Sharing Breastmilk & Creating Family

Wet nursing is now uncommon in the West, but can be found many in other cultures. Many Cocos Malay women have breastfeed someone else's biological child, making that child into part of their family. This creation of family through shared milk seems to contrast with Western ideas that family comes from sharing the same 'blood'. But appearances are deceiving.

Breastfeeding motherhood

Breastfeeding motherhood is almost intertwined with adoption for Cocos Malays. However, for the purposes of analysis, I'll keep them separate here. Here are some biographical notes Monika and  I collected from people who have a 'breast-feeding mother':

• Mak Dem told me she found out, as a child, that she had a 'breast-feeding mother'. After giving birth, her biological mother had health problems and was taken to West Island for medical care. So another woman had breast-feed Mak Dem. After Mak Dem found out about this, she began addressing her breastfeeding mother simply as 'mum' (Mak); similarly she calls her breast-feeding mother's husband 'dad' (Pak). She does not use the she would normally use for an adult--other people would address the couple as Nek Zal. Put another way, this husband and wife are related to Mak Dem because of the breast milk the wife shared.

• Mak Mae is a mother whose baby, Mae, has two breastfeeding mothers. Mak Mae is a Cocos Malay woman who has moved to Home Island from the Cocos Malay community in Katanning. Before she moved, she gave birth to her daughter Maesha. When Mak Mae started working in Katanning, another Cocos Malay woman offered to breast feed Maesha. Although the two women had gone to high-school together in Katanning they hadn't been so close. Mak Mae said she initially she was taken aback by the request, but she agreed. As a result, the two mothers (biological and breast) became very close. Maesha also considers the breast-feeding mother with deep affection, Mak Mae told me. So the breastfeeding brought these 3 people (birth mother, breast-feeding mother, and child) into a close bond. 

• Mrs Nek Sofia told me that her breast-feeding mother already had a biological son. Nevertheless, she wanted a daughter. So she asked Mrs Nek Sofia's biological mother if it would be alright to breastfeed Mrs Nek Sofia. Mrs Nek Sofia's mother acquiesced. Mrs Nek Sofia's husband said that Mrs Nek Sofia was, in effect 'adopted' by the breast-feeding mother. Mrs Nek Sofia agreed with this when I asked her. I'll discuss adoption more in a subsequent blog.

• Aini / Mak Sofia. Nek Sofia told us that her next-door neighbour, and sister-in-law, Nek Kelem asked if she could breastfeed Aini. Nek Sofia agreed. Nek Sofia said it was always impromptu, based on when Nek Kelem wanted to breastfeed the Aini (presumably when her breasts were full). Aini's grandparents, Nek Sofia's biological parents, also looked after her. So Nek Kelem just came in to breastfeed, more than to look after Aini for extended periods. Aini would also sleep at Nek Kelem's house.

Milk siblings:
Mr Nek Sumila & Nek Ramdan 

• Nek Ramdan said that she has a milk brother. Her mum breastfed Nek Sumila. Nek Sumila is also her mother's anak angkat; because he was dibuang by the Mokta family. He lived with Nek Ramdan's family and, importantly, got married at their house (i.e. the groom's part of the wedding celebrations were held at his house). 

• Nek Arena, an imam (Islamic preacher/scholar) told me he is a 'breast-feeding or breast-milk father' (bapak susu). His wife had breastfed Ayesha the biological child of Haji Hajat; Ayesha calls Nek Arena "bapak" or father. "It's a very strong bond," he added, between the breastfed child and Nek Arena, his wife, their children and grandchildren.
• 
  

Local understandings

These actual stories contrast with the theories people have about breastfeeding.

• Nek Arena also had an interesting take on breast-feeding mothers. He explained that the bond with a breast-feeding mother is stronger than just with an adopted child [but I think it depends on the scale of adoption]. If you only feed off a breast once or twice, then you're not a breastfed child. More than that three times, then you can be accepted as breastfed child. 
• Nek Rezeki (Bujang/Bohari's mum and Kylie's mother in law) said that tak boleh breastfeed someone else's child, according to hukum agama. Also she said that because we now have 'susu kaleng' it's not necessary to breastfeed another's child "dulu tak ada susu kaleng". Nek Rezeki has seven kids which explains why . "Kita tak tahu dulu".

I'm not sure if these opinions are widespread, but I never heard anyone else mention them. 

Cultural and social context

Stories like this are common in the Indonesian-Malay world, where you frequently meet people who have family through breastfeeding. In other words, breastfeeding can be seen as creating family; in the same way that Westerners are familiar with the idea of marriage and giving birth as creating family. Cocos Malays we spoke with emphasised the bond and the connection with he breastfeeding parents and milk siblings. How can we compare this to prevailing Western attitudes?

Finding children delightful

Delight in raising children

First, Cocos Malays view raising children differently. Raising children is idealised as a delight. Children are thought to be a blessing; parenthood (and, perhaps, grandparenthood) is possibly the greatest achieved status. Not having children is 'bored at home' (boring di rumah) in the words of Nek Shah. (This reminds of my fieldwork location in Java, where not being a parent leaves a person lonely (kesepian); being childless is something to be pitied (kasihan).) The attitude is slightly different to the Western approach; it tends to be indulgent of children. Perhaps it would be too imprecise and generalised to say that in the West raising children is viewed as a bit of a chore for which the child should be grateful; among the Cocos Malays raising children is a godsend for which the parent should be grateful. This might help explain why some lactating women seek to breastfeed other children.

Responsibility for raising children

Another reason is a sense of collective responsibility for children. As Cocos Malays see it, children aren't just their biological parents' responsibility. This is exemplified in the way the mothers and sometimes the father who attend the local playgroup and better beginnings program at the school would collectively look after the young children and babies, passing them around and taking care of them. Maybe the reason for this collective parenting is because they are all related. Yet, I think it is more than just that. In the Indonesian village where I undertook fieldwork the collective parenting much more pronounced and not confined to relatives. As another example, one local gentleman seemed to have a very low opinion of me. I was still unable to engage him in so much as a nod when we were in other's presence. One day I was inside and didn't notice my child quietly crying outside. The man took time, and not in a condescending or aggravated manner, to let me know. It was, as far as I could tell, merely out of concern for my child; and I am grateful to him for that. It did not mark the beginning of friendly relations between us; nothing really changed. Whatever he thought of me, he still looked out for my child in a caring fashion. This sense of collective responsibility may also contribute to understanding the sharing of breastmilk.

