Dragging a car out of the village

This was such a fun event – everyone was in stitches laughing the whole time!

We had a shell of a car which had been an eyesore in the village for years, and the community decided that it was time to beautify the village and thus we needed to get rid of the old car.

Here’s what it looked like when I first visited in August 2009.

First they had to turn the car upside down and attach ropes to it for pulling.

Then they dragged it from the village out to the road.

After that we dragged it along the road for a while (you can see me in my pink hat in these next two photos).

Next they took it a little way into the bush (not very far from the road).

It was turned over again and positioned in its final resting place. It is next to an area where some copra work gets done, so now they put their bags of dried copra inside the car to hide it from the rain.

Pulling our canoe through the bush

Our canoe was being carved in the bush where the canoe-tree was felled. Since it was in the bush, it didn’t get worked on daily, but it got to the stage where enough had been carved and it was ready to be taken to Teop Island for further work.

We, and a bunch of men went to drag it out. They attached a rope to it, and everyone got on the end of the rope and pulled, with one man at the other end of the canoe pushing.

Here we are pulling the canoe. You can just see me near the front if you can recognise my clothes.

Some more photos of the men pulling the canoe after I stopped.

The men having a brief break – it’s exhausting work, running through the bush pulling a canoe!