‘On the Thursday flight (17 December) Dr. Lawrence
Winkler and his
wife
Robyn arrived. They are from Nanaimo B.C., on Vancouver
Island
(where several Rotuman families live). They stayed at Motusa
in new
huts--accommodations recommended by Sunflower Airlines.
The
Hospital Board of Visitors had a Working Bee/Breakup Day on
Friday,
18 December, so we invited them for lunch, and we all met
the
couple. Robyn originally came from New Zealand. In the
afternoon
I took them to the Bennett's at Itu'muta and met up with
another
couple from New Zealand, Samo's son and wife with their two
children.
We toured around the island, calling into places and ending
up at
Rocky Point for cold beer.’
Archived News, Rotuma Community Bulletin Board
The day
before we ended up at Rocky Point for a cold beer, two days after the Hospital
Board of Visitors decided to invite Robyn and I for lunch, the day after the
harvest festival, right after our third night of Faracidal insomnia, I rolled
over next to the sponge mattress, and shook Robyn awake. Her fanning didn’t
break Farastride.
“Do you
realize that we are sleeping next to some of the most beautiful beaches on the
planet, and almost halfway through our time on Rotuma, we’ve only seen the
seashore once?” I asked. For a Kiwi, this was an unconscionable source of
shame.
“Today.”
She said. We dressed and closed the powder blue door to our cabin, jaws grimly
set to overwhelm Julie’s sense of family togetherness, and escape to an
isolated beach on our own. But we had no idea that, here in the most remote
Polynesian paradise, this was not just impolite, or impolitic. It was treason.
Rotumans
are a gentle people, culturally conservative and strongly socialized, with an
emphasis on collective responsibility enforced by a sensitivity to shaming. No
one did anything without everyone else’s participation, except perhaps, in a
rare free dove cord moment, making other Rotumans. And Julie was the perfect
Polynesian Pollyanna, far too happy and in love with everything, which she
believed rightly, in Motusa village at least, to derive from, and return back
to, the family. She was the living Nash Equilibrium embodiment of Southern Sea
survival. How could it be possible that we, in our most evil manifestation of
individualistic inconsideration, even think of abandoning our adopted village,
for a single day of selfish gratification? The easy answer was, of course, was
that it was necessary. Robyn and I had never been creatures of collective
conformity. We were mavericks, nabobs of narcissism, which is why we fell in
love in the first place, and made a life together, based on not belonging. When
we had first arrived on Vancouver Island, I was approached to join the local
Rotary Club.
“You’re
not a joiner.” Robyn had said. And the Rotarians were condemned to do without.
“Julie?”
I asked, a mouthful of morning pawpaw in my mouth.
“Yes, Wink.”
She said.
“Robyn
and I were thinking of hiking across the isthmus, to
Vai’oa
Beach.” I said.
“Lovely,
Wink.” She said. “What time should we go?” Then it got hard.
“Well,
that’s what I wanted to ask you about.” I said. “We thought that, for just
today only, we just might go alone, to give you and the girls some time to
yourselves.” I looked across the floor mat, into eyes that couldn’t decide
whether to be hurt, or offended. I thought it was a polite formality, and it
never occurred to me that, in an island culture so remote and isolated, the
idea of separating awhile from your family, real or adopted, might ever be
interpreted as antisocial behavior. But, for a brief movement, I saw a sag in
Julie’s smile. Meltdown.
“Are you
sure?” She asked. I nodded.
“OK.” She
said. “Enjoy yourselves.”
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