Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Tina’s easy cook corn beef and veggies

Okay, so Tina, my ever patient and caring local colleague, has agreed to share her ingenious recipe of corned beef and veggies.  Now, in the Sollies, beef protein is hard to come by and expensive EXCEPT in one form: tinned corn beef.  Tina feeds a family of five and she has found pretty good ways of saving money and ensuring her family a balanced diet of protein, fats and carbs.  Canned meats are pretty much universally used in Melanesia as a way to supplement diets.  In Hawaii, consumption of Spam has turned into an art form.   

Now, I prefer the corn beef that Ox and Palm makes, with its classic retro styled cans and key top opener.  Bonus: you can use the cans as decor when finished.   Tina, however, says you can really use anything.  While some people might balk at eating tinned meats, I say give it a chance!  It’s not as bad as you think. 

Tina cooked me this recipe when we went to Gizo and I have to say, it’s pretty damn tasty. 

So anyway here it is:

Tina’s Easy Cook Corn Beef and Veggies

Ingredients:

·        

2 or 3 medium sized capsicums

·          ½ chili pepper

·         1 onion
           1 clove of garlic

·         1 tin of corned beef

·         5 tomatoes

·         Salt and pepper to taste and some fresh ginger
·      

Directions:

·         Start the rice on stove or in rice cooker.

·         Chop up the veggies.  Put to one side.

·         Put oil and garlic in a heated pan.  Brown the garlic.

·         Add onion.

·         Add the veggies and ginger, salt and pepper.

·         Open your Ox and Palm tin of corn beef.  Mix with veggies.

·         Heat for five minutes and serve on a bed of rice.

And that's it!  It takes about 20 minutes all up and it is pretty yummy.  So don't be afraid to open up a tin of Ox and Palm and go for it!

TIl next week, lukim ui!

S

This one is for the boys...

I think one of the saddest things I’ve seen is a Wildcat airplane sitting in a jungle, rotting in the hot sun.  The Wildcat was pretty much intact when it crashed in 1943 but years of sunning in the Solomons and looters have let it a shell.   

Stan, his son Ryan, and myself embarked on a little day trip west of Honiara to the open air WW2 museum.  First off, finding the museum is no easy task; the sign has been ripped down at least three times by locals.  Secondly, it’s pretty far out of town.  There are small roads leading in and out of the jungle so it is pretty difficult to figure out which one it is.  Good thing Stan had been there before and despite his mass of white hair, his memory is pretty intact.

We are greeted by Anderson, who has been hired to be the caretaker and tour guide of the place.  The open air museum used to be quite something back before the Tension, but it was raided for anything useful during the conflict. Now it’s just filled with the skeletons of the war.

The museum is filled with relics from the brutal Solomon Island campaign; the wreckage of ten planes sit under trees (and sometimes have trees growing in them, with branches snaking around the metal and holding the plane tight to the trunk).  Large artillery guns sit abandoned and a large copper cooking pot is riddled with bullet holes.  Anderson shows me where bees have attached themselves to the hanging vines of a tree and died; a sort of bee graveyard.  Hundreds of bee carcasses cling to the vines.  Even the bees know that this is where you come to die.

I walk towards the Wildcat; its frame is almost completely intact.  It sits there, sort of ghostly, the metal still gleaming in the sunlight.  Anderson shows us how to bend back its wing; a useful piece of engineering to store more planes on a carrier.  While the electronics and all the wiring and all the other stuff is gone, it feels amazing to run my hands down the intact wing and run my fingers across the make, model and patent number (patent pending).

Anderson, the caretaker, proudly walks us through the rest of the museum.  It isn’t very large but there are several Japanese, U.S. and New Zealand memorial plaques there. 

As the war is fading fast into our collective memories, so have visits from tourists and veterans.  We look around the grass is high; there is barely a path to follow.  It must have been at least two or three weeks since anyone else had been here.

The amazing thing about the open air museum is to really touch these planes.  These aren’t replicas, they aren’t museum models.  These planes were shot down in battle.  The retrieval stories of these planes are probably as interesting as the war itself; some were pulled from the bottom of lagoons; others towed from the deep jungles in Guadalcanal and Savo.     

Anderson was a part of all that, in the late 1960s and 1970s.  That was the time when war veterans seem to reconnect with their past and could finally talk about it again.  Anderson looks sad; he says he hasn’t seen a veteran here for several years.  It is a reminder that we are losing all those brave men to the inevitable; old age. I bet some of those guys in retirement homes thought they would never made it off Guadalcanal alive.  32,000 Japanese and 7,000 Americans died here.

On the memorial for the Japanese, it states: “when two sides go to war, both leave the battle scarred and wounded.  Both are defeated.”

I believe that.  Even though we won the war, it was at an enormous cost.  Stan says to me that he thinks about the enormous waste of money because it is simply too hard for him to think about the loss of life.  I understand.

Stan, my intrepid neighbor, is one of my favorite people in Honiara.  His wife Jean too.  Stan was born in Egypt and has travelled around the world, working in far off places like Afghanistan and East Timor.  He is practical and moves quickly.  We go to the market together and he walks off, anxious to get his fruits and veggies. 

