Adaptations

2 months in, and I now… 

~ have accepted that my arms and legs will never look like they belong to the same person (due to dramatic tan variations)

~ no longer think twice about drinking out of a glass that has something floating in it

~ have consciously eaten a bite of something that had an ant on it without batting an eyelash

~ have accidentally eaten a bite of ground beef, and a dish prepared with chicken stock (very much against my will)

~ have seen myself in a mirror, perhaps, 3 times

~ have passed by particularly sad looking dogs, and exclaimed out loud “ohhh, someone needs to eat that dog”

~ have come to believe that expiration dates, and best-before dates are a form of decorative art placed on food packages rather than any form of indication for consumption

~ have come to learn that canned meats are a food group of their own

~ think the novelty of gecko poop all over the house has worn off

~ still don’t understand whether the piles left by termites are poop or wood

~ have never worn socks or shoes

~ have developed new muscles of the “laundryoral” variety

~ have come to believe that breadfruit really does taste like bread   

~ have eaten 4 jars of really bad peanut butter

~ sincerely feel terribly scandalous if more than an inch of skin above my kneecap is exposed while outside of my home

~ will not stand under the shower if the water feels warm from the sun heating the exposed pipes 

~ wonder if there is something wrong with my appearance if passersby are not staring rather than staring

~ have no concept on anonymity, and am not sure that cheery Cheer’s ballad about wanting to “go where everybody knows your name” is very accurate

~ can open a coconut with nothing but another coconut

~ no longer question the dead being buried on front lawns, and instead question “where did they put the body?” after a funeral, if no fresh mound is visible.

~ have lost all concept of western fashion as I once knew it/ didn’t know it, and now constantly feel like someone who has been shopping in Value Village for too long, and has long-lost all concept of what is “nice” (see: sequins, and shiny stickers on material are now simply overlooked, and I long for a brightly coloured muu-muu)


On the topic of diving – the long and the short of it is: I am in love.
The very concept itself of a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA, for short) is an odd one.   If humans are meant to breathe underwater, we’d have gills, clearly.  As always, I entertain the ‘how natural is this?’ concept for a fraction of a second, then leap in head first; this time literally. 

My first 35 foot dive was not nearly as frightening as I thought.   Strangely enough the concept of breathing underwater was not foreign.  It came very naturally, and did not cause me any stress.  Oddly enough, is was my sense of sight that caused me the remotest bit of grief.  My mask decided that continually springing a mild leak would be entertaining, and thus I dealt with minimal water in my mask, and clearing it several times for the entire hour.  Anyone who knows me, knows that I do not quit very easily.  So rather than surface, and seek out a new mask, the stubborn-capricorn that I am, continued to swim about in awe of the sights.  The entire ocean floor is covered in all kinds of coral here.  Being a lay-diver, I have no idea exactly what kinds they are, but I can tell you they vary in size, texture, and colour, and create a dream-like vision.  Darting in and out of bright red, turquoise, and several shades of brown corals, were fish of all shapes and sizes.  Big fish, Little Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish….  Clown fish, Angel Fish, Parrot Fish, New Fish…  Despite attempting to will myself a turtle, no turtles graced me with their presence this time, but persevere, I shall. 

My second 35 foot dive took place an hour later, and was a wreck dive.   I dove down with my instructor to a crashed Japanese fighter jet of some sort, that has been in Lelu Harbour since the Second World War.  I didn’t get any history on the wreck before hand.  The entire pre-dive conversation was comprised of  “Melanie – are you up for a wreck dive”, “Yes!”, and “Put your equipment back on”.  Down around the plane, I felt very uncomfortable – in the shivers up and down your spine context.  There was an eeriness and oddity about being that closed to a plane wreck, despite it being over 60 years old.  I had read before coming down, that local people would not remove bodies from the water in the event of wrecks, in order to not disrupt the spirit.  Seeing the plane, covered in algae, corroded and with live coral making it a home really was like seeing a ghost.  I refused to touch the plane in any way, but wasn’t sure why the concept made me so uncomfortable.  It was an illogical discomfort of the gut variety.  My instructor gestured for me to look in the windows, look in the cock-pit, look in whatever-you-call-the-part-of-the-plane-that-they-shot-out-of, and while I would get closer, I certainly was not about to stick my head into that plane out of free will.

Upon telling my host family about my wreck dive, I received more information about the harbour than I would have liked to.   Call it myth, call it urban legend, call it what you will – it reinforced the discomfort I felt while diving, regardless of its name.  It is somewhat unclear as to how many wrecks are in that harbour – but I’ve been told there are 3 plane wrecks, and one ship wreck.  Most accounts seem to point towards two Japanese fighter planes, and one small passenger plane.  Regardless, when I told my host mom I dove there, her face turned sheet white.  She looked as though she had seen a ghost.  She yelled my host dad’s name, and rambled a slew of dialogue too advanced, and too quickly for me to begin to mentally translate.  Then she turned to me and said, “Mey La Nie – Maaaaaw.  Maaaaw.  Maaaaw.  That is ne paye, ne paye, scare.  Nga ne paye, ne paye scared.  Sona dive in harbour again.  Maaaw.”, and frowned and shuddered, and gestured with her arms clenched in front of her chest, the way one would demonstrate scared and cold.  Which translates fully into : “Mey La Nie – Noooo.  Noooo.  Noooo.  That is really, really scary.  I’m very, very scared.  Don’t dive in the harbour again.  No.”  That large of a reaction, from a quiet lady from a culture of people who are extremely emotionally suppressed, was bone-chilling.  She told me that the locals believe that the water is not safe.  It is ‘fak-fak’ (dirty).  The word ‘haunted’ was not used, but it was certainly alluded to.  She told me, via translation from my more calm host dad, that the week before, she had been practicing for the canoe races in the same habour, and there was a strong wind that came from the water and capsized the canoe that she was in.  There were other boats on the water, but the wind did not touch any of them, and they did not feel the wind.  Then, in English, she said “I don’t want you to go there.  Ever Again.  Mey La Nie!  No!  Something can drag you down to the bottom, and you won’t come back up.”  They told a story about the passenger plane wreck, that I pieced together as follows:

Sometime ago, perhaps 40 years, a small passenger plane left the island headed for Guam.   The plane was medically evacuating a woman who was very ill, with her husband by her side.  There was one pilot aboard.  Only moments after take-off, something went wrong with the plane, and it needed to make an emergency landing in the harbour.  The harbour is contained, and should have been safe for such a landing.  However, upon landing, the plane sunk quickly, and while both the husband and pilot were in fine health and should have been able to get out of the plane, it is believed that whatever is in the water would not allow them to swim out.  Their bodies were never found.  The event was allegedly witnessed by fishermen in the harbour, who claim that a large fish breathed in water, creating a whirlpool, and ingested their bodies – all but for the leg of one of the men, which was later found, but left to rest in the harbour.  

While there is a lot to be left to our Western, cynical interpretation in that story – there was little to be left for interpretation in my host mom’s reaction.   That reaction combined with the unrest I felt while diving, will not be leading me back to the harbour to dive this weekend, I digress.