Yippee! Off on another international adventure!

Thursday: 4/20

Arrived at Abq airport at 3:30 PM, Thursday April 20, ready for a

4:40 PM plane. Unfortunately, the plane wasn't ready for us. No idea

when it is going to take off. At first, no worries, because overseas

flight from LA isn't until 10:30 PM. But when the delay stretches until

6:30 and the other, later LA flight is boarding, I begin to get

worried. No matter, we finally get off, get to LA at 8:00, transfer

luggage to the care of QANTAS (the world's safest airline), and go eat.

Saturday: 4/22

The flight to Sydney is routine. It's full, food is blah, 6 lousy

movies, 3-4 hours sleep in 14 hours of travel. Qantas is pretty rigid

about carry-on luggage, so this Gestapo lady grabs mine and checks it.

Arrive Sydney, transfer direct to flight to Cairns, another routine

flight, and get in Cairns at 12:00 noon on Saturday. They are paging me

as I enter Customs. Not a good sign. You have a number of thoughts as

you enter Customs, in my case I was thinking about the camera I was

smuggling in for Bruno. But you NEVER want to hear them paging you.

Anyway, my 2 big duffel bags were not here. Luckily, my carry-on, with

my legal and Bruno's illegal camera were here and I cruised through

Customs with no problem.

One step outside and the 93 degree heat with 100% humidity slapped me

in the face. I went to the motel, a reasonably clean, but very musty old

place. Waited 20 minutes for Bruno and Ian, then went to eat and shop.

Bruno paid me $800. Came back. Slept OK. Grading done. Cairns seems

mostly the same. It's wetter. It seems to be going for the tourist a

bit more. Things seem dead, but that could be just the holiday.

Sunday: 4/23

Sunday AM rain. Went downtown. Useless. $600 more. Caught 11:00 AM

flight to Horn island. Plane is a 30-seater twin engine DASH-80/200.

Horn island is the "airport" island next to Thursday island which is the

main "center" of the Torres Strait Islands.

We get a taxi after waiting about an hour and get to Garrick Hitchcock's

house. He's some sort of Cultural liaison with the gov't, working

official on native title claims, but also doing a lot of anthropological

work. We are staying the night with him. Essentially sat and chat and

drank and ate til 11:00 PM, then crashed. Rainbow Beeeaters on the fence

eating bugs all afternoon.

Monday: 4/24

Up at 6:30 for a 8:00 AM plane that landed on 3 islands, Badu, Mabuiag

and Saibai. This plane is a commercial 10-seater, twin engine. All dirt

strips, all short, all drenched by the rain. Good pilots (I hope), but

look very young.

Waited for 3 hours for the ferry for Dauan....no show because of

Easter Holiday. It's a good thing it's not raining now....no shelter

anywhere. 3 hours out in the noonday sun sends any Englishman mad. Hired

alocal "dingy" with a 90 HP engine to take us on a wild 5 Km ride to

Dauan.

Came ashore on Dauan in a little inlet/harbor (artificial). There

is a big dock for the big barge that delivers supplies. We go ashore at

the beach and wade in from about knee deep. Sand bottom. Nice.

Checked into the guest house...about 120 degrees and the ever-present

100% humidity (this is the dry season?). Tried to go to the store, but

it's closed for the holiday also. It's Easter. Finally found an old

bearded beachcomber running a snack stand for food for evening. The

guesthouse is right in the center of the village. It's gov't issue, has

electricity and wonder of all, has air-conditioning. (And electricity for

my chargers).

Today is Easter Holiday or ANZAC day or something. Everything closed

including the store for food so we go back to the beachcomber. We sit

around. Planning things, not doing things. Things here are a lot

different from Vanuatu. The people are heaps better off, obviously much

better supported by the government. There are public buildings, the

people live in nice modern houses. There's 1 road (clay+water...read

mud&rutted) that runs along the village for about 1/2 mile. Houses are

modern, some even 2 story. There seem to be about 150 people here.

There are maybe 15-20 cars for the 1/2 mile of road. There's quite a bit

of junk around... a general feeling of tropical lassitude and decay.

The people seem strangely apathetic about us. Nobody comes to see us.

