Yam Story Excerpt 1

Arrival

The flight from Cairns, Australia to Guadalcanal Island’s Henderson Field was late as usual. At the airstrip (for it was too tiny an operation to be rightfully considered an airport) waited a striking looking crowd, including a band of shirtless local schoolboys with their bodies painted in bright array, pan-pipes in their hands; a nervous but official-looking group of Americans who were not dressed quite as well as a youthful group of what looked like graduate students but turned out to be the Peace Corps “training staff”, bearing clipboards and wearing brightly polished shoes. Finally there was a group of twenty or thirty upper-class looking 30 to 40 year olds with bright polyester clothing and sandals on their feet. This group crowded into the shade of a beautiful and ancient tree in the sand parking lot, just outside the baggage area, which was little more than and overhanging roof to protect against sudden and forceful downpours. The only truly indoor areas were behind doors marked “staff only”. There were no restaurants, gift shops, or any of the commercial distractions Westerners would normally expect.

Twenty three Americans would be arriving within the hour. The boys would strike up their pan pipes, the worried looking Americans would usher the newcomers off to their medium sized buses (very large to a local person) waiting nearby, and so would begin the two-year experience of living more simply than they could possibly imagine. Still, to most islanders, each volunteer’s two years would still be more luxury than a lifetime would bring.

Their arrival would be the end of a long process of application, clearance, and travel. It would be the beginning of a frustrating but necessary several weeks of training in the language and culture of local people. For a few it would be a rapid unraveling of their last two years or more of planning and sacrifice as they realized they were not meant to function outside the United States. For fewer still it would be a rapid psychological deterioration as they discovered their fragile sanity could not endure a combined pressures of culture shock, travel, training and stress.

For Noah, as most of the group, the greatest loss would be the surrender of a number of mistaken expectations.

The group who waited on the ground tried their best not to let show their impatience. The group on board the soon-to-arrive flight tried not to let show their mounting anxiety.

The most noticeable person among the Americans waiting at Henderson Field was a tall new Englander with bloodshot eyes, a balding scalp, and a cigarette in his shaking fingers. He looked like an aging, reformed heroin addict. The aids, much more at ease, stood by his side: a woman with an exaggerated tan, also chain-smoking and a slightly-less-tall man with no cigarette and a decidedly more placid expression. He held a clipboard and wore a belt with a water-bottle holster.

“I want this welcoming to be brief but have some memorable impact for them,” huffed the taller man. “I’ve been thinking of how to combine humor with-“

“Patriotism?”

“Well, not patriotism exactly. Do you think? No. Something like esprit du corps.”

“Esprit du Peace Corps,” countered the placid man. The woman turned to look at him, narrowing her eyes, and pursing her lips.

“Mike, if you’re going to do this with the volunteers…“

“They’ll eat out of his hand.” The nervous man interrupted. And the don’t get to be called volunteers until they have completed their training. Michael’s putting on an act of his. He nerds it up and it helps him keep professional distance. Also it makes them comfortable, like with an uncle.”

Michael briefly guffawed. “Edgar knows me too well, already.” Even as he spoke he was scanning for logistical snags, reviewing the trainers with his eyes, glancing at his clipboard to count this and that, speaking soundless reminders to himself.

“Elaine, you’ll speak first, and you give ‘em a drill sergeant’s pep-talk,” said Mr. Nervous. Elaine’s eyes narrowed a second time.

“We have been over this enough times, my fearless leader. I set them up with a pep talk, then you knock ‘em down with a sense of duty talk. She seemed to be more experienced at the routine despite, clearly, that she had 20 fewer years on Earth. Her nervousness was a nervousness of too much caffeine while his mimicked a reaction to too few sedatives. He felt around in his pockets for something that might have been missing. Mike opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, deciding something.

The boss abruptly pivoted, addressed the most senior looking of the Solomon Islander contingent of his staff standing by.

“What’s the first performance the group will be doing?” The head trainer looked bewildered for a split second, then mentally translated the boss’s question and began his response. In the moment of confidence this offered Elaine, she turned to Mike.

“Is Edgar more freaky today or is it me?” Elaine let her agitation loose for a moment or two. It manifest through her eyes, her head, her dry mane of brown-yet-lightened hair tossing impatiently as she shifted her pocket-search for cigarettes from one tight hip pocket to another.

Mike looked into her face, then past her to where Edgar, their smoking, chatting rail-thin director, struggled through the use of Solomon Islands Pidgin with the trainer. Mike might have been responding with his eyes to Elaine’s query. She continued. “I would love to be able to disappear for the part where he gives his speech. People just don’t buy that shit, do they? Davis never would have—“

Mike showed his first vague sign of irritation, which was no more than a lessening of his placidity, still mainly in command of his face. “Edgar hasn’t been here long enough to have the confidence of a Davis. I’m sure once he finds his footing he’ll—“

“He better fucking find his footing I swear it.” Edgar spun back around now, an amazed look on his face.

“Did you know Francis’s parents have arranged a marriage for him for next year? Why, I didn’t even know that could happen here. Amazing!” His eyes widened with more amazement than words conveyed. Now Mike was the one to narrow his eyes at the boss.

“You know, that’s not the first time Francis has told you that, Edgar.” For a change of pace, Elaine decided to show the placidity.

“Edgar’s quite right though, Mike. This is my second stint in the South Pacific and I haven’t heard of arranged marriages from anyone besides Francis.”

There was a pause, then Mike displayed that side of his personality that neither of his co-administrators fathomed. He laughed loudly at himself, even slapped his knee. This gesture caused an immediate ripple of laughter to pass through the group of trainers. Soon they were all laughing heartily through their minor stage fright, for what reason they knew not.

Mike’s expression registered hearty approval of the trainers’ laughter. He wanted to make sure they stayed happy. These young people were important to the success of Peace Corps in the country. They represented the first impression each volunteer-in-training would have of the Solomon Islands: they would be the first teachers of customs, language, social norms. Amongst all the expatriate Europeans, Asians, North Americans, Australians, New Zealanders and Africans living in this tiny nation, only the missionaries could rival the Peace Corps in the quality of training in local language and culture. Trainers were Peace Corps’s life-blood. Still, Francis would need a talking to after the exchange with the boss. Was he bullshitting Edgar to make him look silly? If so, it would have to stop.

This is an excerpt from a book-length draft.

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