Monthly Archives: February 2006

dreaming

Posted on by Standard Respond

Yesterday, I went shoe shopping with my new Zimbabwean acquantance, Letwin. Letwin is from Zimbabwe, 21, and works as a supervisor of sedated psychiatric patients at a Perth hostel. Once, Letwin was accused by one overwrought psychiatric patient of being an alien (“inside a spaceship,” she clarified) .

Generally, though, her job is not dangerous.

L. has great taste in shoes, at least of the youngish variety. yesterday, she found her bargain in shoeware — whereas I’m still puzzling over various choices.

What I would like is a tan shoe, with some playfulness on it…. Maybe an emerald or two. I’d like mid heels and wedged as well, for comfort, upper part in leather, closed toes. I can’t find this dream, not at any price.

How bright and glarish the whole world now seems. How overwhelming to my bookwormish eyes. I still have to restrain myself from reading too much, or from engaging too much with intellectual thoughts. That spoils the development of my future, which is now just embryonic notions, still needing much time and space to grow. Above all, natural light.

So to sleep with my mind now, perchance to envelop myself within a brighter dream. (Last night’s dream was not so bright as it consisted of a bunch of angry mental patients. )

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Weary

Posted on by Standard 7

I’ve been a little weary even since I have got back from Vanuatu. Antimalerial tablets have leached my system of the good stuff, vitamins and so on. I have felt pallid and inclined to rest, getting dizzy on the smallest amount of beer — or on no beer at all.

Nothwithstanding, I have spent time training. Yesterday, in fact — I went in for a relatively soft session, to whit: “Please sensei, do not punish my ass, I’m out of sorts today,” was an effective request — despite Saturdays’ training sessions normally being really harsh.

I am bored and dismayed by intellectual life. Sadly, it is not the intellectuals, academics and those who carry the flame which bore me… so much. Rather it is the dawning awareness that no matter how good they are, no matter how hard these intellectuals try to maintain certain standards of care, consideration and fairness as they go about pursuing subjects in some depth, they are already screwed before they start.

The problem I have found is that most people in charge of the world today have little appreciation for anything intellectual — and yet they all believe they are intellectuals already, confusing attitudinal posture with the state of actually having critical thinking skills and imagination.

Even most of the followers of one of the most insightful thinkers  confuse their own ability to affect a posture with an ability to actually use his insights to reflect, in order to come up with some new ideas for the contemporary world. They lack intellect. But like everybody else today, they can adopt a posture.

This is what I see and hence my weariness.

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haos kuklun, espiritu santo

Posted on by Standard Respond


This would have to be me in HAOS KUKLUN
SANTO [CLICK ON PICTURE FOR MUCH BETTER VERSION]

We stayed here on the beach for ten days, surrounded by thick jungle and a tiny informal restaurant –(most of the time, Mike and I were it’s only guests — and pre-ordered our simple meals).

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kickboxing kids

Posted on by Standard Respond

The heat in this meeting shed was absolutely intense: an all-encompassing thickly humid air, like being encased in a large box which produces a light sauna effect every time you try to make some moves…

I taught these kids some kickboxing skills when Mike and I were in Espiritu Santo, Vanuatu early this February.

See how the one kid is using a roundhouse and the other is effectively blocking it with his leg check.

They did learn fast.

See the keenly observing eyes in the audience, too. Not what you would would expect from many suburban white kids, who are anti-authoritarian to the core, and are often curious only in whatever the teacher isn’t showing them.

CLICK ON ANY OF THESE PICTURES FOR A LARGER VERSION. THEY WERE ALL TAKEN BY A CHEAP DISPOSABLE CAMERA

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First Vila bus ride

Posted on by Standard 2
When we arrived in Vila, Vanuatu, an obliging airport lady told us that we could travel to our resort for 200 Vatu*. “This much,” she said, separating a note, after she’d exchanged our money into local currency for us, “is the amount you need to travel on the bus”.We stood outside diminuitive Vila airport, and waited. At last, a white mini-bus rolled in and stopped. Mike had signalled it. The driver in the distance of the right hand drive seat looked impassive, with the radio tinkling in the background. We prepared to board, and I said, better ask him again if he can take us the to the Kaiviti. Mike checked with his companion in the near seat — Is that ok? He made a barely perceptible nod, so we climbed in.