Nobody seems worried if we starve because the store is closed. People

seem to wonder what we're doing here even though Ian has tried to inform

everyone. We work through Margaret Mau, the Council Chairperson, but

I've not met her and it's not obvious what her real role is in the

community.

The terrain up behind the village is dense scrub and trees. And

apparently we're not supposed to go there. Anyway, we don't. Up from

the dock is a very fine clay mud road leading through the village. Houses

are strung out over 1/2 mile along the road that runs parallel to the

shore about 100 meters from the waters edge. Houses are scattered about

every 50 meters along the road on both sides. Level ground extends about

50 meters behind the road before dense jungle begins to rise on the

mountain. Dauan Island is a big granite mountain which rises about 300

meters from sea level. But all villagers live within 10 meters height of

the water's edge. (There are 3 kinds of islands in Torres Strait. Dauan

and several others are granite mountains. There are several coral atoll

type. And finally, and least attractive are the glorified sandbar type.

There is at least on missionary church (Catholic). There is an IBIS store

(IBIS is a gov't run cooperative) with very little useful for sale (in the

back is a storeroom full of stuff). There are coolers up front full of

ice cream, rotten fresh veggies, meat and TV dinners. They sell milk

frozen. No rice, no flour, no oil, no soups, no sauces, no bread, no

cereal, no dry milk. There is peanut butter, jelly, vegemite, nutella

and laundry soap.

There is a community meeting center (a covered and walled 60x50 foot open

space with a kitchen at one end). There is a "ball field" + bleachers

with basketball nets.

The council office is modern and crammed full of every kind of office

equipment imaginable. Our "guesthouse" is adjoined....people keep

coming in to use our bathroom. There's a schoolhouse (modern) but no

school or children because it's holiday. All buildings and houses in

the village are modern construction and look like they've been built in

the last decade. Some of the houses are separate (like 4-5 room houses),

some are apartment style, including some 2-story, and some are barrack-

style. All houses have proches, but people seem to sit out under a

tree unless it's raining.

Water is caught off the roof gutters into a large (maybe 2500 gallon,

anyway about 10 ft diameter and maybe 8-10 ft high)storage tank. This

has to provide fresh water through the entire dry season. If they run

out, they have to bring water to the island from boats. Hot water is

provided at each house by a rooftop solar water heater (which in

rainy season is useless & when the sun is shining, the need for hot

water is dubious.) Every house has 1 solar panel and 2-3 water tanks.

Yards vary. Most are neat. Some not. There are lots of tropical

fruits and flowers everywhere. Bananas, breadfruit, paw-paw, almonds,

etc. There are butterflies with a 1-foot wingspan. Black with white

spots, yellow body and a bright red head. I kid you not. Later

consultation of the book identifies them as a Birdwing Butterfly and

calls the wingspan 20 centimeters ( 8 inches ).

Tuesday: 4/25

Today we go to the site and do some preliminary photos. And we look

around the site just a little. The rock art site is infested with

green ants. We pull up the vines they like but they stay most of the

day. They inflict nasty fire-ant kind of sting and swarm so you get

about 10 bites at once. Fortunately, once you get rid of them, the

stings don't persist or itch. Still not fun. We come back and play

with the photos some. Results are pretty interesting. The store is

still not open...Anzac day.

Wednesday: 4/26

More photos of the site. Bruno and Ian do some tracing and map the

site. I work on a registration program.

Thursday: 4/27

Up and work on registration program. Very frustrating. Set out for

rock art site. Stopped on the way and asked what we're doing. Ian

immediately backs off and we go home. We try to arrange a meeting

with the community.

The meeting is attended by about 30 people. All ages. Almost all were

very quiet. 3-4 people asked some questions. They've had visitors in

the past recording things and they seem distrustful of promises. They

want to know what we're doing. They don't want information to get out

without permission. Ian tells them OK. They are almost all Christian,

(the biggest day of the year is the "Coming of the Light" holiday,

which commemorates the arrival of the first missionaries), but they

seem also to still believe in the old superstitions and the various

dieties depicted in the rock art. They don't want us to touch the rock

art ( not clear if this is because we might hurt it or if we might get

"bewitched" by it.) They want to know if they can "repair" the art.