Now, being an obvious foreigner with my hands filled with produce and flowers, and alone has made me a target for a pickpocketer.

I knew it was happening; I could sense myself being watched from above and the man pushed me unnecessarily and moved fast.  A local woman screamed at him and grabbed his arm.  I looked down at my pocket and my money was still there, all accounted for.

A crowd gathered around the young man, who denied any wrong doing.  I glared at him and moved forward to confront him.  He ran off.  I guess I have a fairly mean glare.

This, however, brings home a point for me.  As a single woman, I am constantly targeted by men here.  Either they want to sleep with me, mug me or take advantage in some way.  Here I feel it truly is a man’s world.  It seems the men make the decisions and the women have to dutifully stick by their men.  Except in cases of pickpocketing, where it was a woman who helped me out.  

The funny thing is that women in development jobs outnumber men pretty significantly, so obviously women chose to put themselves in this kind of environment. 

Anyway, Jeremy comes around, quite unaware about the pickpocketing incident.  I tell him but he doesn’t here.  I’m slightly shaken up by it, to be honest.

I go home and meet up with Marco, who is also not too worried about the experience and just states it is a normal part of life.  He is probably right; it’s a pretty common thing in Italy.  I remember when I was in Rome celebrating my 21^st birthday, my grandfather was picket pocketed not once but twice.  Tessa and Marco are both reveal one night that they are both Sicilian, which I can’t decide if that makes me feel safer or makes me want to lock my bedroom door at night.   

But I do have my wantok around me if things get tough.  Eddy returns from surfing the amazing breaks in Gizo (he wanted to surf a break that NO ONE he knew would have surfed).  He goes to the market on Sunday and buys fresh tuna.  The two houses break into a raw fish making competition; Eddy with his poke (raw fish dish from Hawai’i) and Marco with his capriccio.  Actually, Marco teaches me how to make it while he is busy cooking.  Some olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper and spring onions can do wonderful things…  

Tuna is amazing.  A darker and richer fish than most, you can replace pretty much most meat with tuna.  It’s a good thing too; one thing the Solomons have in spades is fresh tuna.

Marco makes the most delicious tuna pasta I have ever eaten.  The things the man can do with food is unreal… basically we use all the fish and he kindly fries up some fish heads for me.  Clearly, the man knows the way to my heart…fish heads.  I happily eat one at dinner until I find its tongue.  Now, eating tongue feels wrong.  It’s like you are making out with the fish.  Only not.  Anyway, it’s not good and turned me off fish heads, at least until the next morning, when Marco fries me up another fish head and its all go.

The protein breakfast does me some good; I voluntarily go to Hash in the evening.  Now, we have not one, but two cyclones in the area making everything wet and windy.  The rain is coming down in curtains and it takes all of two minutes for me to get completely soaked. 

Now, the event is a bit of a hill run and it quickly turns into mud skiing.  I spend more time on my ass than I do on my feet.  I’m soaked to the bone, covered in mud.  Some local boys decide to follow and laugh at us unfit white people struggling to stand in the mud.  But they are good sorts and help us through some of the unsafe bits.  We trek through a plantation of cassava plants and sadly, we used some for stability.  Some cassava plants did not survive the Hash experience.

At times I was annoyed, scared and numb.  But overall I had an absolutely blast; what an adventure trekking through the mud and rain in lush out hills of Honiara.  Afterwards I felt alive and happy. 

Marco and Tessa, who both piked out of Hash to hang out at the Mendana Hotel, got wet, muddy hugs from me.  Marco ran away quickly; it’s not nice to mess with an Italian man’s appearance.  I think he is still at home, try to wash the mud out of his clothes…

I have to say I was getting a bit bitter, a bit jaded about the men folk.  Watching gender dynamics in this country can be difficult and challenging and my own past has coloured my view about boys.

But this week challenged me to rethink my relationship with men.  From taking me to see the old bombed out WW2 planes to getting fed tuna to having my hand held in the rain and mud (thank you Rainmaker!), men have been there for me this week.  I marvel at what happened here in WW2; I mean, sure men caused it in the first place but they also committed selfless acts of bravery too.      

So I guess what I’m trying to convey is my thanks to the boys this week…this one is for you.

 

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Cassava Pudding

Yes, yes…its puddin’ time!  After weeks of boring you with curry this and weird fern dishes, I thought it was time to take a walk on the sweet side.  Now, a quick note for the Americans: pudding tends to mean dessert in  commonwealth countries, like the Solomons, not the stuff that Bill Cosby sold us in the 1990s.  

Now, a couple of things on the culinary front that have made me terribly excited this week.  First, I have finally procured a coconut scraper!  For weeks, I have hunted like a mad thing, around the markets and hardware stores for a coconut scraper.  But sadly, my efforts were in vain.  Yet hark!  When one of my delightful coworkers, who is off to Mongolia, announced a moving sale, I moved quickly for one coconut scraper.