Breastmilk means something different

Another important factor pertains to the meaning of breast milk. Human breast milk obtains different significance in different cultures. For the Cocos Malays, sharing it with another person's biological child remains deeply meaningful. Nek Arena told me of a special prayer for the mother who provides breast milk; it is a "doa memulangkan air susu" . In that prayer, to paraphrase him, what we sucked from our mother we want to return to her. This prayer is also used for the breast-feeding mother. But it signifies the relationship continues on to the hereafter (akherat). Nek Sofia said susu is like blood; it makes you family. Shana said that the susu is more important than blood; it nourishes you, gives you life. English speakers use the expression 'blood is thicker than water' to emphasise the closeness of kin; we could say for the Cocos Malays that 'milk is thicker than water'.

Still taken from Mead's video, showing a mother breastfeeding another child, while her own child remonstrates

Bateson and Mead misunderstood Balinese breastfeeding. 

Controversial anthropologists, Gregory Bateson and Margaret Mead made a video showing Balinese mothers teasing their procreated children by breast feeding the children of other mothers. Implicitly drawing on Freud, Bateson & Mead interpret the Balinese mothers as intensifying the attachment with their biological child and encouraging sibling rivalry. 

I think other things are going there. I think Balinese adults punish inappropriate behaviour in children by teasing and laughing at them. The mothers are simply teaching children Balinese values, such as 'you need to control your temper'; 'you cannot be possessive or jealous of your mother'. They are also showing kindness and neighbourliness by breastfeeding someone else's biological baby. I think Bateson and Mead couldn't see all this because they assumed that the mother would 'naturally' feed the child she procreated.

Westerners tend to assume a natural breastfeeding connection between procreative mother and child.  Breastfeeding is thought to be a deeply personal, unique, and at the same time natural, bond between procreative mother and child.Bateson & Mead assume that the procreative mother will breastfeed child--an assumption built in to Freud's theories The idea that the biological mother should be the breastfeeder. Even the pro-breastfeeding, quasi-feminist pamphlets seem to rely on this value, which Marxists like Habermas would understand as a bourgeois family value. However, to understand the breastfeeding mothers in Cocos Malay perspective, maybe it is more useful to think that any lactating woman could be the breastfeeder.

Westerners idealise breastfeeding as a natural connection between mother and her biological daughter.

Translating "Mak Susu" & "Mak Tetek"

Cocos Malays have two terms for what we have translated as breastfeeding mother--mak susu and mak tetek. I have been cautioned to use, when speaking Cocos Malay the polite term "mak susu". "Mak" means mother or mum. As in English, it is a form of address (e.g. "Mum, can I have a present?") and reference (e.g. "Where does your mum live"?). "Susu" presents more of a problem, meaning "breast"; "milk"; and "breast milk".  However, the common, and coarse,  term for breastfeeding mother is "mak tetek" . "Tetek" can mean "boob", "tit", and "nipple". In Indonesian, influenced presumably by Javanese, "netek" means to suckle, but we have not heard this verb used on Home Island. One woman explained to me in mixed Malay-English, a Mak Susu is "when you isap another person's tetek".

Translating 'mak susu'

People in English-speaking cultures are familiar with the idea of a 'wet nurse'. A wet nurse is a woman who, for a variety of reasons, was employed to breastfeed another person's child. A number of Cocos Malays we met were breastfed by a woman (or two!) aside from their own biological mother. In Cocos Malay, these people are referred to as "mak susu" (a politer term) or "mak tetek" (coarser). To translate, instead of 'wet nurse', I'll use the word "breastfeeding mother" (although  "milk mother" might have been more accurate). The term for husband of the breastfeeding mother is, "pak susu", which I'll translate as "breastfeeding father" (similarly "milk father" might have been better here) . The biological children of these people I will call, following the anthropological tradition, milk siblings (they are 'milk brothers' and 'milk sisters').

• "diambe" is a word that often comes up
• Nek Ramdan is a Mak Tetek to Pak Izahan. Pak Izahan is a twin. 

Prophet's Birthday: Procession

Like other Muslim communities the world over, the people of Home Island celebrate the birth of the Prophet Mohammad with celebrations and reverence. They also add their own Cocos Malay twist.

Men chanting

Birth of the Prophet

Muslims celebrate the birth of the Prophet Mohammad on a day called Maulud Nabi. Maulud Nabi occurs once every lunar year. In this blog, I describe the first part of the Maulud Nabi celebrations on Home Island.

Procession / Ngarak

The first part of the ritual was a procession (ngarak). Home Islanders began gathering for the festivities at the mosque from 7am. Then with a few announcements Mr Nek Shah got the the procession going.

An imam makes a few announcements before we set off. Behind him,
the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Australian flags

At the front were the imam and wakil imam. Behind them were boys from the religious school (they study the Koran and Hadith after school everyday) carrying banners.

Imams at the front with wakil imam, and boys carrying banner behind them.

Further back marched the tambourine men (orang rebana) who chanted. The chanting was loud, joyful and welcoming. Unlike a Christmas pageant, there were few spectators. The emphasis was on joining in, rather than just watching the procession.

At the rear was the rest of the procession--Home Islanders and a few mainland Australians who had made the trip over from West Island to join in.

Women and children, further back in the procession.

The procession did a lap around the kampong (village). The pace was cracking initially, so the whole procession took about 25 minutes to complete, returning back to the mosque.

Procession comes to an end.

After that, the next part of the ritual involved readings and eating. I'll discuss that in my next blog.

Anthropological Analysis

Ethnomusicology

Ethnomusicologists study music and dance in a larger cultural context. As I understand it, ethnomusicology is the anthropology of music and dance performance. Ethnomusicologists are not just interested in 'big ticket' ritual or ceremonial performances like the procession I've described in this blog. They also focus on things like mothers singing lullabies, humming around the house.

Procession

From ethnomusicologists we get a sense of the procession as a distinct form of ritual and that performance can be found in many cultures.  often accompany rites-of-passage. In Western marriage rituals, the bride walks down the aisle with musical background. In the famous New Orleans funerals of the past, the musicians accompany the performers. The term seems to be "processional performance".

Ethnomusicology of Cocos Malay culture

Other ethnomusicologists, Dr David Irving and Dr Jenny McCallum, are undertaking a research project on the history and practice of Malay music traditions among the Cocos Malays. This is not just on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands--they researched Maulud Nabi this year among the Cocos Malays of Katanning. Their research will form an important contribution to our understanding Cocos Malay culture.

