Savo...

I’ve returned from this Easter weekend enthusing about the merits of Pacific village life, and specifically the absorbing timelessness of one particular tiny village on Savo. This was the first time in the Solomons that I have stayed overnight in a fully traditional village; no power, no running water, no motorvehicles (and no roads for that matter), no gas cookers, no televisions, no toilets. And above all no concept of time. Two days and nights was all it took, at the end of which I couldn’t say for sure whether it had been days or months since we’d first stepped ashore. Now, back in Honiara, I find it hard to believe that the individuals we got to know on Savo are still going about their business, doing the same things they do everyday and which their forefathers have done for hundreds of years probably with very little change. Was I really there? Was it really real?



















This, I suppose, is the beauty of the ‘village’, and the reason it is so firmly lodged in the hearts and mentalities of the Honiarians, almost all of whom refuse to accept this town as a real home. The village for them, as for me these past three days, is a place so far removed from the modern world that it is very easy (perhaps inevitable) to forget the ‘real’ world even exists. On top of that is the easy welcome and charm, but unreserved hospitality, which you receive as a visitor. No clamour as you arrive, no rush to press drink and food on you immediately, but instead a constant and steady accumulation of tasty offerings and behind-the-scenes efforts, which by the end leaves you bowled over at the kindness and goodwill of these people you’ve just met and who you may never meet again. Fresh coconuts, pudding, pana, betel nut and baked bananas appeared out of nowhere. Dishes were miraculously washed (thank you Janet and team) before you were even awake. Reef fish were speared during the night and then cooked in coconut milk for breakfast. And young men charged around the thick bush of the volcano, seeking out megapod nests and the delicious eggs to be found buried in their loose soil, as we wilted in the shade of a mango tree on the rim of the crater. And when we came to leave, the whole village (all of about twenty people), were there to wave us off, genuinely sorry it seemed that we were leaving.










Savo is the most distinctive landmark in the ocean view from Honiara, and just an hour away by motor canoe. Nevertheless, despite having lived in Honiara all their lives and gazed out at its familiar symmetrical shape several thousand times, for my girlfriend and the two other friends who we went with (Vaela and Solomon), stepping foot on the volcanic soil of Savo was a first too. The island is famous for two things… the fact that its entire bulk consists of one very active volcano… and the megapod birds that live there. The first of these is easy to forget while merrily eating, swimming, fishing and storying in the villages by the sea. But on the second day, as we made our way through the bush up to the main crater, the precariousness of the little villages hundreds of metres below, strung like beads around the coast of the round island, became increasingly clear.

First, the stream we were following became warmer and warmer, and was soon emitting thick eggy sulphurous steam. By half-way it was literally boiling, and the ground around the bubbling little pools was thick with crabs legs, left behind by villagers enjoying the luxury of not having to build a fire. No human bones, although Joel, our host on the island, informed us with a grin that the first missionaries to arrive on Savo had suffered the same fate as the wee crabs. As we climbed higher, and in the crater in particular, the sense that you were walking on the thin shell of a smouldering mountain was all about us, smoke wisping up from sporadic cracks in the ground. It’s now been 150 years since the last eruption, and no-one knows when the next one will be, but you have to fear for the lives of the peaceful inhabitants of Savo the day the volcano next blows its top. One truly great gift that the volcano provides for the humans who have chosen to inhabit its slopes, is that of a constant steady supply of hot water. Every village has a communal well, often not more than a few metres from the sea, which taps into an underground source that is somehow not salty, and even more remarkably is deliciously warm, particularly so since in these past five months I have touched hot water a grand total of three times.

There are a hundred other little snippets I’d like to relate (but which will have to be forsaken for the steak dinner I am about to eat). Like the fact that the native language of Savo is one of just a handful of languages in the Pacific which has no connection with the Australasian family of languages (stretching from the East Pacific to Indonesia and even Madagascar), and no-one knows why this is. Like little naked Ryan, who every time he saw me threw back his head and roared in fear, till finally on the last morning I offered him a lollypop and he bravely wobbled forward, before tottering back to his mami with it proudly clutched in his little grasp. Like my slightly worrying evolution into an archetypal Melanesian male, so that on the last morning I found myself sitting in the shade of the palm trees, chewing betel nut and storying with Solo and the local chaps, while our girlfriends packed the bags and tidied up.

It would be wrong to idealise village life too much - Poopoo Point, to be sure, is not one of life’s most pleasant toilet experiences. But on that last morning all four of us were reluctant to leave, firmly settled into the pace of village life as we were. Still, Vaela and Solo had two kids to get back to, while today (Easter Monday) I had pledged my allegiance to the Honiara Easter fun run and the CBSI Easter picnic (photos to follow). But we parted ways discussing future possibilities for a return, and the Christian/Kastom festival of the ‘pana’ in June is an appealing prospect.

Photos (from top): Savo from the sea; Point Cruz - the departure point for motor canoes in Honiara; Joel in front of the house we stayed in (all other houses were leaf huts) - I took the photo for him to send to a ladyfriend in Papua New Guineau, hence the smart red shirt, black trousers and shoes despite the midday sun; a typical leaf hut; the cracked earth of Savo's volcano; our village's warm water well; moi cooking eggs for breakfast; Below: graffitti scrawled on a boat on Honiara's beach, a reminder of the relatively politically-conscious world we had returned to, in such contrast to the concerns of life in the villages.