Sadly, it was already purchased by Ben (remember him, from Gizo?).  I grabbed it anyway, marveling at its beautiful craftsmanship.  The scraper bit was made in Vanuatu and therefor somehow really special.  I decided then and there, that I must have it and that I would simply hit Ben over the head with it until he gave it to me.

Ben, being the kind of guy he is, gladly gave it to me.  So now, I have a coconut scraper, which I named after the co worker going to Mongolia.  He found it slightly funny, as I have to sit on said scraper to make it work.  

Or something. 

Anyway, am excited about milking coconuts…just trying to figure out where the nipples are…

Okay! Enough thinking about coconut nipples!  Time for the cassava recipe!

Cassava, according to Wikipedia (the well of all knowledge), is the third most common crop in the world.  It can be used for either sweet or savory dishes, or as a door stop. Your choice.  It looks like a root, pretty much, with a wooden veneer. It’s called a tapioca, by the way.  

I usually buy the pudding at the market because I’m lazy and because it makes an excellent breakfast, when heated up with some milk, brown sugar and cinnamon.

So here it is:

Ingredients:

·         2 medium sweet cassava

·         2 cups brown sugar

·         2 eggs beaten

·         3 oz. butter

·         2 cups coconut milk

·         1 teaspoon cinnamon powder (you could use nutmeg too…anything spicy is good).

·         1 teaspoon baking powder

·         ½ cup warm water

Directions:

·         Preheat oven to 180 degrees Cel. Or about 350 degrees.  (There is a reason I don’t bake very often; I tend to not be very specific).

·         Wash and grate cassava with a fine grater. (Apparently, I’ve just been told I need to buy a cassava grater….)

·         Combine cassava, coconut milk, sugar, cinnamon and mix

·         Combine all above ingrediants with beaten eggs and mix

·         Slowly add the half cup of warm water…stir…stir some more…stir….keep stirring…

·         Now, put in a greased baking tin.  Cook for at least 30 minutes or until bouncy.

Ah….I’m going to try this and review this recipe, which isn’t terribly local.  Most puddings aren’t made with eggs, milk, cinnamon or sugar because these items are rare-ish in rural villages. 

If you have any questions, concerns, comments, rants, or reviews, please email me at stilettosinsolomons@yahoo.com.

Lukim ui! 

S

Three’s Company (Solomon Island Style)

Marco, our wayward Italian housemate, has finally arrived to a fully set up and furnished Casa Turchese.  Marco arrives with typical Italian panache, having spent much of his luggage allowance on Parmesan cheese, olive oil, chocolates, huge wine glasses, coffee, sharp knives and, of course, a pasta maker.  Our dining room table is covered in staples from Italy.  He brings gifts for me and Tessa; it’s like Christmas and New Year all at once. I don’t know how I am going to lose any weight in this house. 

It feels like, now that Marco is back, the house is complete.  His arrival feels like a breadth of fresh air as we discuss the garden in earnest (Marco has many years of experience in agriculture) and drink coconut water with lime on the balcony in the morning. Plus, he has an outrageous Italian accent that makes me chuckle inside and despite the tropical weather wilting everyone else, still looks clean and well dressed.

From Rome, originally, with a French mother, Marco has travelled all over the world to help people grow stuff sustainably.  Among his many adventures are owning his own monkey and mongoose (who, apparently fought like, well a monkey and a mongoose), being attacked by pirates in the Caribbean, owning his own Ducati and Triumph sports car, sailing around the world for two years…the man has lived an amazing life.   We both come from broken marriages, so we relate to each other on that level as well.

Tessa plans a dinner party on Monday, inviting the loveliest French couple imaginable and Elsa.  However, the party expands quickly to include three more Italians (yes, I discovered recently that there are more than the bishop, nun and the three Italians that live either with me or in the house next door.)  These Italians are a bit different; the wife, Greta, comes from Hungary, so we decided to call them the Hungary Italians…Anyway the party balloons to 10 people, which is a bit problematic because we only have nine plates and not nearly enough silverware to cover it.

The party becomes a chorus of Italian and French.  Pasta whirls around the table with fried chicken and salad for the second course.  I sit back in the corner with my friend Arno, exchanging disaster stories.  The night flies by and, at one moment, I simply sit back and watch in awe of the people around me.  The coconut lamps cast a warm glow over smiling faces and I sit in wonder, so grateful for the events that led me here. 

The next night is James’s farewell dinner.  James, our calm and cool kiwi volunteer takes Tessa and I out to the Honiara French restaurant.  Tessa and I dress up in our finest dresses.  My legs feel naked and I put on my black high heels.  I haven’t worn them since I got here.  Marco comments that he thought he would never see me dress up. Ha! Little does he know that I was quite the clothes horse in New Zealand, with my hot pink trench coat and six inch heels. 

Here, my clothes have taken a distinctly down market feel.  First, everything I own is covered in some sort of mystery stain, despite my best efforts to keep my whites white and my colours, well, coloured. Plus I don’t think it’s appropriate to wear expensive clothes here.  But I do start feeling like I need to bring my dressing up a level; even my white jandals/flip flops/slippers/thongs are turning to a grey with all the mud they are exposed to.  It can be easy to let your appearance go here; its hot and I sweat here profusely.  Sweat is not sexy.

