“Feelip,
Feelip! Bas cam!”
A
never-fail recipe for wholesale disorientation is to be awoken in the
middle of the night by someone shouting incomprehensibly at you.
“Feelip,
Feelip! Kwik! Da bas cam!!”
Arms,
legs, blankets, backpacks, flashlights, bamboo mats, everything was
in chaotic motion as Lorraine and I jumped up, thrashing about,
trying to make some sense of the shouting.
It was
Tapu.
Tapu was
outside our hut and was hollering at us. I checked my watch. It was
2:30 in the morning. Neurons began to align. Tapu was trying to tell
us that “the bus come”. The already objectionably early 5:00 a.m.
bus to Apia was absurdly ahead of schedule.
We were on
the remote and thinly populated south coast of Upolu, Western Samoa’s
main island. Apia, the capital, was on the far side of the island. We
had been staying with Tapu and his family for the last week and it
was time to go to the airport. It was time to leave what had been a
surreal cliché of South Seas living. Tall palms, empty beaches,
sparkling water, thatched huts, happy people, seclusion,
disconnection, peace... well, mostly peace.
Tapu had
become frantic. “FEELIP!!! Da bas go! Da bas go!!!”
Sure
enough, as we fell out of our hut, unzipped packs half slung over our
shoulders, the thrashed yellow school bus began to inch forward.
“I need
the bathroom!” Lorraine shouted, while running.
“No
time!” I shouted back. This would prove to be a mistake.
We didn't
want to leave. Of course we didn't want to leave. In part this was
for the usual reasons people don't want to leave a beautiful place,
but in part it was for other reasons. We were trying to come to terms
with the fact that this could be the final leg of our eight month
around the world vagabondage. The previous summer we had quit our
jobs back in Winnipeg, put our possessions into precariously stacked
boxes in Lorraine's parents basement, said goodbye to family and
friends in an open-ended sort of way and then left without any actual
plan for the eventual abstract “after”.
Tanya and Byron, the tall guitar playing American couple who were
also staying with Tapu were headed to Micronesia next and we
wondered, could we stretch our funds just a little further?
We leapt
onto the bus just as some advanced gear was engaged and it lurched
forward from its slow roll into shuddering, swaying, flatulent
propulsion. The driver flashed us a gappy grin and twisted the volume
knob on the cassette deck bolted onto the ceiling. Bob Marley began
to overpower the engine. We slid onto a small varnished wooden bench
and stared in frank astonishment as Christmas lights festooned all
around the inside of the front windshield, as well as an oversized
Jesus nightlight on the dashboard, began to pulsate in perfect
syncopation with “Buffalo Soldier”.
Not a
single light was on anywhere outside and it was moonless and
overcast, so the black surrounding our festively lit bus was
otherworldly and dimensionless, creating the strong illusion of
voyaging through outer space until suddenly the bus would slow and
faces would materialize out of that void. These faces invariably
belonged to colossal women in floral muumuus. Fat is beautiful to the
Samoans, so if the vastness of the new passengers was anything to go
by, the south coast was awash in hot women. The villages themselves
were un-seeable in the black, but women kept appearing and kept
climbing onto the bus, all of them full of remarkable good cheer
given the hour. Through some trick of spatial geometry they managed
to squeeze two abreast onto each little bench until all the benches
were full.
The
villages on the south shore had no shops, so the trip to Apia was
primarily a shopping trip for most of them. Perhaps to pick up a few
luxuries. Perhaps to stock up on Spam. Spam and corned beef had been
introduced by the missionaries and were considered delicacies. In
fact, as honoured guests we were served generously sized Spam chunks
floating in ramen noodle soup (another store bought indulgence),
while the family ate papayas and fresh greens and banana leaf steamed
fish. Every garden was a rainbow riot of vegetables and chickens and
fruit and cocoa trees that Sina, Tapu's wife, harvested, roasted,
ground and made into hot cocoa for us every day. The sea was so thick
with fish that they didn't bother with boats. A small group of men
just waded out with sticks and beat the water, herding the fish into
a net.
With some
difficulty we persuaded them that we would prefer the local food too.
Dinners became long delicious affairs in Tapu's open sided hut as we
sat on the floor and ate the freshest most natural food imaginable
while Byron strummed and Tanya sang softly. Eventually Tapu's family
would start rolling over wherever they were sitting and fall asleep right there, starting with the grandmother and ending
with Tapu himself. And then finally only the four
foreigners were left awake, so we would quietly get up and wander
back to our own huts in the starshine of a soft South Pacific night.
Eventually the bus entered another cluster of villages as again the faces appeared
and again the aisle was filled with muumuus, smiles and a great deal
of flesh. This was going to be interesting, I thought, as every bench
was already occupied to an extent never dreamt of by the Blue Bird
school bus manufacturers.
And it was
interesting.
Friendly
smiles were exchanged between sitters and would-be sitters and then
the would-be sitters delicately clambered onto the sitters’ laps
until there were four enormous women per bench. You may want to read
that over again. Four. Per. Bench. Two above. Two below.
Finally
Lorraine and I had the only remaining double occupancy bench. And
then I was smiled at. I stared at the smiler. She smiled some more
and began to swing her prodigious hind quarters around towards me.
Zapped into action, I grabbed Lorraine, plunked her on my lap and
slid to the window. Two women gracefully inserted themselves beside
us. One above. One below.
Marley
played on. Jesus pulsated. The bus lurched and farted deeper into the
Samoan night.
You will
recall that Lorraine needed the bathroom earlier. She still did. Even
more so. Her brow was glossy with sweat and her mouth was set like a
vice. With every lurch and bump she winced softly. This went on for
almost two hours. How she didn’t succumb to a rupture, I honestly
do not know. I suppose some of us just have inner sphincter strengths
that we are unaware of until they are truly tested.
We finally
sputtered into Apia’s main market at 5:30. I had assumed that the
early start had been to allow everyone to get to the market for
opening. But it didn’t open until 7:00. It was empty, save a
handful of skeletal dogs scavenging through yesterday’s market’s
remains.
It is so
strange when I think back on this now, but when I calculate the time
change, at
that very moment back home my father was undergoing emergency brain surgery for a
tumour that had suddenly declared itself with a storm of seizures.
We had been a week without any communication with the outside world.
There had been no way for anyone to reach us, although they were
beside themselves with efforts to try. There in Apia, in the cool
pre-dawn, looking out at the deserted market and trying to see the
funny side of the bus situation, I had no idea that my life was being
profoundly rearranged on the far side of the Pacific.
It was
time to go home. The lack of a plan for after was no longer a problem, but a blessing.
What's with the tie dude? Long story why I actually packed a tie, but I'm wearing it in this photo because it is Sunday and Samoans are very observant. Everyone goes to church on Sunday. Everyone. Even heathens like me. The whole congregation sang like a massed choir with such clarity, beauty, passion and harmony, I can hear it in my mind still today.