2. Halcyon days

The island was a wonderful place when the Americans were here. The old people tell how the Americans brought wonderful new types of food and drink to the island. The women were able to work for the Americans, in the fields and in their homes and tents. They were given jewellery and cloth.

The men had no need to go out to hunt in the jungle unless they wanted to. Our Granny sent her sons to work with the Americans too. At first, of course, the other men thought that this was madness. Our men had never worked in that disciplined way. Their time had been spent in the forest, hunting birds, preparing weapons, fighting with the other tribes on the island.

So when Our Granny’s sons went to the Americans and helped to clear the jungle and to care for The Tractor and the other machines the Americans had, it seemed to the other men like women’s work. Our Granny persisted. After a time it became clear that working with the Americans was a good life. A new age had come to the island.

Things were simple because, once our people had accepted the Americans, they had no worries. Their food was provided, their time was arranged, and their health was cared for. We were like the children of the Americans and they looked after us. We learned to sow crops and to reap the harvest and we learned some of the things that the Americans knew.

Our people started to care for The Tractor. They helped to wash it and to carry fuel from the underground storage tanks that they had helped to dig. They carried material to the airplanes as well and they built fires and helped to turn the forest into a stone road for the airplanes to run on before they took to the sky.

Perhaps the most important things that the Americans gave to us were new types of food. We had always gathered plants that grew on the island, but they taught us to plant  gourds and vines that were more tasty and appetising and grew in greater abundance so that some people thought they were new because they had never seen them before. Many of the plants they brought were really new, brought from their own country. Today we can eat bananas, coconuts, passion fruit, mangoes, pumpkins, yams, sweet potatoes, taro, corn, and sorghum. The fish we have always caught, but our people keep chickens and pigs now so that, with the help of The Tractor, our people need never be hungry.

In the days when the Americans were here, of course, there were far fewer people on the island. Much of the food that they gave to us was brought to the island by them so that the gardens we helped them to plant were not so important in those days. Our Granny could see, however, how important the gardens were and She was the one that saw how The Tractor turned over the soil to bury and kill the jungle plants that would otherwise grow in the garden and strangle the food plants before they could mature.

Even when I was a child myself and Our Granny was older, and then when She was gone, our life was much simpler. I think that childhood is always one-dimensional. Our parents care for us and protect us from the complexities that adults have to deal with and we all remember a time when life was purely good or bad. I remember taking lunch to my father as he worked in the fields with the Guardians of The Tractor. The crops were rich with corn taller than a man. The only questions in those days were how to make The Tractor more reliable.

Knowledge of The Books of Words that described how to operate The Tractor was limited and our people had not learned to decipher the text so that they relied on the pictures of the parts to maintain it. In many ways it is a miracle that, in those times, we did not destroy the riches we had inherited. Sometimes people say that they wish that the Americans had never left and that they were still here to look after us. I am not sure that I agree with that because if they were still here then we would still be children. In taking care of us, they would prevent us from standing as men in the world.

For many years after the Americans left, Our Granny was with us. She kept alive the knowledge that they had given to us directly and she made sure that we did not destroy The Books that were to be the key to the future as we learned to understand them. She ensured that the gardens were maintained – not the complete area that had been cultivated, but enough to keep the knowledge of the plants and how to grow them. Later as the population grew the gardens expanded again until, today, we have much more land under cultivation than ever before.

Our Granny knew that, when the tractor was sick, the operators looked at the pictures of the parts and saw how much oil to put into the sump and gearbox. She saw that the pictures were becoming dirty and faded and she ensured that they were copied. She understood that it was necessary to understand the words that were written in The Books. It was She who rewarded Ramus, the young man who first saw that the word ‘fuel’ was the same in The Books and on the filler cap of The Tractor and on the pump from the underground storage tank, by giving him the task of finding other words in The Books.  We owe everything to Our Granny because she kept our knowledge alive.

When I was a child everyone had his or her place. Each person knew what was expected of them and if there was doubt, the answers were much clearer when she could be asked directly. The operator knew that his job was to drive The Tractor and to plough and harvest. The fuel carrier knew that he was responsible for ensuring that it never ran out of fuel. The Guardians were prepared to defend it with their lives.

The crops flourished and gradually the island was brought under cultivation. People whose fathers and mothers had lived under rush shelters in the forest had comfortable houses in the village. There was food to eat and there were regular festivals to celebrate the new life on the island. I remember that the sun shone more in those days. Of course it must have rained, but I cannot say that I really noticed it.

You can say that it was not like that and I would have to agree with you. There must have been problems but childhood is always one dimensional. It is only as adults that we recognise the complex ramifications of life and that we understand that our parents protected us from what they must have faced themselves. We were kept safe by the structures of society so that maybe the issues that we face ourselves, unprecedented as they appear, are no more daunting than those that surrounded us, unseen, in the time we think of as being perfect.

As children, all we saw was the annual Thanksgiving picnic on Granny’s name day, when the corn had been harvested and it was time to celebrate. The Tractor, with its trailer, decked out in garlands of hibiscus flowers would come past the houses in the village to pick up the kids and take them to the newly mown field by the river. Every family brought its picnic and there were corn cakes and bananas, pineapple juice to drink and then games for the children; the foot races, the egg and spoon race and the sack race. 

A tarpaulin would be laid out over the dusty ground and the ritual of the blindfold bush would play itself out. Two at a time, the bigger boys would be blindfolded and lie on the green canvas. On the island we have an aromatic plant – by that I mean that when crushed it has a sweet smell like basil – with soft stems and leaves that grows in stalks about two and a half feet long. Each of the combatants is armed with one of these and the rules of the game are simple.

The lads must link their left hands. By turns then, one must shout ‘Here I am’. He may then move. Judging by the sound of his voice and the angle of the wrist, the other will try to hit him with his switch. There was no possibility of doing any damage. The leafiness of the plant prevented any serious contact. A direct hit could sting and the antics of the contest – attempts to crawl or roll out of the line of fire without moving one’s wrist or to make a sidelong blow along the ground always made it a popular spectacle.

There was singing and corn liquor so that someone always disgraced themselves and had to face the music next day. The dancing went on late into the night. Even I, who was no good at running and came last every time in the sack race thought that it was the greatest day of the year. All of the kids looked forward to the picnic for weeks before it came and talked about it for days afterwards.

A picnic like that would be impossible today of course. There are too many people of all types and a field that remote would not be considered safe from attack. I am not even sure that a modern child would enjoy it very much.