Ethnomusicology in other contexts

You might also want to read at the work of Monika Winarnita, who is the other half of this research project on Cocos Malay culture. Her book specifically focuses on Indonesian migrant women's dance performances in Perth, Western Australia:  http://www.sussex-academic.com/sa/titles/SS_Asian/Winarnita.htm. Drawing on ethnomusicology, Monika shows how these women would like to perform their Indonesian cultural identity as migrants in Australia. Although mostly amateur housewives, they see themselves as cultural ambassadors, teaching Australians about Indonesian culture. They perform created dances which show their mixed identity--and as part of her participant-observation, Monika joined in. The dances are mostly performed at multicultural festivals. In doing this, they are trying to belong and 'reinvent' themselves as part of the Indonesian community in Australia.

Different kinds of parents

In my culture, you can expand your family by marrying or sexually reproducing. Cocos Malays also use other ways.

Different forms of parenting

Aside from 'biological' parents, Cocos Malays recognise three other common 'relatives' who look after children: breastfeeding parents (that is a wet nurse and her husband); adopted parents; and grandparents. Nenek's personal experiences of child-rearing incorporate all three. As she related to Monika, she has six biological children (3 shared with other mothers) and one 'milk son':

• The milk son. Nenek said she had breastfed (i.e. wet nursed) another woman's biological son. The boy's mother requested because she did not produce enough milk, her "body was infertile" (tubuh tidak subur). The boy's grandparent and Nenek 's father are siblings. Nenek explained that the boy "is my son and I'm his mak susu" (wet nurse, milk mother). This sense of "son" and "mother" has a literal dimension. The boy could not marry any of Nenek's biological daughters because the daughters were, effectively, the boy's siblings. Anthropologists would say that the daughters are the boy's 'milk siblings'.
• The adopted daughter. A local Cocos couple who had one son and no daughter asked if they could adopt one of Nenek's daughters. Nenek consented. This daughter would spend most of her time at her adopted parent's house but would go home to her biological parents house to sleep at night. The adopted parents had hoped by having Nenek's daughter as an adopted child they would be blessed with another child. 8 years later they had their own biological daughter.  The adopted parents still play a role in Nenek's daughter's life as an adult and they remain close. 
• Another adopted daughter. Nenek has another daughter. She was adopted by Nenek's niece. The niece had been married for a long time but didn't have a child, so the niece adopted Nenek's daughter.  Now this daughter has two sons and a daughter; Nenek's niece is considered their grandmother and take oldest son's name (see my blog on teknonyms). When we arrived in 2016, the two mothers (biological and adopting) were waving goodbye to their daughter and grand-daughter who were heading to the mainland for a short trip. 
• Adoption brings the two grandmothers together. The niece is working full-time. So the grandmothers divide up the labour of looking after the grandkids. The niece looks after the older two boys. Nenek looks after the granddaughter. Nenek explained that this granddaughter is important to her because she looked after this granddaughter since she was very young. On Tuesday when Moni was supposed to meet Nenek, Nenek cancelled because she had to help her granddaughter with her introduction day to kindergarten.
• The breastfeeding mother. When she had her youngest daughter, Nenek had the opportunity to go on the Haj (pilgrimage to Mecca). She left her daughter with her family in Cocos. While Nenek was on the Haj, her grandmother gave her daughter to another woman to be breastfed for six months (as the grandmother thought the child was still quite young). It hadn't been organised before she left; Nenek only found out when she got back.
• To summarise, Nenek has 6 biological children. 3 of them are 'shared': a daughter, who was adopted by another local couple; a daughter who was adopted by her niece; and a daughter who was breastfed by another woman while she was on the Haj. Nenek also breastfed another boy; becoming his 'milk mother'.
• As she explained it; she didn't plan it this way; it was up to Allah; it's not really up to us humans. 
• In most societies families are made through marrying people and having children. Many societies have yet other ways of making family. For the Cocos Malays, the kinds of parenting--adoption, milk parenting (wet nursing), adoption and milk grandparenting--are all common ways of caring for children and making family bonds.

In subsequent blogs, I will analyse these different kinds of parenthood in more detail.

Grandmas with their grandchildren. This is an end-of-year party for government school program. Called "Better Beginning" it is designed to prepare pre-school children for school

Anthropological Analysis

Kinship

The first thing to say is that this blog is concerned with what anthropologists call kinship. If in English we say that "my cousin Jan is related to me through my father's side"; what we mean by "related" is the object of kinship studies. Or if you say, "family is everything"; what you mean by "family" is what we study in kinship. Kinship is, in basic terms, the anthropological study of what counts as 'family' or who counts as a 'relative' different cultures. As this definition implies; every culture has a slightly different understanding of who relatives are and what family consists in. I have already discussed an aspect of kinship in another blog. In that blog, I described some of the words--teknonyms--that Cocos Malays use to explain situate a person in terms of his or her family. As this indicates, the kinship of a society can have a variety of facets. Analysing these requires putting yourself in 'their' shoes.

Putting yourself in their shoes isn't easy...

Anthropologists try to 'put themselves in other people's shoes'. We try to understand the world from another culture's point of view; we try to see the world from the perspective of people who are different from us. Doing this is daunting; even for experienced anthropologists. This is especially the case when we try to understand customs which, when viewed from within our own culture's standards, seem strange or even offensive. For example, an Indonesian anthropologist might struggle to understand the culture of 'parties'  (replete with drinking alcohol, fornication, and violence) in Australia; or putting old people in homes. Conversely an Australian anthropologist might struggle to understand 'adoption' practices in Indonesia. Both anthropologists have to get beyond their own 'natural' assumptions if they want to understand what is going on.

...so we use strategies.

If you are new to studying anthropology, it sometimes seems like your lecturers and professors took up the anthropological perspective easily. It may seem they were born thinking and the way they do. But what anthropology teaches us runs against the grain even for lecturers and professor; things we assumed to be natural turn out to be, to a large degree cultural. This notion can be intellectually and emotionally challenging. So to help deal with the challenge, anthropologists (Australian, Indonesian, or from wherever) tend to employ several strategies, in particular; reflexivity, methodological relativism, and holism.

