While we were there waiting for the fishy to be cleaned, we watched 2 men fillet an 80 lb yellow fin tuna! It was HUGE! Yum. I'm glad the locals are eating tuna (it's the most common thing on restaurant menus too), and it's not all being taken by the many international fishing ships for export....
Ben doesn't like looking at whole fish - he thinks the eyes are freaky. So, being kind person, I pretend to throw them at him. Personally, I think the teeth are more frightening!
On the way back from lunch last week, I passed a funeral that had just finished. There were hundreds of cars lined up on both sides of the (extremely narrow) road so traffic was flowing at about 2km/h. Which was great, as I could check out all the booty that people were going home with. Funerals are really, really important on Pohnpei. I really don't understand the social nuances of society here, so I'll refrain from trying to explain how the traditional system of bringing things to funerals works. But people bring things according to their status, and then all the contributions (rice, pigs, taro....) are divided. Yep, including the pigs. Arrive whole and squealing, depart singed and sectioned. I saw lots of people walking to their cars with various parts of pigs in panadanus carriers (or with a head casually slung over their shoulders). There are some mighty big taro out there too, I must say.
Funerals can be a huge financial burden. Someone was explaining to me that they budget for a certain number, but if more people die in a pay period than planned it gets very tight. When I joked that it was indeed terribly inconvenient for people to die with no respect for budgeting processes, they agreed! I think the language barrier contributed, but..........
No comments:
Post a Comment