Chapter 7- Adios, Farewell, Auf Weidersein
For each and every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
-Einstein's Second Law of Motion. Or First. Or Newton's. Or Something.
Actually, Einstein (or whoever you are), it doesn't even need to be that complicated. There are offices for three clerks here, and the three of us have all arrived, so it's time for the old ones to depart. That's right. Stephanie arrived Saturday morning. Her flight was more or less the same as mine (minus the First Class part, of course), but for some reason, a problem developed in Guam forcing her to be delayed about six hours. So she got to catch a few hours sleep at a hotel courtesy of Continental Micronesia before getting up at 4:00 a.m. to catch the last leg to Palau. She arrived on the morning of a picnic sponsored by the Court. The justification for the picnic was somewhat unclear-- was it a celebration of the new clerks arriving? The old clerks leaving (Kendall was to depart on Wednesday, Rick is around for another two weeks)? Or maybe the autumnal equinox is a big thing for the judiciary here?
Who knows? The important thing was, it was something to do on Saturday besides the default option of going diving. Notices of the picnic were distributed in everyone's mailbox at the Court. Oddly, a sentence in the body of the notice indicated that it was "pot luck," and "your Kless is:" followed by a space. For each of the clerks, the "Kless," whatever that was, was written in as "not required."
Thank God. Although most of my belongings from home had gotten here, I was pretty sure that I hadn't unpacked a "Kless." It must have been in one of my other boxes, and it would have been embarrassing to show up Kless-less to a party where everyone else had one. In the back of my mind, I could imagine the folks in the Clerk's Office talking about me afterwards: "That Brian, he's like a grammar school on Saturday-- no Kless." Rimshot! (I never got a satisfactory answer to what exactly a "Kless" was, but apparently, rather than leave the pot luck concept up for individual impulse, thus resulting in 25 variants of Jello deserts, a "Kless" is an assigned dish to bring.)
Nevertheless, I felt bad about arriving empty handed to the picnic, so before leaving, I grabbed two boxes of brownie mix that my mom had shipped, and figured I'd make up some brownies. Except that, as mentioned previously, most of my pots and pans and sundry kitchenware was M.I.A., perhaps in the same box as my Kless. But I was not going to be deterred. For mixing, I found a saucepan that had arrived, and dumped the brownie ingredients in there.
Now to stir-- yet once again, the incompetence of the postal service deprived me of an appropriate implement. I considered and quickly rejected just doing it by hand. It reminded me too much of that scene in "National Lampoon's Vacation," where the yokel cousin stirs the Kool-Aid with her forearm. Other options, ranging from a ballpoint pen to Swiss army knife were also summarily dismissed. I wandered the inhabited rooms of my house, hoping for inspiration to strike, when, looking over the tools I had shipped, I found just the thing. Grabbing a screwdriver (phillips head), I hurried back to the kitchen, washed off the handle with plenty of soap and water, and proceeded to mix. Batter dumped into a baking pan, also wisely sent by my mom, and into the oven they went. I felt mildly triumphant. Sort of like "Martha Stewart Living" meets "This Old House."
The picnic was held at a place called "High Tide," a small beach at the southern end of Malakal, an industrial suburb island to the south of Koror. Well, that's not entirely true. "High Tide" was apparently the building about 200 yards away at the other end of the beach from the pavilion where we all settled in. (Amazingly, from where we stood, the imitation thatch roof of High Tide, coupled with the cabin-cruiser obliquely dry-docked next door, when looked at from the right angle, was the spitting image of the wide shot of the opening of Gilligan's Island, where they show the wounded Minnow washed up on the beach. I felt temporarily vindicated over the choice of title for my web site.) The picnic itself merits little discussion here, other than to say that some rice and salad was eaten (I chose to avoid the various fish dishes, thus redeeming my earlier failure my first day at the Rock Island Cafe), some volleyball was played, and some clerks, including the newly arrived Stephanie, were introduced. The brownies got rave reviews, even after I explained how they came to be, although,knowing how such news was likely to be received, I took great care to emphasize that the screwdriver had been washed first.
