The trend of hitchhiking America’s highways has faded considerably since its heyday in the 1970’s. It is no longer common to see longhaired wanderers sticking their thumbs out to oncoming traffic on the side of the road. However, hitchhiking has made a comeback in Chuuk. But just like everything else that comes from America to Chuuk, the locals have put their own unique twist on it.
We don’t hitchhike for cars. We hitchhike for boats. The strips of water between the scattered islands of the Chuuk Lagoon get much more traffic than the measly road on the main island of Weno. Fiberglass motor boats with 40 horsepower engines are the standard form of transportation in this watery world. Even if you are going from one place to another on the same island, it is much quicker to hop in a boat.
When I want to make a trip to Weno in order to spend some internet browsing hours, down a few beers or handle some business I need to find a boat to take me there. Oftentimes I can get a ride with my family or close neighbors, but sometimes I must hitchhike for a ride.
I will stand out on my dock and wave my arms frantically in the air when a boat comes passing along. Since I am an innocent looking white guy, somebody almost always stops for me. I will toss them a few dollars for gas and get a lift across the depths of blue to the main island.
Some of my most interesting boating experiences have been while hitchhiking back from Weno. The return trip is much more sketchy and unreliable. The timing, placement and weather all throw monkey wrenches into the situation. I am usually able to find a willing boater, but sometimes it takes me on a wild ride.
One week, I found a man that I knew from my village who offered to give me a ride. He bragged profusely about his new boat that he just got last week. He is a very poor man and obviously had not purchased this boat, so I don’t know the real truth behind the situation. I waited around the market place dock while he went to get gas. The market place dock is possibly the shadiest place on Weno. It is a hangout for drunks and troublemakers and has turned into a living and breathing junkyard of trash. I wormed my way out of a few drunken conversations with half naked men, before retiring to the boat to wait for my captain. One man held my hand for at least two minutes and kept squeezing harder and harder. He had a huge smile on his face and was asking me normal questions, but I finally recoiled away when he gave the standard “Chuukese tickle”. This move involves one person rubbing the inner palm of your hand while you are embraced in a handshake. It is known as a flirtatious move, but drunken men do it to me all the time.
We finally got in the boat and drove a mile or so to the other side of the island, where we pulled into another garbage filled marina and tied up our boat on a slimy rock. We then waited for over two hours for my captain’s nephew to get off work. We weren’t waiting to give him a ride. His uncle just wanted to ask him for some money to buy some food for his family. He finally met his employed nephew and managed to get $4 from him. I lent him another $1 and he bought a huge bag of turkey tails. The ass fat of American consumerism.
Another time I got on a boat with a young man from the other side of Fefan. He was extremely concerned about my safety and continually warned me about dangers of Weno. His boat had broken and his uncle was there to tow it back. We tried to tow the boat but the waves were too big and the storm was too fierce. So we detached the second boat and made our way back to the island. The captain was furious with all the problems that day and wouldn’t drop me at my home, so I disembarked more than an hour’s walk away and wandered through the jungle on my trek home. The young man refused to let me go alone and followed me the whole way.
No comments:
Post a Comment