Anyway, we head out to the hotel and enjoy a steak dinner with blue cheese sauce.  Now, I haven’t had steak in…maybe six months?  I can’t even remember when.  The steak is very good but so rich that my body doesn’t really approve, I struggle to sleep that night.

James has been a pretty constant presence in the house for about three weeks and all three of us have 

established close friendships with each other.  He has been our cook, our washing line fixer and has helped us with pretty much everything, even our massive dinner parties.  He has taken everything in stride with typical kiwi stoic aplomb. 

He will be missed by both Tessa and me.

Power outages start plaguing Honiara; we wake up to a darkened house and the distinct lack of noise from appliances.  We don’t have air conditioner in the house, which suits me just fine but we do have big ceiling fans that hum throughout the house.  The next day, the office spends half of its time in darkness until the generator is started.

During the day, Tina and I have been delivering our calendars to our partner agencies.  Every stop I go to (except for the Australian High Comms…and I find friends there, I swear!), I know someone.  Tina even comments about how I managed such networking in the past three months that I’ve been here.   I am not sure how it happened though; I guess I’ve just been lucky with my friends. 

On Wednesday night, it’s my turn to hose a dinner party, which exploded to 11 people.  I start cooking early, mostly fresh salads and noodle dishes, but struggle to keep up with the demands of cooking.  I decide to try my hand at a green papaya salad; an old favorite from Hawaii.  Eddy, thankfully, assists me in the kitchen. Eddy is a kitchen wizard, whipping up dishes quickly and giving me excellent tips on preparing the meal.

Dinner is served a little late, but the group doesn’t seem to mind.  This dinner party is decidedly different from the one on Monday night, filled with volunteers and Adam, a new friend from my American Wantok.

Adam could have been a typical New Jerseyite: coming from a prestigious university, going to law school, he could have taken a much generic path.  But nobody who comes here is exactly normal.  He is a self styled "Hindu, Buddisht, Jew" or a Hubujew.  Adam makes me laugh hard with his classic american wit.

Adam spent several years southeast Asia, writing and working his way around.  He came to our sleepy little country to look at the peace process.  Adam has the kind of infectious energy and rabid curiosity about everything that I appreciate.  I feel an instant connection with Adam and he is just fun to be around.

But by the end of the evening, Tessa is clearly over the dinner party scene for awhile.  It is understandable: we have had almost six dinner parties since moving into the house and we still have friends who haven’t visited there.  I am having trouble keeping up with who has been when and who hasn’t, the bureaucrat in me cries out for a spreadsheet.  Finally, Tessa gives the verdict: let’s chill out on the parties for awhile. 

I’m surprised; Tessa is the definition of extroverted; clearly I’ve finally broken her.

The rest does us good.  Thursday night, Marco brings home a data projector for us housemates to watch a movie.  Pinkie, my faithful laptop, is hooked up to the projector and we all climb into my massive bed to watch the movie.  Now, a word about my new bed. It is massive.  A small village of troglodyte gnomes could set up a village and make me toys and I wouldn’t notice.  It’s also a feather top, which makes it massively comfortable.  Like so many things in this house, it is simply the best thing I’ve experienced.

We sit and watch Bladerunner, which puts Tessa to sleep in about 10 minutes. Marco and I stay up talking about whether Harrison really was a replicant (I think it’s pretty obvious) while Tessa purrs quietly next to us.

The next day, I get charged with helping sort out Marco’s bed.  I get dragged along with ten Solomon Island men in a huge truck with a bedframe on the back.  Who knows what people must have been thinking about that scenario…Unfortunately, it is just the bed frame and Marco is left with a single bed mattress with a double bed frame.  Marco is devastated; it’s a huge blow to his Italian ego to not have a big double bed.

The next night is kava night.  Now, kava is a traditional drink of the South Pacific, known for its mild hallucinogenic/relaxing qualities. It’s not illegal anywhere due to its mild nature and I don’t think it would ever really catch on outside of the region.  First off, it looks like dirty dishwater and tastes like it too.  The mild pepper taste numbs the lips and tongue.  We all suck on lollipops afterwards.  Unfortunately I chose a blue one and it looks like I’ve been making out with Papa Smurf.

We head home for pasta (which Marco dutifully makes) and Adam joins us for a night cap. Adam clearly wants to bunk here; he says it reminds him of a zany Three’s Company and he would just like to be a fly on the wall to see the antics.  He remarks about Stan and Jean next door, as potential Ropers.  The place is rife with comedy; Tessa, Marco and I make up an interesting mix.

I sort of take on the role of the “wife” of the house; cooking and shopping have become largely my tasks (although Marco and Tessa help a great deal). Saturday rolls by with a huge shopping trip with my neighbor Jean.  We have to hurry because all the shops close at noon on Saturday.  After rushing through the dusty and dirty shops of Honiara, we escape to the Rain Tree café for much needed pizza and a gigantic jug of bush lime drink.  After a final trip to the central market, its rest time at Casa Turchese.

