Hey y’all. I’m in town for a little while so I’ll work on updating the ole blog.
Some strange things have been happening in my area lately. A certain middle-aged man (we’ll call him Tabi for the purposes of this entry) recently went missing last month. Tabi was an extremely kind but mentally handicapped man. He had a habit of going around to different houses whenever he was hungry to request some food. Nobody in the village would ever turn down his request. In fact, I’ve even shared a meal with him at a neighbor’s house one time or another. Everyone in my area knew of his disability and brushed it off as “hemi jas fasin blong hem” meaning “it’s just what he does.”
Well, Tabi’s brother didn’t like Tabi’s hunger requests. Tabi’s brother thought his brother should stop “begging” and just come eat with his family. Well apparently, the week before Tabi went missing, his brother was seen to have hit him after a particular eating offense. In the past, Tabi has not responded well to punishments and would often need to walk for hours to blow off steam. The family dismissed Tabi’s dissappearance as a way of getting over his brother’s punishment of hitting him.
After about 7 days, the village finally informed our larger community about Tabi’s dissapearance and men were sent off all over the island to search for him. People were afraid he may have jumped on a cargo ship and even put out a search notice on Vanuatu’s radio station.
After about 10 days or so, people began to suspect suspicious activity on the part of Tabi’s brother. A witch hunt thus ensued and the community held a meeting at the nakamal (a central meeting place of the community) to determine if Tabi’s brother had killed Tabi and left his body somewhere. Tabi’s brother claimed his innocence and the community wishing to believe no harm had been done, decided to declare an extensive search of the body. From what I hear around the kava bar, the night of the meeting, Tabi’s brother “made custom” by putting a pig’s tusk on their father’s grave. That very next day, the someone in the search party had found a shirt in the river. Could it have been Tabi’s shirt?
Bring in CSI: Vanuatu, meaning a fellow teacher at my school who owns a digital camera and laptop (even having one is extremely rare in Vanuatu). So the community fired up a generator to power the laptop and check for pictures of Tabi. Sure enough, one picture revealed Tabi wearing the shirt in question. Case closed?
It rains a LOT on Pentecost. They weren’t kidding in the Peace Corps brochure. I can’t think of many days in the past few months of our rainy season that we’ve had a day without a single drop of rain. I could probably count the days on my hand. Anyway, when it rains as often as it does, the rivers that are normally passable suddenly become very flooded, resulting in dangerous currents. People began to assume that Tabi had gone for his walk while it was raining heavily and got swept by the river currents. It’s a fairly safe assumption. It’s happened before… I believe two people have died in the past. His village considered the shirt as enough proof to begin mourning his death. The traditional customs of mourning went on for days. The mamas wailed their lungs out and the men drank lots of kava.
There are MANY people in my area, howevver, that aren’t so convinced that everything was so nicely tied off. “Where is the body?” they would ask. “Why would Tabi take off his shirt if he was being swept away and drowning?” I have no answers. It’s not for me to decide. I’ll just see wait and see what happens as the situation unveils itself. I’ll be sure to update my lovely 6 readers with anything new information comes to light.
Anyway, I’m in town taking some time off because my school’s on break. I’ll be sure to update again before I head back.
Eugene
