Tawatana - the first three days

I arrived by canoe in the late afternoon. We left Kirakira in the morning and should have arrived three to four hours later. But the canoe had broken down and needed a gear box change, which was providentially provided by a relative Henry, who came to investigate when he saw us limping past, clearly in trouble.

George had given up waiting on the beach and gone back to the house on the plateau.

On the new back veranda was a table with a cloth.

This I learnt was for a mother’s union gathering that evening.

They hadn’t planned it for me but for George. It was part of their weekly program of care for the elderly and disabled in the village, where they provided a meal and companionship.

It was a great evening. We ate well, ony my farewell party five weeks later compared with it, and the women truly welcomed me. We had prayers and short speeches, and as they left I hugged them.

The night though was nightmarish. My newfangled lilo wouldn’t blow up, and finally pitying me, George lent me his mattress. There was a strange arrangement where the solar light shone brightly through the open doorways until 2am. Finally after moving to a room which had two window and a faint breeze, I finally slept.

The next day help appeared in the form of a relative and neighbour who built a bed level with the windows, and my friend Nunuau who lent me a nice mattress, pillow and some linen.

I was sick with a constantly running nose, and attributed it to the dust which had been absorbed into the bare timber walls and floor. Eunice and Nunuau promptly set about heating water and cleaning the floors and wall, one room at a time. George believed the sickness as a virus, and on reflection he was right. Many others were ill including a student who came to interview him, and coughed and spluttered. Miraculously he did not get sick.

George’s bed in the main room. Somehow he had learnt to sleep with the solar light on until 2am.

The dining table on the veranda had been borrowed. Instead we ate at a coffee table in the main room.

In the kitchen you can just see the burner, given to George by his journalist friends after he lost everything in a rest-house fire in Kirakira in 2021. You can just see the sink. Unfortunately it was attached a tank which hadn’t been cleaned for years. While I was there it was cleaned.

Everyday we would sit on the veranda and work on the book.

Eunice bought us food. We had not yet managed to work out how to cook in the leaf kitchen George’s brother Leslie had built for him.

Behind is the toilet and laundry.

Every day George would check the termite tracks. When I got back to Honiara I tried to send back some proper treatment but it was expensive and was not likely to work. Previously we had used dirty engine oil around the stumps, the local treatment. The house was built almost 20 years earlier in 2004.

The other threat to the house, as I realised when there was a storm was the trees around the house.

Finally, on the third day, feeling a little better I got back to the beach where I arrived.

A lot of the sand has gone from the beach. It has been taken to the school, for concrete. Others have taken the coral for floors and paths.