Solomon Is: Kwaio and the people without iPhones

Arrived today back in Auki in the Malaita Province. After 4 hours of sleep I had to get up at 6am on Saturday to start my trip to Kwaio, a village in the east of Malaita which is famous for its tribe villages and customs. The Kwaio people have their villages somewhere far up in the jungle mountains. Kwaio people are just under special circumstances allowed to leave their village, as their religion doesn’t allow to go to other villages with other religions. That means, just a few kwaio people have ever seen forgein people – black or white. They live isolated and have their own law and rules. For example, unmarried woman are not allowed to walk around with clothes. Money doesn’t exist and wars and fightings are nearly daily business. So no outsider is allowed to go to these villages without any guide and translator. Therefore I hired a guide, who took me all the long way to the border of these villages. 
 

So my trip started Saturday morning. As I knew that there wont be any shop along the way and food is hard to get, I told my guide that I first want get some canned food, biscuits and water. Of course, lots of water and food can become very heavy, but for me, I didn’t see any problem in this. As my guide didn’t have any bag with him, he had two empty hands and was able to carry the big bag of food and the box with 12 bottles of water. Haha! 

After a 4 hour ride to Atori on a common pickup truck and loaded with 36 people (I counted them), dozens of rice-, flour bags and other stuff, the first part was done. Next part was another 2 hour ride with the motorboat, that was also loaded to the “over-the-top” with goods and people. Im not a captain nor do I know much about boats, but even the most undeveloped monkey would have seen that this boat is little bit overloaded. As engines are not stupid, they know that too and stop their work suddenly somewhere out in the ocean. So we had to wait 1 hour until another boat came by to continue the ride. 

Me and my guide were the last passengers in the boat and at 5pm we arrived in the wharf of Atoifi, the last village and at the border to the hidden kwaio villages. At the wharf, 2 fellows with machetes walked towards us and introduced themselves as the sons of “the chief”. My guide told them why im here and they took us for a one hour walk up to the border to the Kwaio Villages. They brought me to the “chief” and I had to talk with him who I am, why im here and what my intention is. So even these people here live in their little woodhouses, without electricity and barely any money, here the people are still “normal” – compared to the hidden kwaio villages. 




The chief didn’t talk much. He just explained me, that im here at the wrong time. As the “chief” of the first hidden village has died last week, those hidden village people are very upset and don’t want to see ANY outsiders from other villages for the next few months. But he told me, that if I want, I can see the second hidden village. The fact that this village would have been a half day mountain trekking away, wasn’t the reason why I declined. The “chief” showed me something like a pricelist, where I had to pay for everything during that trip. That means, paying for his two sons as mediators, translators and guards, and also the necessary overnight stay in the village. Even making pictures is not for free. And the prices are just exaggerated.

 

So the next day we returned down to the wharf and had to wait for a boat back. The grandmaster “chief” told us that a boat is definitely coming on Sunday. But as “chiefs” anyway always pretend to know everything, and after we waited several hours I somehow got the slightly feeling that on Sunday wont drive any boat. Haha.. how right I was! It ended up that we had to wait all day long down there in the old market beside the wharf. In the evening a family showed up there and asked me if I want to stay in their house, so that I have at least a shelter from the mosquitos. The family also told me that a boat is leaving atoifi at 4am and of course I stood up at 3.30am. As at 4am still nobody was visible anywhere, I knew again, that im a victim of the “Solomon time” (when somebody says 4am, he actually means 6am)!

That’s it, today at 6am we finally sat in the boat and afterwards again in the overloaded truck on the way back to Auki.