Letter 22 / 4 / 84
I'm sitting up in bed writing - Peter is out working again tonight and I always try to wait up for him but no matter what I do I can't seem to last longer than about 9pm.
The "Nowa" book in Meriam Mir is finished, it seems, and he is trying to get it done in Torres Strait Creole too. So he's been working most mornings and nights - in the afternoon he (and James) go and try to catch us some protein off the beach.
Dry dock
The boat is in dry dock - Peter's got the motor on a special stand he built for it (he's getting quite handy at carpentry) and he's just serviced it - book in one hand, grease gun in the other. It took a bit of moving - it weighs 45kg - so he's not keen on moving it again ... but he's not sure if he can last another week without going out in the boat.
The dry season - or SE monsoon - is definitely with us. Not good boating weather. After last week when we nearly came a cropper on the reef, I'm not keen on going out again for a while.
Alison's little limp
School holidays (including Easter) are finished - James was glad to get back to kindy today. He and Ali play so well these days that she does really miss him when he goes to kindy - but she does get a good nap when he is out.
She stepped on a bitie ant or something today. Didn't cry, just grizzled and acted like she had ants in her nappy. It took me quite a while to find the source of her annoyance ... then all of a sudden she came out in hives. Her little foot swelled up tight - it was rock hard! (These ants also make me swell up when they bite me, though it hardly hurts at the time, just itches.)
Anti-histimine and a bicarb paste dealt with the hives but then she was miserable because she wanted to run around and couldn't without her foot hurting. She eventually developed an effective little limp and was much happier.
Mail planes
I don't know whether last week's letter went. Four planes - or the same one four times - came and went, and they completely forgot to bring any mail.
The wretched "Islander" (10-seater) plane has broken down - again - so they were running around in a 5-seater.
As well as the usual passenger quota, it was a doctor's clinic day, and they always bring extras like the bug-catchers from the DPI or whatever, and the S family of 4 plus their 4 visitors were meant to go (at short notice) to TI for a seminar ... it was a busy chaotic day on the airstrip!
Sleepies ...
I can feel 9pm creeping up on me. Bed is not a good place for letter writing when you have an achy back either. Haven't got much packing or anything done yet - I can't seem to get ahead of today's needs, know what I mean?
Once small corner of the kitchen has been sorted through and cleaned. And I've oiled my dear old sewing machine and popped it down into its special hidey hole - I suppose it likes being upside-down. I really do enjoy using it, its somehow more fun than electric.
Going down your leg
Only seven more days to go now - James can hold up his fingers to show how many. He talks about when we go to
Sometimes he pokes me and says, "Lookout, the baby's going down your leg now!"
He's very proud of being able to take his own shirt (and pants) off - though buttons are still a problem - and he can put his own pants on!
"Look, this big bottom here!" he says, implying that he has the big bit at the back, though he is often wrong.
"I a big boy now!" he says in his funny Islander accent.
We have little patches of defiance, but he's much more settled these days.
Alison is open and friendly with islanders - especially the men (she's a bit of a "Daddy's girl" these days), but has been very obviously ill-at-ease with any whites we've had recent contact with. I guess its to do with voice tones, and general movements rather than actual skin colour. Peter tends to move and talk more like an islander these days - they have a slow, gentle way about them.
The first duck egg!
On Sunday morning I found an EGG - ducky egg, sort of greeny-brown in colour. We saved it till Monday, but there wasn't another so we ate it - shared 4 ways! Then we found another one after breakfast! Then today there was number three, so there were 2 eggs for breakie - really tasty too.
Creole Translation
The "Nowa" translation in Creole caused some excitement among school kids - they found they could read it straight off. So I guess we'll get some of those printed off too ...
Butterfly man
A naturalist guy, doing some vague study of flora and fauna here, is making a real nuisance of himself - availing himself of our hospitality. Hanging around at tea-time ... then after dark he says he has no torch and asks if he can sleep in our translation house. The fact that he is so unspecific about what he is doing (the fact that he carries a huge butterfly net proves nothing as far as I am concerned) and like talking endlessly about controversial issues makes us a bit nervous ... We hope he's just a social misfit and not up to something more sinister. He is supposed to be camping up on the airstrip or somewhere.
