TUTUVATU

Beti stares at the wedding picture that hangs on the wall in the middle of the living room. She’s been standing there for nearly ten minutes. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She wipes it with the back of her hand, spreading it on the smooth chocolate-colored skin of her cheeks.            She remembers the day the picture was taken. It was the day she exchanged vows with Tome, her husband. In the picture she looks beautiful in her wedding dress. It was bought in Auckland, New Zealand, by a cousin who was studying there at the time. On her finger, her wedding ring glitters, reflecting the flash from the camera. She has an intoxicating smile that reveals her joy and hopes for a happy marriage, beautiful kids, and a promising career as a registered nurse. Tome looks elegant and handsome in the picture. He wears a black suit that was custom-tailored in Brisbane. The collar of the white shirt under his suit is fixed into place b...

The Christmas decorations are everywhere. They dangle from the ceilings, plastered on walls, and glitter in display windows. In the middle of the Ala Moana Shopping Center is a huge Christmas tree, intricately decorated with miniature doves, bells, colored balls and ribbons, sleighs, and all the ornaments that mark the Christmas season. I stand a few feet away, admiring the towering tree and then took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fresh Christmas tree. There are people everywhere. They snake in and out of the shops and eating places. Most are bargain seekers, looking for cheaper prices that come with the holiday season. It is November 28:   Black Friday. I never quite understood what Black Friday was all about, but heard that it is the first day of the shopping spree that marks the beginning of the Christmas holiday.             “More like shopping crazy,” I said to myself as I watche...

TO SCHOOL IN JOSEPH’S COAT For primary school, I went to St. Michael’s Catholic Primary School at Avuvu on the Weather Coast of Guadalcanal. Most of the teachers were either nuns, or relatives – uncles, aunties, kukua’s, etc. The other children and I would walk to school in the morning and back at the end of the day—about two miles for me and longer for children from villages further away. We carried our beho —cooked sweet potato, taro, or yam—for lunch in little kei (string bags), or wrapped in leaves. When it rained, we used banana leaves as umbrellas, or folded our clothes and wrap them in leaves and ran naked in the rain. At the end of the day on our way home we would play, climb trees, make spears and throw them at the moss that grew on trees. For grades five and six we boarded at school in order to prepare for the grade six exams. Boarding was difficult. Although the school was only about two miles from Haimatua, I was constant...

There is a scar un derneath my left arm. It’s a testament to that fateful day, years ago, when I had a horse bite.           Yes, I had a horse bite. Not a love bite. Well, it’s a bit like a love bite, but from a horse.            It started innocently on a typical hot and humid Saturday afternoon when everything at our school grinds to a crawl. It was when most kids were either taking a nap, or hanging out in little huts, called “camps,” that lined the banks of the Tenaru River. It was a time to relax.             The school was St. Josephs, Tenaru, located a few miles east of Honiara, the Solomon Islands capital. I can’t remember the year, but I must have been in ether Form 3 or 4. So, I was about 14 or 15 years old.              And despite my small stature, I was alread...