The dancing—both Tahitian and modified European—took place beside the boat, on the dock. After each dance the men boarded the boat to squat around and talk, while the girls retreated down the dock to the shadows of the road. With the beginning of a new tune the men would seek out their partners and lead them back into the lighted area around our pressure lantern. During the frequent showers, everyone crowded aboard and took giggling refuge below so that, at times, we had over a hundred people packed into the cabins, the bunks, and the aisles, examining our possessions as they waited for the rain to stop and making excited comments about our accommodations.
Nothing, I hasten to add, was missing when the last guest had finally gone, but the next day our ship’s inventory was increased alarmingly by gifts of bananas, breadfruit, necklaces of shells, carvings of wood and coconut, and hats of woven pandanus.
Nick’s birthday fell on the day before we were to leave Haapu, so we gladly accepted an invitation to eat Tahitian style with a local family. We provided the pig—bought from one of the villagers—and our friends agreed to cook it for us, Tahitian style, in their family oven. Early in the afternoon we gathered to watch them disjoint the pig and place the large chunks of meat in a huge, saucer-shaped cooking pot which was then placed directly on a bed of hot coals in the hollowed-out dirt floor of the “cookhouse” behind the main dwelling. Around the chunks of meat were laid quartered breadfruit and dozens of peeled bananas. These were roofed over with long branches, and upon the frame were piled layer upon layer of green banana leaves followed by numerous mats of pressed dried leaves and bark which had been stored in stacks around the cookhouse walls. Finally, heavy burlap sacks were spread over everything and the oven was complete.
While our Polynesian dinner was baking, Barbara decided she would whip up a birthday cake—not because she was afraid the dinner would be inadequate but because she thought our hosts might be interested in our birthday customs. Birthday candles and fancy holders she had stored aboard in quantity, but for a time the lack of an egg threatened to spoil her plans.
It is impossible to walk anywhere in Haapu—or in any other Polynesian village, for that matter—without flushing a chicken a minute, not to mention ducks and pigs. Getting hold of an egg, however, was something else again. When we inquired at the store, the Chinese proprietor seemed to be quite taken aback at the very thought of anyone wanting to buy an egg.
“Perhaps,” he suggested finally, in barely intelligible French, “madam might ask chez le médecin?”
As she didn’t have a headache—yet—it seemed unlikely that the doctor could help, but Barbara went there and tried again. The doctor and his wife seemed completely nonplused, but the daughter of the family, who had been to school in Tahiti and could speak French, not only grasped the situation but was able to make it intelligible to her parents. Immediately they went into action.
Taking Barbara in tow, they set off on a house-to-house canvass of the village. Every passer-by was stopped and, after the usual exchange of greetings and handshakes, our problem was presented. People waved from their porches as the growing crowd moved on and when they were informed of the dilemma they, too, came over to join in the discussion—and the search. Children were excitedly recruited and sent off in all directions—mostly into the bushes. Haapu was aroused into a fever of activity and concern.
Eventually results were achieved. A child came proudly out of the jungle with—an egg! It was rather small and very dirty, but it was an egg. Barbara accepted it with private reservations and paid the little girl the astronomical sum of a five-franc piece—the smallest change she had. This staggering reward of industry (almost eight cents) caused a near panic and other eggs began to be pressed upon her. One, which a small boy delivered at a run, was fortunately broken when its owner tripped and fell in his eagerness to hand it over. (It had obviously been almost ready to hatch.) Two others were safely delivered, however, and of the three, one proved to be edible and the birthday cake was duly made and proved to be a tremendous success.
After the dinner, and to top off Nick’s birthday celebration, we went to the weekly movie—for the products of Hollywood have penetrated even this remote outpost. The theater itself was no bigger, nor did it look any different, than any of the other woven houses along the meandering main street, but inside the single room was lined with rows of backless benches—very hard and very crowded. The whole village seemed to be there, young and old, babies and octogenarians—even pets. We were given seats of honor, right in the middle, but since our area was slightly less crowded than the rest of the house, we were each given a youngster to hold.