June 21^st

It’s bedtime on Falalop right now.  Spent all day yesterday through the afternoon of today on Federai Island.  We boated over early in the morning and dropped our gear off at the infirmary, where we would be staying the night.  There was a warm welcome from everyone, especially three of the girls, Orpha, Karen, and Zilla, all super sweet people.  A man named Albert saw me sketching and we talked about art.  Then off to the landing for coral size frequency!  Just where the water became deeper, there was a tall rock mound and above that, a huge deep red cuttlefish guarding it. He was football-sized, with arms up in a territorial display and we hovered around watching him.  His mottled white stripes pulsed.  He wasn’t too stoked on our presence but I was very happy to see him. 

In the heat of midday, we stretch on the floor of the women’s house as Kelsey interviews some of the girls about their experience with the recent Typhoon Maysak.  Later, after a community meeting in the men’s house about the status of the reefs, we projected a movie (a favorite of the Federai Chief’s) – a documentary about sharks and the crisis of shark finning.  The folks here are mostly indifferent to the sharks on their reef, they definitely don’t adore them, but everyone gets a kick over the footage of white people diving with and petting big spindly-toothed tiger sharks. 

Tomorrow is fathers’ day, which is a big deal here.  We met women today who were preparing food for the men’s banquet.  It will also be a Sunday.  So on this night, we go to sit in on the singing practice at the church with the Federai girls we met earlier.  It’s been a long day, and so we finally lay our sleeping pads down around the cement patio that goes around the infirmary.  The night is hot and humid, but there is a slight breeze.  Soon rain falls, fat and heavy and it deepens in pools and dips around the patio.  Dogs scrap loudly.  Some of the dogs on Federai have names and an affinity for people.  Then cocks crow and the first threads of sunrise stretch up.  

     

We’re up at dawn of today, wet and a little sore, but lots of coffee brings the life back.  The science team leaves to sample and the rest of us go to church.  The singing is lovely, and we all sit on the floor of the large structure as the day grows hotter and hotter.  Before the service began, I met an older woman named Maggie on the beach.   I was playing with one of the island puppies, and she laughed from behind me when I fell backwards in a game of tug-o-war.  After the fathers’ day service, we walk to her house and she tells me about the typhoon, the fishing practices, her life.  She likes animals and has a dog and a cat that stay near to her.  She told me about saving the family pig during the typhoon, a hulking animal that must be coaxed anywhere you want it to go.  “They can understand our voices, sometimes.”  I like Maggie very much.  Maggie likes Steven Segal movies.  Later she tells these stories for Kelsey’s camera in the women’s house, and we all massage each other’s stiff shoulders and feet. 

The science team returns and process samples, fish and coral.  Giacomo has more tiny gemstone clownfish in a water bottle.  When processing is done, we say some long goodbyes and boat back to Falalop.