Once inside, the radio tinkled an abstract mood-enveloping island style of music — one with which we would become more familiar, along with Vanuatu reggae and string band music like that we had just heard upon arrival at the airport (wherein a live string band had welcomed us).

The driver appeared very relaxed, mellowed deep into the light throng of his island music. He stopped to let another passenger in, and we continued, winding along our way, taking twisting bends along the road which cut our way through the thick Vanuatu countryside. We sat there, piled up upon our luggage. The journey was relaxing, interesting, but lightly peppered with a note of tension:

Where were we going?

Would we get there safely?

The driver overtook the car ahead upon an upcoming bend — whereupon noticing that a car was also coming towards us, gently put his hand upon the horn and gave a warning, “toot!”

The same happened on a bend, just several minutes later. Cars got out of our way, ‘cos we ‘re mellow, baby!

The driver eventually interrupted part of his cross country cruise, in order to drop off the other passenger at a military base. The man began departing, leaning to giving the driver coins.

We continued to participate in this curious sunday afternoon drive, not knowing for sure if we’d been understood, nor how far was the Kaiviti.

Eventually the bus came to a stop, and Mike realised before I did that we must be at the place we should be. Then Mike gave the driver money and we departed — never a word being spoken.

* 200 Vatu is about US $2.

Posted on by Standard 1

Cool rubbings. Marlon Brando at a party populated by Italian men. A big mansion, birds which speak — if only to conceal the fact that they are Japanese. A pool. Deep, for exercise — sexual and other. A large room with a bed, adjoining bathroom. An animal, perhaps a bird, I’d accidentally let out of the enclosed area. Fit young bodyguards. Do I want one of them to guard my body? I allow the Japanese bird to hide in the bathroom adjoining my room. The door is shut. Birdlife is safe here — at least for the time-being. Yet Marlon is frenzied. I refuse his advances. But only for long enough to ensure the escape of the bird, an actor itself, skilled in the role of appearing to be European, and not inviting disdain or criminal capture.

Marlon: “I’m looking for Genevieve!”

Me: “Here I am.”

Marlon (holding my shoulders. pushing a distance from him, for a better gaze): “You’re not Genevieve.”

Me (soothing): “That’s okay though.”

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Ant-o-technology!

Posted on by Standard 2

One of those things you must think about in Lonnoc, under jungle skies, is whether you can tolerate a spider by your bedside, just under the position you would put your feet, when stumbling out of bed towards the toilet. Do you mind it there? Or, would you prefer to have it removed?

The spiders in these beach cabins were brown and spikey and still. The largest were about ten centimetres from left leg tips to right leg tips. The first few nights I didn’t wonder whether there were spiders near my bed or not. Then there was the night that one appeared on the wall not far above my head. We noticed it as we were going to bed. I said, “Mike, chase that spider away!”

Mike said, “I can’t chase it — that will make it worse. Do you want me to kill it?”

I said, “No, just chase it.”

I can’t remember what happened to that particular spider. I think it left as the next morning it was no longer on the wall.

I began commanding Mike to do spider checks before I went to bed, cringing inwardly at the notion that I’d been so cavalier about my toilet trips at 2 or 3 am on earlier occasions.

Mike returned outside with the news: There were two near the bed — the one being on my side, just under where I’d put my feet if I was to emerge from the right side of the bed. The second was actually lurking under the bed.

“I stepped on both of them with my boot!” exclaimed the Mike.

I went to see them, and saw one culprit, now a mere shadow of a spider — its eight legs nonetheless apparent as a smudge on the linoleum.

We’d learned previously that there was no need to worry about these insect smudges, and that human-based cleaning of all insect debris was a little unnecessary, for ant machinery would come and take these parts away during the night. Already, a crushed cockroach in the toilet area had disappeared during one night.

Similarly, when I woke up to broad daylight, in the morning the spider remnants had gone! Nothing was left, except the clean linoleum floor.

Ant-o-technology moved in and was immediately effective.

Finding Nimo

Posted on by Standard 4

The expectations of prospective tour operators were a little odd at times, but truth be told, Mike and I were not the most typical of tourists either. This might have slighlty perplexed the easy-going ni Vanuatu, in some ways. Not that any of their perplexity was overt. If anything our hosts were just just the slightest bit confused by our non-touristy behaviour.

In all our ten days at the isolated tropical beach, Mike and I did very little by way of sight-seeing, preferring to stay on the beach where we’d first arrived and choosing to move very little in the tropical heat.

