A month on the island now

27-28 April, 1972

Thursday, April 27th

A rather bad day. I woke up feeling sad after queer dreams and I stayed haunted most of the morning.

I went with Grant to the ECA to collect a map but the manager never came and we hung around the rather melancholy little group there who said the flour had run out. So have the cigarettes incidentally.

I went on down to the church with Grant and then on home, feeling obliged to cook bloody Carlo’s lunch. Wewq had the fish we bought yesterday and so I skinned and cooked that, cutting my fingers like mad on the spines. I cut off the head and asked Carlo if there was any particular way of dealing with it so he gave it to Ivan next door and drank half a bottle of Pisco in exchange and came back furious with Georgina for not sending any cigarettes this week. Said he was going to get her back. He ate and enjoyed the fish for once.

Generated with ChatGPT Imagegen 2.0 with the prompt “A warm, quiet 1972 still-life inside a weathered Rapa Nui shed: a large Hanga Roa tourist map lies flat on a rough wooden writing table, while a small wall calendar marks 28 March to 27 April in red Xs. Aged timber, olive-brown plaster, muted amber coastal light, and a glimpse of sea and grass through an open doorway; tactile, nostalgic editorial style. Add only a non-graphic fish head with pronounced silvery scales and sharp spines, plus a half-full vintage pisco bottle, on the open right-hand tabletop; preserve the map, calendar, and shed scene.”

I went down to the plane this afternoon but wasn’t very chatty. Then tonight, at about 7.30 Grant showed up, having bought masses of stuff at Alvarez and expecting all sorts of excitement. I just didn’t feel that way. Then he complained about bones in his fish and I’m just sick of him and Carlo going on at me. What have I done to deserve all this carping? I’m not lazy and I do have a right to some consideration instead of contempt from Carlo and arrogance from Grant.

I had two letters from Mum and one from Pat. I wish I could be properly alone tonight. I feel emotionally and physically overcrowded.

Friday, April 28th

We’ve been here just a month now. The time has gone awfully fast. I wonder what we have achieved. Grant says he feels more rapport with his contacts. I suppose I’ve made a few acquaintances and friends. More faces are recognizable now – even Maria Leon Hey. In the right mood I can talk a fair amount of Spanish and explain most things. I still don’t use the right tenses though.

Today I woke up feeling a bit low after last night’s rage. My hands were infected and Mungo had diarrhea and needed all his bedclothes washed. I reckoned it was high time I did the sheets too and so had a pile of washing. There was a scorpion in the washing water too.

After I’d finished I got a soup going even though I said I wasn’t cooking lunch and Rosa (Carlo’s sister in law) came over with her baby. I can’t exactly explain why I find her so irritating. It’s partly because she is so silent I think. She moves and eats as though she doesn’t want anyone to know she is doing it. There’s an obscure smugness about her too – and her little girl is sulky.

On my way down to church I was accosted by a girl, a Tuki who has married a certain Giorgio Tepano. She wanted to know if Grant would change some dollars. I said I’d ask. Her father has invited us to lunch tomorrow. We’ve got lots of invites to drop in on Sunday. It seems to be the done thing Maria Hei asked us and so did Maria Paoa.

I met Veronica a couple of times today – she always comes bounding towards me like a mountain goat and never seems to know what to say when she arrives. She usually gives Mungo a smacking kiss which doesn’t please him any. He’s become a bit unsociable lately – overexposure no doubt!

I picked up a little twelve year old girl today who insisted on carrying my shopping bag. Her name is Carmen Tuki. She was incredulous at my lack of Spanish and kept saying “Mira” and holding my hand and saying the thing I didn’t understand again, even slower. She has the Tuki face with a huge jaw and hungry eyes.

She came down to the beach with me and we played with Mungo there for a while. I bought her an apple finally and after I’d met Grant at the Juzgado (court house) we went our own ways when I told her I lived far away. She was rather reproachful that I wouldn’t let her come too.

On the way back I got talking to the two little girls who hang around the unfinished house in the main street. Alicia, the eldest had an old cow horn with bits chiseled out of it which she was scraping a stick up and down to make a sort of music. She began singing a song in a jeering sort of way. She was bored and mischievous and asked asked if I’d like to go into ‘her’ house. She showed me these big empty windowless rooms and said there was “muchar trabajo”(a lot of work) for her.

There were many half built houses in Hangaroa. The building paused when materials ran out and didn’t get going again, sometimes for years due to shortage of materials and people’s circumstances changing.

Then I wondered if she or her friend knew any Kai Kai and got my string out. They only knew the Korean Cat’s Cradle but Alicia decided to snatch my string and run off with it. I wasn’t having that and after a deal of hassle some boys chased around and she came out laughing insanely and gave it to me.

On the way home the freckled lady who kisses us gave me an apple for Mungo. She always seems to have apples.

Acting on information received from Grant I bought some cheese at a Hucki house on the way home.

I notice a few little things disappearing – Mungo’s spoon, his doedicurus cloth.( I cannot remember what on earth this was. How much more have I forgotten?) Things go off the line I suspect.