Dry Water, Blue Clouds
Chapters 1, 2
PART I: Solomon Islands: Honiara; Gizo; Vella Lavella Island
Chapter One: The Time of Dry Water
Eighteen months after arriving in the Solomon Islands
A giant crab is running off with my last bar of soap. I try to sit up, make it onto my elbows, and struggle to focus in the silvery darkness. The crab’s stony legs clack across the sago palm floor. Scuttling sideways, it scales the low, plaited leaf wall of the veranda and disappears in the moonlight. I smile at its chutzpah and flop back down on my bed of sticks. As my ribs rise, I inhale scents of salty sea, the dampness of cold cookfires, and sweet ylang ylang blossoms. Out the window, lightning snakes across the sky. A blast of thunder fractures my head into pieces. A flash of light explodes in the back of my skull. I wince from the pain and wrap my arms around my head to prevent it from breaking open. No wonder archaeologists find human skulls with holes drilled in them. People were trying to offer prehistoric headaches a way out.
I don’t know when the water flask fell. Maybe yesterday, maybe last week. Now it is back on the slab of tree trunk beside my bed and filled with water. I can’t recall the last person I spoke to. I can envision the faces of a woman and two young boys—dark skin, dark hair, kind eyes—but can’t remember who they are. In the distance, someone is yelling about a ghost.
My bed is rocking back and forth, making me dizzy as I struggle to remember. I am in a leaf house. Somewhere far away. I am a graduate student at Cambridge University. Conducting research. What is it about? I cannot remember.
———
My bed sheets feel like slimy amphibian skins, crawling over me, making me shiver. I push away strands of my long hair that cling to the pillow like a dead octopus. My throat is dry. I reach for the water flask, but it is too far. I call out, but my whisper won’t reach the nearest leaf house. Flashes of cognition are sucked into a vacuum of emptiness. I coax saliva into my mouth and try to swallow away my fear.
In slow motion I turn onto my side. My forearm smells like sour milk. Just like soil, I am decomposing. Like all flora and fauna, I am just a bunch of cells—living, decaying, and dying. When I try to formulate sentences, the words disintegrate and disappear. Thoughts float around my mind like bits of untethered seaweed. My heartbeats signal panic. I tell myself, don’t be scared. You will be okay. Just breathe.
Gradually, I reposition my body. Crabs scuttle out of the way as I reach under the bed for a small metal box and remove the bottle of malaria medicine. I don’t know if I have malaria; inside my head, something like the voice of survival is urging me on, telling me to follow the pharmacist’s directions and take the pills.
I place two pills on my tongue and swallow them dry. An acrid taste fills my mouth, my esophagus tightens, my eyes water. Vomit surges—then retreats down my throat. Outside the window, a tangle of bats swoops and squeaks, changing direction with abrupt precision. My left foot is wrapped in a t-shirt, and I don’t know why.
“Lama! Lama! You up?” A boy’s voice. I lay my head down and exhale. “Lama! Lama! You like green coconut wat-tah?” I know he is talking to me, but I can’t remember why I am called Lama. I hear whispering.
I open my mouth to shout, “Come in!” but can only muster an airy exhale. A gentle hammering against my sternum signals panic. Don’t panic; this weakness is only temporary. Breathe. Picking up my pen from the tree stump table, I flick it against the floor to make a noise, communicating that I’m here. Moments later, my bed of sticks shakes from the vibrations of bare feet climbing the stairs to the veranda.
As he walks toward the bedroom, I see a boy, remember sweetness, and for a moment, my mind is tranquil. In his tiny brown hands is a green coconut with a large hole on top. I signal for him to come, and he motions for a second boy to follow. They sit on my bed and watch me guzzle the water of two coconuts. The second boy gazes at the lid of the plastic box lying on the floor of the veranda. A heavy rock usually holds the ill-fitting lid in place, keeping the bars of soap inside safe from critters and humidity. The boy turns to me, his chin pointed down like a scolding parent. “You didn’t put the rock. Now lookim. No soap.”
The first boy admonishes him in Mbilua, the language of Vella Lavella Island. Though I mostly use the local dialect of Pidgin English to converse in the villages, I can understand the gist of what he is saying: “Why so harsh? What do you expect? She’s just a white person!”
I try to hide my smile. These children are too young to have experienced colonialism and hold no pre-conceived ideas about white people. They’re free to view me as a bumbling stranger—an adult who can’t even speak their language fluently despite their attempts to teach me.
