papa’s father, Abu (Vanuatu designation for grandfather), 3 daughters: Anita (12), Harriet (7), and Sandrine (5); one baby son: Jerry (15 months), and two sons living nearby with an Uncle: Sethstone (18), and Robert (21). By the time I was finished preparing the family tree, it was clear that everybody in the village is related in some way. With the exception of just a few, all people in Ekipe were originally from the island of Tongoriki. So, most people in Ekipe speak Bislama, English, French, and a language indigenous to Tongoriki. In fact, throughout Vanuatu there are more than 120 local languages. So, at first glance the people may look and seem primitive and untrained, the fact that they are fluent in 4 languages and live an entirely self-sufficient life is truly a humbling experience. I suddenly felt pretty inadequate.
My first Sunday, the family was up by 5 am to start the morning fire. Nearly every breakfast was quite simple – either bread spread with peanut butter and margarine or breakfast crackers along with sweetened orange-leaf tea (hot water steeped with orange leaves from a nearby tree). That tea is absolutely delicious. But on Sunday morning, the family was busy preparing their big mid-day meal early in the morning so that it could be eaten immediately following church. Church began anywhere from 9-9:30 am. My Papa was the Pastor of the CMC church – an old, dilapidated open-air building just at the end of the path leading to our house. Services opened with a hearty welcome from Papa followed by beautiful singing featuring his baritone voice and complimented by Mama’s perfect harmony. He also played the guitar and everybody in the church would join in singing along. The congregation was pretty small – it varied between 8-15 people. Ekipe had several churches – Seventh Day Adventist, Presbyterian, and Church of the Covenant. On my first Sunday at church, Papa welcomed me and another trainee by calling us to the front of the church and draping a wide swath of kaliko (calico) around us.
After church, we came home and sat under the mango tree to cool off a bit and just chatted – as much as I could in pretty basic Bislama and lots of English scattered through. Dinner was served and then everybody took a nap for the hot part of the afternoon. The rest of Sunday is pretty much family time – people would stroll around to visit – kids would play endless games like “patty-cake” or other rhyming games – and families would generally just hang out. Dinner was usually cold leftovers from lunch along with some bread.
After dinner on my first Sunday there, Mama looked at me and said “You go swim now?”. Since it was early evening, I really didn’t want to head to the ocean, so I replied “No, I don’t think so” – to which she followed up with…”You swim later??” – to which I replied, “Oh maybe tomorrow or another day.” There was a fairly awkward period of silence when finally the kids understood what was happening. They started laughing and said “Leiso…you swim there” and pointed at the shower. Their word for shower … or bath…is “swim”!! So, I started laughing and said “Yes, bae mi go swim naoia! (Yes, I’ll go swim now)!” I think they were pretty relieved to know that I wasn’t going to be the dirtiest, smelliest white woman they had ever met!
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