A Tale of Unity and Respect in Vanuatu

Vanuatu:
A Story of Unity and Respect

1) THE MOUNTAIN GARDEN
The bush knife slips out of my hand just as the papaya fruit falls to the ground. In the moment between the gash and the scream a delicious thought comes to mind. “Maybe this will make me too weak to leave our tribe at the end of the school year.” Blood runs down my leg and pools on the black earth at my left foot.

It’s Saturday, and I’m up in the mountain garden with my grandfather Bumbu Joshua, harvesting sweet potatoes and papayas for dinner. When he sees me, he tears off his green T shirt and tightly wraps it around my shin. He holds me tight, passing his strength on to me, as I feel his muscular chest against mine, his slow steady heart-beat calming mine.

“Sit down, Abel.” he commands. I glide to the ground and gaze into the canopy of the trees that surround us: coconut palm, paw-paw trees, breadfruit, mango trees. Bumbu walks off in search of Dondakaya leaves. He takes a couple in his mouth and chews them, then he puts the paste on my gash. The blood stops flowing. Still, I get the T shirt wrapping which will help to close the wound.
“How do you know all this, Bumbu?” I take comfort in Bumbu’s wisdom.

By the time we arrive back in the village with our full baskets I have almost forgotten my gash. Brother Dura and cousin Toa come running and yelling to greet us excitedly and to peep in the basket. What delicacy might it contain?
“What’s that flapping around your leg?” Toa asks with surprise as we enter the grass hut that serves as kitchen. Bumbu Janet is sitting in the far corner, grating banana and sorting out cabbages in order to prepare simboro for dinner.
So far she has paid little notice to our arrival.
Now her eyes fasten onto the green T shirt, and even before she opens her mouth I know the words Bumbu Janet is going to hurl at us.
“Joshua, you were supposed to take care of the child.” she accuses Bumbu Joshua, unwrapping the makeshift bandage. She moistens a rag and wipes my leg. My wound gets less and less menacing, until I realize it is never going to keep me anchored to my family and all I hold dear.

“How can you let this child use a bush knife?” Bumbu Janet keeps arguing.
Bumbu Joshua answers in his usual half smile, gesturing with his arms.
“He was doing a great job picking papaya. These things happen. Calm down everyone.” Bumbu Joshua is undisturbed.
But Bumbu Janet is trying to shoot him dead with words that neither Bumbu nor I will ever want to hear again. Bumbu Janet is known to strike out in her selection of words and in her unique voice of anger that makes even our village teacher duck.

“Abel shot a nalaklak bird with his sling shot. Look, everyone, here it is!” Bumbu Joshua holds up the bird which one of my brothers will prepare for cooking. “Next time he will shoot a green fruit pigeon, just watch!”

I glare at Bumbu Janet, feeling bad for putting Bumbu Joshua in such a conflicting situation. What an opposite pair she and Bumbu Joshua make. I’m sure she would not let me use a knife until I had a beard! But with Bumbu Joshua there is always something to learn, just by watching him do things or listening to how he speaks. He seems to know everything and everyone from our Hivoliliu Clan and all the affairs of the whole Vatuhangele village.

“If Abel leaves the village you must give up the mountain garden to Hivoliliu and his family. You cannot go there without the boy.” Bumbu Janet says, irritating me desperately.
“I will certainly not go back up there at my age and you should not either.”
My grandfather wordlessly looks at her with his smiling eyes.
“I will never leave you, Bumbu Joshua!” I declare faintly, hoping the words become true if I just say them often enough.

“There are some men from the Lolotitimba tribe waiting for you at the nakamal,” Bumbu Janet mentions, and Bumbu Joshua has to leave to go to the men’s club house. People often come to ask his advice when there is conflict in our village of 56 people. Most of the time, over a shell of kava, he finds a solution both parties can live with, and peace is restored. When Bumbu Joshua tries to get up, his knees make grinding noises and refuse to get completely straight. He uses a cane to supports his frame, which unfolds into a vague Z shape, not much taller than I am.

When he and I are out in public together, I often get just as much attention as he does. Just by being near him I feel like the little Ndandakwora tree swaying proudly in the breeze under the majestic Banyan tree.

At night- fall, I’m massaging my grandfather’s swollen knees, as I do every day after school. He’s resting on his cot in the men’s sleeping house. Having my cot right beside his, I can hear the little noises his toothless mouth makes, and it mingles with the sounds of cicadas and the cries of nocturnal birds. It is my nightly lullaby.