Expectations of us and actual behaviour probably became even more disparate, after Mike , who was to read an advertising brochure for tours and services in Vanuatu, encountered a particular one of many warmly but clumsily worded adverts. This one suggested a resort which would “bring out the tourist in you.” After exactly this time of reading, Mike dug in his psychological heels, and began explaining to the eager operators something which must have been rather incoherent to them: “We’re not really tourists.”

What were we? What were we doing on the isolated beaches of Vanuatu? Well, looking at the politics and structure of the society for one thing, or so it transpired. But more than that, simply taking a break from compulsive every day forms of activity.

When John (pronounced “Chon”), then, took Mike and myself (pronounced “Chenny”) to see the “Nimo fish” — a short paddle out from the rocky part of the shore, equipped with fins and snorkles — he acted like he had expected more from us. We had not pulled out an underwater camera to photograph this yellow and white tropical creature, as expected. “Some tourists like to take picture of Nimo,” John patiently supplied, as he examined us half-expectedly. But as sure as nimo was there in front of us, we had failed to produce a camera and take the anticipated shot at the expected moment. For neither of us had been carrying a camera with us of any sort.

A similar event occurred when I took, alone but for my paddling guide, an ocean trip to see the giant turtle (which never did actually appear). And this canoe ride then continued on, not exactly planned but quite agreed to, out beyond the small laguna. Here we stopped and I was given opportunity to gaze at the lush but costly “Champagne beach”. My lack of camera also produced a gesture of expectation. The guide had suggested suddenly — “You can take a picture, if you like.” Throughout the canoe ride, with me sitting aplomb at the helm, my guide had not noticed my obvious lack of any camera. A bad tourist then. But, this was a problem which could be fixed, with a plan B.

“Maybe your husband can come in the afternoon to take a picture?” he suggested, helpfully.

“No,” I said, apologetically. “That isn’t likely.”

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a few words in Bislama

Posted on by Standard Respond

Mots simples

The link above gives you some idea of the words used to write Bislama.

Bislama is a unifying language spoken by the people of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. There are more than eighty islands making up Vanuatu, and some of the native languages are shared by only a few people — acouple of thousand, perhaps. It is a form of pidgin English, also with some French derivatives, which allows people from these different islands to communicate with one another.

Some of the effects of Bislama can be mildly amusing, though perhaps only to me — because I have a keen sense of the Absurd.

Here are some sentences from signs I saw. The first was a sign on a farflung rural property on the Island of Espiritu Santo and the second was a sign in the small Santo city centre of Luganville.

Ok… the Bislama sign for “private property” or “no trespassing”:

TABU
Yu no caem insaed

It seems a tad abrupt for a sign on a relaxed tropical island — probably because the sentence has been given a subject (“you”) — rather than simply appearing to be objective and impersonal. But when you think about it, the conventional English warning signs don’t exactly say “please” either.

Here’s another elegant sentence from a sign which advises people not to consume the endangered coconut crab:

Respectum tabu blong krab kokonas

Most of Bislama, when spoken fast, is a lot harder to understand than these sentences.

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awkward trip back to Perth

Posted on by Standard 3

The plane trip last night was remarkably uncomfortable. The chair was narrow. My circulation was restricted, even when I made the effort to stretch out my legs under the seat in front of me. To compensate for this, I made an effort to move around a great deal. In fact, every two or three minutes I had to make my readjustment: no matter what position I was in, some body part was being deprived of blood and oxygen.

Eventually I discovered the one position which I could hold for more than several minutes. With great efforts, I turned my body first towards the window of the plane, planting both feet up on the seat, knees bent, in front of me. Then, I made an additional twist towards the rear of the seat itself, burying my head forward into the back of the seat, shielding my eyes from the bright plane lights whilst curling myself up into a foetal position. I held my knees in front of me, against the supporting back of the plane seat. There I sat, for twenty, thirty minutes at a time.

Holding such a position allowed blood to flow freely around my body in a very cramped space. It also a little corner to hide in, to feel warm in, to shut out the world, as if it didn’t actually exist to encroach loudly against my every thought-form.

So it was that I resorted to this position more than once within the last two hours of the five and a half hour plane flight — which finished at Vanuatu time 1.30 am, actually Perth time 10. 30 pm.

And here I am in Perth, again.

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