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June 20, 2005

Pureman Village

DAY: 6
LOCATION: Pureman village - Alor Island
NAUTICAL MILES TODAY: 0
NAUTICAL MILES TOTAL TRIP: 44
LATITUDE :08degs, 21.51'S
LONGITUDE: 124degs, 57.93'E

We decided on a rest day today, partly for Ina to get over her sickness, and also for the rest of us to recover from the crossing from Timor. This turned out to be an excellent move as we've all just had a truly magical day with the people of Pureman.

We were woken at 6am by a full-scale dog fight just feet from our tents. At some point a pig joined the fray and the high-pitched squeals had both Chris and I out of our tents hurling rocks in the hope we'd get a little more sleep. We might as well have been dreaming as a few minutes later our first visitors arrived to watch us get up, and by sun-up we had at least 50 people squatting around the kayaks; the men taking special interest in the kayaks, very different to their dugout canoes of course, while the women looked on in fascination at the process of boiling hot water on Chris's strange camp stove.

The Chief then came sauntering down from one of his many wives' houses holding a cigarette rolled in dried palm leaf, and we were able to return the hospitality of the previous evening by offering him a cup of hot English tea and a regular cigarette (thanks Isa!). Next some betel nut was produced and all four of us, as is custom with visitors, were subjected to taking a mouthful which in turn produced some fairly impressive facial expressions to entertain the onlookers. I first had betel in the Solomons back in 2000 and I swallowed the whole lot before someone told me to spit it out instead. I spent the rest of the day throwing up. Although I was better primed for the correct proceedure this time the foul mixture still made me gag. Chris and Lourdes seem to get along pretty well with it, even getting a slight euphoric buzz, but all I could feel was my mouth filling up with saliva and my throat constricting. I reckon I must be allergic to the stuff - bad news considering this ritual will be repeated EVERY time we visit a village, and it's considered rude not to partake!

After this we were treated to a rare display of local dancing by both the local women and men, dressed in traditional 'tais' and dancing to the percussive sound of gamelon-style brass gongs, many of them beautiful decorated with animist forms and symbols. These and the animal masks worn by some of the dancers gave us a little insight into the spiritual ancestry of these people. We returned the show with our own very paltry rendition of a Bob Marley song and some other tunes strummed out on the guitar we thankfully brought with us. We desperately need to brush on some more upbeat songs before the next village, and think of some other party tricks to entertain the kids especially. SOS April - please bring out balloons - the ones you can twist into different shapes...

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It turns out we are the first visitors by kayak ever to visit this village, explaining the high level of interest in our boats which must seem like spaceships compared to their wooden equivalents. Having made friends with the chief we were allowed to roam around the village, making friends and feeling totally secure at all times. Even though one of us was always back at camp keeping an eye on the stuff I truly believe we could have left it there unguarded and nothing would have been taken. It's almost like an unwritten rule I think - if you have the blessing of the Chief no one would dare steal anything.

Tomorrow we make an early-ish start down the coast towards Alor's main town Kalabahi - 53 off nautical miles away which will take us between 3-4 days. From there Ina flies out to Kupang on West Timor and we'll hopefully pick someone else up to paddle the double with Chris until April arrives early July.

Posted on June 20, 2005 3:48 PM

Comments

Posted by: Anthony at June 20, 2005 9:21 PM