Wild Happy: Dreams, Crises, and Acceptance in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea 1956048006, 9781956048001

Citation preview

Wild Happy Dreams, Crises, and acceptance in the Jungles of Papua new Guinea Ryan Casseau WILD HAPPY Dreams, Crises, and Acceptance in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea Copyright © 2021 by Ryan Casseau All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and specific other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher at: [email protected] Edited by Christine LePorte and Laura Neely Cover design: Law Blank, Ryan Casseau and Laura Neely Layout design: Lazar Kackarovski ISBN: 978-1-956048-00-1 Published by Cresting Wave Publishing, LLC. “You Buy a Book, We Plant a Tree!” TABLE OF CONTENTS PROLOGUE . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 PART I: How the Hell Had I Gotten Here? . . 9 Chapter One . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter Two . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Chapter Three . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 Chapter Four . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 PART II: What the Hell Was I Going to Do? . . 67 Chapter Five . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 Chapter Six . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Chapter Seven . . . . . . . . . . . . 107 Chapter Eight . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Chapter Nine . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 PART III: Why the Hell Was This Happening? . 171 Chapter Ten. . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 Chapter Eleven . . . . . . . . . . . 187 Chapter Twelve . . . . . . . . . . . 213 Chapter Thirteen . . . . . . . . . . . 227 Chapter Fourteen. . . . . . . . . . . 241 Chapter Fifteen . . . . . . . . . . . 249 EPILOGUE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . 257 When I was young, I dreamt of the jungle. The rain. The trees. The sounds.

The intensity of life. It represented something to me. Something I couldn’t put into words. Something I didn’t understand. A feeling shaped by stories and fantasies. It was the dream. Eventually you grow up. You wake up. PROLOGUE I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love. ~ Leo Tolstoy ~ It takes me a moment to realize I’m awake. That this is real, and I therefore have to piece together what’s happening within the rules that dictate reality. It’s a setback my foggy brain must endure. Eyes? Open, I think. It’s impossible to tell. The darkness is staggering. A black so solid I may be lying in an obsidian coffin. Before I can rein in my focus enough to disprove that I may, in fact, still have my eyes closed— Wetness? Everywhere. I kick my legs, fighting off a vague, worn tangle of cloth that clings in sodden persistence. The panic starts to grab hold. There’s too much I don’t understand. My hands are desperate, searching for something to remedy my lack of vision. I’m relieved when my right hand finds my left arm, but it slides across its slick skin, wiping a puddle to my palm. I turn my head and feel wetness in my hair against my ears. Why am I so wet? 6 Ryan Casseau It’s stuffy. The air thick, warm, stale. Indoors. Did I just stumble in from a

tropical storm? I’m lying on a foam pad protecting me from a concrete floor. But I’m under a sheet, or at least the remnants of one. Which means I was cold enough to want the sheet. But I’m never cold—not here, not on the Island, not ever. I’m not cold now either. Perhaps it’s the dampness. No, not dampness—sopping, dripping wretchedness. The sheet is soaked. The foam is soaked. I’m soaked. As if it’s raining inside, wherever I am. But it isn’t. The air is heavy and humid, but there’s no rain. The wetness isn’t coming from outside of me. It’s coming from inside of me. Sweat. An odd perspiration pouring out as if I’ve just finished a triathlon. But…I’m not hot. The room doesn’t feel hot. Not cold, but not hot either. It’s surprisingly comfortable. Except it’s not, because… “Ugh,” I moan, flinching away as if I can escape it. The stench hits my nose like a punch to the face. The reek is warm, dark, and pungent. Nutty and greasy. Like rancid peanut oil. It has presence and ownership of the room, hanging over me like a demon. I sniff my slickened forearm only to recoil in disgust. The stench is the wetness, an evil teeming from my pores. I sit up and my head throbs in piercing, painful protest. My face puckers and eyes clench hard, confirming they had previously been open. My hand instinctively reaches for my forehead. But pulls back when, amongst the dripping sweat, it’s met with something dry and crumbly. Crunchy, powdery clumps chip off my head with my touch. A powder now mixed with my horrid secretions. It triggers memories that tear through my mind, ripping open the moment in a flash. The jungle. I had been asleep. I remember waking to Denys’s face as he smeared the white powder on my forehead. The powder he said would protect me. The memories turn and dash back to my evening at the house. Something bad. Scary. But I didn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. WILD HAPPY 7 And so I left. To lie down. My surrogate mother and father had suggested it, but I resisted, the way an annoyed teen dismisses a vice principal.

Because they couldn’t be right. Because they were crazy. They didn’t know. I decided to lie down despite my protests. But now it doesn’t seem crazy. Despite all that I feel it still seems impossible, but there’s no denying it. I have malaria. My brain wrestles with reality, refusing to concede, trying to awaken a second time. It’s not possible. Malaria is from textbooks and medical journals and National Geographic articles of faraway places. It isn’t something a boring kid from the suburbs of Delaware gets. Kids from Delaware get colds and allergies and, occasionally, bronchitis and poison ivy rashes and sinus infections. And when you grow up and older in Delaware, you get high blood pressure and heart disease, maybe diabetes or kidney stones. But people, regardless of age, from Delaware, did not get malaria. However, I’m not in Delaware. I’m about as far away from Delaware as one can get. Papua New Guinea. More specifically, I’m on a tiny island at the farthest edge of Papua New Guinea. And people in Papua New Guinea do get malaria. I sit in the dark grappling with the diagnosis, eventually finding a flashlight on the floor just beyond my damp foam mattress. I click it on to further investigate the skin of my arms and legs, delusional, expecting to find some kind of exotic bubbling rash. I know, of course, this is ridiculous. I’ve studied malaria. In fact, the reason I’m in Papua New Guinea is to research plants that the local people use as medicines against malaria. So I know about the disease fairly well. I just don’t know the disease very well. Like a person. Like I know about Matt Damon, his movies and activities and whatever details of his life hit the headlines of the junk magazines in the grocery store checkout lines. But I don’t know Matt Damon. And while it’d be cool to actually know Matt Damon, getting to know malaria up 8 Ryan Casseau close and personal is not something on my bucket list. Shit, do I have a

bucket list now? Should I? I fall back on the foam mattress, the jackhammer battering at my head, and feel the soaking putrid mattress thanks to my malaria sweat, so I roll off and flip it over. I nurse my head with my palms, rubbing at my eye sockets. My brain pulses in waves of pain, pounding against my skull. Despite knowing so many scientific facts about malaria, the statistics related to high survival rates, the disease progression details… I suddenly can’t shake the not-being-from-somewhere-with-malaria mentality that malaria is some super-serious disease that kills bajillions (that’s the official number to someone who’s never had malaria before). Without any pragmatic wisdom beyond confusion, fear, and disbelief, my mind gives up. Reality is not in the cards at the moment. It’s too much. My consciousness is fading. I’m so tired. Shouldn’t I be in a hospital? I’d say the world fades to black, but it already is. As I drift away, tiny thoughts of my brain dissolving and liver exploding drift in and out with my drunken consciousness. I’ll wake up again, right? In between, the space is filled with cyclic brooding over what the hell I was going to do, why the hell this was happening, and how the hell I had gotten here. Part I How the Hell Had I Gotten Here? CHAPTER ONE The unexamined life is not worth living. ~ Socrates ~ I didn’t have it rough. I lived in the most generic of circumstances in middle-class America, where my parents, a nurse and a jack-of-all-tradesmaster-of-none teacher/manager/whatever-job-I-can-find-er, kept things safe and fun. It was a childhood I’d wish for everyone. There wasn’t enough money to provide much of a safety net in career choices and schooling, but not too much money to tarnish things either. I suppose that’s what middle class is.