At night, I cook up chicken and local mushrooms with a blue cheese cream sauce.  It’s the first time I’ve ever made it; I have no recipe, I just fake it.  Marco smiles and says it is one of the best chicken and mushroom dishes he has ever had. I find this hard to believe given his Italian/French background but take the compliment 

anyway.

Sunday is a World War 2 tour.  I have to admit by the time I take the tour, I’m a bit exhausted.  This has been such a social, crazy week and so much has happened that I’m still processing everything.  The guide is good but much of what he shows us really isn’t terribly impressive.  Most of the artillery and other stuff have been taken away by scrap dealers.  Other than seeing a beach, an empty field and the two war memorials, there isn’t much to see.  Usually, I’m the annoying tourist in the group, asking all the really probing questions but Adam takes on the role happily and I am able to just sit and think.

The large group goes to the Iron Bottom Sound and we munch happily on pizza.  I go home, exhausted. 

Marco sits down next to me outside on our balcony and we talk about how the house really feels like a home.  It’s true; even in the two weeks I’ve been here; this place feels more like a home than any I have lived in for the past ten years.  I’m excited to come home rather than feel a sense of dread that I used to feel in Christchurch, avoiding home as long as I could; dragging my feet at work.  This place feels like mine, every quirky little angle or misshapen corner feels comforting.  And the view…well who can argue with waking up and looking out at the ocean in the morning or watching the full moon illuminate the trees around us.  I’ve never been someone to put down roots but here I can feel myself enjoying the process here.

I feel like I’ve been here forever and that is the tricky thing about being here.  Three months feels like six months.  Life moves at a different pace here and I take a lot of time enjoying simple pleasures.  The slower pace, warm weather and beautiful environment are getting to me; much more romantic thoughts enter my brain. 

Even my friend, Carlo (one of the Hungary Italians), notices.

“You are a very happy person…it infects everyone around you.  How did you get so happy?” he asks me.

I’m stumped.  I have no idea how all this happened. 

Maybe it’s the new romance of this place.  Maybe it’s the sea or the trees or all of it.   Maybe it’s my amazingly fun, zany housemates.  Maybe it’s the influx of pasta and good cheese that Marco brought from Italy.

Whatever it is, I’m not going to question it or wonder how long it’s going to last…I’m just going to go with it.

 

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Sikaha Ha'ania Kiu (Eggplant with Shell)

This week's recipe: Sikaha Ha'ania Kiu (Eggplant with Shells)....

Last week's recipe, Kasume (Fern) Curry was tried and field tested at the Casa Turchese Kitchen last Friday.  Our intrepid friend James (the volunteer of steel aka the man who lives on his own island and wrestles Mr. Snouty, his local crocodile, for fun) did the cooking.  To be fair to James, we had to deviate from the recipe somewhat because we forgot to get a can of coconut milk and I am still unsuccessful in finding a coconut scraper.  I will find you, cursed coconut scraper!!!!  

The curry was...interesting.  Without the coconut milk to provide sweetness and a bit of creaminess, the curry tasted, well, too curry like.  James also used whatever veggies he could scrounge from our vegetable tray and had to be a bit...creative.  Now, just a word about veggies in the Solomons.  Because everything is organic, stuff goes off very, very quickly.  Sometimes I bring tomatoes home from the market and the next morning, they have already split and are stinky.  Yes, it is that fast.  So having a supply of veggies is difficult to maintain; the things that last the longest are beans, onions, and eggplants.  Most everything else needs to be used in a few days, so regular visits to the market are necessary.  Luckily, I work less than 20 metres from the second largest market in Honiara (and my personal favorite).  Someday I'll have to write a review about the different markets of Honiara....but I digress.

Tessa, James and I enjoyed our Fern Curry, sitting on our balcony overlooking the ocean.  Personally, I thought the curry was fine but James just shook his head, truly unhappy with the results. I, however, am not the best judge of food because I'm a volunteer and I eat cold fish heads for breakfast.

Anyway, on to possibly the most challenging recipe yet: Eggplant with Shells!

I've also decided to chill out on the editorial comments on the recipes for now because some people just prefer the straight recipe.  So here it is.

Ingredients:

• 10 eggplants
• 2 dry coconuts (or a can of coconut milk)
• 1 teaspoon of salt 
• 20 (!) Mud shell crabs (Kiu) or fresh fish
• 10 tomatoes
• 1 packet of noodles or rice
• Handful of Home Mushroom or Button Mushrooms
• More salt (a pinch)
• 1 bundle of shallots

Procedure

• Cut eggplants into pieces
• Scrape coconut milk and put it in the pot (or open the can and put milk in the pot)
• Open the Mud shell and scoop out the meat
• Slice tomato into pieces
• Cut shallots into pieces
• Put the pot with coconut milk on the fire till it bubbles (boils) and put all th eprepared veggies into the pot
• Put the lid over the pot for about two minutes until well cooked.
• Serve with Kumara or Rice
• To be served for ten (!!!!)

