Day 3: Baiwei and Tipas
After the rain, the sun is brutal, reflecting off the surface of the water. At midday, there is no escaping its intensity (has to be 35°C). I wear my wide-brimmed hat, my long-sleeved shirt with the collar turned up, and, when I am not paddling, cover my knees with my waterproof jacket. Boot socks protect my ankles, which are already dotted with angry heat spots. Nadya hides beneath her Tilley hat. We are on the Upper Sepik, yet the river is already 200 metres wide and swings lazily from left to right: a chocolate brown snake uncoiling in an easterly direction.
Our progress seems laboured, particularly when we are paddling midstream. But, go close to one bank or the other, and we feel the surge of the current and hear water breaking as it washes over submerged logs. Having two pirogues tied together does not hamper our progress now that we have four paddles. Our students are good at finding the swiftest course; their technique is to paddle fast to cross "dead water" and then to sit idly and ride the current. They nourish themselves on fried sago, the flesh of a large-trunked palm tree, and barbecued pig knuckles wrapped in banana leaves, given to them by their "tambu" (their relatives) in the villages we pass.
When we stop at a village, everyone gathers around in disbelief. Yesterday morning at Baiwei, we hid from the rain (April is the tail-end of the rainy season) for an hour under a wooden shelter. About seventy people ganged around: bare children pressing at our legs, a circle of teenagers, mothers suckling infants to one side, men looking on suspiciously a little way back. I tried to radiate bonhomie and shook as many hands as possible, especially those belonging to men ("Yu orait?"). Nadya is skilled at bridging the gap, asking children their names and about their schooling. A village elder called Joseph brought us coconuts and two planks, so we had somewhere to sit on our raft. With a long-bladed knife (that all men and many kids carry), he trimmed these to the width of the two boats. Noticing several boys holding bows and arrows, I asked him what they shot. "Birds, cuscus, bandicoot, wild pig," he replied. "Do you want to try?" Once the Baiweians had cleared a corridor, we each fired an arrow. There were loud hoots and much merriment. Maybe the "whitepellas" from Canada also hunted the bandicoot! It was like being visiting royals.
Our destination is Tipas, formerly on the Sepik, but now on an oxbow lake. Here, Tom, Fice, and Alex will leave us, and we must find other Papuans as escorts. We could, theoretically, travel alone, but everyone we have met recommends against it. While Christian missionaries penetrated deep into the Papuan interior and created devotees, there are no police here, no law and order other than that imposed by village chiefs. Our pidgin English is inferior to our Indonesian, so we need to travel with English speakers to help us explain our intentions.
The Tipans gather around, and we ask for John Yaupa, the tambu of an electrician we got to know in Vanimo. John is away, but his first wife can put us up and make dinner. Sago is on the menu. We watch the cooking process with interest. Sago begins as a sort of cake, resembling a wedge of Stilton cheese, which the women grate through a fine net. The resulting flour they press into a shallow pan and fry over a fire until it gels into a pancake. When brown, the pancake is flipped and cooked on the other side, water sprinkled on at regular intervals. The pancake comes off the fire and is rolled into a sausage, crispy where it touched the pan, chewy and glutinous where it did not. It resembles now a sea cucumber. Sago is the staple food of the Sepik. The tree is also an essential building material. Villagers thatch their roofs with its leaves, and leaf spines form the walls.
John Yaupa does not show up the following morning, but his father and a party of men with concerned looks on their faces do. There are pirates on the Sepik, they inform us, especially between Ambunti and Pagwi, a few days' paddle downriver. We must switch to a motor-canoe for this stretch. They tell us a story of travellers being robbed of their belongings, including their clothes, and forced out of their canoe at knifepoint. They had to swim for shore. It wasn't clear if they survived, but there are few villages this far upriver. There is among the party a man with a motor-canoe willing to take us all the way to Pagui (at huge cost, no doubt, given the high cost of petrol around here). Tenkyu tru, but no thank you. We wish to paddle, go slowly, see the birds, meet people. We will hire villagers to come with us.