As a kid, I didn’t see the financial side. I was told the cliché that I could do whatever I wanted to do, be whatever I wanted to be, as long as I worked hard and put my mind to it. And with subtle limitations on spending and activities, the money concept, if noticed at all, was beyond the periphery of my consciousness. Simple homecooked meals with the family and regular camping trips on autumn weekends delivered the wholesome dream that we had it all. Were there times when I wished there was more cash around? Absolutely. I didn’t have a car until I was twenty years old when I saved up to buy it myself for $1,700, and that took a lot 12 Ryan Casseau of tossing pizza, flipping burgers, and waiting tables. But it never bothered me. We took more vacations than my friends. Sure, they were mostly road trips up and down the East Coast, but it was a priority for my parents that we went somewhere every year. Saw something new, took a break from the routine. A cabin in West Virginia, camping up in Maine, visiting family in North Carolina. Each time it was magical and wonderful just to escape the realities of daily life and focus on each other and a new place. A priceless lesson that serves me to this day, as I watch neighbors and friends let vacation time expire or bullshit about the value of a “staycation” despite having high-paying jobs. Our house was modest compared to others in the area, half the size of most of my friends’, but I hadn’t even noticed until I was married and looking into buying a home of my own. We never know exactly how we’re formed, how the billion pieces of life come together to make us who we are in an exact moment of time. What I’ve learned, what I know, is that there needs to be a mix. Some good, some bad, some happy, some sad. Malcolm X, whose upbringing was nowhere near as cushy as mine, said, “There is no better teacher than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” And this, in its own disturbing way, was the problem. Having to save up my own money to buy a used car hardly qualifies as adversity. Not taking

a family vacation to Hawaii isn’t going to build character. And while I wouldn’t have been able to articulate it when I was nine, I was already starting to see behind the curtain of my easy life. The icing on the cake was that I was a smart kid. I got straight A’s on my report cards through most of school from the beginning. My first-grade teacher, who I had in her first year of teaching, told my mother I was going to be valedictorian. (She was wrong.) And when you grow up as a “smart” kid in the suburbs and your mom is a nurse, there is only one logical, nauseatingly unmistakable conclusion: I was going to be a doctor. This was noted in ninetyWILD HAPPY 13 seven percent of my interactions with adults from the time I was in kindergarten to when I was halfway through sixth grade. And don’t get me wrong, for the first several years, this was an amazing confidence booster. It was nice, positive attention when adults would try to make small talk. Its only annoyance at the time involved my desire to escape back to playing with my brother. But at some point, as this handful of the billion pieces began to create something inside me, a darkness began to take shape. It was all so perfect that the internal pressure to succeed grew and grew. Thankfully, it never evolved, as it so often has for others, into serious depression or anxiety. There were no “big” moments of crisis related to it. It was a small, gentle simmer that generally served as motivation. And despite there not being a psychological calamity, the unconscious awareness in my mind crept closer to the surface. At the end of the day, the problem was that (and forgive me in writing this as it’s not going to make me any friends, but) life was just too easy. Yep, that was my big problem. Go ahead, roll your eyes. Start to hate me. (That’s what an author is supposed to do at the beginning of a book, right? Completely isolate and disconnect himself from all the readers?) As a sliver of redemption, though, this is a story about self-awareness and, well, sometimes everything being rosy and wonderful isn’t always so rosy and wonderful. Life’s complicated. For example, one of the problems that comes with an easy life is that there’s

no one to blame if everything doesn’t turn out perfectly. The path is neat and tidy, and the expectations are high. If I were to someday achieve something remarkable and found myself sitting on the couch on a talk show, I wouldn’t be able to talk about pulling myself up by my bootstraps or persevering through impossible odds. I couldn’t be inspiring or captivating. I’d be the most boring interview of all time. Where was the challenge I had overcome? Female? No. Black? No. Immigrant? No. 14 Ryan Casseau Poor? No. Rich? No. Homosexual? No. Abusive father? No. Narcissistic mother? No. Family tragedy? No. Dyslexia? ADD? Depression? No, no, no. My interview would consist of thirty seconds where I explain that I’m a straight white male from a loving middle-class family in America. Generic, boring, and apparently, unappreciative. I’m the flat, matte base color the paint store of America sells without expectations of anyone using it before adding pigment to give it color and make it beautiful. No one paints their lives with that. In so many ways, I was the American dream, but in others, in a culture of diversity and adversity, it felt a little suffocating. Like a fire, packed tightly with perfectly dry kindling and firewood that just won’t light

because there’s no room for oxygen. Between the existential boredom and the guilt from taking it all for granted, it was a nightmare. Or at least it occasionally felt that way. My parents weren’t even the kind who put pressure on me. They were in equal parts thrilled with my successes and supportive in my defeats. The pressure was self-induced. I don’t think they actually cared what I became or what career I would have. I’m pretty sure they wished only for my happiness. They thought I wanted to be a doctor, because I always agreed when adults asked me if I was going to be one. I wanted to be a doctor because I thought that’s what they wanted me to be. And so there was only one thing I felt I could do to keep up my end of the imaginary bargain. How better do you appreciate your parents than to become the absolute best you can possibly be? Everyone said doctor, so a doctor it would be. It was an easy plan until I was in sixth grade and left responsible, home alone, to deal with the fallout of an accidental battle between my younger brother and a glass French door. He ended up with sixty gruesome WILD HAPPY 15 stitches. I ended up with a psychological boulder blocking the path to doctorhood. In so many ways, that’s where my journey to the Island began. The straight and narrow path was blocked. It was time to find something else to do with the rest of my life. CHAPTER TWO The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.… At long last he was unencumbered, emancipated from the stifling world of his parents and peers, a world in which he felt grievously cut off from the raw throb of existence. ~ Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild ~ I’m jolted awake with a hard bounce of turbulence. I must’ve drifted off.

No surprise, I’m practically narcoleptic on planes. Outside, dense cotton candy clouds distort the view. I’m trying to figure out if I can see land or if it’s just more boundless turquoise. Our descent answers my question as the clouds open up, revealing a jungle-covered mountain and its extensive lush green roots that make up the entire island. The coastline, wading into the South Pacific, is outlined with a white so bright it looks like it’s glowing. Scattered around nearby are other smaller islands and coral atolls. I’m excited, but nervous. Half of me hopes we’ll land as soon as possible, the other wonders if we could just circle the Island from above for another hour or two. 18 Ryan Casseau I know so little about my future home. The trip has been years in the making, yet in this moment feels as if I just slung a backpack over my shoulder and dashed out the door. The goal was to go remote. To travel to a place as far away as I could. To find a land and a people most exotic, to learn about them, to learn from them. But now I’m thinking I may have taken it too far. Papua New Guinea isn’t a place many Americans visit. It rarely crosses most people’s attention and slips off the edge of the bucket list for even intrepid explorers. It made it fun before I left when I’d mention where I was going. I’d always make sure to let it hang in silence without further description. “Where are you going again?” “Papua New Guinea.” … Gentle nod… “Africa?”

“No, that’s Guinea, Equatorial Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.” “South America?” “Nah, that’s Guyana and French Guiana.” It’s not their fault. It’s the remnants of ignorant white explorers who threw around the word Guinea to casually refer to any lands owned by black people. In reality, as I’m hoping all my dear readers already know, Papua New Guinea is in Oceania, just north of Australia. It’s made up of a number of islands and the larger eastern half of the island of New Guinea, which it shares with Indonesia to the west. It’s bigger than most people realize, just larger than California, not quite as big as Spain, its size diminished by its inconsequential existence to most Americans. It’s a developing nation with a culture diversely differentiated from its neighbor of Australia to the south, despite being separated only by a sliver of water, the Torres Strait, which keeps the nations a WILD HAPPY 19 mere eighty nautical miles apart. Even within the country the cultural diversity is remarkable. With the vast majority of its eight million residents still living in rural villages across the scattered geography, it’s one of the most culturally diverse countries on the planet, evidenced by the more than eight hundred languages spoken across it, more than any other country in the world. The land is covered in mountains and tropical rainforest, mainly due to its position just south of the equator. And while it has numerous beautiful beaches, it’s never been developed as a land of resorts or vacations like others in the region, such as Fiji and Bali. I don’t see it ever happening, because there’s something else that sets PNG apart. Papua New Guinea doesn’t exactly have a reputation for kindness. It’s one of the reasons it remains one of the least explored countries in the world, which indirectly made it great for someone exploring remote cultures and plants. It just wouldn’t be easy.