So, my cooking adventurers, enjoy this week's recipe.  If you do try a recipe and want to give feedback or write a review feel free to email me at stilettosinsolomons@yahoo.com.

Till next week,

S

My Wantok

In the Solomon Islands (and most of Melanesia), there is something called the wantok system.  The translation of wantok literally means “one language or someone who speaks the same language”.    

Once someone speaks the same language, you are obliged to take care of them.  To be a member of someone’s wantok, you either have to be a family member or someone who comes from the same place.  Or someone who is friends with someone who comes from the same place. Or have visited that place at some point.

I’m actually not entirely sure what constitutes someone as being a member of your wantok; the rules seem slightly fuzzy to me.   But, if someone is a member of your wantok, it is your responsibility to look after them, especially if you are older than them.  Well up to a point and then when you are old enough, the wantok takes care of you.  There are no homes for the elderly here; the wantok looks after its elders.  However, the life expectancy is 71, so maybe there is something there…. 

The wantok system does leaves the Solomon Islands sort of open to in country corruption; because you are always looking out of for your wantok, you give them the plum jobs, money, land rights, etc…at times, this makes having an expat running an organization somewhat desirable because there is no chance of items or money owned by said organization going into the wantok system.  It also can create a system of reliance on the more successful members of the wantok by the less motivated or successful members.

I mean it does make perfect sense to want to look after your wantok because, in a smaller society, you need to make sure that someone has your back.  However there can be a huge culture clash when organizational structures created overseas are imposed on the wantok system.

Now, I’ve decided to go with the wantok system for myself.  Recently, Eddy from Hawai’i, came to visit.  I used to live in Hawaii, Moilili, to be specific.  Eddy grew up just up the road from where I used to live.  I’ve decided that he is a member of my wantok and therefore I must look after him.  Eddy seems to be open to the idea of being one of my wantok, even though I actually grew up thousands for miles from Hawaii.  But still, when you live far away, your wantok rules become pretty cloudy…Eddy and I say “da kine” and other things; we speak the same language.

Eddy isn’t the first person to be identified in my wantok.  I’ve taken in James and Steve because they are a) both from New Zealand and b) are in the same volunteer programme as me.  Plus it helps that they are really nice guys.  AND when I come and visit, I fully expect to be housed, fed and have my feet rubbed by those boys.  Now that’s when the wantok system really works…

Anyway, pretty much anyone from Canada or the U.S. would be part of my wantok.  My mom is French, so I’ll bring the frenchies in too.  And my grandmother is Italian, so why not the Italians? I already live with two of them…While some of you might balk at such big numbers, it’s actually quite reasonable.  Americans are rare in this part of the world, only about 100 or so in country.  Frenchies are rarer still.  There are five Italians.  One is a catholic bishop, the other a nun.  The rest live in about 10 metres of where I live.

I like the wantok system; it creates a family away from home, at least for me.  And, as any expat will probably tell you, close friends are essential for keeping your sanity (except for James who is, of course, a total rockstar and doesn’t need anything but number 8 wire, a few novels and the resident saltwater crocodile, Mr. Snouty.)

One of my wantok from New Zealand, Charlie, has his final leaving do on Thursday evening.  He and two fellow expats play guitar and sing.  Man, they are amazing; I spend less time talking to friends and just listening to the sound of passionate people doing something they love.  To add to the music, it pours down with rain, adding percussion to the music.

Charlie’s shoes have, thankfully, been found.  Funnily enough, someone who works with the police grabbed them on accident, as we suspected.  Charlie leaves Honiara with his shoes.  I wish him well on journey; he is off to Hawaii, a place very dear to my heart.  I know full well what it feels like to leave a place I have grown to love; it feels like you are jumping off the face of the earth.

Anyway, after work one day, I drive Tina, my faithful counterpart in my host organization, home for the first time.  Tina lives past the airport, in the palm plantation.  As we drive further and further from Honiara, the area changes from ramshackle buildings to deserted bush.  Very few people are walking along the road and there are fewer cars.  One way bridges are the norm as we cross over huge brown rivers, due to the intense rains, 30 metre below us.

I stop at Tina’s place which has a lush, huge garden and yard.  Her house is beautiful, filled with wood paneling.  Most Solomon houses have a large amount of wood; the stuff is pretty plentiful here. Tina has a huge flat screen television, which I eye up in envy; I haven’t owned a television in four years.  I always think I’m probably better for it but there is something about being disconnected from the rest of the world that sometimes bothers me. 

She makes me creamed banana, which I am immediately wary of.  Cooking bananas are larger and starchier than their chubbier, yellow counterparts.  Typically green, they are neither sweet nor savory.  In the Solomons, these bananas are cooked with a bit of water and salt and are typically blander than a potato.  But the salty banana covered in coconut milk is good; the saltiness and creaminess works somehow.

Tina picks her best beans for me and gives me some rose plantings for my new house.  Her beautiful children run around me, happy.  Tina is 30, her life perfectly balanced and happy.  I’m 32 and starting over.  Our lives could not be more different but she puts her arm around me.