Dusk on Home Island

Reflexivity

So here's how I would approach Cocos Malay kinship using reflexivity: I grew up in a culture where the bond between biological mother and child is thought of as natural. For instance, when I raised the topic of Cocos Malay adoption with an Anglo Australian mother, she said "if someone wanted my baby, I would be like, 'just try to get him off me'". This implies that she would do everything in her power to stop her biological baby being separated from her. Given my cultural background, this really resonated with me, so I think the attitude is common enough. Even though we talk about new families, and extended families, unconventional families etc. these seem to measured against a very clear norm. When we are not thinking like anthropologists, we assume it is 'natural' for animals, especially mothers, to protect their offspring. So adoption has many negative connotations for Westerners; the common idea is that biological family is solid, indissoluble unit--a shelter from the storm of modern society. The widespread practice of adoption and milk parents slightly breaches this Western ideal. But then, we do give our children to day care 9-5; then send them to to school. We entrust our children to teachers; sometimes to nannies and au paires. We formalise and depersonalise this through contracts and pay. The Cocos Malay have informal relationships based on lifelong care and connection, on a sense of personal obligation, gift-giving, and responsibility. When I think about it using the principle reflexivity, the kinship practices I'm describing in this an subsequent blogs, start to make more sense. Anyway, this is only one step. Principles like methodological relativism and holism will also be useful to putting oneself in the another's shoes. And though the goal of empathetic understanding remains most likely unattainable, we anthropologists hope that applying these principles will provide a solid basis from which the real business of anthropology--the analysis of cultural and social aspects of human life--can proceed.

Anyway, more about Cocos Malay kinship and anthropology in subsequent blogs.

What kind of language is Cocos Malay?

Cocos Malay is the mother tongue for the people of Home Island. It's older than modern Malaysian and Indonesian but shares the same roots as these languages. Here is a sentence you might hear on Home Island:

"Habis lonceng, dorang pigi belakang pulu" (Cocos Malay)

There are many ways the Cocos Malay sentence translate this into English, I'll just stick with:

 "After the lunch bell, they're going to the ocean side of the island" (English)

The first thing to note is that the Cocos Malay sentence is clearly a Malay language. Let's compare it with another Malay language, Indonesian. Again the Cocos Malay is:

"Habis lonceng, dorang pigi blakang pulu" (Cocos Malay)

Rendered in Indonesian this might be:

"Habis lonceng, orang-orang pergi ke belakang pulau" (Indonesian)

I've used colors to highlight the similarities in the words. For the benefit of Indonesian speakers, I should note that the Cocos Malay has some idiomatic and unique meanings. "Belakang pulu" refers to the ocean side of any island in the Cocos atoll. "Dorang" (or sometimes "dong") is a plural form of person. And "lonceng" has a unique sense of the "lunch bell" in this context. Without knowing Indonesian however, you can see the resemblance between the two languages

Where is Cocos Malay spoken?

Cocos Malay almost certainly emerged on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. But as Cocos Malays have emigrated, so has the Cocos Malay tongue. As far as I know, the Malay of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands is also spoken in the Cocos Malay diaspora, that is, in Christmas Island, Perth, Katanning, Port Hedland, Bunbury and in Tawau, Malaysia. It might be that the differences of the Malay spoken in these diverse locations outweigh the similarities. But for the meantime, it's probably safe to say it's the same language spoken in all these locations. As far as numbers; there are probably a little over 5000 speakers. They comprise about 4000 native speakers in Malaysia; 400 on Cocos (Keeling) Islands; 400 on Christmas Island, and a similar number on the Australian mainland.

What kind of language is Cocos Malay?

What language family does Cocos Malay belong to? I should first warn you, I'm a sociocultural anthropologist, not a linguist! With that caveat in mind, there are different ways of categorizing and bracketing the languages of the world. I think this is one way of doing it for Cocos Malay.

1. Austronesian

First, Cocos-Malay is an Austronesian language. We think that around four thousand years ago, one of the great migrations of human history occurred. The Austronesians began their grand journey. They probably started from Taiwan. First, they sailed to (maybe on their outriggers) and inhabited the islands of Southeast Asia. Then they head further east (to the Pacific) and a lot further west (to Madagascar). Such a widespread migration of a single people in pre-modern times is probably hard to match. I think the spread of the indigenous people through the Americas would come a close second.

This map depicts the commonly accepted picture of Austronesian migration, spreading from its earliest point (Taiwan 3000 BC) to its
most recent (New Zealand 1300 AD). It probably should include a small area of Cambodia, where Cham people speak an Austronesian language.

Anyway, the first point to make is that the language the Cocos Malays speak today is directly related to their Austronesian speaking ancestors from 4000 years ago.

2. Malayo-Polynesian

Second, among the Austronesian languages there are two major kinds:

1. Non-Malayo-Polynesian. Basically, these are the indigenous languages of Taiwan otherwise known as Formosan.
2. Malayo-Polynesian. This incorporates the languages spoken everywhere else in the Austronesian world. From Hawaii to New Zealand, the Philippines to Malaysia you can find Malayo-Polynesian languages, spoken by Austronesian populations.

So the Cocos Malay dialect could be grouped among the Malayo-Polynesian languages.

3. Western Malayo-Polynesian (WMP)

Third, among the Malayo-Polynesian languages, Cocos Malay belongs to the 'Western' branch. Malayo-Polynesian can be divided into:

1. Eastern Malayo-Polynesian. This incorporates the Pacific Ocean or Oceania; Polynesia, Micronesia, and parts of Melanesia. It is the yellow part, "Oc", on the map below
2. Western Malayo-Polynesian, the 'Malayo' part. This incorporates Madagascar, Malaysia, Indonesia. It is indicated as "WMP" on map below.
3. Central Malayo-Polynesian. These languages are spoken in Eastern Indonesia, the small area just to the north of Australia. See "CMP" on the map below.
4. South Halmahera West New Guinea. See the small area SHWNG squashed between the other three.

This map shows the Austronesian world, but divides it into 4 language areas. 

In the above map, the huge yellow area to the right incorporates Oceanic languages or EMP. The smaller WMP area is to the left. And squashed in between are SHWNG and CMP.

While Oceanic (or EMP) incorporates the largest area, but WMP incorporates by far the most speakers numbering in the millions.

(Note that in the areas with stars the indigenous peoples do not speak an Austronesian language, but rather the 1,000 or so Papuan languages.)

Several languages in the WMP have been influenced by, for example, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese languages, and subsequently colonial languages.

With only around 5000 speakers, Cocos Malay is not one of the largest WMP languages.