By experience, the most commonly asked question I got from friends and family before I left was: “Papua New Guinea? Aren’t they cannibals?” If not cannibals, it was headhunters or witch doctors. Ultimately, they were always asking the same thing: Aren’t they ruthless, wild, violent, fierce, brutal people? In 2003, I could dismiss this. “No! The last reported case of cannibalism was back in the seventies.” Sure, there were cases of terrible tribal violence, but that was the past—or so I thought. When I arrived in Sydney on my stopover, I discovered articles in the newspapers about terrible violence and brutal murders in Papua New Guinea. The Internet was still fairly young, and these stories hadn’t made it back to the US. No one cared about Papua New Guinea. It was too far away and inconsequential to Americans to make our news. In PNG’s capital city of Port Moresby, the news was even more densely covered with stories of violence. The major PNG newspaper, The National, reported on violence pretty regularly and many of the 20 Ryan Casseau stories supported my friends’ and family’s concerns. Brutal attacks, rapes, murders. We see these events in the US headlines too, but they seem more visceral when they involve machetes. It was an election year for them. The news was full of tribes warring over the elections. They weren’t sure what polls were reliable. Australia was considering intervening. Remote tribes with minimal police force trying to act democratically didn’t really work. I think about how heated and angry people get over politics in the US. It doesn’t seem that far-fetched that if people felt they could get away with standing in front of the polls with a machete insisting people vote their way, they probably would in the US too. But I wasn’t going to debate politics, I was going as a student, a researcher. Peacefully. Not unlike Michael Rockefeller. Yes, that Rockefeller. The grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon considered the wealthiest man in modern history, and son of Nelson

Rockefeller, the former governor of New York and vice president of the US. Michael Rockefeller, at twenty-three, embarked to Papua New Guinea to collect items for his grandfather’s museum. He never came home. Renowned journalist Carl Hoffman intricately researched Michael’s story and wrote about his adventure and ultimate demise in Papua New Guinea. The conclusion of which was the discovery that Michael hadn’t drowned or been eaten by sharks. He was killed and eaten. By people. Exhausted from a long swim following the capsizing of his catamaran, Michael barely arrived at shore. As Hoffman writes, “Pep didn’t hesitate. He was surrounded by relatives and fellow villagers, and his status was built on how bold he was, how many people he killed, how many heads he took. He howled and arched his back and drove his spear into the white man’s floating ribs. Michael screamed, groaned a deep, inhuman sound. They hauled him up into the canoe, blood spurting from the wound. They knew what they WILD HAPPY 21 were doing, had done it dozens of times before, were following sacred rules that prescribed every step of what they were about to do, rules that defined them. Made them men. Made them whole. For they were about to take his power, become him, and restore balance to the world.” Hoffman continues his story with a quick blow to the back of Michael’s head with an axe to finish him off; however, that only allowed the formal ritual to begin. As Hoffman discovered, there is formal documentation on the headhunting rituals of the Asmat in New Guinea. Published in an article of American Anthropologist in 1959, Gerard Zegwaard reported and Hoffman writes that the Asmat would first remove Michael’s head, then slit him up one side from anus to neck and back down the other. One man broke his ribs in order to remove the front half of his rib cage to facilitate yanking out his innards, while another removed Michael’s limbs to be

roasted over the nearby fire. All the while, the group chanted the same dark rhythms their ancestors had for centuries. Once cooked through, the body parts were shared among the group, while Michael’s blood was smeared all over their bodies. Drawing the ceremony to a close, the few who had led the attack removed the cooked head from the fire, scalped it, and indulged in Michael’s scraped-out brains. Hoffman notes, “Headhunting and cannibalism were as right to them as taking communion or kneeling on the carpet facing Mecca.” But this was back in 1961, over forty years before my trip. I was going to an island in a different area of PNG. And Michael was twenty-three versus my mature arrival at age…twenty-four. But most important of all, Hoffman’s book wasn’t published until 2014, a decade after my trip, allowing me to continue naively into the jungles with visions of cannibalism as an ancient, forgotten past. Similarly, the reports of a resurgence of cannibalism, black magic, and brutal violence to prevent elections in Madang, the mainland 22 Ryan Casseau city nearest to the Island I was currently circling, wouldn’t surface until 2012. In other words, ignorance really is bliss. As the wheels touch down, the plane lurches in protest of the impact. The passengers’ heads swing toward the seat back in front of them. We roll down the remaining dilapidated runway, over asphalt seams sprouting with tall grass. Out the window, I see jungle and palm trees, low mowed, broadleaf grass, and a tall chain-link fence. The plane turns and pulls up to what looks like a small mobile home which is the only building in sight, so by deduction must be the airport. The clicks of seatbelts unbuckling fill the chamber and people fill the aisle long before the plane is anywhere near coming to a stop. They begin to gather their bags, the majority of which are handmade, from the limited overhead compartments. With the crowded movement of people, the cabin quickly fills with the smell of ripe humans and coconut oil. Seconds before the pungent odor becomes intolerable, the

airplane door pops open with a burst of blinding light and tropical air. Hot, humid, and heavy, but fresh. It’s chaos to get out. I have to push my way into the aisle through the rush of passengers impatient to leave. When I finally step out to take my first breath, the sun washes out my vision in a blast of white. The horde pushes me onward and I climb down the small, flimsy staircase, shielding my eyes and focusing on my footsteps. At the bottom, my eyes have mostly adjusted and it all suddenly sinks in. It’s been all logistics and details and fantasy before this moment. But I’ve arrived. I’m here. What the hell am I doing here? There are few signs of civilization outside the tall chain-link fence that lines the airport perimeter. Open grassy fields that fill the air with the smell of fresh cut grass spread forty yards in every direction from the airfield before they shrink at the dense green wall of tropical forest. Beyond the fence, a small paved road winds off in either direction and eventually tucks into the jungle and out of WILD HAPPY 23 sight. The sky is bright and blue with scattered wisps of clouds that move quickly across the sky. There’s no sign of the pillowy clouds from moments earlier, adding to the mysteriousness. It’s ninety degrees in the sun and I estimate somewhere around a hundred ten percent humidity. Suddenly, on the tips of a light breeze, a fine sprinkling mist comes down from the sky. I’m frozen at its arrival, stuck in the middle of the runway, mesmerized and overwhelmed by it all. I’ve never felt rain like this. The asphalt, reflecting the hot sun, extinguishes the majority of the miniature raindrops before they can even land. I hold out my bare arm and watch the pinhead drops evaporate almost instantaneously as they meet my warm skin. It’s refreshing, exotic, and curiously welcoming. Without much option, I follow the other passengers to a dilapidated awning that serves as an arrival lounge. It’s attached to the one-room airport that’s about the size of a two-car garage. The airport system seems

easy to navigate. Arrivals outside, departures inside. People crowd around the door inside waiting to get on the plane we just exited. There is a handpainted sign that reads “Momote Airport.” A seemingly Japanese name. I’m confused but can’t be bothered. Originally thinking it was the rain that had inspired the commotion under the awning, I soon realize the true motivation is the mass of family and friends lining the outside of the fence, greeting passengers. They chatter in odd languages and touch each other’s hands through the fence in stifled intimate greetings. The dark, wide faces are full of smiles of reddened teeth as they pass betel nut and cigarettes through the fence to their loved ones. Everyone seems desperate for a good chew or smoke, probably due to being prohibited in government-controlled facilities in the capital of Port Moresby, which I had found as a comforting sign of development when I was there. After a moment, I catch myself smiling, vicariously indulging in the cherished reunions of the alluring strangers. 24 Ryan Casseau A large cart towed by a sputtering tractor soon arrives at the awning and another airport worker unlocks the gate. Before the tractor can stop, passengers erupt in a mob, leaving their fenced reunions to grab bags off the cart. Within minutes, the majority are out of the gate, hopping into worn vehicles and speeding off with surprising efficiency. I scan the crowd in search for someone who seems to have any interest in me. I don’t know what the governor looks like and am hoping someone recognizes me. No need for any cryptic rose boutonniere to let them know who I am. I’m the white guy. The only white guy. I’m met with a handful of glances but am ignored over the reunions. It feels odd that they aren’t paying me much attention. I stand out. Everyone else is black. Literally. I’m used to black people in the US whose skin ranges from dark brown to mocha to the racially indiscernible light cappuccino. The people of the

Island are darker than ninety percent of the black people I’ve ever seen. They look different too. In general, they aren’t very tall. Their faces have wide noses with large nostrils, and they have wide feet and strong hands. Everyone is fairly fit, with veins that wrap the men’s forearms in tangles. And in most cases, there are big, wide smiles. I look different. I feel different. It feels different than when I’ve been in other situations where I’ve been the only… have I actually ever been the only? Or have I been one of a few? It’s only now occurring to me that in other places I have traveled, even if I went by myself, there were always other white people. Brits or Aussies or Kiwis. Interesting… It’s odd I hadn’t put that together. Anyway, there’s no time to dawdle. I grab my giant, lumbering backpack off the cart and a second giant duffel packed with research equipment and hopefully everything else I’m going to need over the next several months. I can carry them both, barely. It was a personal requirement of mine. As I walk toward the gate, I continue to scan the crowd beyond those now pouring out of the fence in hopes to make eye contact with someone. Someone is here for me, right? Why don’t they have more interest in me? WILD HAPPY 25 The entire scene plays out in less than ten minutes. I proceed through the gate with my backpack slung over one shoulder, half-dragging the second bag. (I said I could carry them both, not that I would every second.) Reality begins to break through my clouded consciousness as I walk around to the packed dirt parking area. A dozen or so dilapidated cars and trucks are filling as passengers and family members pile in, jumping into the beds of the pickups and squeezing beyond capacity in the back seats. Half of the cars start to move before everyone is onboard or the doors are closed. They kick up dust as they pull onto the small road that serves the airport. For a moment, I wonder if there’s some kind of fire they’re escaping, but of course, there’s nothing. The road disappears to the left and right at equal distance, neither offering an inclination as to what is beyond. I continue to