When he returns, John gets Bilicus and Esley, two of his brothers, to go with us as far as Imombi, a day's paddle away... but there is a catch. Our raft will drag a motor-canoe so the pair can get home again. The two whitepellas from Canada must foot the bill for the gas: 256 kina ($100).
Tony
Our progress seems laboured, particularly when we are paddling midstream. But, go close to one bank or the other, and we feel the surge of the current and hear water breaking as it washes over submerged logs. Having two pirogues tied together does not hamper our progress now that we have four paddles. Our students are good at finding the swiftest course; their technique is to paddle fast to cross "dead water" and then to sit idly and ride the current. They nourish themselves on fried sago, the flesh of a large-trunked palm tree, and barbecued pig knuckles wrapped in banana leaves, given to them by their "tambu" (their relatives) in the villages we pass.
When we stop at a village, everyone gathers around in disbelief. Yesterday morning at Baiwei, we hid from the rain (April is the tail-end of the rainy season) for an hour under a wooden shelter. About seventy people ganged around: bare children pressing at our legs, a circle of teenagers, mothers suckling infants to one side, men looking on suspiciously a little way back. I tried to radiate bonhomie and shook as many hands as possible, especially those belonging to men ("Yu orait?"). Nadya is skilled at bridging the gap, asking children their names and about their schooling. A village elder called Joseph brought us coconuts and two planks, so we had somewhere to sit on our raft. With a long-bladed knife (that all men and many kids carry), he trimmed these to the width of the two boats. Noticing several boys holding bows and arrows, I asked him what they shot. "Birds, cuscus, bandicoot, wild pig," he replied. "Do you want to try?" Once the Baiweians had cleared a corridor, we each fired an arrow. There were loud hoots and much merriment. Maybe the "whitepellas" from Canada also hunted the bandicoot! It was like being visiting royals.
Our destination is Tipas, formerly on the Sepik, but now on an oxbow lake. Here, Tom, Fice, and Alex will leave us, and we must find other Papuans as escorts. We could, theoretically, travel alone, but everyone we have met recommends against it. While Christian missionaries penetrated deep into the Papuan interior and created devotees, there are no police here, no law and order other than that imposed by village chiefs. Our pidgin English is inferior to our Indonesian, so we need to travel with English speakers to help us explain our intentions.
The Tipans gather around, and we ask for John Yaupa, the tambu of an electrician we got to know in Vanimo. John is away, but his first wife can put us up and make dinner. Sago is on the menu. We watch the cooking process with interest. Sago begins as a sort of cake, resembling a wedge of Stilton cheese, which the women grate through a fine net. The resulting flour they press into a shallow pan and fry over a fire until it gels into a pancake. When brown, the pancake is flipped and cooked on the other side, water sprinkled on at regular intervals. The pancake comes off the fire and is rolled into a sausage, crispy where it touched the pan, chewy and glutinous where it did not. It resembles now a sea cucumber. Sago is the staple food of the Sepik. The tree is also an essential building material. Villagers thatch their roofs with its leaves, and leaf spines form the walls.
John Yaupa does not show up the following morning, but his father and a party of men with concerned looks on their faces do. There are pirates on the Sepik, they inform us, especially between Ambunti and Pagwi, a few days' paddle downriver. We must switch to a motor-canoe for this stretch. They tell us a story of travellers being robbed of their belongings, including their clothes, and forced out of their canoe at knifepoint. They had to swim for shore. It wasn't clear if they survived, but there are few villages this far upriver. There is among the party a man with a motor-canoe willing to take us all the way to Pagui (at huge cost, no doubt, given the high cost of petrol around here). Tenkyu tru, but no thank you. We wish to paddle, go slowly, see the birds, meet people. We will hire villagers to come with us.
When he returns, John gets Bilicus and Esley, two of his brothers, to go with us as far as Imombi, a day's paddle away... but there is a catch. Our raft will drag a motor-canoe so the pair can get home again. The two whitepellas from Canada must foot the bill for the gas: 256 kina ($100).
Tony
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