4. Malayic /Malay-Indonesian

Fourth, within the Western Malayo-Polynesian languages, one of the large branches is the Malayic (also known as Malay-Indonesian) languages. Cocos Malay is similar to modern Indonesian, Malaysian, and other varieties of Malay (such as spoken in Kupang and Bangka in Indonesia; Pattani in Southern Thailand). They all derive from a similar language Malayic or Malay-Indonesian language. Most probably this was spoken by the Melayu (Malay) people of Sumatra and peninsular Malaysia.

Summary

So there you have it. Cocos Malay is a Malayic language. Malayic languages belong to the Western branch of Malayo-Polynesian languages. The Malayo-Polynesian languages themselves belong Austronesian family. The next question is what distinguishes Cocos Malay from other forms of Malay, including modern Malaysian and Indonesian? I will take a more detailed look in a later blog.

Analysis

This blog has situated Cocos Malay in progressively smaller language groups from the huge (Austronesian) to the small (Malayic /Malay-Indonesian). Personally, what really interests me is the maps. These indicate that a single culture complex united such apparently diverse cultures as from Madagascar to Hawaii.

That was at least until about 1500, when societies on the Western seaboard of Europe (Portugal, Spain, and later England, Holland, and then France) started colonizing the world. As a result, the majority of people in Hawaii and New Zealand now speak English and in several Oceanic nations French is spoken. In other places, 'creoles' or 'pidgin' languages prevail. Nevertheless, Austronesian languages survive and flourish.

Was there a uniquely Austronesian culture? Initially, the Austronesian migrants probably spoke a single language, Cribb explains in his Digital Atlas of Indonesian History. For survival:

The Austronesians brought with them the technologies of pottery, outrigger canoes, and bows and arrows, as well as domestic pigs, fowl and dogs, and they cultivated rice and millet, along with other crops. Rice and millet at this stage were crops suited to temperate and sub-tropical climates, and they apparently did not become established in [in the tropical climate of] Indonesia until somewhat later; their place in the Austronesian diet was [initially] taken by taro, breadfruit, bananas, yams, sago and coconuts.

Austronesian religion probably included animism (the belief that spirits inhere in local trees, hills, streams, etc.); ritual meals to feed and reward these spirits; and maybe other things. For instance, dolmens, But it's difficult to sustain the argument of a uniquely Austronesian culture-complex, because we find these things elsewhere in the world and not always in Austronesian cultures. Still, when in 1497 Vasco de Gama set sail around the Cape of Good Hope; and, in 1521, when Magellan, coming from the other direction, rounded the Magellan Straits, there may have been a definable culture-complex linking these cultures of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

But actually, this large-scale type thinking is not part of my anthropological background. I have been more influenced by the detailed study of small places. In particular, the anthropology from Malinowski (say 1920) to Geertz (1970) tended to have microscopic focus. Anthropologists looked at big themes (e.g. kinship) in little places (e.g. a village) in relation to specific issues (e.g. gift-giving).
The context in which I learned anthropology was skeptical about considering a culture (e.g. Cocos Malay 'culture') as a cohesive and unique single entity, and even more wary of the idea of a larger cultural complex.

But anthropology hasn't always been like that. In the early days (1880-1920), anthropologists Tylor and Frazer tried to search for the original forms of all human culture (an approach which could be called 'Origins and Evolution'). Boas studied how one culture influenced another (an approach known as 'Diffusionism').  In the 1960s, Levi-Strauss, taking his structuralist approach, treated indigenous cultures of North, Central, and South as a single Amerindian culture complex. 

If you want to look at more recent examples large, big-picture anthropology you could look at Europe and the People without History, in which Eric Wolf uses a Marxist approach to talk about swathes of the world in a single breath--and it works! Scott, also using a Marxist approach, takes a grand view of a huge area of Asia in The Art of not being Governed. Tim Ingold and Marshall Sahlins are two other original and exciting thinkers who take a step back and try to apprehend the larger scene.

A place away: Cottages in the jungle

Nek Sofia and his pondok

Notions of place and time play a large, if largely unacknowledged, role in culture. In this blog, I consider notions surrounding the beach shacks of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Pondok viewed from lagoon.

When we stop and squint up at the clouds, peer at an insect, or reflect on a grain of sand we might wonder. Are we really dust hurtling through an expanding universe after a Big Bang? Are we caught in an endless cycle of rebirth and destruction? But for the most part, dividing up the days and the world into categories is not something we typically spend much time worrying over or reflecting on. Just as surely as the world was propped on a turtle or Atlas, we take our notions of time and place for granted.

Children's' drawing of a pondok. Taken from the book Cocos Kids What do You See?

For Cocos Malays some aspects of the world are divided into pairs. The mainland (a.k.a. “Australia”, “tanah besar”) and Cocos Islands (Pulu Kokos) is one pair. Then there is dalam (lit. “inside” referring to the lagoon) and luar (lit. “outside” referring to surrounding sea). Home Island is predominantly Cocos Malay, while West Island (Pulu Panjang) is predominantly white people (dorang putih). Another important distinction is rumah (house) and pondok (beach shack).

The school teachers at Nek Sofia pondok.
Here's what they caught.

Nek Sofia has contributed a lot to the Home Island community over the years. He was a teacher, then in charge of the Post Office here, and also a Shire President. His wife, Nek Sofia, teaches Year Ones at the Home Island school campus (“Naming and Binding” for what “Pak” and “Nek” mean). He is also the father-in-law of Pak Sofia (see “A Young Muslim Leader” for more on Pak Sofia). He and his wife have been most generous and welcoming. They invited all the school teachers to their pondok a couple of weeks ago.

Joey and Nek Sofia arriving at the pondok.

On Wednesday (12/03/14), he kindly invited me to visit his pondok. Pondok / beach shacks are located on the islands south of Home Island. You access them with your boat, but if the tide is low enough, you can walk to them. The shacks are built near the shore of these islands. Older local people recall visiting pondok on the weekend. This is also confirmed in some written historical accounts. Currently, it seems that Sunday is the preferred day to spend at the pondok. However, some are falling into disrepair, indicating that the custom may be in decline. Nek Sofia visits twice/week to keep his chickens fed.

Nek Sofia feeding scraps to the chickens .