wander and scan the groups and cars, hoping someone says something, but can’t even manage to catch anyone’s glance. I clearly stand out, but none are intrigued enough to bother. I don’t belong here, but no one cares. The color of my skin a blatant and striking reminder that I’m not a local, but that the differences between my mind and theirs are at even greater divergence than that of our outward appearances. I’ve already been in Papua New Guinea for a week, but here, on the Island, feels different. The capital city of Port Moresby, where I had been for the past week, had enough white people that it didn’t feel like it does here. Here, I am alone. Port Moresby is most people’s introduction to Papua New Guinea and I’m no exception. It serves as the gateway to the hidden world beyond. Like other capital cities around the world, it houses the main international airport. For me, arrival had meant flights from Chicago to LA, LA to Sydney, and Sydney to Port Moresby, and I still needed to get to my remote jungle island. Beyond being a gateway, Port Moresby is not a nice place. It’s a small tropical city overflowing with people from the rest of the country who came in search of the lives rumored to be lived by those in the cities of 26 Ryan Casseau Australia or the US. In reality, it has few jobs to offer people, as commerce and economy aren’t very productive in PNG. It’s a dusty worn place that lingers like an old west town fifty years past its prime, except this is a city that never had a prime. The homeless, loitering masses are everywhere. They smoke and chew betel nut. They have cheap fast food and cement buildings that remind me of cheap housing projects. The roads are noisy and unruly with only minorly suggestive traffic signals and etiquette. The air reeks of diesel and dirt waiting for the next rainstorm to pin everything back to the ground. It isn’t a place I wished to spend any more time than I had to. When I first arrived in the country a week earlier, I was met at the airport

in Port Moresby by Modi Oraiho, a professor at the University of Papua New Guinea. He’s a tall thin man with a small mustache that gives him a distinction among the men of PNG. He wore sandals with straps and long cotton pants with a weathered Hawaiian-style button-down shirt. He’s a collaborator on the project and a contact of my Ph.D. adviser. I was invited to stay with him and his family and welcomed the relative comfort in their faculty housing on the university campus. Before I could head to the Island, I spent several days in the capital meeting with other professors in the biology department. One junior professor was a botanist. That was good. Essential really, as no amount of book studying would ever give me the level of expertise on the PNG flora as a local expert. I hoped that once I found medicinal plants, he could help me identify them. But more than anything, I was hoping to meet someone from the Island. It behooves me to mention at this point that I say “the Island,” because in some ways that’s what it was, a generic island in time and space that could exist anywhere. But also, this keeps a bit of her identity secret, the same way I’ve changed names in the story. Privacy is a lost virtue. WILD HAPPY 27 “Who are you meeting when you fly to the Island on Tuesday?” Professor Oraiho asked on my first evening in Port Moresby. “Hmm.” I looked up, having just gone in for a big bite of fried chicken. They had splurged and gotten Big Rooster to celebrate my arrival. PNG KFC. Nowhere near as good, but I was starving after the day of travel. “What do you mean?” I attempted to clarify. “I don’t know anyone there.” Modi froze just as he prepared to take a big bite into a greasy chicken thigh. His wife froze too. Their eyes met. “You don’t know anyone on the Island?” He set the chicken down on a napkin.

“Not yet.” “Where will you stay?” his wife, Mary, asked. A large, kind, proud Papua New Guinean woman. She hadn’t been thrilled at the arrival of the fried chicken, having been halfway into cooking dinner for her family that included three children. When she saw the excitement and their cheers, though, she melted into acceptance. I had just taken another bite, this one too big to speak through. I motioned with my index finger that I needed a second and chewed as fast as I could, gulping it down nearly whole. “Sorry. This chicken is pretty good!” I wiped my fingers off on the napkin that doubled as a plate in an awkward moment navigating its dual roles. “I’m not exactly sure. The guidebook says there is a hotel and a guest house on the Island. I’ll aim for the guest house because the hotel seems pretty expensive. My hope is that I can work out a monthly rate or find another place to rent or something while I’m in town.” At that, Mary smacked the table and began to yell at Modi in a language that wasn’t English or Tok Pisin, the pidgin English most spoke socially. He retorted in calm defense and they went back and forth a couple times before she settled her attention back on the chicken with an aggressive bite. 28 Ryan Casseau “Tomorrow we’ll see if we can find a Wantok,” Modi commented casually, relieved at settling the matter. The problem was, I had no idea what that meant. “A Wantok?” Niandros, Modi and Mary’s youngest daughter, was the first to notice my confusion. “Papa, em no Wantok bilong us. He doesn’t know.” She switched between pidgin and English as if they were the same.

“Ah,” he chuckled. “Welcome to Papua New Guinea. It’s Tok Pisin, our pidgin English. It means someone from Island.” As my understanding of pidgin grew over the next several months, I’d come to understand that Wantok, or “one-talk,” was much more than that. It was a powerful word in PNG. In a country with so many languages, the language you speak defines who you are and where you come from. It’s how they segregate and how they come together. They don’t need 23andMe to know where they come from and who their brothers and sisters are in this world. In PNG, they have languages. Over 800 of them. More than any other country in the world. When Modi had said that we’d try to find a Wantok, it meant someone at the university who is of one-talk of the Island, who speaks the same language as they do and is therefore from the Island and part of that culture. Someone who knows someone on the Island and may be able to help me. PNG networking. The next day, in a small meeting of biology professors, after introducing me with pride in his ability to collaborate across the globe with the fancy Americans, Modi asked around and found that one of the scientists in the department was originally from the Island. Within seconds we had moved to a competent phone in the department and the Island professor was dialing. He spoke to someone in a flurry of sounds I hadn’t heard before with a smile on his face, reuniting with a relative as if no time had passed. Then, as fast as it had begun, the call was over. WILD HAPPY 29 “So?” Modi asked. The professor shrugged. “They’ll call back,” he said as if it were more question than statement. “I haven’t been back to Island in a long time.” And with a sense of finality that I wasn’t sharing, Modi began to head back to the previous room. I followed him, but before we could make it down the hall, the phone was already ringing.

The Island professor had predicted this; he hadn’t moved. We dashed back to overhear another fleeting, incomprehensible phone conversation. The professor spoke with his hands despite being on the phone, at one point gesturing to me with an outstretched hand as if showcasing me on a game show. Modi and I stared attentively, hoping to get an inclination as to whether it was going well or not, but it was impossible to tell. Finally, the professor broke into a wide smile and closed the call with something I understood. “Tenkyu tru.” Thank you very much. He hung up, noticing the intensity of Modi and me staring at him with confusion. And casually stated, “OK, all set,” as he moved past us heading back to the other room. “Uhh…” I began but Modi jumped in. “What’s that mean?” he asked in pidgin. “They’ll get him,” he replied in English. “Who?” “Joseph Litau, the governor. He’ll get him at the airport.” He disappeared back into the modest conference room. Modi and I both stood in shock. “Wow,” I muttered. Modi’s eyebrows lifted. “OK. You’ll be fine.” I was going to the Island and I had a Wantok. I was all set. My career plan had evolved greatly since my swearing off being a doctor at the age of eleven. It had shattered the pigeon-holed expectations of my future and opened things up. Suddenly, I could 30 Ryan Casseau

pick and choose a career, as I always really could, but had finally realized it. The expectations it shattered had been my own more than anyone else’s. After that, I picked and chose from life like a child at their first all-youcan-eat buffet. A little of this, a little of that, until you had a plate that would make a chef shudder in its pandemonium. I had always had a thing about plants. This weird fondness for everything green. Not pretty flowers or delicious fruits. Just the simple greens and browns and grays in a tangle of leaves. The fascination to stare up at the treetops. It was so peaceful and comforting. That part was easy. Plants needed to be part of whatever career I had. And I liked science, the good-but-not-great-at-math-student’s poetry. And medicine wasn’t pushed all the way off the table, I just had no interest in dealing with blood and flesh and—shudder—you get the idea. I couldn’t treat patients. Less than a year after my brother’s fist fight with the French door, the movie Medicine Man starring Sean Connery was released. I loved it. A scientist living in the jungle with the remote tribes studying their plants for medicinal value. In proper Hollywood style, the protagonist discovers the cure for cancer. He uses fancy machines (even in the middle of the Amazon) to calculate the plants’ chemistry and identify the new chemicals that can be made into medicines and save the world. It was the fantasy I had been searching for. Two years later, as a gift from an astute uncle, I received a copy of The Shaman’s Apprentice by Mark Plotkin. A real-life story of a scientist doing ethnobotany (that’s what it’s officially called). Mark Plotkin wrote about his adventures in the Amazon as an ethnobotanist studying how remote tribes used plants for medicine. It didn’t mention much about the magical fancy chemistry machines, but it was a small insignificant detail at the time. His work confirmed that it wasn’t just a fantasy. This was a real job! I drooled at the buffet. A scoop full of science, a couple helpings of remote tribes, and douse it all in a gravy of jungle adventure. Delicious! WILD HAPPY 31 This revved my type-A, goal-oriented engine to the red line.

