Dream crabs and an unseen foe
Wed 15 July 2009
Jason Rutch, Communications
I was stirred from sleep by someone biting my fingertips.
I knew this trip was not going to be all beaches and bures, sun and sand.
I knew the closest we would get to five star accommodations was the saggy mattress and lank curtains of the Aquarius Hotel, our decompression before we headed to the villages.
We were here to support the local church and deliver school supplies, not for a holiday.
We were staying in the village of Loma-loma, a small village on Vanua Balevu, part of the Northern Lau group of islands, closer to Tonga than Fiji.
My Lonely Planet guidebook, bought for entertainment purposes more than any desire to engage in independent travel apart from the group, described our island as “enigmatic in shape and substance”, and encouraged us to observe influences of Tongan architecture due in part to our proximity to the border and the island’s nineteenth century colonisation.
The trained eye would notice several indicators of Tongan influence, as promised.
An anthropologist might notice some distinctive phenotypes.
A linguist would notice the intermingling of the East Fijian dialect, Lauan, and Tongan languages.
As I was none of these, I just wanted to go home.
There was no mention of nocturnal predators, and I assured my sleep-addled self that, had there been any native to the island, surely Lonely Planet would mention it.
Tucking my hands under my chest, I returned to sleep.
Earlier that night, we had been told that this island, being comparatively close to the International Date Line, we would be among the first to see dawn.
This fact brought me no comfort in the powerful darkness, and was later revealed to be false.
The International Date Line divides Tonga and Samoa, not Tonga and Fiji.
We would be seeing the sun at the same time as everyone else.
Bitten again, this time on my elbow.
We stayed in Pei’s house, an older lady who was staying with her sister in the next village for the duration of our stay, leaving us alone in the house.
We were sleeping on the floor of her kitchen/dining-room.
I had bedded down next to Tim, a good natured preacher’s son from North Queensland.
A very large and unintroduced local had joined us and curled up uncomfortably close on my right.
This was not unusual, as often trustworthy members of the local church would stay with visiting missionaries for security.
Not unusual, but deeply concerning.
This was Thambé, the local youth pastor, as we later learned.
I turned to wake Tim, convinced he was pinching me.
He and his bed were gone, as was Thambé.
I considered my situation.
Unknown country.
Distant island.
Biting.
Sudden disappearance of a youth and a typically large Fijian.
Lonely Planet, yesterday, had told me that the closest police station was 115km of open sea away, on Taveuni.
Had I been of lucid thought, in the middle of the day, I would have found a simple reason for the absence of Thambé and Tim, and the presence of my finger-biting phantom.
Instead, beset by abject terror, my hypotheses were balanced squarely between the Tikbalang, a mythological beast from the Philipines, finding itself lost and hungry in Loma-loma, and Reverend Thomas Baker, the only reported instance of a cannibalised missionary in Fiji.
Despite the Lovecraftian horrors I had conjured for myself, I tucked all my extremities as close as possible to my chest and returned to sleep.
A third nibbling and I pounced with my torch, eager to catch my assailant.
Nothing.
A scan of the room revealed a larger than normal hermit crab scuttling slowly about in a distant corner.
Surely not.
However, I was exhausted from the long day of travel, and the discovery of a potential non-mythological culprit was more than enough to convince myself that I could survive the night.
Over breakfast, I told the team of my difficult night, and was met with disbelief and laughter.
I even had unusual scratches on my fingertips and elbow as proof.
Alarmingly, I found a similar wound on my forehead.
However, for the rest of the trip, any tale or notion that could not be immediately proven with tangible evidence was labelled a “dream crab” and dismissed in reference to my “tall stories”.
I grumbled ungraciously about their un-Christian dealings with my nocturnal horror.
Afterwards, Tim and I decided to amble around the village and acquaint ourselves with the island.
Thambé, who was not at all a cannibal, was our guide.
He told us a brief history of the island (Laisenia Qarase, the recently deposed Prime Minister, was evacuated to his residence two villages over).
He patiently translated conversations for us.
I was ashamed.
Such hospitality, when only hours ago I would have called the police on Thambé for want of a telephone connection and a police station.
Especially generous considering the oddity of my appearance.
I noticed a handful of girls were laughing at me, and Thambé explained that men in Fiji don’t wear ponytails.
We had been briefly warned about cultural niceties.
The girls were encouraged to wear shirts while they were swimming and long sleeves when they were not.
The men were told that they might be targets for young daughters seeking marriage and, more importantly, visas.
We were told that we would have to make allowances for the Fijian’s cultural differences, and warned about the local’s lax approach to deadlines (“Fijian time”) causing difficulties.
I had not considered how our cultural oddities would affect our hosts.
Pei, the owner of our accommodation, invited Tim and I to have hot tea and Milo for supper that night.
All processed food must be taken to this island by boat, making Milo a princely gift.
I did not realise until after my third cup that the beverage could easily be the equivalent of Pei’s daily wage.
I told her of my experience with the “dream crabs”.
Expecting derision, I was met with a nod and a “that happens all the time” facial expression I found concerning.
She told me of the kalavo, a water rat, native to the outlying islands, closer in size to a possum than a mouse.
I have not been able to find textual evidence of this creature, but the next night I saw it myself, crawling down the security bars of Pei’s kitchen while we ate.
The remainder of the trip, I slept in the next room, on a couch, with my head tucked under a sheet, determined not to present my fleshy digits for some rodent’s midnight snack.
My disbelieving colleagues, however, slept on the floor, within easy reach of the “dream crabs”.
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