“You are my wantok now, Sara.” 

I can’t help but get a bit emotional at being given wantok status by Tina. Tina is from Lae in Papau New Guinea…I know now that my wantok could beat up your wantok and eat them for dinner. Seriously.

Tina is one of the best people I have met here and I am profoundly grateful for such a patient, funny, creative and competent counterpart.  

 (Mom and Dad, stop reading this if you don’t want to have a heart attack.)

 I feel like there is something in Papau New Guinea drawing me in; I’m terrified of it so I have to go.  The romance has already begun; I’m wantok AND Tina has given me the Air Niugini in-flight magazine.  Plus Tessa has a copy of the Lonely Planet guide for PNG.  Clearly I am now an expert in all things PNG.

The pictures promise adventures in the Highlands, a diverse cultural experience and crystal clear waters in the islands.  I feel like it’s only a matter of time before the current trajectory of my life lands me there.   

Occasionally I worry that I’m in danger of going tropo; a term used for ex pats that end up in the bush for years at a time, living as locals do and unable to re-integrate back into their own society.   Think Robinson Crusoe combined with Marlin Brando in Apocalypse Now and you will get an inkling of what I mean.   

Turning tropo does have some romance to it; after living here for awhile, the world of internet, satellite television and people living in little homes never going out or socializing with each can seem pretty cold.

Anyway, I give up on being tropo for now, although I am trying to do things a bit more locally.  For instance, I am trying to make my own coconut milk, which involves scrapping the brown coconuts out and taking the meat of the coconut and squeezing it until rich cream comes out.  Back in New Zealand, I would just buy a can of coconut milk but canned goods are expensive here.  So I need a coconut scrapper but finding one is easier said than done.

The next day we continue the unending quest for a coconut scraper.  Seriously, I have been to every hardware shop and got nothing.  The only reply I would get when I ask is:

“Go lo market on Satuday.  They garem coconut scrapers.”

Saturday market is crammed full of people and despite having many things, coconut scrapers are nowhere to be seen.  I want to be able to make my own coconut milk by doing it manually but apparently, my quest for being independent of cans remains elusive. 

The trip to the market isn’t in vain; we buy bunches of fresh tropical flowers to decorate the house and use old water bottles for vases.   

Afterwards, we stop at the lovely Margaret’s garden.  Margaret is a local woman with a killer green thumb; her garden is outside of central Honiara, closer to the beaches.  Her village is filled with classic grass huts and houses and is a happy place with kids playing the bamboo pipes and the drums.  The lids of cans are made into cymbals and they sing in perfect harmony.  Music is possible with anything; you just have to want to make it.  James and I just stand and listen to the music.  Both of us love music; another kind of language and we both speak it (he plays guitar, I play piano).  Another reason why James and I are wantok.   

I talk to Margaret about growing in the Solomons and she offers some sage advice.  Margaret has an infectious smile and gladly shares her gardening secrets with me.  We pick up basil, mint and James picks out a beautiful bird of paradise as a gift for the house.  Margaret is a local woman who clearly loves gardening; hundreds of little plants surround her in a variety of containers including old tyres and paint cans.  Around her, everything seems lush. 

Now, I learned to garden in New Zealand.  After years of being a garden denier but happily taking veggies out of my ex mother-in-law’s beautiful garden, I broke down and became a gardener.  I found the experience profoundly rewarding.  I planted; things grew that I could eat.  It seemed so easy.  And I, fortunately, never have had a dirt phobia.  If I had, there is no way I could have survived two days in the muddy, dusty Solomons. 

In fact, as a little girl, I used to make mud cities for ants to populate…the ants were never very impressed with my high and mid rises and stuck to their more elaborate made homes underground.  Anyway, the little mud child in me can’t wait to give my green thumb a go; already growing wild at the house are pumpkins, tomatoes, watermelon and slippery cabbage.

We leave the happy village for the roast chicken stand on our way back to town.  Now, while some people might balk at buying chicken on the side of the road, I’ve got no issues with it. In Namibia, my best girl Katie (Hi Katie!) and I used to eat at a place that we called the “meat” hut. Raw meat hung from hooks and was typically covered in flies.  The proprietors of the meat hut barbequed the meat there and I have to be honest, it was the best meat I ever ate.  Barbecued chicken is no problem for me.

James, Tessa and I eat the chicken with rice, spring onions and cucumber on a bench at the beach.  The chicken is greasy and fibrous; I take a huge bit and struggle to swallow.  I look around me, wondering if it’s impolite to spit it out.  Dogs circle us; anxious for our scraps.

As we sit beside the ocean, the water appears unusually cloudy.  It’s been rainy; we have had two cyclone warnings in as many days.  They don’t call it the rainy season here for nothing.  The ocean is pretty dirty from the flooding rivers but it is still peaceful.

We stop at the Rain Tree Café; one of the landmarks of Honiara, in the somewhat dodgy area of White River.  The Café is perched on a wall overlooking the ocean.  We sip on bush lime drinks, which come out eventually.  The carpark is filled with local arts and crafts; I eye up a stone octopus but don’t buy it.