This is a tough one for Ian and Bruno. They say it's up to the

community although they clearly would rather they didn't. I&B say

they'll help them to do it if they want to. Margaret Mau translates

some into traditional language. Some villagers speak pidgin. We

take a picture and talk about constructing a homepage. They don't seem

very interested.

People seem friendly enough. They are very reserved. They seem

friendlier as time goes on. The island is very quiet. Very, VERY quiet.

I can't recall even a raised voice at any time. Several houses have

loud stereos going for long periods during the day, but neighbors seem

to want it that way. They're not on at night. Windows are largely

open, with shutter or rather louvers closed.

It's wet. It's raining at least half the time. Little streams of water

are running everywhere including down the middle of the road. Erosion

ditches up to 2 feet deep cut through the middle of the road. The dirt

is clay so the mud is unbelievable. The only possible footware is none.

Lot's of the same trees we saw in Belize. Now they are in flower and

smell very sweet.

Friday: 4/28

Garrick arrived. Did a full-out photo recording of the site today.

Maybe 300 photos. Came back home and looked at everything and backed

everything up.

Saturday: 4/29

Today we were supposed to explore other spots on the island. The

highlight of the trip, exploring. But it rains. So we sit around.

Rain stopped at noon, but still no action.

Sunday: 4/30

Got up today to rain. Today is an island move so this is a concern.

Also, the shop is closed and we're out of food. The shop closed early

yesterday, so we didn't get stocked. We sit around until 11:00. Pack

up. Try to wrap everything in plastic so it's water-proof. Definitely

a question of priorities. Don't worry about clothes or most stuff.

Just try to keep the computer, printer, cameras dry. As we go down to

the beach, it starts to rain harder. We come around the corner and

see the islanders skinning and butchering 2 dugongs they have killed

during the night. Cameras all put away and no time, so no pictures.

We get in the boat....about a 16 foot runabout with a center console.

There are 4 of us plus our baggage. Also the driver/owner and his son,

so we're pretty loaded. We put the luggage in, try to cover it with my

poncho (futile) and climb in ourselves. The trip takes about 1/2 hour.

Again it's a wild ride. About 3 foot seas, which is pretty calm, but

since the boat is going about 20 mph, it get tossed about a lot.

There's lots of spay and wind, so keeping the luggage covered, keeping

balance and trying to cop a quick look around now and then is a full time

job.

We get to Saibai island, lug stuff to the airport and pretty soon the

plane comes. The rain stops (no shelter at the airport). This plane is

a charter, a twin engine 8-seater and looks on it's last legs. But the

flight to Mabuiag island is beautiful. The sea around the Torres Strait

here looks a lot like Belize. The sea is blue-green and very liberally

sprinkled with reef all over the place. We fly up over Dauan and it's

nice to see it, since we didn't really get to explore. The New Guinea

coast (which we could see out the window of our guesthouse) is low, flat,

mangrove mudflat. Totally impenetrable. Half hour later we get to

Mabuiag and land at the miniscule airstrip. Check in at the School this

time. A little, 15x18 room for the 4 of us. Not as clean, not as new.

Good power and water, but no air conditioning. And wonder of all, a TV

set with 1 channel.

I go for a short walk a get to take the first sort

of tourist pictures. On Dauan, we had the feeling it was better not to

take pictures. Here is friendlier, or at least has more contact.

Once again, the shop is closed (it's Sunday). The shop will be closed

again tomorrow because its another holiday (Labor Day). We didn't bring

any food with us, so we're semi- desperate. We find another Aussie here

(the school principal) and he gives us some food (probably Ian pays) for

Sunday and Monday. Fish and rice, fish and rice, fish and rice.

We sit around all afternoon. I finally got my registration program done.

None of the anthropologists are impressed.

In the evening, everyone suddenly starts putting bug juice on. And they

start talking about malaria and Japanese Encephalitis...it has me a

little worried.

