23rd May 1972
I woke up in a mighty rage this morning because it was still dark and the kids were larking about and making a racket. I finally went out and whacked Fifi one as she ran into the boys’ room with all the kittens.. Even Luis was up and at them, the little devils. Mungo woke and all sleep was destroyed.
After an after breakfast nap we went down to the church where I prepared Maria’s lesson and Mungo pottered about cheerfully. At about 12.30ish we went up the hill to Magdalena Paoa’s house which is virtually opposite the Tepano’s. It’s huge and has a lemon tree.
Magdalena welcomed us but there seemed to be an abundance of activity and washing going on and I wondered if she remembered inviting us. (They have a washing machine). They brought us lemon juice.. An in law called Livia Chavez was wandering about.
Magdalena has two daughters and made us a rather extraordinary offer. She said if we’d look after the teenage girls and a boy, Hugo, we could have the house for nothing because she now mostly lives at Vai Hu. We refused this offer but reluctantly. It would have been mighty interesting but really rather too much of a responsibility.
I’m sure I don’t know how to cope with two Pascuence teenagers with a highly religious mother. There are little madonnas all over the place. She has a beautiful photograph of a little baby that died, she said. She only has two children of her own but five adopted ones who are grown up and on the continent
I am amazed now at the simplicity of our thinking! Two twenty something year olds even contemplating managing canny island teenagers! Never mind the madonnas! One road fortunately not taken. It is funny, on looking back, to remember the different offers people made to us at the time. We could have a place - if we built a bathroom, if we flicked the master switch in a government house when the town lights began to flicker, if we took care of kids….. Paying rent was rarely suggested, probably because we seemed so poor and scruffy. But I am touched by the confidence they had in us all the same.
I helped make shell necklaces for the first time while we discussed the question of the house and children.. We said that our reason for refusing was that we wanted a house to call our own even if it was small and bathroomless. She was sad but I think she accepted our argument.. I think the visit was a success too because for once the lunch was not excessive in any way – just soup with bananas and sweet potatoes in it, and and a bit of meat and rice, and for the first time cow’s milk – a great big cup of it. Grant and she discussed child rearing over it. This was before the offer was put to us.
The irony of Grant talking about child raising astonishes me. What could he have said to so impress Magdalena!
After lunch Magdalena started organizing her earth oven for Sunday when she is giving a couranto. She’d dug a big hole and was putting stalks of green bananas into it. A certain Josephina, an aunt, came at this point and chatted for a bit about California where her son was training to be a mechanic. She has dyed red hair and rather watery eyes. She showed me how to punch holes in the shells more easily. The girls said they couldn’t believe I could make collares [shell necklaces].
After we left we went to Maria’s for the lesson. There were a few people hanging about looking a bit hostile, I thought. I’d prepared a small dialogue for Maria which we did in English and then translated into Rapanui. Interestingly today she said she had two sons. I queried this but she insisted with an odd look in her eye and then passed over it, I think perhaps that is the way one is let into secrets here – casually, as if we should have known all along. We had tea as usual, and the lights went out as usual when it began to rain.
Young Jorge was drawing very professional Tarzans this afternoon. It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone drawing here for pleasure.
When we got back Luis was carving away like a fiend and had eight little carvings done – all in a row. He has a Chilean purchaser, he says. There are shavings everywhere.
Adriana came for her lesson and Rosa joined us. Adriana is very bright and picked things up quickly whereas Rosa was pretty slow. But she enjoyed the lesson and both had it written out at the end to take home. They both got the giggles towards the end.
Wednesday, 24th May
I’ve just been reading R.P. Blackmur’s “Eleven essays on the European novel” and this has given me a peaceful sense of getting away from the island a bit. I’ve been reading about Madame Bovary and remembering Southampton and the yearnings I used to have too. I remember Dr Graham and my mind being on fire with ideas.
Grant is in an awful temper with me because I told Rosa about the possibility of the house today.. It seemed unimportant to me that she should not know, especially since Milarosa’s husband Emilio Paoa now knows. But Grant interprets this as some kind of willful defiance and has stormed off outside with the typewriter.. I find I can’t be bothered with his temper tonight. I just can’t be bothered and have more important things to think about.
We woke up late this morning after a disturbed night. Mungo now has an eye infection as well as bad nappy rash which seems reluctant to clear up.. I finally took his nappy off after several times being woken up.. As a result I felt thoroughly bitchy when I got up and found the tank had been overflowing all night to the apparent indifference of the household. Grant, however, does seem to have worked out how it works and dealt with it to do him justice.. I went down to the church with him to do a bit of filing and slept on the padre’s bed for a couple of hours with Mungo sleeping too and felt a lot better and more sympathetic to the household.
When I came home I did some washing and Rosa came and talked to me and told me that she had no more money now that the 300 escudos Carlos had given her had gone and we’d better buy the food and tell Carlos how much it had cost. She seemed annoyed that he had sent his son without any money. (Actually we already bought our own food) She told me too that she had lived in Georgina’s mother’s house when she first joined Luis and knew Mamaflora well because she used to go and get water from her. She also says she’s going back to the continent as soon as the children are a bit older. She said she’d wanted Nora (the matrona) to be the baby’s godmother but someone said she couldn’t because she was a protestant. She’s pleased she’s coming to supper on Saturday.
Luis brought home a big chunk of fish tonight and is still working hard on his statues in the larder, where for some reason he likes to work. He gets very brown and weathered when he goes out for the whole day.. I suppose it was pretty windy today too.. I think we had food Pascuence style tonight – a little saucer piled high with chunks of fish and nothing else.
Pedro and Luis went out tonight to find paraffin and came back with the full flagon and a very naughty look about them because they stole it from the ECA. It is ironical that Carlo sent him here to stay out of trouble.
Grant is in a funny spasmy mood tonight. He rushed into the kitchen first thing and started trying to make glasses out of bottles (most unsuccessfully because the edges are all jagged) and now he’s typing like a maniac and snatching things from the desk where I am sitting. Ah well.
We had lots of bottles in our house, but not many glasses and Grant had heard you could soak string in paraffin and tie it round a bottle, light it, and the bottle would break off at the string point. It did, but not evenly (see AI produced example in pic)..
Grant was very solutions driven and, on looking back, always chose to attack a random problem rather than talk about anything that was worrying him. I think most men share their inner concerns more easily now and don’t need to be quite so maniacal. It makes for an easier life.