One of the best parts of the Rain Tree Hotel is the toilet.  It’s a long drop or composting toilet that is a fairly good sized shack.  There are two toilets side by side, nothing separating them.  The wall is cut away so you can look out into the ocean as you…well…do what needs to be done. The Rain Tree is also a bed and breakfast.  The place works also as a tourist booking agency; day walks and surfing expeditions can be booked directly from there.

We go home and James, again, cooks.  James is enjoying full use of our kitchen and Tessa and I couldn’t be happier to let him cook to his hearts’ content.  Saturday evening is taken up by a cracker of a party; my friend Bud’s birthday.  For the party, Bud has purchased a stack of clothes from the second hand shop and we all have to dress in them.  After choosing a costume that “looks like I’m a nun”, my friend and another wantok member, Daphne, styles me much more appropriately.

I know I shouldn’t have favorites in my wantok but Daphne is just cool.  From New York, she never fails to make me laugh or think or both even when I want to do neither.  I enjoy her amazing dress sense and her ability to entertain everyone around her.  She exudes warmth and fun.  If she wasn’t such a nice person, I might almost hate her.  Yeah, I got a girl crush; whatever, it’s cool.

Anyway, the men wear dresses…one of my good friends has a spandex unitard and resembles Super Man.  I go down to the pool and chat with some nice looking Aussie blokes and unitard boy takes a stack of wet clothes and puts them on my head.  I promptly push him into the pool; he flies through the air like, well, Superman, until he hits the water with a resounding splash.

All and all a good party; one of the better ones I have been to in Honiara.   

The next evening Eddy and I talk about Hawaii.  I loved living in Hawaii; I was constantly on the go and I had great friends there.  I loved the heat and the ocean but most of all the culture; Hawaii is a vibrant place.  Eddy and I reminisce about Bubbies Ice Cream, the Dew Drop Inn, the Indian Kitchen and Magoos.  It was a golden time in my life. 

Eddy asks me a good question: if I loved it so much, why don’t I go back?  Because all those places I listed above are closed now.  My friends have all moved to different parts of globe.  It simply wouldn’t be the same. You can never really go back.  And even if you did, you would see the place with totally different eyes, changing your experience of a place. 

And perhaps that is one of the best things I’ve learned here.  I’ve cared for people like they were family, even though I’ve only known them for months, weeks or even days.  We have looked after each other with much affection and kindness. I’ve made connections and built relationships at lightning speed because of the shared cultural connections, because we “speak the same language”.  Those connections help me live in the now.  I am deeply grateful to my wantok. 

Maybe that is the best thing about a wantok; a huge extended family that cares and looks after one another. 

This is all well and good until I go tropo and start committing tribal warfare on opposing villages in PNG. Then I might be in a spot of trouble…

Solomon Islands Recipe of the Week: Kasume (Fern) Curry

Welkam to the first Solomon Island Recipe of the Week of 2011!  This week: Kasume Curry.  Now, some of you will be scratching your head wondering a) what is kasume and b) FERN???? WTF?

That’s right, gentle readers, it’s time to explore the more…creative veggies in the Solomon Islands.  I made some soup last night with kasume in it and the best way to describe it is sort of like bitter bok choy or maybe silver beet.  So perhaps you can use those to replace ferns as the main ingredient.  Or baby spinach. 

However, I think that most ferns are probably okay to munch on, provided you use only the shoots or tops of the fern (the most tender bits).  However, just check first to make sure they aren’t poisonous…I really wouldn’t want to be responsible for any deaths or cases of diarrhea due to my recipes (I’ve had enough of that already…hey, there IS a reason I had to leave New Zealand…)

Okay folk, here is the recipe:

Kasume Curry:

·         1 parcel fern (Kasume)

·         5 ripe tomatoes

·         10 short (Deborah, whatever that means) beans

·         5 capsicums aka green peppers

·         2 hot chili peppers (or to taste..I know some of you kiwis have gentle pallets while some of my other friends in the states have burnt off their taste buds ages ago…up to you!)

·         2 onions or shallots

·         1 dried coconut or 1 can of coconut milk.  (I’m getting a coconut scraper soon, so I’ll be making my own.  Can’t wait!)

Directions:

1. Break up the top of fern and put inside a basin.  (Yes, you can eat the top of ferns, if they are tender enough.  I know this sounds slightly mad…but give it a go; I’m pretty sure that ferns aren’t dangerous.)
2. Cut tomatoes, beans, capsicum, hot chilli and onions into pieces. 
3. Pour coconut cream into pot/add five teaspoons of salt to taste
4. Put pot on the fire (or on the element, depending on your access to fires) to boil.  Add ferns.
5. Cook for 15 minutes or whatever.
6. Remove from fire (or said element) and eat...(maybe put a candle or lamp on the table to make it more romantic...hey, its fern curry, obviously its a bit of a special event...)

Writer: Ms. Jocelyn Toligesu, Kwage Villiage, North Malaita, Solomon Islands.  (Please note that anything in parenthesis is from the editor and therefore meant to be taken less seriously.)