It turns out we are invited at 9 PM to the home of a family of a man

who works with Ian on digs around here. The general layout of the

village here is similar to Dauan, but bigger. The house is on stilts

and we all meet and eat underneath the house. Very pleasant. We eat

their food and I don't know what half of it is. Lot's of stew-like

things. Maybe I don't want to know. One of the dishes is Dhangal

or dugong. It was about a 1" thick steak with about a 1" thick layer

of skin-fat surrounding a 1" thick layer of fat and finally a 1-2"

square cube of edible meat. It had been charcoal grilled, so it

tasted a lot like steak, but very fatty.

Monday: 5/1

Still Mabuiag. Today is another holiday so still no food or open store.

There is a mixup on our reservations, so today we move to a classroom

to spend the next night. This seems to be a combination of "no worries"

planning and make-do survival. In the new place we sleep on the floor.

There is Air Conditioning. No TV, not that we watched the other one.

There are computers with internet connection, so I can send some

Email.

This day we go to Pulu, a nearby ceremonial island. It is the site of

a skull cave, where the old headhunters used to store all the skulls

they captured on their raids. The skulls are not still here. Guess

where they are...in the British Museum. We scramble all around the

island looking at rock art sites and photographing some.

When we are coming back to Mabuiag in the dinghy, we see a sea turtle.

They have an interesting way of catching them. It turns out they have

a Remorah fish (the ones that attach to sharks?) and it is tied on the

end of a long monofiliment line. They throw it at the turtle and it

attaches to the turtle. They can't pull the turtle in this way, but

this tells them where the turtle is and they can follow it and get a

better line tied on. They call the turtle, Waru, and it is the second

most important traditional food after dugong.

Later at night have a meeting to review previous work by Ian and to show

them some of our stuff. There are about 15-20 people here and they like

our stuff. Almost everything here is in English and people are very

comfortable with one another.

Tuesday 5/2

Today we fly to Badu Island. The airstrip on Mabuiag is always a thrill.

We get to Badu and have a meeting with the Council President (really

chief) and several others. We eat lunch in the "canteen", a refreshment

stand for the football stadium (really rugby). First food in several days,

and what do we get? Aussie meat pie, a gelatinous glob of gravy and

grissle wrapped in soggy dough. Yum! Then we spend the afternoon in a Pub,

Ah! sustenance! After several beers, our host invites us to spend the

night...for a price....which we decide to do. We pay normal guesthouse

rates and sleep on the floor. But it's good for politics. Also for good

politics, I help our host make up a homepage for his startup tourist

fishing business. The only part of this I mind is that Ian and Bruno

"volunteered" me and then they go off to bed while I work for another 3

hours on the web page....doesn't seem fair. I hope his tour guests don't

have to sleep on the floor! He takes us to his tour camp on the West

coast of the island and we sit around drinking beer and watching the

sunset. An incredibly beautiful beach and TOTALLY isolated. As we're

watching fish are jumping all over the place.

Wednesday 5/3

Today we take a dinghy to Moa Island. While we are waiting for the boat

(which is the standard 2 hours or so late [they call it "island time"]),

the owner of the local freezer shows us around. He buys crayfish and

sells some live and some frozen to shippers who dock there. The local

crayfish are about the size of a large Maine lobster. They really

look good. Catching them is a major way the islanders support

themselves and get ahead. They make about $35/kilo and can catch 10-20

kilos in a couple of hours most of the year.

On Moa, we again meet with the President and council of elders. Again the

typical pattern emerges. Even though Ian and Garrick have told everyone

we are coming (several times), when we show up, they act very surprised,

but agree to see us anyway. Initially they are cool, but after some time,

the ice is thawed and we see they have a core interest in rediscovering

and preserving their traditional ways and heritage. After an hour or so,

we emerge with promises to work together on several projects in the near

future. Maybe, maybe not.

Finally we find an open IBIS store and pig out on cheese

and tuna sandwiches. And Cadbury chocolate bars.

We visit the studio of Dennis Nona, a famous local (indigenous) artist.

Unfortunately, he has no work ready to sell.

This time at the airport we are met by 2 charter planes. Two of us go

Moa Island to Horn Island (bruno and me). The other 2 (Ian and Garrick) go

off to Yam island to meet with a particularly sensitive group about a

possible future dig site. Bruno and I stay overnight at Garrick's. Chili

and rice for dinner.

Thursday 5/4

Up early and fly back to Cairns today, arriving about noon.