Interaction with the Court staff was a bit odd. As I've said before, most Palauans speak English pretty well, but in casual situations, Palauan is definitely the language of choice, and unless one of them was speaking directly to us, almost all of the discussions there were conducted in the local tongue. I don't believe that this was intentional, and took no offense from it, since none of the other Americans there-- the three judges, the Clerk of the Court, and so on, could speak Palauan either. Nevertheless, it's a little unfortunate-- there is much to know about the place, and sometimes the best way to learn about various local issues, or at least to learn what to ask about, is by eavesdropping on someone else's conversation. As a result, the Americans tended to cluster together separately to converse. Although this isolationism was occasionally breached by someone from one camp calling out to the other to relay a favorite old story or to ask some minor question ("Where's so-and-so?"), for the most part, the non-sporting aspects of the picnic had the feel of a junior high school dance, with the Americans and Palauans congregating among themselves, maintaining as discreet a distance as 13-year old boys and girls do.
I decided to throw a going away party for Kendall. This was partly to return the favor of hosting me my first night, partly a way of saying thanks for the assistance he provided in various capacities in getting various administrative things taken care of, and partly because I had been told my house was an outstanding location to throw parties and I needed a reason for my maiden social event. He was leaving Wednesday morning for Manila, on route to Wisconsin via a quick trip to Turkey (which reminded me of just how much a homebody I am. Everyone here has ambitious plans to travel during and after their clerkship before returning to America- trips to China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and so on. Other than a possible trip to a former co-worker's wedding in Australia, I don't really plan on going anywhere but back to the U.S. during the year. I wonder what that says about me?), so we decided to have the party on Tuesday night.
Although Budweiser (or as ads in the paper put it, "The Bud Family" of beers) is the beer of choice among Palauans, and a beer from the Philippines called "San Muigel" seems to be the expatriate favorite, we arranged to get a couple of "kegs" from the newest (and only) microbrewery in Palau, which is either the "Palau Brewing Company" or "Red Rooster," depending on whether you believe the legend stenciled on the tanks or their business cards. We had tried Red Rooster at a previous party thrown by another American attorney and were reasonably impressed with it, and sampled even more at a booth during the Independence Day celebrations. They make a fine dark beer, as a pretty good wheat beer and lager. We settled on two five-gallon "kegs," which, in actuality, were soda syrup canisters, each powered by a standard hand pump specially fitted to the couplings on the canister. Total cost for the beer: $80, which Kendall paid for. I'm not sure why, since it was, at least nominally, his party, but since I had not received a paycheck in nearly a month, and the next Palauan payday was not for another 8 days, I wasn't in much of a position to object. Plus, since Kendall was selling off all his goods before he left, and had brokered a complicated transaction to sell my scuba regulator, in exchange for me buying his which came equipped with a dive computer, I had just cut him a check for $275, so I was in even less of a position to be magnanimous.
I lugged the beer back to my place and put it on ice, then headed down to Surangel's for cups, snacks, and whatever else I could think of. Throughout the two preceding days, both Jill and Stephanie had repeatedly asked what they should bring to the party, and I had no answer for them. Back in college, I threw plenty of parties, and rarely provided anything more than just the beer, so the idea of having food as well, while distinctly more adult and civilized, was somewhat of a foreign concept. I solved the problem by telling people to bring "whatever they felt was appropriate," which conveniently placed the burden on them and absolved me of the obligation to make a decision. I picked up a couple of bags of chips at Surangel's, and then, remembering that Jill had told me that afternoon that she had made up some sushi for the party (digression: both Jill and Stephanie, as well as a couple of the other expats I've met here have this bordering-on-compulsive fascination with sushi and sashimi. I don't really understand it myself. I've had sushi on a few occasions, and it was o.k., but didn't really satisfy me in the same way that a good pizza would. As far as sashimi goes, I'm not even sure exactly what it is- I think it's sushi without the rice and seaweed, which essentially makes it just hunks of raw fish, or possibly hunks of raw fish marinated in something. I remember when the sushi craze hit the states in the mid-to-late 80's, and then seemed to fade. I just assumed that people's tastes for it faded as well. But the two of them practically drool with gustatory anticipation whenever the subject comes up. Weird.), and-- well, there's no point in continuing this sentence after that tangent, so let's just start fresh.
Jill had said she had made some sushi for the party, and I felt that, somehow, a couple of bags of chips just weren't enough to compete with that, so I settled on also making a little appetizer that I had often made for Michele's monthly book club meetings-- a sort of crude bruschetta, with diced tomatoes, fresh basil, garlic, and olive oil baked on French bread. Because I had been alerted that it was a "good produce day" at Surangel's, I was able to find some fresh basil, as well as some frozen French bread (the "fresh" loaves of French bread on Surangel's shelves from the local bakery all had spots of mold beginning to show), and a couple of cans of diced tomatoes. No garlic to be found, but I figured no one would notice. I got home, cleaned up the place, and about 20 minutes before the party was ostensibly to start, I finally turned to preparing the bruschetta.
