Tinned Peaches, Toilet Paper, and Moral Standards
16-17 April, 1972
Sunday April 16 1972
We had a quiet day today. We got up at about 6.30 and went to mass. I sat next to Luisa Ika Pakerati and Mungo and I managed to stay for the whole service.
This was the Luisa I’d visited and talked to at Tahai
There was another baby about Mungo’s age on the other side and that helped. I always enjoy mass immensely even when the singing is a bit dowdy as it was today.
After mass I came home and found Carlo very tetchy because of the kids and I suspect, regret at having turfed Soledad. That came about because Carlo went and moaned at Milarosa (Georgina’s sister) and it got back to Soledad that she was going to be chucked out the next time she abandoned Victor. So she left yesterday afternoon rather tearfully. I gave her a cup of coffee and ten escudos.
Of course this left me in charge of keeping the place in order which I was not at all good at.
Anyway after washing five nappies I walked down towards the church to meet Grant. On the way three people gave me contradictory information about his whereabouts “He’s in the church” “Now?” “Yes now” “is he in the church?” “No church finished he probably at the hotel…”etc.
We finally met and then set out for Maria Leon Hei’s place where we’d been invited to lunch. I forgot the Leon bit of her name and we enquired after the house of Maria Hei and landed up at a totally strange house but nevertheless that of someone I knew, a nice woman who helped me at the ECA a few days ago. We got to lunch finally and a very nice lunch it was with roast chicken and potatoes with wine. It’s the first time I’ve come across oven cooked food here.
The atmosphere there was a little austere and I was grateful for Mungo who was nice and affectionate and pottered about and ate soup. I feel I rather buggered up that relationship by not recognizing her at the airport. The house is very smart by local standards with a sofa with soft cushions – a bit faded and unmatching – a radiogram on four legs working from a transformer – a table full of shell necklaces and statues. It’s funny how statues are liked by the populace itself – they are not just made for tourists. Lunch was sitting up at the table with napkins (paper). It was served by Anna, sister in law to Pat McCoy. The conversation was remarkably dull – learning the language, cooking, nothing about life here at all except that she has a resident member of Lan Chile in the house who has fresh vegetables sent tin every week. She got very suspicious of Grant when he wanted to take her genealogy.
Tonight I went to mass to count the people for Grant. Maria/Suzy, Georgina’s sister was there and the woman I met at the Ikas was there too and urged me to sit down. I’ve taken to crossing myself with the holy water like everyone else for the sake of not being too conspicuous. There was no singing in the evening service and few people – 98 odd.
On the way home I met a girl who asked me if I wasn’t afraid of the devil in the dark. I said I’d just been to church so how could I be. She walked with me a little way and then went into her house. A little girl walked further with me. She had a long name which began with Norida and ended with Pakerati. She has four sisters and one brother and was going to the pictures tonight. She taught me the words for moon and stars.
Monday April 17th 1972
I collected the rest of the ECA list today.
So many of the ECA items make my mouth water even now because they were such rare pleasures - tinned cream and tinned peaches! (One of the few times Grant and I came to blows was when I sprinkled crystals of salt instead of sugar on my bowl of them and he laughed. I threw the bowl at his typewriter and he hit me. Mungo went to get Grandma Luisa out the back to sort us out which she did. The typewriter was OK)
Confort too, that is the toilet paper that served for everything besides its obvious purpose. Long after we returned to Sydney people would look a bit askance at the toilet roll that sat on our table at meals.
I’m cooking lunch today cos Carlo’s gone to Entel.
Entel, the telephone office, was quite a walk out of town and the only place one could phone the continent or any other country. There were no phones in houses at the time.
He says he’s going to tell Georgina to come back as soon as possible because he’s fed up with doing the washing and looking after the kids. I took Coca down to her grandmother Luisa Tuki, as mentioned above and Juan Riroroco her husband.
This morning Milarosa looked after Mungo while I went to the Co-operative. It had no fish, only a lot of Santiago fruit. I bought grapes and apples for tomorrow when Mana Ika and his wife are coming. There were certainly a lot of kids at Luisa and Juan’s. I wondered who they all belonged to. I met Veronica, sister in law to Georgina this morning too, also with a little baby. I wasn’t sure if it was hers or not but she knew it was ten months old.
7.30pm
It’s been a quiet day. Grant’s still out.
He got very involved in the church records and the padre kindly let him work on them in his house.
I went down to buy fish today and couldn’t but talked to two little girls on the way Alicia and ? I can’t remember. They were supposed to be cleaning and scuttled off when someone called them. I ended up down at the harbour and met a girl who is marrying an Australian in Santiago and is going to Australia. She is called Maria and has a little daughter, half American. She says the American family wanted to have the girl and are always sending clothes for her. She told me about how she told her mother about the baby but I couldn’t understand a word because it was in Pascuence English.
I’m reading Middlemarch and I’m glad I brought it as it has a very brisk effect on me and stops me moping if I ever feel like doing so.
For some reason I need to read George Eliot’s Middlemarch about once every ten years. The strong voice and unwavering ethical compass reassure me. However each time, depending on my stage in life, I identify with a different person in the story. I’ve been the silly little sister, the mortified wife of a shamed eminent citizen of the town and even the flirtatious Rosamund..
Questions that raise themselves
Where is the island heading? Materialism – maybe further isolation and separation of families into definite pecking order. Maria Hei is of the upper group but at present even she has to go to the ECA. Supply is the leveller at present.
What are moral standards here? A) Soledad, probably promiscuous, Louisa Pakerati Ika, strictly monogamous c) Innumerable illegitimate children everywhere..
Moral standards!!! Promiscuous!!! What a little prig you were then Julia. But I guess all these years later we would talk abouit “sexual mores” but mean the same thing.
Religion and superstition – how strong now? “Aren’t you afraid of the devil in the dark?”
Infant mortality – how much gastroenteritis?
Gifts and exchanges – should we do more reciprocating? Today Rosa asked for one of Carlo’s avocado pears. Should I have let her have it?
Where does the money come from?
Most of these questions gradually got answered as time went on. Quite quickly I realised that the huge public service provided regular cash which percolated through the system and resale of items from the continent added more. Tourism, then in its infancy, was to end up making the island quite rich. Then there was fishing and a bit of agricultural production Huge cabbages used to come into town now and then probably overfed on fertiliser..