Poo, Pens, and Plots

When we arrived, we were greeted by some pretty happy chickens. Nek Sofia raises them so they can be eaten at the end of fasting month Hari Raya (the Glorious Day). Raising of chickens at the pondok seems to be something of a tradition. It might be related to concerns about chicken poo polluting the ground water if you raise chickens around the catchment area on Home Island. This is reflected in a message in The Atoll (Thurs 6th Mar-Wed 19th Mar, 2014), the community newsletter. I asked about eggs. Nek Sofia explained that they are hard to find seeing as the chickens are free to roam around the jungle.

After the scraps were finished, Nek Sofia chopped some coconuts open.

The chickens pecked away at the meat.

Cooking place

Inside the pondok. They take great care of their pondok.

Nek Sofia used his net to catch some little mullets.
You can use these for bait, but his wife loves to fry and eat them.

 What does “pondok” mean in Malay? From my Indonesian experiences, I’m used to “pondok” meaning something like “cottage”. In the phrase “pondok pesantren”  (lit. ‘cottage of Islamic pupils’) it refers to an Islamic boarding school. While many boarding schools are indeed urban, in a Javanese context, the word “pondok” in this phrase has (like the English “cottage”) connotations of a rural secluded place. Monika also thinks of pondok pancing, a place where you go fishing. In the various usages we considered, what seems to be common is the sense that a pondok is “a place away”.

Joey stood guard over the bounty.

This connotation also seem to apply among Cocos Malays on Home Island. For Australians on the mainland, “a place away” might be something like a Bali holiday or indeed, a holiday on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands. But if you live on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, it seems the place away is the pondok. However, there may also be a culturally specific significance to pondok.

I got the feeling Nek Sofia didn't want to leave. 

The distinction between house and pondok might be related to Southeast Asian notions of centre and periphery. When the sea trade between China and India began to flourish, about two thousand years ago, traders brought Indian ideas about power to many ports in Southeast Asia. At least since that time, the idea has been that power is concentrated in the centre and dispersed at the periphery. (This contrasts the ‘modern/rational’ idea that, for example, Australia’s jurisdiction runs, undiminished to its territorial borders.) However, the periphery was also a place where people could attain power, by fasting, meditating etc in the wild and untamed areas. The monk-like people who inhabited these areas could, in some ways, legitimately challenge the power of the raja (king) in the centre. At least, that’s how I remember it—I haven’t got my books with me here!

But Joey was tired and wanted to go home.

From what I can tell, the house-beach shack distinction is not about power. But I think elements of the centre-periphery idea apply. Possibly, it is not that the pondok is just peripheral to Home Island’s centre, but also that it is untamed to Home Island’s domesticity. Anyway, even if I’m right about this, I’m sure there’s more to it. I hope to understand it more deeply. 

Take her home Skipper and First Mate

Thanks so much to Nek Sofia (husband and wife) for being so generous and helpful to me and my family.

Spirals of community life

I am holding onto two of the spikes of the spider shell's shell.
It is cracked open so you can see the spirals leading up to the top of the shell.

The spider shell is a marine animal whose shell has a line of 7 spikes sticking out. The shell and the animal inside spirals up to a pinnacle.

Spider shell visible at the top of frame. This
underwater photo was taken around high tide.

The animal has two long, flexible shafts that can protrude out of the shell and retract. At the end of these are eye balls. Spider shells also have one leg which they stick out of the shell and use to move, quite effectively.  On February 13, I helped our neighbours prepare this delicacy as part of long and ongoing preparations for an April wedding.

Cracking open part of the shell reveals the spirals inside.

As the trailer load of shells indicates, we were preparing the meat on bulk.  Apparently, the spider shells had been gathered at low tide, a long way out on the reef. 

Once brought back to the land, the preparation process begins with [ketuk] breaking open the shells in order to expose and extract the animal from the shell. 

 We got the spider shells out of buckets (see blue bucket full of spider shells and empty red bucket). We held them on the anvil ( Nek As is wearing a glove to hold the spider shell) and then bashed (ketuk) them with the hammer. Then we threw the shells onto the trailer in the foreground.

Extracting the meat

The shell is extremely strong. Even experienced hands like Nek Neng and Nek As required at least 2 or 3 very sharp hammer blows to break a shell open. With this number, I could crack open the small shells, but I needed generally at least 4-6 blows for the larger shells.

After cracking open the shells and taking out the animal inside, the women cleaned off (rawat [sic.]) the ‘crap’ [tahi]; and finally rinsed [bilas] the white meat.

Rawat (taking care of) the meat, involving separating entrails etc.

Rawat: the white meat is kept, while the entrails etc. are pushed
 into the hole in the middle of the table, so they fall ino the tray below.

The two women dressed in blue to the left of the frame are rinsing (bilas or cuci) the meat.
The pink and blue house in the background, Ocean Villa, is where I'm staying.

Spider shell meat has many uses.

Shell

Nek As told me they also used to get the shell of a young spider shell, clean it and polish it, and sell it to white people (orang putih) on West Island for 3 ringgit.

Gong gong just taken out of the cauldron and
 strained of the water in which they were boiled.

(“Ringgit” could refer to the currency during the Clunies Ross times, but, seeing as it sold to ‘foreigners’, as it were,  it probably refers to “pounds” or “dollars”. Indeed, people still use the term “ringgit” for dollars”.)

Food and bait

Male spider shells are not consumed but can be used for bait.My Blog “Teach a man to fish” shows how spider shell meat and entrails are  used for bait. The entrails, by themselves can be used to attract fish while angling (in Australian English this is called "burley"). 

Female spider shells we were preparing are specifically referred to as female spider shells.

The legend of gong-gong

...here's some they prepared earlier. From boiled to dried gong gong.

So how did Cocos Malays find out spider shells are edible? Nek Iwat (owner of a local store) related a local legend to Monika. Originally, he said, locals had only used spider shell for bait. An Indonesian told the locals on Home Island that humans could eat spider shell too. And that man’s name was “Gong Gong”. It didn’t sound like a common Indonesian name, so Monika asked if the man might have been ethnically Chinese (as some locals claim they were descendants from the Chinese Indonesians). No, she was told, he was an Indonesian from Banten.

Fried gong gong makes a nice, crunchy snack.
It tastes very similar to crackling.

Another version of the story comes from Haji Wahid. According to him, "Gong Gong" is the name of a Singaporean Chinese who came to Home Island. He was connected with Clunies-Ross (the last 'king' of Cocos), as Clunies-Ross shipped the coconuts to Singapore.