The first boy replaces the lid, secures it with the rock, and picks up the red plastic bucket leaning against the plaited leaf wall. “Bae-n-bae we bring wat-tah and soap. Jenifer bae hem bring more food lo you. Maybe today you finally eat.”
Finally? When was the last time I ate? I lie back down.
The boy pats my sweaty, pink, insect-bitten arm. A gecko makes kissing sounds on the ceiling. My eyes close, unable to absorb any more light—my mind unable to hold any more thoughts. Sensing I am being cared for, I exhale deeply, and drift off to sleep.
———
I ended up in the Solomon Islands because of a clerical mistake. Before mailing my graduate application to the University of Cambridge’s Department of Geography, I had arranged to work with a professor whose studies overlapped with the research I had begun among desert nomads in northern Kenya. But when my application arrived in Cambridge—during Christmas break when most people were away—another professor accepted me as his student. His research was based in the Solomon Islands, near Australia in a part of the Pacific Ocean known as Melanesia, and I was expected to base my research in the Solomons, even though I knew little about Melanesia, rainforests, tropical ecosystems, or forest gardens—and even less about people who, only decades earlier, had been headhunters and cannibals. During my first day in Cambridge, I visited the Geography Department where the department’s secretary explained the mistake—that a professor who worked in the Solomon Islands—who knew nothing about my prior arrangement to work with the other professor who worked in Kenya—had officially accepted me as his student. As I stood processing the news, another professor, rifling through papers in the departmental office, gleefully pointed out that the Solomon Islands is home to the world’s worst malaria—and to marine crocodiles that can grow to over twenty feet long. Neither sounded like a deterrent to me. Feeling safe and protected inside Cambridge’s sturdy, stone Geography Department, the thought of seeing an enormous crocodile only made the Solomons more appealing.
I was initially disappointed at the idea of conducting my studies in a place I had never heard of and knew nothing about. This was made worse by the fact that I wasn’t going to be working with the kind professor whose research was based in Kenya. Saying nothing, I left the department and went for a long walk along the river Cam, ruminating about what to do. Being my first day in Cambridge, and not yet knowing anyone, I had to figure this out myself. I decided to meet the new professor, learn about his research, read up on the Solomon Islands, and go from there.
After a few days of learning what I could about the professor, his research, and the islands, I decided to be open to a new adventure—if it meant conducting research that would make a difference and enable me to ask the sorts of questions that inspired my interest in humanity’s relationships with nature and with each other. Most of all, I was open to going anywhere that was far from the speed-and-money-driven insanity of the western world. At the time, I had no idea that where I was headed was so remote it could take six weeks to receive a fax, which had to be paddled in a dugout canoe from the nearest island with electricity and telephone service—and only when the sea was calm enough, after one of the many storms had passed.
———
Lying in my leaf house on my bed of sticks, sweaty, lethargic, and phasing in and out of lucid thought, I wonder if coming to the Solomons had been such a good idea. For days or maybe weeks—I can’t really remember—I’ve been lying in bed semi-conscious. To lure myself back to normal, I tell myself my name. I reiterate the reason I’m lying on a bed of sticks in a leaf house in a small village on a remote island in a country many people have never heard of. I make myself count to 100, recite the alphabet, do a few rudimentary math problems. I ask my brain to please come back.
Days later, finally able to think more clearly, my thoughts wander to a recent conversation with an old man who had witnessed clear-cut logging on the other side of the island. He described how the logging company that is hoping to clear-cut the island’s forests has been using beer and sacks of sugar to bribe chiefs and other local leaders into signing the logging agreements. With a quivering voice, the old man explained that once the agreements are signed, bulldozers and men with chainsaws disembark from barges onto a village’s beach. The people stand on the beach holding onto one another, watching, as two bulldozers with a heavy chain between them roll into the forest, mowing down the ancient trees and everything growing between them—everything the people need to survive: food, medicines, and materials for building their homes, canoes, and furnishings—leaving only denuded hillsides and diesel-scented rivers. To the islanders, the forest is life; to the logging company, it’s just another stock of tropical hardwood and more millions of dollars in the bank. With frightened eyes, the old man said that the logging company is ruthless, willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get the logging agreements signed—bribing, threatening, and worse. When I hear this, I feel frustrated and helpless. I want to figure out a way to stop the loggers, but the stipulations of my research permit clearly prohibit me from getting involved in any way. One wrong move could get me booted out of the country.
