JUST A LITTLE HUMOR FROM CHUUK

December 1991

Sunday as we were in church at Wichap the lady of the house where we hold church was having quite a time getting her 3 year old son settled down for church.  He was wielding an old butcher knife around he had found in the nearby kitchen.  She tried unsuccessfully to put a shirt on him.  After a while we looked over and the mother, who was sitting on the floor, had him calmly lying down in front of her.  The boy had the cutting edge of the knife in his mouth chewing or mouthing it around.  I turned to Bonnie and said, “So that is how the kids cut teeth in Chuuk!”

You know how we call the holes in our roads at home, “chuck holes!”  Well, over here I have christened them “Chuuk Holes!”

During Sacrament Meeting at one of the branches, a bright red rooster crowed and then flew up and perched in the open window of the room we were meeting in.  One of the young people sitting on the floor nearby reached up quickly and grabbed it by both legs.  He got up and took it outside.  When we dismissed for Priesthood meeting and went out to the little open (lean-to) shed where we met, there was the rooster staked out with a heavy string tied to one leg, the other end of the string was tied to a post. 

So there would be no more trouble, they lowered the rooster down into an empty 50 gallon barrel and covered it with a woven mat.  We went on with the meeting.  The bottom was out of the barrel.  Every once in a while I could see part of the string come into view as the ground was uneven.  An occasional sound of the rustling rooster was all we heard that might have detracted us from the lesson.  The lesson was given in Trukese, so I couldn’t understand it anyway.

BATHSHEBA AT BELLI BOT

There is a small boat landing (pickup spot) one half mile northwest of our place named Pelli Pot.  The Chukese pronounce it “Belli Bot.”  Now that we have moved from the luxury of the Continental Hotel docks, most of the Elders and the Couple at Uman use this place to put out with their boats and land again when they come back.

It is beyond a doubt the ugliest place I have ever seen in my life.  It is like a garbage dump almost.  There is a big old discarded wooden boat that is pulled up on shore right next to the narrow driveway where you park your car.  Only a photograph could describe the old boat and site\sight around it.  There are eight or ten of the most dilapidated cement block and wooden shacks there that families live in.  The whole one block long area is very littered and dirty and ugly.  The people come out and smile and talk to you when you stop there for any reason.

Last week Elder Gray and I and our wives went there to wait for a boat to come in.  The Sisters stayed back in the car and we walked the few yards to the water’s edge.  Out of one house came a naked little boy and his 250 pound mother.  She had on a suitable skirt but only a towel (a big towel) wrapped around her ample upper body.  In her hand was a half coconut shell filled with grated coconut meat.  It looked just like the coconut I had grated for Bonnie to use in her cooking the day before.  After I had sampled (tasted) it we had a stalemate conversation.  She apparently didn’t understand us, or we her.  She turned and went back to the car to talk to the sisters.