Finally, Nek Kaya told Monika that it was a visitor or visitors from Australia who first started eating gong-gong. Home Islanders learned from them. Whatever the origins, it happened that we were extracting the meat for food.

Ways to prepare gong-gong

As food, gong gong has many uses, people happily listed to me. You can use gong gong for soup. You can dry it for later use. You can also fry it.

A line from the Cocos School Song, recited at school assemblies, extolls spider shell soup.

Gong gong Crackers (Kerupuk gong gong)

Gong gong Crackers (Kerupuk gong gong)

We were extracting gong gong for use later as sate (little bits of meat speared on wooden stick and barbecued over a fire). The meat was then frozen to be defrosted and cooked later.

Preparation of gong gong is labour intensive. Harvesting it at low tide, hauling it back to land, cracking it open, cleaning, to washing takes a lot of time and energy. Monika heard that there is a local couple who actually specialise in doing it, and sell it for $25/bag. They go further out to get big gong gong. So why didn't the people who taught me to crack open gong gong shell just buy it?

Onions, carrots, rice, and spider shell meat. Put them
 together, and you've got gong gong soup.

I think it is because the gong gong we were preparing will be used for the wedding. This wedding often comes up when people talk to me. The wedding they refer to is the wedding of Ashari, the grandson of Nek As, in April. With preparations starting at least two months earlier, this wedding (like most first marriages apparently) will be a huge event for the community. The celebrations, I’m told, will last a week. So, everyday, close friends and family are helping out at Ashari's parents house, giving their time and energy to  prepare for the festivities. In 'return', they are given drinks and, if they happen to be around in the evening, fed. Giving and receiving is already occurring on a large scale at this house and it will increase as we get closer to the wedding.

The spirals of the spider shell might make a good metaphor for the wedding preparations. Initially involved in the preparations are family and close friends. As the wedding approaches, more people will help out. Before the wedding, many Cocos Malays who have emigrated will also return for the rituals. Eventually, the whole community will be involved.

Pre-Tropical Tristesse: Fieldwork Sites

The Cocos (Keeling) Islands are framed, both geographically and historically, by the Indian Ocean.

In the 1500s, the Spanish and Portuguese had collected untold reserves of wealth through their Atlantic forays in the New World. The 1600s was the turn of the Dutch and the English. Their trading companies sailed the Indian Ocean’s reaches in almost unchallenged dominion. The legacy is immediately apparent as the plane banks west ascending from Perth airport; beneath us sprawls Rottnest Island. Rottnest Island was first charted and named by the Dutch. (They called the little marsupials they found “Rat” (Rott), and given their abundance, deemed it as Rat’s Nest”). Aboriginal people indigenous to south-western Australia believed the souls of the dead resided on Rottnest. Had they known about this, the rational, practical Renaissance Dutchmen would have dismissed it as superstition. These hardened Protestants, credited with inventing the modern trading company, would have set little store in charting such islands. Cocos, Keeling, or Rottnest all would have been merely navigational aids or perhaps hazards on the way to the riches of the Indies. In any case, Rottnest is the last I see of land for the next four hours as we fly across the eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean.

Virgin, our carrier, won a government contract to supply a subsidised service to Christmas Island and Cocos Islands, putting on three flights a week. I sit back to take in their no-expense-spared experience, inflight entertainment consisting of the teenage guy dressed up in his best singlet, shorts and ‘thongs’ (flip-flops) in the row behind. He delights his travelling companions; a teenage girl and her mother, with expletive-ridden stories of drunken escapades. His decision to change seat as the plane is about to land on Christmas Island earns him the microphoned rebuke of the air steward, but also the admiration of his companions. Sadly, they head through to the exit as we move to the transit area.

Christmas Island plays a crucial part in the history and current life of the Cocos Malays, but that is something I will write more about later. 

Our 30 minutes on Christmas Island is spent in the airport lounge. A duty-free shop, Chinese owned if the gold and red stylings are anything to go by, sells gold and jade. Next to it, a ‘tuck-shop’ (refreshment store) staffed by Country Women’s Association volunteers, offers Australian delicacies such as jaffles (toasted sandwiches, grilled cheese) and VB beer. Returning to the plane for the last leg is a dozen or so passengers; apparently Australian government workers flying to the Cocos Islands on business. This must be a comparatively light load compared to the average 2-300 people passing through Cocos Islands airport each week suggested in the statistics. We take off. I’m past the point of no return, only an hour to our destination.

This is the direct flight path from Perth to the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.
However, we went via Christmas Island.

The idea of a village on a remote tropical island would seem for many to be a classic situation in which to do anthropology. This goes back at least to the famous anthropologist Malinowski. During WWI, he famously did fieldwork on a tropical island, in the Trobriand archipelago off the coast of New Guinea. Written up as the 1922 classic Argonauts of the Western Pacific, he says of his arrival:

Imagine yourself suddenly set down surrounded by all your gear, alone on a tropical beach close to a native village, while the launch or dinghy which has brought you sails away out of sight… Imagine further that you are a beginner, without previous experience, with nothing to guide you and no one to help you.

Like it or loathe it, this picture is the starting point for ethnography as we now practice it. Less famous, but still influential, was anthropologist Raymond Firth. In his “We, the Tikopia” (1936), he describes his arrival on Tikopia Island in the South Pacific, in a similar vein.

In the cool of the early morning, just before sunrise, the bow of the Southern Cross headed towards the eastern horizon, on which a tiny dark blue outline was faintly visible… In an hour or so we were close inshore and could see canoes coming round from the south, outside the reef… the men in them bare to the waist, girdled with bark cloth, large fans stuck in the backs of their belts, tortoise-shell rings or rolls of leaf in the ear-lobes and nose.

And lest I be accused of discriminating against jungle arrival scenes, consider one of the most widely-despised anthropologists, probably the last anthropologist-as-hero, and certainly the most macho of them all, Napoleon Chagnon, and his account of arriving at a Yanomami (also known as Yanamamö) compound on the Brazil-Venezuala border:

The entrance to the village was covered over with brush and dry palm leaves. We pushed them aside to expose the low opening to the village. The excitement of meeting my first Yanomamö was almost unbearable as I duck-waddled through the low passage into the village clearing.I looked up and gasped when I saw a dozen burly, naked, sweaty, hideous men staring at us down the shafts of their drawn arrows! Immense wads of green tobacco were stuck between their lower teeth and lips making them look even more hideous, and strands of dark-green slime dripped or hung from their nostrils—strands so long that they clung to their pectoral muscles or drizzled down their chins. We arrived at the village while the men were blowing a hallucinogenic drug up their noses. 