Oops. The same problem that plagued me with the brownies at the picnic-- no kitchen implements-- again manifested itself now. Making bruschetta doesn't require much in terms of kitchenware, but it's hard to get diced tomatoes out of a can without first opening the can.
I can't believe I'm doing this, but two minutes over the sink with a hammer, screwdriver, and a mild amount of pounding and the tomatoes are now available for distribution. I decide, rather than returning the tools to the shelf in the bedroom where I usually keep them, I'll leave them out in the kitchen. Who knows if I might need the pliers to make cereal some morning?
Once again, I'll spare you most of the details of the party itself. Probably forty people or so showed up-- mostly expat Americans doing various things here, but a few locals showed up as guests of guests. Knowing few people here, I had done little inviting, leaving it up to Kendall and a few others who had been around longer to spread the word, and so the guest list was interesting. The beer was popular, although at least one person brought a big jug of some clear Japanese liquor that smelled like varnish, and, although it seemed near the end of the party that I might inherit it, it thankfully managed to disappear with the last of the guests. Jill's sushi was pretty good-- mindful of my vegetarianism, she made some up with eggs and pickled radish inside instead of fish. I was warned, as a sushi beginner, to take it easy with the spicy green wasabi that you squeezed out of a tube like frosting on top of a piece, but I explained that I was from Buffalo, the city that invented the chicken wing, and downed a big glob of it. It came on a little strong, but faded quickly. Not even close to the salivary inferno that results from a good Tabasco-based chicken wing sauce. I have to say that Jill's sushi was pretty tasty. Not enough to convert me to the "fall down on your knees and worship sushi as some sort of ambrosia" camp, but still pretty good. She and Stephanie were in Nirvana, though, because some local boat captain had also brought some sashimi, bragging that it was less than five hours old, which is ostensibly, according to him, the cusp of sashimi "freshness."
"Did you try the sashimi yet?" Stephanie asked me at least four times. "It's good," she said each time I explained that I hadn't. I wondered if the two of them had somehow ingested some sort of fish parasite that subconsciously programmed them to lust after more and more raw fish. But after a moment's consideration, I discarded the idea as being a little too sci-fi, and at any rate, anti-Darwinian from the parasite's (and fish's) point of view.
The party did produce an enigma of sorts, one which I am still contemplating, yet coming no closer to understanding.
One of my purchases at Surangel's was a bag of Doritos, 16 oz., nacho cheese flavor. Not my personal snack chip preference, but there seemed to be a lot of bags of them everywhere, so I figured they were popular enough here to fed guests. As the party started breaking up, and after I had gotten a few drinks in me, I was lingering over the food table when I noticed a couple of peculiar things about the bag. One was the small blue circle, cavalierly placed off center near the bottom, branding the product as "EXPORT." Hmm. I wondered aloud what the significance of that was. Jill and I and someone else, who I've now forgotten so I can thus attribute all the stupid things said to him or her, speculated on the significance of the designation of these particular chips as suitable for export.
"Maybe these are the pesticide-ridden ones that they can't sell in the U.S.," Jill postulated.
"Maybe those imperialist Americans deliberately infect these with smallpox like they did with the blankets they gave to the Indians," I said. Nice. That sort of dark, caustic humor really helps endear you to strangers quickly.
"Maybe these have to meet some special rules to be eligible for overseas shipment," the other person said. On the surface, a plausible theory, given the paranoia islands like Palau have over the importation of potentially harmful non-native plants and animals. On the other hand, it seemed contrary to all I had seen to assume that something to be sold in Palau would be held to higher standards than it might be in the U.S.
The mystery was never solved, because moments later, I made an even more troubling discovery: this bag had an expiration date, and you won't believe me if I tell you, so I'm including a photo:
O.k., it's a pretty blurry (damn red background), but that's "Best Sold By: End of DLUO." I panicked. What the hell is DLUO? And what if that was, like, three years ago? Up 'til now, I've had a number of strange experiences in Palau, but this one really got to me. I could live with weird insects all over the house. I could adjust to only drinking bottled water. I could adapt to driving on the wrong side of the car. But when something as quintessentially American as Doritos (they sure as hell ain't Mexican food) starts getting weird on you, you suddenly feel very, very vulnerable. Next thing you know, you're walking into McDonald's, and instead of getting a bag full of burgers, the clerk hands you a shotgun and points towards the pasture. (No, there's no McDonald's here. It's an allegory.)