At thirteen years old, I knew without a shadow of doubt where my path led. I didn’t know the specifics, but there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow waiting for me. I’d just need to be patient and enjoy the ride. Ten years later, I had arrived. The mission was simple: I was to collect plants from the remote island jungles of the Island and conduct interviews with the indigenous people to learn what plants they used for medicine. Emboldened with their profound and medically important insights on the local flora, I would collect the plants in bulk, chop them up, dry them out, and bring them back to the lab in Chicago, where I could test them in various assays from HIV to cancer to tuberculosis and malaria. And once I’d found potent new plant medicines, I would take it further using chromatography and other fancy science words and acronyms to isolate new and exciting active chemical compounds. (It was a bit more complicated than Sir Connery had let on.) When I was done, I’d have discovered a new medicine, cured a modern plague, negotiated millions of dollars for the people of the Island and PNG, and walk away with a pretty sweet start to my career, Ph.D. included. That oversimplifies it a bit, but dreams aren’t founded in what is, only what could be. Naivety is required. What could go wrong? Before I could do anything, though, there were some major hurdles to overcome. The biggest of which is that science is expensive. Often, at least in the scientific fields, students join a doctorate program and work with an adviser who has a grant for a big project and as part of it, there is funding for students and researchers to help. The student joins the adviser’s project and carries out their piece of the project and writes it up as a dissertation. They defend the dissertation and boom! Ph.D. I was too inspired to consider any of that, though. I was a special kind of stupid. See, I was following a dream. My goal was to work with the best ethnobotanist I could find. The one who was studying 32 Ryan Casseau medicines from plants from around the world. I didn’t have the patience or interest in discussing logistics, I wanted to get to the jungle!

But as always, there is a price for naivety. That price turned out to be that I had to get my project all set up on my own. There was university bureaucracy. There were international contracts to be set up. And hardest of all, I had to find funding to be able to do this amazing stuff I wanted to do. It’s a problem all academics have to face at some point. The difference was that I was a lowly graduate student. The lowest rung on the totem pole of academics. (I know you may be thinking, what about undergraduates? But undergrads at least pay tuition and therefore have the slightest power in the money train that is modern-day academics…but that’s a tirade for another time…) As a graduate student, I had nothing to prove that I could actually accomplish what I was hoping because I was brand new at this. My adviser was of no help. He had his own projects that consumed him, funded by his own grants he was busy with. Besides, this was all part of the learning experience, he noted several times, leaving me often wanting to stab him. Two years. It had been two years of scrambling for funding. Two years of what seemed like a wild goose chase. All the while my friends from college were proceeding nicely in their new careers and getting along nicely in the real world. I continued looking everywhere I could to try and figure out how to fund my project. After about eighteen months, things started to pick up. I got an award from the Garden Club of America for a couple thousand. Then the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education, then one from my university. It was going well, but even when it was all put together, I didn’t have nearly enough to fund me to go to the other side of the world and get everything done that I would need to. I had planned to do two or three trips to obtain different samples and get everything carefully and properly done, but I now realized I’d be lucky to get enough funding for one good trip. WILD HAPPY 33 In the meantime, I took the required classes, worked on passing my preliminary exams (an essential step for any Ph.D. program), and learned

what I could in the lab for when I (hopefully) returned with plants to investigate. The months went by. The rejection letters rolled in. My list of opportunities without lines striking them out grew smaller and smaller. With every letter snuffing out the dream a little bit more. I was running out of time. If I couldn’t get funding, there was no project. No project, no dissertation, no Ph.D. And why keep a Ph.D. student on board if they’re never going to get a Ph.D.? Weeks went by. Then months. Classwork was a distraction more than anything else. It wasn’t prioritized in my program. The focus was the research. “This isn’t college,” professors would say. “If you’re spending lots of time on these classes, you’re doing it wrong.” It all came down to the dissertation project. For which, with each passing day, I became less optimistic. Finally, as classes and prelims were wrapping up and the time I could stall was fading into nothing, I had an epiphany. I had to get creative. To get a bit entrepreneurial. I overheard a professor who taught one of our required classes in the hall complaining that he was in a bind. He was a natural products chemist (the type of stuff I’d do when I came back from my jungle adventure). He had a large grant from the National Cancer Institute looking into plant chemistry in an attempt to discover new cancer treatments. He received batches of plants from all over the world to work on in the lab. But his problem at that moment was that he didn’t have enough to satisfy what he had promised in the grant. If only there was someone willing to go to a unique remote corner of the world who could collect plants to be studied as part of his National Cancer Institute grant. That night I came up with a grand proposal. While attempting to not sound completely desperate, I marched into his office the following morning and explained that if he pitched in funding 34 Ryan Casseau for my trip to the Island, I’d get him… ANYTHING he wanted.

Some plants? Lots of plants? Big samples? Small samples? Leaves? Roots? Bark? Specific plants? Random plants? My firstborn? (I’m a natural-born negotiator.) Lucky for me, he had been doing this for a while and he knew, better than I, what was at least somewhat realistic. And I may have left out the parts on how I didn’t actually know anyone on the Island, didn’t know anyone in PNG who could help me identify or collect the plants, and didn’t have any real semblance of a plan other than to buy a plane ticket. But despite his reservations, his desperation was just as real as mine, and we struck a deal. I’d bring him back 100 samples from the Island, and he’d give me the several thousand more dollars I needed for my trip. I left his office and leaned back against the wall just out of sight. A deep resonant sigh. My head on the wall, my eyes closed. My smile from ear to ear. Holy shit. I did it. I was going. My jaw ached as I realized the stress had left me clenching my jaw for the entire discussion. I rubbed it and smiled. It was my Hail Mary. But it worked! Everything else from this point on would be easy. The hardest part was over! *** Now, standing outside of the airport fence, in the sun, with no one to give me a ride or help me find the town, I realize how completely helpless I am and how I may have been wrong about the hardest part being over. I look to the left and then to the right following the mirror image of the road as it heads a short distance in either direction before disappearing into the shadowy dense jungle. It’s unclear where the town is; there are no signs or markings of any kind. It seems the airport is in the middle of nowhere. The pleasant rain has stopped without seeming like it ever existed. The last passengers and guests pile into an old Nissan pickup and dart away, leaving the place quiet and still. WILD HAPPY

35 I head back to the airport building to find a single woman shutting things down and closing up. There’s nothing left to do. The only flight for the next couple days, the flight I had just gotten off of, has already left. I try to ask the woman for a ride to the town. It takes several tries, neither of us familiar with the other’s language, but it seems she’s not going to town. She’s going the opposite way, back to her village. Through a lot of charades, she tells me to try the “mangis” who fueled up the plane, saying that they would be headed into town. I’m not going to run after them with my two giant bags, one a bulging hiker’s backpack, the other a giant ice hockey bag full of research equipment. I roll the hockey bag off to the grassy edge of the gravel and head around to where the large fuel tanks are. Just as I make it around the building, a pickup truck takes off from a driveway on the opposite side of the building. In the bed of the truck are two guys clinking beer bottles and carrying on, happy their workday is over. I chase after the truck with my arms waving like giant windshield wipers and shouting at the boys in the truck to stop. When the truck’s tires hit the pavement and roar up onto the road, they speed around past the front of the airport, dashing past me in a blur. I run after them a short distance, the lumbering backpack bouncing on my shoulders and weighing me down, doing everything in my power to catch their attention, but they’re too busy celebrating to notice. As they near the curve in the road that would put them out of sight, I’m pretty sure I see one of the boys nudge the other one and motion back toward me. It inspires me to keep running toward them, shouting, despite the distance that’s quickly growing between us. For a moment, I see brake lights and think they’re stopping, but the truck disappears around the curve and out of sight. My pace slows to a stop, my hands crossed on my head. I stand there, bent over for a moment to catch my breath, nervous I might fall over under the backpack’s weight. A second later I hear an engine behind me. I turn around and watch as, two hundred yards 36 Ryan Casseau back at the airport, a truck departs in the other direction in a wave of dust.