Such images of arrival are extremely evocative. Partly this is because they tap into older, more familiar stories: they recall the traditional castaway scene, first contact. It is the picture of an intrepid white explorer descending into savage realm, owing as much to the same imagination that inspired Prospero and Caliban, Robinson Crusoe or Heart of Darkness as to actual experience.

The tendency to depict these fieldwork sites as ‘primitive’, ‘backward’ places also owes something to the anthropological concerns of the period. Anthropologists had been concerned to discover the ‘original’ or ‘elementary’ forms of human life; primitive culture in its pristine state. Anthropologists thought they could find this in jungles, in deserts, or on islands, which they perceived as closed off from modern developments. They thereby overlooked the trade, travel, and migration that often linked societies into the global context. Malinowski famously forgot to mention the existence of a colonial garrison located near his field site. Firth has been accused of overlooking the recent spread of Christianity. Without malice, these men portrayed actually their ‘objects’ as backward primitives in relation to the advanced civilization of the anthropologist. 

And so it is not without reservation and some consternation that I am now drawn to my fieldwork location. The reader could be excused for thinking that I am exaggerating, but consider one assessor’s comment on my first application to the government to fund my Cocos Island research:

In many ways, reading this application I felt like I was thrown back to the era of colonial anthropology, where the white man studies brown people to advance the interests of the ruling colonial government, and brings his wife along to gain access to the women in the community.

I am sure it would surprise and pain the reader to hear that their faithful author could be considered in such a light. Yet, contrary to popular opinion, anthropologists are not to be dismissed merely as harmless boffins, especially when writing anonymously. I realise, these days, anthropologists are likely to write about inner-city drug addicts or an S&M parlour. My tropical island idea, I worry, is so passé that I might as well turn up to the annual anthropology conference in pith helmet and safari suit. 

I console myself: Yes, the writing was often couched in terms of “savages” and “natives”, but it’s also easy to overlook how some of these early anthropologists emphasised a common humanity, which starkly contrasted the racist presumptions of their period. I think of their attitudes towards magic and religion. Frazer, the granddaddy of anthropology, implicitly showed that the beliefs of Christianity were no different to ‘savage’ and barbaric beliefs and rites elsewhere. Tylor, another forefather, marvelled at the ‘savage philosophers’ who must have provided the basis for contemporary animistic and religious belief. Malinowski saw his savages as eminently practical, intelligent people; their magical beliefs no different to our lucky charms. The sought those societies which they imagined to be furthest from their own to demonstrate the unity of the human mind and...on-and-on I think.

Thankfully, more pragmatic concerns intervene. We have commenced descent, the landing gear is out and the destination is in view. It lies below me unmistakable; a turquoise blue lagoon, ringed by stretches of white sand and green jungle. Fringing this, the outside reefs; huge swell lines emanating from the southern Indian Ocean dump on these shallow landings teeming with coral. The plane begins its final descent and we are level with the tops of the tallest coconut palms before gently easing onto the runway. Regardless of what I think, fieldwork is about to begin!

Looking over the lagoon to the southern part of the Cocos atoll

I emerge from the Virgin flight. Squinting, clutching my daughter with one hand, overstuffed hand-luggage hitched over the other shoulder, holding gingerly onto rail, I tread down the moving staircase to shimmering tarmac. We haul our children and other belongings over to the airport, a small building. A tractor brings our luggage on a trailer. We take it through customs and then load it onto a ute (pick-up), which drives it off to the ferry.

.

Waiting for the bus

Bored and drenched in oppressive heat, we wait for the bus that will take us to the ferry terminal. My boy looks so tired. I got him up at 2.30 am Melbourne time. Now it’s 8.30pm in Melbourne, but here it's only 4pm. I’m sticky—dipped in syrup and dried with fairy-floss kind of sticky. We sit by playing fields which double as an Australian Rules football oval and cricket ground. At one end, the bar, which also functions as a cyclone shelter. At the other end, an asbestos mosque, where the Cocos Malay men who work on West Island can perform their Friday prayers.

I am in the doldrums, literally. Slumping down; my trousers, pockets stuffed with passports, kid's drink bottle, wallet, and iPhone, barely hang onto my waist. Caterpillars, suspended on their silks, drop out of the ironwood tree. Sweat oozes down my temples and back. Everything seems to be weighted down by a blanket of humidity and burning sun; everything except mountainous, billowing clouds, which rapidly and aggressively bubble and spew upwards. They surge up ravenously, billowing in violent paroxysms like a pot boiling over.

Rising into these clouds, the plane has taken off, leaving us behind. Resolve is beginning to triumph over self-reproach. I begin composing my own arrival scene;

Picture yourself on a tropical island, exhausted; wife and kids hot and fatigued. The plane that has brought you here flies off to the east, leaving you all behind. You are waiting for the bus. A little puff of wind against your sweaty forehead feels blissful, your head begins to droop. Heavy eyelids try to close on eyeballs warmed by the heat. You spring awake, head throbbing. You go into robot mode: try to push your body through, forget about feelings and emotions.

Thankfully for the discipline of anthropology, that’s as far as I get, for, finally, the two minibusses arrive. We board; adults are 50c each and kids are free—I don’t bother to ask for a receipt! It’s the end of the working day, so the bus is crowded with Cocos Malay heading home to Home Island. Lively Malaysian pop music rings out.

A brief respite, for then we wait at the ferry terminal, for the ferry that will take us to Home Island. When it docks, I help load the luggage onto the back. Surprisingly pleasant, the ferry, donated by the federal government, is air-conditioned and had a large screen TV showing fishing videos. Thirty minutes later, Mak Emma meets us at the jetty, and we load our luggage on her Ezy-go golf buggy, and off to her accommodation, Ocean Villa.

Ferry to Home Island

 

Getting on aforementioned ferry

We had called ahead earlier, organizing for dinner of curried fish and beef ribs with rice to be made for us by Darling, who runs the local cafe. After eating, we all collapse before 7pm; probably a mistake as the kids are up at 3.30am and moving about soon after.

I try to get back to sleep. I’m not too sure what to expect after dawn. Will life be the same? How will I fit in? I want answers, and straight away, but I should know better. It will take months or years to begin to understand the culture and society on this island.