Friday, October 23, 2009

Kamadupw, the Sequel

Where we left off things were going well – sakau had begun, and the first of two dance troupes had performed. Large quantities of food were just being brought out, presented to the Nahnmwarki, and divvied up between the high titles and everyone else. Ruthanne—a fellow PCT—and I were both presented with a small feast consisting of a mix of local and imported foods. Granted, there is no way we could get through a whole fish, a piece of chicken, a hunk of taro, yam, and watermelon along with a mound of rice, a grilled hot dog, a pack of uncooked ramen, a bag of processed snack AND a sugar-infused beverage—tackling it alone or working as a team. So we ate what we could and passed the rest along to our nohnos later.

After eating we enjoyed another dance performance. In addition to the ever-popular salsa, this group performed a creative take on the electric slide. They also didn’t seem to mind when a few ladies from the audience joined them on the stage to do their own little boogie.

Next was the sugar cane presentation. Ladies brought in stalk after stalk of sugar cane, heave-ho-ing them assembly line-style and singing all the while. This display, to me at least, proved that Micronesians really don’t need to buy any of the imported, packaged & processed sugar that they use here. But imported ease is gradually winning out over traditional labor-intensive-yet-cost-effective items here.

By this point in the kamadupw I was getting tired of sitting. A couple of hours had passed, I had been fed, and I had thoroughly enjoyed the ambience and activities thus far. Ruthanne and I were sitting about mid-nahs and we felt like getting up and moving around, checking out the other areas where people were quietly visiting and digesting. But we were prevented from doing so from the alarming appearance of the men with the pigs.

Mind you, I had been warned about pigs at kamadupws. Jenny, one of the volunteers who have been here for a year, recommended bringing a plastic bag for when you get handed a charred hunk of pig flank. But here at this kamadupw were not already-dead, cut-up and cooked pigs. No, these pigs were live pigs, about 4-6 of them, hanging upside down with their feet tied to bamboo poles. They varied in size, the smallest was about the size of a Jack Russell terrier and the largest was so enormous that it needed a support strap to hold it onto the pole. Instead of taking the pigs into the nahs like all the other presented gifts, they were laid out at the entrance—which was a partially blocked view for Ruthanne and I, but a front-row seat for our friend and mutual trainee Nate, who was sitting right on the steps at the nahs opening.

Here’s where I started to feel a little less stoked on kamadupw-ness. One of the pigs was bleeding from the head a bit already, and I sensed that things weren’t going to get better from there. Ruthanne noted that maybe I should make my face look a little less like this was the most horrifying thing I’ve ever seen, so I changed my look of foreboding into a forced smile. We both hoped that maybe the pigs would come in and go out, like the other presentations, but these hopes were in vain. The men began to slaughter the pigs right there.

Because of where I was sitting I couldn’t see the first pig get killed, but I heard it screaming (the term “bloody murder” comes to mind) and I caught a glimpse of the aftermath when they lifted it back up to take it away. The biggest pig was completely in my line of vision, but I had learned my lesson and was studiously examining the yams hanging across from me in the nahs at that point. NOTE: Yams and breadfruit are the major crops of the island, so the nahs was surrounded by a bunch of giant yams to be presented later in the kamadupw. Pohnpeian yams can grow to be very large, and I couldn’t help but notice that they, too, were tied to bamboo poles. Their large, tangled, brown root-ness with a spray of spiky green leaves on top to me were reminiscent of an army of captured trolls that would be sacrificed in the same way as the pigs before too long.

But even without looking at the swineocide, the sound of it all was enough to throw me into a bit of hysterics. For those of you who grew up near farms, I am sure you know better than I do that pigs make a lot of noise, much of it alarmingly human. I was not ready for this type of display, and I was trying hard neither to laugh out loud nor burst out crying. I noticed one of the men in the center of the nahs bemusedly watching my attempts to control my facial expressions. We men wai do funny things.

After the slaughter Ruthanne and I were in clear agreement that we needed to get out of the nahs before they started handing out the pig pieces. Her host family lives fairly close to the kamadupw, so we quickly fled there for reassurance and cribbage. Had we thought of it, we both probably could have done with a good cup of tea.

I did eventually come back to the kamadupw, and I noticed that my family had some good spoils—including a nice hunk of porker. I had heard horror stories from other volunteers of “hairy pig soup,” a popular Pohnpeian dish. So I was actually relieved to see the pig preparations for my dinner simply because my nohno cut off the skin for our pig and yam soup. As a cafeteria cook she has incredibly sanitary kitchen practices, especially by Pohnpei standards. Go Nohno!

By the evening I had gotten the shock out of my system and had begun to appreciate the rituals I had been permitted to experience that day. It’s really cool that I get to be here, and I guess it’s even fun for me to realize that in surprising ways. Soothed, I was able to enjoy my pig and yam soup and that evening’s movie selection—Babe: Pig in the City—with only a subtle laugh at the lovely irony of Pohnpeian culture.

No comments:

Post a Comment