2011 - NZ To SF - Day 12

Day 12: (25 May 2011):
- Woke up & ready just in time for breakfast. Bread, butter, jam, hot drinks.
- After: Go straight with the older woman (couple have left), to Hienghen to see some dance. Two kids come too. "Same notefook" when see my moleskine book.
- Pick up a woman & child, drop in town.
- Go to Ouegoa (?). Lots of scouts camped by church & Catholic school.
- No one knows when dance will start, but think later, so go far walk. Dance is to welcome president of Red Cross France. Dance from Ouegoa & Tiendanite & (other?) tribe.
- Walked to a beach area. Building, people bringing leaves to weave & use to cover(?). Bingo hall. Once in a while, a bus takes all the locals for Bingo here! Heard in Poingnam that bingo is very popular with Kanak.
- Back from walk, heard people talking by bullitin board. See a schedule there. Dance is at noon! Since lunch is at noon, decide head back. Stop back, but no electricity. Go to store.
- Return: Look at (Laura?)'s lodge: A traditional mud & stone & stick building. Cool.
- Charlene thought we eat in town, so did not prepare bougna. Lunch will be ~12:30 instead of 12, as she needs time to prepare.
- Walk back & rest. See Jean-Marie Tchjibou's grave/monument. Totem with conchs on it.
- Wash bag.
- Lunch: chicken with the traditional starches (non-traditional bougna).
- Walk after lunch, but terrain terrible. Muddy, poop, slippery. Calabash tree. Fruit trees. Viewpoint a bit overgrown. Short.
- Take cold water shower. Rest. Go to eating area & write / converse a bit with woman & children.
- Compare cameras. Give her site for grabaseat.
- Three people arrive & set up tent. They say they are backpackers to NZ. In campervan (?).
- Although earlier, no electricity in Hienghene, now there is electricity, but none in my section!
- (Laura?) say she saw me walking yesterday when she returning from Koloune village for Internet. She way I waved, which I did. I vaguely remember seeing her in a car that passed.
- Dinner. Chicken, fried bananas (heard frying all afternoon!). Pomelo.
- Listen to French conversation, involved in it a bit. People folding their tent.
- Arrange ride tomorrow: some going to drive. Still no electricity.
- Lamp running out of battery. Horses in way of bathroom. Roll as I approach.
- Horse by cabin when I come back from dinner.
- Mosquito problems again. Spray throughout the night.
- Electricity return during the night. Pee off steps of cabin.


Photos available at: http://mandarinmanmarktravelbriefs.blogspot.com/