Weddings-- are they worth it?

When I think about wedding problems in the US, there are a couple of platitudes that come to mind, "at the end of the day, at least you'll be married." And the second encouraging phrase you often hear is "Nobody will notice. And if they do, they'll forget soon enough anyway."

Here on Clove Island it's not so simple. For a lot of people, they're actually already married before the wedding. The big parties and fanfare really is just that-- for some weddings, the bride and groom have been married for several years already.

And do people forget what goes wrong? Nope. Everything involved with weddings is recorded: what you donate towards the wedding is written down so they can reciprocate with your wedding. If you come cook at a wedding, then they'll come cook at your family's wedding. But heaven forbid that you should not have enough food at your wedding for all the people who come to help cook it.

Or should you fail to...

... give a special guest a flower necklace...

... or have the drum group play loud enough...

... or have the right shoes for every event.

Basically, there are a multitude of opportunities for missteps, and the shame is lasting.

In America, people like to complain about how much work pulling off a wedding is. But really, nothing compares to the elaborate show that weddings here turn into. The family may not have money, but they're still expected to throw a big party. Debts are incurred, favors returned and owed, and what are you left with afterward? A lot of pictures, debt, and the honor of having a big wedding.

Some islanders have refused to do the big wedding, but the greater society is caught up in the system-- you help with big weddings, you get help with big weddings.  Is the interdependence good, or is the debt and shame crippling? I don't know. But as a foreigner I'm expected to show up and give honor to those honor is due.

Waiting

Waiting for the race

Sometimes I wonder what percentage of my time here on Clove Island has been spent waiting. Since most times mentioned for events are not exact, I'm often caught waiting.

Like the other day when I went to watch a friend run in a relay race. We were told that the race would be a 9 AM. At 8:00 we were told that it was for sure starting soon, maybe even before 9. So I hurried down to the starting point to watch. Well, it didn't start before 9. Soon we found out that our friend was running the first part of the race, so we moved a little ways away to wait, excited to cheer her on at the relay point.

Waiting for skits to start

Two hours later, we were still waiting and finally they closed the road for the race. Cheers heard, they've started! We waited for the runners but our friend wasn't in the group. No! Her relay point was even earlier than we'd thought and we completely missed watching her run.

Two hours of waiting, and then not even seeing what we came for.

Sometimes it's just the taxi system that causes me to wait. Recently I invited a friend to go up to a mountain village with me for some English students' final exams. We went to road at noon to catch a bus up to the village. And forty minutes later we caught a bus. During that time period we saw lots of busses, but none of them were going where we were going.

Why didn't you just plan your departure time by the bus schedule? you ask. Well, there is no bus schedule. You just try to leave enough time in your schedule to wait.

More waiting

Yes, I plan my waiting. Instagram stories were made for waiting. While I wait I strike up conversations with nearby people, read on my phone, take pictures, and make plans. I also have a flashcard app on my phone that I use to review new island vocabulary.

But sometimes I just get tired of waiting. Seriously, I could be home doing things, and here I am not knowing how long is left in this course of waiting. Does knowing the end goal make it easier? Maybe, maybe not. But I think we're always waiting for something.

What are you waiting for?

Do you ever get tired of waiting too?

Does he have 9 lives?

This is my cat, Jack. Jack is a handy name because it's so versatile. Islanders are familiar with Jack Bauer, but there are other famous Jacks in pop culture and history-- Jack the Ripper (appropriate kitten name), Jack Sprat (not so appropriate, my kitty loves eating fat), Jack Sparrow, Captain Jack, etc and so forth.

Jack came into my life as a baby kitten. I found him on the street, being shielded from the sun by a banana leaf lovingly placed there by a toddler. After questioning the toddler and other kids who soon arrived about his origins I determined that he'd been dumped intentionally in a graveyard. I also determined that he was not going to survive unless he had a mama. His eyes weren't even fully open and he wasn't very good at walking. How would he survive in the big, bad world?

"sleeping in"

So I took him home and adopted him. He drank powdered milk from an eye dropper, then a syringe, then eventually he learned to lap up milk and eat eggs. An adorable baby, he was easy to take care of, since he couldn't escape from his plastic tub. I'd let him tumble around the house while I was home, then put him in his tub for the night or whenever I went out.

Eventually he learned to escape the tub. He would play in the house and sleep in the bathroom. But my idea was that he'd become an independent adult cat, so I wanted him to get used to being and sleeping outside.

But he's a little cat. So after a few nights spent outside, he got beat up by big, bad neighbor cats.

When it first burst open...

Recovering

He came into the house looking totally worn out, but I figured that he'd sleep it off and be fine. Well, he slept. And slept. And slept. And I was getting worried, because he wasn't really interested in food or anything other than sleeping. Finally, I started force-feeding him with the syringe again. And started him on oral antibiotics (thanks vet friend back home for the recommendation). He was totally lethargic though with a tender rear end.

And then I came home one day and he had a big hole in his rear end, extending up to his belly. The infection had ruptured and he was oozing puss. You could see a ton of exposed leg muscle, as well as internal organs. I thought he was a goner.

But this cat seriously has nine lives! He started feeling better, regained his appetite, and plays around the house, all the time with a gaping wound. The belly portion has all healed now, and the back part of his leg is what's left to heal.

Jack the cat is around to stay.