October 29

I went to a 'fifty-day dead' last night. when someone dies their life is celebrated every tenth day for one hundred days. So the guy's life we were celebrating last night died fifty days ago. In the morning those closest to the dead (that's how they refer to the recently deceased in bislama) would mourn. They cry loudly and for a surprisingly long time. In the early afternoon, most who knew the dead start coming to the nakamal (the community meeting building), the men prepare and drink kava and the women prepare and bake food for everyone. The small children typically hang out with their mom or with their friends, a few 15-16 year old teen-age boys were preparing the kava last night. they are too young to drink kava, but not to young to work it.

So, ten days ago the mourners cried in the morning, in the afternoon I went to this nakamal and sat and drank kava and storied-on with the men. And again ten days from now and so on. The hundredth day will be a bigger ordeal with more kava and probably meat to bake. After the hundred days, the mourning is finished, there is no more sadness for the deceased. An impressively efficient system.

(It should be noted that Alex questions wether or not it really works, but I get the impression the mourning really is finished after a hundred days of sort of forced mourning.)

As is the tradition here, the person preparing the kava chooses who to offer the kava to, and, as is tradition, an offer to drink kava is rarely, if ever, refused. It is not common for 15-18 year olds to prepare the kava, but it happens sometimes, like last night. The young men preparing the kava and choosing who should drink seemed to favor their school teachers, the teachers got pretty drunk, one was puking, another was having difficulty speaking.