Turning onto my side, I gaze out the window of my leaf house. A buni tree arches gracefully over the sea, sprouting coral red blossoms. At the far end of the tree a kingfisher sits, staring into the crystal water, its turquoise feathers shining in the sun. The sea is still. Low tide. Dry water. I try to remember why low tide is called dry water, but the answer eludes me. Closing my eyes, I hear a dugong splashing about in the reef. Imagining the prehistoric-looking sea cow makes me smile. Then my body tenses as I remember: the logging company prowling the villages on this island has put out a hit list of islanders who vocally oppose the logging. I’ve learned that my name is also on the list, and three people have already been murdered.
Chapter Two: From Black and White to Color
Eighteen months earlier — arriving in Honiara, Solomon Islands
The plane lands in a cloud of fireflies. I peer out the juddering window at the tiny lights, like sparks from a fire floating aimlessly as the aircraft rolls to a halt. It is dusk. Across the boggy runway a corrugated iron shack sprouts from the mud. The shack resembles a makeshift restroom at the edge of a traveling circus, its rusty surface splattered with red, yellow, and blue paint, and colonized by a layer of olive moss. Ducking, I walk down the low center aisle of the small plane, holding my blue daypack against my chest. As I step onto the wheeled metal ramp, the humid air assaults my lungs. Seconds later, my pores sprout moisture; my rumpled clothes are pasted to my skin. Though physically uncomfortable, the vibrant colors, foreign scents and sounds, and great swirls of fireflies make my heartbeats quicken—mostly from excitement, though tinged with trepidation.
Allowing all my senses to take in the unfamiliar, I push away apprehension by reminding myself that this is the adventure I’ve dreamed of since childhood, the first step to my professional future, the beginning of my adult life. I’ve chosen to forego romantic relationships, marriage, a paying job and starting a family until I’ve completed this research, written the dissertation, and earned my doctorate all in the interest of making my dream of working to help restore a healthy planet a reality. This is the time to prove to others that despite my playful demeanor, I am a serious scientist and researcher. I will dedicate nearly two years to this study, aware that a successful research project here is the key to the future in international conservation I’ve spent years working towards. Over a decade of formal study, unpaid internships and volunteer field research in various countries has gotten me this far. Once I’ve finished my degree, life can take me where it wishes. For now, everything hangs on a successful project here in the Solomons.
Awaiting my turn to descend the plane’s metal stairs, I look out to the dense tropical forest surrounding the runway. After four international plane rides spanning a day and a half, I can feel myself teetering between jetlag and excitement. My sleepy mind ruminates on the research project I’ve come to do, hoping the outcome will demonstrate that it’s possible for economic and ecological sustainability to go hand in hand, simultaneously benefitting people and the planet. I slap a mosquito on my arm, observe the blood squishing out of its flattened body, and look out again at the forest, wondering if my idea is too far-fetched. To calm my fears, I recall a lesson learned during my undergraduate days. I’d lost count of the naysayers I encountered when proposing my idea of studying wild spinner dolphins by observing them from underwater instead of from aboard research vessels and clifftop observation posts, as was the norm. I had visited universities and spoken to professors about my idea, but they all looked down at me, shaking their heads. “No, Dear, that’s not how dolphins are studied in the wild.” Though disheartened, I wasn’t going to let these men’s limitations limit my life. Realizing they may be suffering from a lack of imagination, and determined to be heard, I decided to visit the top dolphin researcher in the United States. This man, Professor Ken Norris, had an imagination a lot like mine: outside the box. He could imagine things before he knew they existed. With his keen intellect he was able to demonstrate how dolphins can “see” with their jaws. [Describe more but keep it very brief.]
Toward the end of summer vacation, before beginning my junior year at U.C. Davis, I drove to Santa Cruz and fought my way past the frightening secretary—Nurse Ratched working as a goalie at a soccer tournament—insisting that I speak with Professor Ken Norris. Upon hearing my idea, Professor Norris marched me across campus to the Admissions Office, helped me switch from U.C. Davis to U.C. Santa Cruz, and invited me to conduct the study I had described on the underwater behavior and ecology of wild spinner dolphins under his tutelage.
While I initially shed tears at being repeatedly dismissed for my ideas, years later one of those naysaying professors wrote about my dolphin study and underwater methodology in Scientific American, likening it to the work with chimpanzees by Jane Goodall. This experience taught me to have faith in my own ideas—no matter how farfetched they may at first seem to others—and to realize that naysayers may just be lacking the imagination to envision a not-yet-existent possibility—or a not-yet-understood truth.