In its passenger seat is the woman I had just spoken to. Who had just locked up. It’s official. There is no one left. CHAPTER THREE We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn, which does not forsake us in our soundest sleep. I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. ~Henry David Thoreau ~ In 1943, while the world pined for the D-Day it hadn’t yet known and the end to World War II that they dreamed of, a shy, brilliant, humble psychology professor worked tirelessly in Brooklyn. The world had a singular focus, and yet he pondered and processed a different sort of problem: What is it that drives us to do the things we do? Where does motivation come from? And how does it evolve with us, as we aim to reach better and brighter futures and fulfill our human potential? In 1943, Abraham Maslow published his seminal work on a new way to look at what motivates people. It elucidated a hierarchy in the needs and wants of human beings that serve as the foundational drivers to human behavior. From the lowest level of physiological needs such as food, water, and shelter, it transcends through three additional tiers before 38 Ryan Casseau reaching the highest need of humans, which he states as “the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming.” This ultimate tier he referred to as selfactualization. Maslow’s work was published in Psychological Review as a scientific paper but was later expanded into a full book titled Motivation and Personality.

Since then, his theory on human motivation and his hierarchy of needs have been incorporated into nearly every introductory psychology course and text on the planet. It’s been studied, embraced, critiqued, and incorporated into everything from business courses to parenting magazines. It is one of the igniting pieces to pop psychology and the human potential movement in the 1960s, when enthusiasm to embrace a greater potential of human beings, both as individuals and eventually as a society, swept the country like wildfire. Through Maslow’s selfactualization tier of human achievement and the pre-potent (as he called them) tiers preceding it (physiological needs, safety and security, love and belonging, and self-esteem), he gave the world an exclusivity of human potential and a roadmap to achieve it. And while it may not have been intentional, he broadly offered a challenge unto the world for anyone willing to evolve and fulfill a higher potential: to achieve selfactualization. Its value was and continues to be unprecedented in shaping human motivation. I had taken an intro to psychology course at some point, which was all I knew of Maslow and his hierarchy of human needs when I headed off to the Island. Hindsight tends to bring things into focus a bit, though. And as I’ve explored life and its mysteries over the past two decades beyond PNG, the simple trip of a simple boy on a simple mission to collect plants from a remote jungle takes on a bit more color. In fact, when I look back on my trip nearly twenty years ago, the plants and the work are but a blurry periphery on the memories of those days spent in the villages on the Island. I would be forever changed. Foreign travel brings foreign problems. And in those times, especially in times when things are less than pleasant, our brains WILD HAPPY 39 can’t help but occasionally ponder why we’ve chosen to embark on these “adventures.” What is it that I felt my life lacked… that I thought I would be able to gain by running into some wild exotic place without all of the pieces of my American life? There’s an introspection through desperation, I suppose. Looking back with the more objective vantage point of real adulthood, I see so much more hidden between the lines of the experiences as they were lived. There was a purity of life at the time, an ambition to

stretch and grow. To answer the call to Go and Do and Be. To tear at the muscles of life so they could heal bigger and stronger. To do this effectively required adversity, hardship, and simplicity. I didn’t need to know the why at the time. The understanding grows within us. Experiences are seeds that take lifetimes to sprout. My life on the Island grew to understandings that led to other understandings that led to further understandings that led to a bit of what I consider an epiphany of platitudes. An Occam’s razor for the why and how of it all, of why one embarks on such a thing in the first place. Most of the time I spend in the humdrum of daily life is extremely controlled. I never break down and cry or get really upset. Sure, I get pissed off like everyone else, but it’s still under control. It’s as if modern life, with all of its political correctness, professionalism, and sterilization, has washed out the color of life. At some point in my youth, I felt the colors fading from the innocent, oblivious, naive brilliance of childhood to the gray, prescribed life of an American adult. I remember feeling it from as early as middle school and it never left. I watch movies or read stories and am continually envious of others who are always doing something more exciting than I. It’s not only the excitement that I envy, but there is a selflessness that’s disappointed with my acceptance to succumb to the American drain. Perhaps I’ll soon be elderly, reading back on these pages, inquiring where I got all of these convoluted ideas, immersed in and blind to my colorless world. When stuck in a world without the comforts of home (to whatever degree different people choose to pursue it), I’ve noticed 40 Ryan Casseau one begins to regain their attachment to living. The colors regain some of their vibrancy from the bleached daily routine. More than once, in times of desperation, while in the far corners of the world, I’ve sobbed uncontrollably, like an infant awakening in a room devoid of his parents. When it happens, it isn’t inspired by any particular event, but rises up out of me in a random moment of solitude. The feelings of being lost, alone, and helpless. My trained, harnessed mind defaults to an attempt to repress

it. The voices internal call me pathetic and weak, and remind me that my situation isn’t so bad, that so many others do other things far harder, and here I am upset over nothing. But when submersed in a foreign world, with the looming time stretched out in front of me, and the heavy weight of how long it may take to return to my comforts, the barriers of my emotions crumble away. The safeguards fail. With one quick breath that rises in my chest like a hiccup, the corners of my mouth turn to the ground and my mind retreats. The battle is lost. Sitting alone, releasing anguish and pain in tears that pool and drip, I let go. I let myself taste the colors of life. I hear my voice as if it comes from another. It is scared. I can’t do this, it claims in whispered fragments. It may sound like pain, but it is in fact joy. I indulge in the freedom and the authenticity of feeling so small and lost. For this moment, life is simple. I wish not to be disturbed, knowing that the presence of another person would immediately give the broken vault ample strength to lock my insides away again. After a short time, my breathing calms. The remaining tears flow silently down my face, raindrops from the leaves after a storm. My being is depleted but within it is rejuvenation. A tiny glow ignites down deep within me, emerging from the cave. The ghost of a deeper life. I’ve woken to the tangible. And without the will to experience more, I retreat to my bed, wherever or whatever that is, and effortlessly drift off to sleep. In the morning, I’ll be stronger than I was today or any day before. I walk back to my hockey bag with a slow saunter, trying to think of what to do next. Plopping down on the large bag for a WILD HAPPY 41 minute, I briefly contemplate sitting here until the next flight and heading back home. There’s a flight Thursday, right? I can live off the granola bars and chocolate I packed until then… Finally, I persuade myself to grab the strap of my bag and begin walking in the direction the boys’ truck had gone. I don’t know how far it is, but the Island isn’t very big—how far could it be?

After half an hour of walking in the blasting tropical sun, I stop to take a break. Enticed by the shade of a large breadfruit tree, I heave my backpack onto the ground and sit for a second to cool off. I close my eyes as a comforting breeze dances across my face. I can hear light waves against the sand but can’t see the coast. Maybe I could just stay here? The shade is significantly cooler than walking on the asphalt that reflects the heat, cooking me from two directions. In the same moment, stuck here, lost and alone but teetering on the brink of living my dreams, it’s beautiful, exciting, and magical, while also being terrifying, heartbreaking, and miserable. My brain is limited to concern over the next hour, without even contemplating the following twenty-four hours. Horrifying, yet simple and liberating. When was the last time I only thought about the exact moment I was in? Living life minute to minute, not hour to hour, or more even year to year. As I indulge in this moment without time, it slips away. Only moments later, I’m startled by the thrill of engine noises heading toward me. I had expected this much earlier but had been unlucky. Now, despite really wanting to just stay in the shade, there is no way I’m going to risk the car passing me by. I run out to the road. The curve ahead blocks my view, but the sounds grow closer. As the sun moves from behind a cloud, blasting me in the face, a large truck zooms around the corner. It’s nicer than any of the vehicles I had seen at the airport. A Toyota Land Cruiser that looks to be only a couple years old. It slows to a stop in front of me before I even have a chance to wave it down. The passenger side window rolls down and a middle-aged man with deep brown eyes gives me a look of concern. 42 Ryan Casseau “Ryan? I am so sorry, I got caught up. Are you all right?” “Yeah… I’m fine,” I answer, taken aback by his acknowledgment of me and his ease with English.