I wanted very much to come up with a rational explanation for the notation that would make this whole situation seem less, well, alien. Maybe it was an acronym, but for what? "Date [for] Last Use, Outside?" Logical, but the somewhat disjointed placement of adjectives seemed a bit to Department of Defense-ish. "Dispose, Lest Use Occur?" Good advice, but probably not the message the marketing department was likely to advocate putting right on the bag. "Don't Let Us Out?" Nah, too cartoony. Plus it said "End of DLUO," suggesting that DLUO, whatever it was, was more than just one single day. Was that one of the Hebrew months? Was it Palauan? Maybe that was a local name for a particular holiday, like "Tet" in Vietnam or "Ramadan" in Iran? Maybe some month, all the offices in Palau close early and people have big parties in an attempt to scarf down all their uneaten Doritos before they expired at the stroke of midnight.
Suddenly, the idea of eating "specially designed for export" chips that may or may not have expired during a month nobody had ever heard of had me genuinely distressed. A few days ago, Jill, Dave, and I had gone to lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Koror that, as best we could tell, was named "Smoked Meat of Cake," and I wound up eating something called "kugong" that looked like boiled flower stems in grey dishwater. But even that didn't concern me as much as the Doritos which, ten minutes ago, seemed perfectly normal.
Just in case DLUO was right around the corner, I finished the bag.
The party broke up around 12:30 p.m., when the last guests, a couple of anthropologists from Toronto, got tired of exchanging mildly abusive banter about unheard-of-outside Western New York and Southern Ontario Canadian bands, and finally split. I cleaned up the half-full cups all over the carport, which would otherwise become fascinating experiments in entomology by morning, and jumped onto Palaunet, just to see by chance if any of my friends back in Buffalo, where it was about 10:30 a.m Tuesday morning., wanted to waste a few minutes at work exchanging e-mails in real time. But nobody seemed to be at their desk, or else they didn't feel like playing along, and after about 15 minutes, I got bored and went to bed.
Kendall left the next morning, I assume. He didn't show up to work again, and we haven't seen him since, so I assume he's on his way to Manila. As the Lawrence Welk singers used to say, "Adios, Farewell, Auf Weidersein, Good Night."
His Palauan adventure is over now, but he took home a nice souvenir. Every vacation destination of any size has its own signature tchotchke to shill to the tourists, and Palau is no exception. The standard local handicraft here is a "storyboard," an intricately carved wooden piece that pictorially illustrates one of Palau's legends. (Actually, a lot of the legends seem half-hearted. For example, one is the story of a woman who had a magic tree that spat fish out of a whole in the trunk whenever she wanted. The neighbors got jealous and chopped it down. Then everyone died. That's it. End of legend. It makes for a nice illustration, with a whole river of fish pouring out of a hole in the tree, but totally lacks in the "hey, that's a worthwhile lesson to live by" category. I guess it teaches kids not to cut down magic trees, or else everyone will die, but that's sort of hard to apply that to everyday life where magic trees are pretty inconspicuous. Another one allegedly explains how two fornicating Palauans discovered that turtles return to the same place every year to lay their eggs. Again, a cute little story, but nothing that you couldn't have figured out just by hanging around the beach for a while.) For some reason, most of the best storyboards are carved by inmates at the Palau jail. I don't know if storyboarding leads to crime or vice-versa, or why the police think its a good idea to give sharp chisels and knives to prisoners, but that's the way things are here. So Kendall went down to the jail and struck a deal with some convict to make him a storyboard coffee table-- a giant piece of mahogany, a good four inches thick, carved with several different legends all over the top, and with legs carved to resemble the traditional native meeting houses called "bais." He showed it off his last day of work, and I instantly coveted it. I'll think about maybe having one made before I go, too.
But right now, I'm jealous of him for another reason. Soon, somewhere in America's Dairyland, he's going to be eating good old fashioned domestic Doritos, guaranteed fresh until some date that actually exists on the Julian calendar. God, I envy him.
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