Standing on the rattling metal stairs of the plane as my sweat drips down, I gaze longingly at the shade in the surrounding jungle, and exhale.
An outburst of laughter turns my attention to a group of passengers at the bottom of the stairs who seem unfazed by the sudden blast of humid heat. I recognize the group of Solomon Islanders from the plane. [Briefly describe the islanders and the fact that different islands tend to vary in outward appearance.]
Their wide grins and boisterous talking make it clear they are happy to be home.
I am the lone white woman, and for a moment I tense. Being that the Solomons gained independence from Great Britain only a decade ago, I wonder what my colonial-colored skin will represent to the islanders. Will they keep me at a distance, placing emotional barriers between us? Though I wouldn’t blame them if they did, animosity would hurt me—and my research. I think back to the years I had spent in Kenya, also colonized by the British. There, though racism was still rampant—with vestigial hierarchies between Africans, East Indians, and whites—I never felt that Kenyans viewed my white skin with hatred. If anything, it seemed to come with a golden ticket to acceptance, though I had no idea if ulterior views were lurking behind their welcoming behavior and warm smiles. Back then, in my twenties, I trusted peoples’ kindness and believed their warmth was true. Not once did anyone’s words or actions cause me to think or feel otherwise. I imagine how much scarier it would be if I were the only black person disembarking in an all-white country. Still, I’m aware that I’m an outsider, and for a moment I feel a wave of doom darken my mood as I imagine how lonely I will feel if I’m treated as an outsider for two entire years. Gazing back at the Solomon Islanders talking and laughing at the bottom of the stairs, I convince myself to shake off my fear. Don’t be afraid; as in Kenya, people will be kind.
The baggage carrier’s muscled brown arm points to a grassy path across the muddy runway to the shack. “Bae you fella come long hia.” I assume he is asking the other passengers and me to ‘come along here’—to walk across the path he is pointing to.
Mud splatters onto some of the luggage as two young baggage carriers push the metal carts across the bumpy terrain. Both men wear baggy shorts, stained t-shirts, and flip-flops. They have creamy brown skin and eyes that sparkle like brown topaz. One has wavy, light blond hair. I try not to stare at the mesmerizing combination of brown and blond.
A third baggage carrier shouts to us, “Hem now, takem ebery samting blong you fella.” A decade earlier, having lived in Hawai’i while researching the underwater behavior of humpback whales and spinner dolphins, I could comprehend and converse in Hawai’ian Pidgin. But here I can only pick out a few words of this unfamiliar dialect that will become my primary language for the next two years.
My sweat-soaked t-shirt is strangling me. I pull the wet blue cotton away from my throat, loosen the straps on my daypack and join the line of passengers clomping to the front of the shack. The rusty sign above the door reads, “Honiara International Airport.” The sun is setting, but a sheen of light lingers in the thick air.
Arriving from perpetually gray Cambridge, England, I feel I have landed on another planet where grays have been replaced by Technicolor. I am on my own 9,000 miles from home—9,000 miles from appointments, assignments, exams, expectations, and the daily, often frenetic norms of modern existence. Otherworldly sounds emanate from the dense jungle that lies just beyond the terminal as we queue to enter the shack where our passports will be stamped. Above, the cerulean sky is turning lavender.
Overcome by exhilaration at the strange beauty, the sense of freedom, and the adventure ahead, I stifle a desire to do a happy dance and smile at the granny sitting on the top step, in the shack’s splintered doorway. She is spitting what looks like blood. The deep red sputum arcs past her knobby feet and lands between blades of grass growing in an oily puddle in front of the shack. The woman replies with a wide grin baring two straight rows of large black teeth. Her cotton dress is torn in front and her protruding breast is nearly a foot long.
I inch closer to the front of the line, holding my sweaty passport. Though hot, hungry, and tired, I take in my surroundings with all my senses, and alleviate my impatience at the slow-moving line by remembering the dreams of my childhood.
Los Angeles, California—1960s
As a child I had a notion that the further I ventured from home the less lost I’d become. Whenever my family traveled to a new place, I felt more alive—I glimpsed an inkling of who I might be if thrown into an unscripted adventure. The unknown turned my heart into jumping beans. But due to my father’s work, we rarely went very far. To have a real adventure I had to use my imagination.