The man possesses a strong presence that radiates his desire to remedy the situation. “Please.” He gestures to the door. “My name is Joseph Litau. Can I give you a ride?” “You’re the governor of Island?” I ask, half questioning, half stating. This makes him break into a wide smile of white teeth, an unusual find as I would later learn. “I am deputy governor. Our political offices are slightly different here than they are in the US. Our governor is like your senator and our deputy governor is like your governor, as well as mayor of Lorengau Town. Excuse us, our system is very small compared to yours.” I chuckle at his deprecation. “Uh, don’t worry about it.” After barely being able to lug my bags into the back and nearly (probably) embarrassing myself in the process, I open the door and hop in. Joseph turns the truck around in a three-point turn that takes five points on the narrow road. “I’m sorry no one offered to give you a ride. I’m disappointed in them. They have no idea what it’s like to be alone and in a foreign place.” He speaks as if he knows from experience. “Where shall I drop you off?” I’m so happy to have conquered my first hurdle that it takes me a second to respond. “The guidebook I have says there is a guest house and a hotel in town. The Harborside Hotel?” “Oh, the hotel is very expensive,” he replies in a deep warm baritone. “The guesthouse is before we enter town, it is run by a very nice lady that I know.” WILD HAPPY 43 The truck flies over the road that is soon canopied in jungle trees.

Before we’ve made it to the guesthouse, Joseph and I have gotten to talking and he invites me over to his family’s home for dinner. How can I refuse? At dinner, I meet at least forty people. There’s Joseph and his wife, Martha, their daughter, their sisters, brothers, cousins, neighbors, in-laws, coworkers, people they ran into on the way to their house, and basically anyone who had learned there was an American student at the Litaus’ house for dinner. It’s friendly and warm, but overwhelming. Some of the people speak broken English, but most of them speak Tok Pisin, the local pidgin English. Many of those I meet speak to me in Tok Pisin, in hopes I’m picking it up. As if will alone is all I need to understand them. It’s clear I’m going to have to either learn Tok Pisin or find a translator. Dinner wasn’t planned to be such a large affair and they serve me a plate overflowing with rice and sago, a PNG staple, and a small, spiky smoked fish that looks like the fossilized ones in the museum of natural history. We’re only halfway through dinner when Martha and I are chatting and she asks if I want to stay with them. We’ve gotten talking about why I’ve come to their island, what my research is for, and if or how they can be of service. It’s just as I had hoped but better than I could have imagined. Knowing that my goal is to find a more long-term place to stay, they offer not only to help me find it but also to put me up in the meantime. That’s how Joseph and Martha always would be, gracious and kind. In one evening, I had gone from being a complete stranger to part of the family. From lost and homeless to adopted. At dinner that night, they give me an authentic bilum bag in the style of the Island made from grass and palm fibers. Each region in 44 Ryan Casseau PNG has their own style so the bag is my first formal welcome into the Island’s embrace. I wear it proudly slung over a shoulder as the locals do,

like a cross-body bag, long before cross-body bags gained popularity around the world. Its tasseled ends tickle my neck at the top and my knees at the bottom. The villagers laugh in pride and excitement seeing me wearing it. Their enjoyment is more than enough incentive to use it in place of my backpack for daily use from that point on. By the next day, as if part of a collective consciousness, it’s already become understood around the Island that I’m part of the Litau family and I’m treated as such. It will take months for me to fully appreciate how many doors their support and kindness open up, from buying food at the market, to finding those allowing me to collect plants from their land, to getting interviews for my research. With his position as the deputy governor of the province and with a universal reputation of respect and trust, there’s no one better on the Island to help. Joseph is one of those people you don’t easily forget. A big bear of a man, he’s taller than me by at least a couple inches and I’m 6’1” and probably half again my weight. It’s especially noticeable since the majority of the people on the Island are fairly short, often only coming to my chin. Even more than Joseph’s physical presence is his emotional presence. As I would continue to learn, Joseph is basically the father of the Island. He takes care of everyone. From the fatherly raised eyebrow of disapproval to young boys at the market goofing around, to helping older residents carrying food home. If he’s too busy, he gives a shout and recruits someone else to help. None question him, because they know who he is and the kind of man he is. He’s a busy guy (by my calculations he does everything on the Island) and adept at accomplishing great things on the Island. But time moves slower here, as I would experience. It would be one of my biggest cultural challenges. The frustration. I would love to say that the next day, Joseph made a couple phone calls, we negotiated WILD HAPPY 45 with a couple places, and I headed out the following morning for my own

perfect little slice of paradise. I really would love to be able to say that. The actual experience was a little different. One day turns into four. Time seemingly evaporating away as I stay at the Litaus’ house. I spend the days pacing and stressed about budgets and timelines and delays, while the locals greet me in wide smiles. By the second day, I volunteer to move out to the local guesthouse, happily willing to spend my money for a space of my own. But they always dismiss it. Finally, Joseph finds a solution. There is a local man with a house he is willing to rent in town. To top it off, the next day I discover a computer with Internet at the Shell Oil headquarters, which Joseph runs. The main office on the outskirts of town is a simple temporary structure with two rooms and a bathroom. It’s dialup, ten years behind its time, and reminds me of the CompuServe days of my youth. It comes and goes, each time interrupting the download and having to reconnect and start over. The enchanting series of beeps and tones and buzzes reminding me that everything I’ve just tried to send is lost. But it’s something. A tendril of sanity. A tether to the rest of the world. And it’s the first connection I’ve had with anyone on the other side of the world since I left. I’m ecstatic. After multiple failed attempts, I lump nearly everyone in my contacts list into one email. Hi, everyone—I found Internet access!! Apparently, the computer/Internet craze has even hit my little island. I’m here in Papua New Guinea. (Remember PNG—so I don’t have to keep typing that!) which should answer everyone’s first question of “Where am I?” I’m happily getting settled in on the Island. It’s now two weeks into my trip (that’s so hard to believe!) and GREAT news—I have my own place!! I found a guy who has an extra house that I am now renting!!! It’s a little run down (as are all the houses on the Island), but it’s all mine! It’s a small (though huge for the Island) 3bedroom house, but they’ve lost the keys to the second bedroom in the back, which is fine because I won’t use that space anyway. It’s actually 46 Ryan Casseau

made of wood with a corrugated tin roof and sits on concrete pillars (all considered fancy, developed, rare features in town). It’s just barely furnished, but I have a little bed, a giant table and two school chairs. I have my own kitchen, sort of—I have a little propane camp stove and small dorm-sized refrigerator that serves as more like a cooler since the power often goes out. There had never been appliances (they always cook outside) and termites have eaten out all but the frames on the couple cabinets, so we removed the broken doors leaving a couple shelves. There’s even a bathroom with a shower. The shower is only cold water (as is every shower on the Island—hot water doesn’t exist unless it comes out of a kettle), but usually I’m hot and sweaty when I go to take a shower anyway. I’ve got plenty of roommates—mostly geckos running on the walls and I’m convincing myself I just keep seeing the same 2-inch-long cockroach whose head is nearly the size of a dime. I named him Roachman (like Hoffman) and have been calling him that so that I can convince myself that he’s like a pet. Last night was my first night here and I had a great time sitting at my giant table eating the meal I cooked (a can of tuna and rice—what can you do…) and sitting under “the little ceiling fan that could” (no air conditioning of course) enjoying the peace and quiet! After spending the last several days sitting around waiting for other people to get this, do that, and whatever all while being very New Guinean (very slow and lazy to do anything) I was about to go insane. What seemed like endless days of just waiting around, unable to go somewhere in case someone came home with some news. There were entire days that I think I did nothing. Not nothing like “Hey, whatcha doin’?” “Oh, nothing.” I mean doing literally nothing—sitting on a chair just sitting, while other people talked and chatted in a language I can’t understand waiting for someone who’s somewhere I don’t know and wanting nothing more than to do SOMETHING! I was volunteering to cook, clean, whatever, I just needed to do something. But things are different here, and people don’t do anything often (sounds silly to say, but it’s true). And when there is something to do, they’re too kind to let me do it since I am a guest. But! Now it’s all better! WILD HAPPY 47 OH!! And the best thing about the house is its location!—right across from

the coast, so that my view is the South Pacific Ocean, including palm trees, blue-green water and other tiny tropical islands. But to bring you down to reality and out of the fantasy world, there really isn’t a nice beach there since the coast is covered with giant, rusty metal pieces left from Americans in WW2 and other various companies on the Island that abuse the fact that there are no laws restricting this type of thing. I’m actually a bit nervous to go swimming because of all the metal, but I should be able to find a place, and it’s not like it’s sharp jagged metal—it’s been worn down over fifty years by the ocean so it’s just really ugly. But super tall grass blocks my view of the junk and leaves the ocean. I can’t complain, last night and today sitting on my little computer with my workspace all set up in some run-down house along the ocean is straight out of the movies! This is exactly what I’ve been dreaming of! Plus, the people here simply have nothing to do. As a result, they love anything that relieves some of the boredom and want nothing more than to help me. This simply is the perfect place to do fieldwork! Lukim yu bihain (“See you later” in Tok Pisin—like “Look to you behind”/later), Ryan Reading back through this makes me smile to appreciate the stream of consciousness pouring out. I had been told multiple times before this instance that I’d be able to connect to email (during several of the days doing nothing), but it had never worked. I was therefore doubtful this time and hadn’t prepared anything. And in tapping into my subconscious stream, there are a couple things that jump out in this email that I feel I have to further explain. First, is the house. Lorengau Town is the “urban” center of the Island. There aren’t any buildings more than two stories tall, and those are very few, but that’s already a significant difference to the grass and thatch huts everywhere else on the Island. Some of the homes in town have electricity, where owners were able to convince the power company serving the handful of businesses in town to 48 Ryan Casseau

