At the moment I have been living alone for a few weeks while Gary is back in NZ on holiday. I didn’t think much of it at first but it has occurred to me that it’s a rather unique situation. As an Auzzie tourists who I met remarked, “mate, that’s pretty full-on”.
It is pretty full-on. I am literally the only inhabitant of a very small island in a super poor developing country; I am living in a leaf-roofed and bamboo-walled house that sits about 20cm above a high tide; I live off the fish that I catch, the crackers, peanut butter and rice I buy from the little store in the nearby village, and the Kumera that the store owner sometime gives me for free; I have no access to any market to buy vegetables and very little space to grow my own; and if I get sick I know that there are more medical supplies in my little first-aid kit than in the local health clinic. In fact, I got a distinct impression of my adverse situation when, while talking to the nurse about public health, I was shown where the health clinic’s septic tank leaks and the spillage flows around the front in the open drain over which I had jumped on my way inside.
What makes it even more dire here is the social situation. Kia is a rapidly growing little village that is spreading around the coast and is congested and disorganised throughout. The centre of the village is cramped and there is a severe shortage of land around the village that might be suitable for gardening. This places some formidable stresses on families: there is continual conflict within and between families over logging rights, binge drinking is the norm for many men, and young adults (guys my age) seem to have such a low position in the social hierarchy that they scarcely bother talking in public. This has made it quite a challenge for me. As a white guy who lives alone on a small island, it requires quite an effort to meet people. It’s not like I can wander round to my neighbour’s place for a chat. To make this worse, the stalling with work has meant that I have spent day upon day, waiting to get started or for the next meeting, hanging about the house or diving in the lagoon. It’s not just me too. It seems to be common for people from one end of the village to have never heard of people from the other end. There’s no reason for one to go to the other end of the village and, with no central communal area to hang out and meet people, even in this village of about 1000 people, many people would never get the chance to meet.
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| Traditional dancing at Easter celebrations. |
On the other hand, despite this adversity, it hasn’t actually been that hard. Not yet anyway. Work is slowly starting to happen and I have enough friends that there is always someone to chat to on any given day. And if the social pressures on the community look overwhelming, I only have to walk down the footpath (there’s only one in town) just after primary school finishes to see that it’s certainly not all depressing; kids have an amazing and infectious capacity to be happy.
So when I really think about it, it is challenging but it’s not a hopeless situation. It’s “full-on” alright, but that only amounts to it being different from home. Ask me how it’s going in another few months though, and it might be a completely different kettle of tropical fish.
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