A special Yapese ceremony

Last week, just before Yap Day, we were the recipients of our biggest (and, as you’ll see, most embarrassing) surprise to date. It all started one afternoon when Matt was walking home from work, and a complete stranger stopped her car, got out, and asked: “Are you Mr. Grove?” Being an attorney (not to mention a soccer referee), Matt’s first instinct was to turn tail and flee the jurisdiction. His first thought was that perhaps he had red-carded this woman’s son during the previous college soccer season in the United States, and that he was about to hear about how bad a decision it was. We’ve had enough small-world experiences here that this actually wouldn’t have been all that surprising. His second thought – and this was the lawyer in him coming out – was that this was a process server, and that she had a paper in her hand, and “didn’t I see this in a movie once? Has Yap adopted something similar to Rule 4 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure?” What a nerd.

This mysterious stranger soon allayed Matt’s fears, however, by handing him a personalized invitation to the Village of Kaday for a cultural tour that coming Saturday. Kaday runs these tours a couple of times a week and, as you’ll see in the pictures below, it’s quite a fun and educational time. We spent the rest of the week speculating as to the source of the invitation. We finally came to the (incorrect) conclusion that perhaps the villagers invited us as a welcome to the island and a thank-you for coming to work for the government. This seemed plausible, and although it hadn’t happened to any of the other expats it was the only reasonable explanation that we could come up with after hours of fevered speculation on the topic. Yes, spending hours on this was probably overkill, but in our defense it is slow here at times.

Saturday finally arrived, and we headed out to Kaday at 3:30, convincing our little Suzuki to crest the hills on the way by sheer force of will. One of the villagers – our tour guide as it turned out – met us near the head of a stone path that led down into the village proper. She told us that we needed to wait on a tour group from one of the hotels, but that once we were in the village they were going to ask the two of us to try traditional dress. KC’s immediate thought: “I’m not going topless!” But, still trying to figure out exactly what was happening, we acquiesced to their devious plot.

Aside from a few lizards and a couple of taro patches, the walk down to the village was interesting but largely uneventful. Once in the village, we were greeted with flower leis and

headdresses; without any further explanation Matt was then whisked off to the men’s house. With a great deal of help, Matt donned a thu, the traditional outfit for Yapese men. You’d think that an outfit covering this little skin would be fairly simple to put on. But you would be wrong if you thought this. It took a good fifteen minutes to put on and tie two loincloths, a covering called a lavalava, and a decorative hibiscus leaf. Unfortunately, the villagers didn’t have the equipment to manufacture a tan or a washboard stomach, but here’s the end result:

Meanwhile, on the other side of the village, our guide was helping KC into a colorful grass skirt, also made of hibiscus, twisting a banana leaf for her to wear as a top, and smearing her upper body with turmeric to make her a little less pale (the instant-tan turmeric treatment apparently is for women only):

We emerged from opposite sides of the village, meeting behind the community house. On the way over Matt realized that his feet had been much better off in shoes, but he took comfort in the fact that he would have looked really dumb in running sneakers and a loincloth.

Along with a few gawking tourists, we had a seat and a coconut and watched the festivities. A young villager climbed up a betelnut tree (a slender palm tree about 20 feet high) and cut off betelnuts for everyone. Betelnuts are the local chew, a bit like chewing tobacco, and will be the subject of a later post. Coconut husking was next, followed by a traditional dance.

The dance was what everyone had come to see, and it did not disappoint. The Yapese have a number of traditional

dances. The series that we saw here is one of the more athletic and involves highly synch

ronized stick-banging and movement. As we were to find out later, it’s not as easy as

it looks.

The general tour came to a close with the stick dancing, but we were asked to stay around for a special ceremony. “Aha,” we thought, “this is where they thank us for coming to the island and then send us on our merry way. As long as the tourists leave this won’t be too embarrassing.”

As usual, we were wrong (and the tourists didn’t leave). Much to our surprise, we were about to have a miniature Yapese marriage ceremony, arranged from Portland, Oregon, by KC’s dad. In another of the many small-world moments we’ve had on this adventure, it turns out that KC’s dad’s administrative assistant is not only Yapese, but is from Kaday Village itself. Her sister, in fact, greeted us at the airport when we arrived last month.

The ceremony was mercifully brief and undocumented (at least in terms of what we’re willing to post here). We were given gifts of baskets, miniature stone money, and a feast of local food that included two large and somewhat frightening mangrove crabs. They were dead and cooked, fortunately, but still intimidating enough that KC screamed when she opened the basket back at the apartment.

The rest of the feast was delicious, including plentiful reef fish, prawns, and local fruits and vegetables. Ok, so Matt didn’t eat all of the fish, but he heard it was delicious. Many thanks to KC’s dad for this wonderful experience!