Lying in bed, I’d close my eyes and conjure up images of a place without walls where I could sleep with our dogs and spy on owls. A place outside—miles from honking cars and sirens—where I could lie on the ground curled up in my green flannel sleeping bag with nothing between me and the stars. Where I could smell the night and feel the cold darkness touching my skin. A place far away—where I’d awaken to strange sounds—of birds and insects—and wild mammals—and maybe even the sound of the sea. I’d imagine waking in the middle of the night, feeling little creatures crawling over me as though I were a pile of dirt, and being brave enough to squeeze my eyes shut and remain still so I didn’t frighten them, smiling as I felt them crawling away into the night. But we lived in Los Angeles near Sunset Boulevard. Children were abducted in broad daylight. Sleeping outside was forbidden.
Back then, during my years in elementary school, my father’s workplace fed my dreams of escaping Los Angeles and exploring faraway worlds. Some days, instead of walking home from school with my friends, our mother picked my sisters and me up after school and drove us to MGM Studios where our father was producing a new TV show called Star Trek about an intergalactic team of humans and aliens having adventures in outer space. I knew it could be centuries before humans traveled in spaceships to other galaxies, so I dreamed of traveling in airplanes to faraway countries as soon as I was old enough. Instead of buying candy with my allowance, I saved it to fund future adventures.
———
Through airport customs and outside again, I stand on the covered cement platform beside the shackto wait for my foldable sea kayak, small duffle bag of clothes, and boxes of books, household survey forms, and office supplies to emerge from the plane. The baggage handlers walk back and forth in the heat, bringing my gear to the platform. When I notice the other passengers glancing at my growing pile of gear, my face prickles with embarrassment. “Research,” I say with an apologetic smile, taking a seat on my duffle bag to await my host—a tall, bald Solomon Islander named Milton who grew up on Vella Lavella Island. Milton is the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Economic Planning, and will be personally introducing me to the islanders, many of whom have never seen a person with white skin.
My plan is to stay with Milton for a week in Honiara, the capital city, to take care of residence visa, research visa, and other official business. From Honiara I’ll board a small ferry—a three-day boat ride to Gizo town, on Gizo Island, the capital of the Western Province where Vella Lavella Island is located. Milton will fly to Gizo Island, meet me at the dock when the ferry arrives, and help me rent a little house in Gizo town. Although my primary home will be on Vella Lavella Island, having a retreat in Gizo will give me a place to write undisturbed, and to accomplish all official and international business, because unlike Vella Lavella, Gizo has electricity, a fax machine, and a post office. After a day or two in Gizo, Milton will accompany me via a motorized canoe to Vella Lavella where he’ll introduce me to islanders, including his sister, Naolin, who will serve as my translator and traveling companion. Naolin and I will spend two to three months paddling her dugout canoe around the island in search of a village in which to base my research. That’s as far as the plans go; beyond that, I’ll just have to wing it.
The joyous bevy of passengers is thinning out as cars arrive and disappear down the dirt road. While a couple of the cars are rusty, most look to be in decent shape. As they pass me and my pile of stuff, their greetings and bright smiles comfort me.
Across the runway the jungle pulsates, as if inhaling and exhaling waves of heat. When a gigantic blue butterfly flutters by, I shiver with excitement. The forest seems to be one thousand shades of green, with pops of reds, yellows and magentas poking or flying through.
Sitting alone on my duffle bag, awaiting my ride under a darkening sky, I’m suddenly overwhelmed by my insignificance. Jetlag-induced insecurity makes me question the usefulness of the research I’ve come to do. Trained in marine biology and animal behavior, I’m here to conduct research with humans—to understand their past and present relationships with nature and with each other. What if I’m not adequately equipped to ask the right questions? What if I mess up?
One glance across the runway at the verdant forest, one inhalation of the dizzying tropical scents, remind me that, if nothing else, my study has the potential to document that which may soon be demolished, and the laws, practices, and circumstances that had enabled the islanders to live sustainably for centuries. I inhale and exhale slowly, calming my mind; I don’t want to meet Milton feeling shaky and filled with doubt. Remember to believe in yourself.
The evening air is warm and velvety. In the fading light I can still make out giant leaves and flowers sprouting from the towering trees across the runway. Parrots adorned in primary colors flit by, their raucous squawks reverberating through the forest. As night approaches, swaths of orange and magenta swirl in the periwinkle sky. And in every direction, a commotion of fireflies. Gesturing with my hand, I turn to one of the baggage carriers and smile. “The fireflies are beautiful!”
He glares at me and spits on the ground. Shaking his head, he says, “Not beautiful. Devil-devil,” and walks away.