let them connect. As a result, there are frequent brownouts and blackouts. Indoor plumbing is equally rare. Most homes are made of plywood siding with corrugated plastic roofs. Foundations are either concrete slabs or steel pillars that elevate the house from the ground. Near the coast this is to prevent flooding, but it’s generally designed to provide a shaded outdoor living area where most meals and conversations are held. The house I rent belongs to an older man who works as a trader in the town. He had built it when he and his wife thought they wanted a fancy house in town. Less than a year after it was completed, however, they changed their minds and moved back to a traditional thatch house just outside of town. It is a genuine feat of simplicity and abdication that would boggle the minds of most Americans. But being one of those Americans, I greatly appreciated the opportunity for solid walls, indoor plumbing, occasional electricity, and a lock on the doors. The second thing that strikes me from the email is how flippant I am to criticize the Island for being lazy. Culture shock is real. If you haven’t experienced it, I implore you to try. Maybe not when the entire forward momentum of your life and career hinges on needing to get a lot of work done in a short period of time in a foreign country that operates at a much slower pace, but even that has its benefits. With the tiniest level of progress accomplished, there’s more room to see things as they are. There’s a purity to the Island. I can start over fresh. I can build Maslow’s hierarchy from the bottom. I’m one of the lucky ones who entered life born into Maslow’s hierarchy on the third tier, with physiological needs such as food, water, and shelter satisfied, with my safety and security stable and established, and with a loving family that put me up most of the way through the third tier as well. Three of the five tiers were taken care of right out of the gate. What did that leave for me to do? I had to work on my self-esteem and my selfactualization? That’s it? And WILD HAPPY 49 self-actualization was supposed to be this elite thing that few in the population would ever achieve. A reaching of the highest echelon of

growth and development. Of fulfilling our most absolute individual potential. Or as Maslow put it: “What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.” This presents two fundamental flaws. The first of which is that it can be a bit overwhelming to enter life on an advanced level and be expected to complete the final exam. We need practice and experience. Humans are flawed, clumsy things with high expectations and short memories. How am I expected to complete advanced calculus without having taken addition and subtraction? Second, it feels like cheating. I’m missing the sense of accomplishment gained from starting at the beginning. If you run a half-marathon, you start at the beginning and you run thirteen miles, half what a full marathon is. You know that you only ran half. It’s an amazing accomplishment. But you always know you only ran a half marathon. You don’t start at the halfway point of a full marathon and run to the end, crossing the finish line with all of the full marathoners. It’s not fair. And if you did it that way, you’d always know. You’d always have the voice in the back of your mind reminding you that you didn’t actually complete the full marathon. It’s the exact same distance, thirteen miles. It’s just how you frame it that leaves you feeling authentic or insincere. The Island gives me an opportunity to start at the beginning. Sure, I still have all the advantages one could have. If we’re to continue the marathon analogy, I have great fancy sneakers and moisture-wicking aerodynamic clothes and high-energy goo packs. But at least I’m finally starting at the beginning. Here I can build Maslow’s hierarchy from the bottom. I can build a life from scratch. Modern life is full of minutiae. It’s boiling over with the insignificant and mundane. But the Island is an opportunity for something pure. It calls out the popularity of survival shows for their simplicity that contrasts daily modern life. There is fantasy in having to make decisions that matter. To get to go back to the beginning and focus 50

Ryan Casseau on food and shelter, rather than TPS reports and social media and email. Is this hard-wired into us? This yearning for survival, calling to us even when our lives are not at risk? Meanwhile, contemporary “survival” and its socioeconomic baggage can be numbing, so much so that modern life is peppered with antidepressants and alcoholic selfmedication, and suicide. This is why we enjoy books like Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild. Why we hike the Appalachian Trail or climb Mount Everest or run marathons or even backpack across Europe. Human beings are explorers. Not just to witness the vistas and offer a new perspective, but to put ourselves back into a purer, simpler set of decisions and challenges that invoke our ancestral and evolutionary simplicity. These pursuits grant us the freedom to worry about survival. To tackle the first rung on Maslow’s hierarchy and go from there. Life has a funny way of putting things together though. I’m only a week into my trip into my life on the Island and I have my own place, my own bed, running water, and the ability to make my own food. Levels one and two of the Maslow hierarchy accomplished. What’s even more amazing is that I had also secured some of the third tier of Maslow’s hierarchy, the level of love and belonging. The Islanders, and the Litau family in particular, are some of the kindest and most generous people in the world. They took me in and treated me like a lost cousin who had finally returned to Island. I have a family on the Island that I can rely on, whom I can ask for help (of which I need lots). There’s a language barrier I have to overcome, but that’s a minor hurdle in having those I can be with and feel safe and enjoy the company of. I don’t love them, but I appreciate them and everything they’ve done more than I will ever be able to repay them. And love is a funny thing. Certainly, a funny term. Perhaps we’ve read so many books or watched so many movies that we’ve warped our understanding of love. Regardless of my first week’s success, it isn’t without its challenges. But the challenges are different from those back WILD HAPPY

51 home. They’re satisfying. Like mowing a lawn, with its immediate gratification of pretty clean rows of perfectly heightened sprouts contrasting the unruly remainder. Control over nature. Control over this dizzyingly complex life. Stretching, tearing, growing. It makes me question whether we’re supposed to evolve as a society. We’ve taken this need away; our individual survival woven into the conglomerate organism of human society. Is it needed? What broader goal does it serve? Is the speck of time in which humans have existed important or inconsequential? What if modern life has simply become no more than a kind of mass distraction? Panem et circenses. When we take our lives and simmer them down to a rich concentrate, what’s left? There is a thread to be pulled. One that we fear may unravel our lives. One that, if we push past the fear, may actually provide something better. This was what I would find on the Island, buried deep in the mud and sand of experience and perspective. It’s not why I went. But I’m pretty sure it’s why I was there. CHAPTER FOUR The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust ~ The next morning, I head to town to see if I can find some more substantial food. The can of tuna and rice I had eaten the night before was a sort of housewarming present from Martha when she saw how excited I was to be able to make myself dinner. Move-in day had been delayed several times over multiple days and by the time I was left alone in the stillness of my new home, it was after dark and the market was closed. Today feels like a new day. Most days feel like they’re just another day. But others feel pregnant with hope. This, thankfully, is the latter. A new chapter on the Island. I’m a resident now (sort of). I don’t have to wait for anyone anymore. The sun is shining and morning is upon us.

Walking the worn dirt path beside the road that serves as a sidewalk is a lovely second introduction to Lorengau Town. With my head held high and my bilum bag slung across my body, I trek to town with the enthusiasm of a child on Christmas Eve. Whenever 54 Ryan Casseau I come across someone on the path, I give them a smile and a “Moning tru” (Good morning in Tok Pisin). To hear this come out of a white guy strolling to town like he owns the place makes the locals’ faces melt from the WTF look of shock to a big grin and an eager, though often dumbfounded, reply. The first building when entering Lorengau is the post office, a small, nondescript concrete building. No letters for me, of course, but I make a mental note to ask Joseph or Martha if I can use their address to receive mail. Who knows if any will make it before my time is up, but it’s worth a shot. Past the post office, you enter the heart of Lorengau. No traffic lights, no stop signs, very few cars in general, though pedestrians stay out of the road. Lorengau is the center of activity on the Island, despite being geographically off on the northeast corner. The population is around 6,000, one-sixth of the province’s total population. The population density is sparse in comparison to even rural towns in the US, but remarkably denser than the other 30,000 inhabitants spread out across the Island’s 800 square miles (two-thirds the size of Rhode Island) and 85,000 square miles of ocean and smaller islands. Even with its limited offerings, Lorengau manages to draw many villagers several times a month to socialize and buy things they can’t get in the villages. Most of the town has limited electricity and the majority of houses have some level of plumbing as well, a significant luxury over village life. The town has one bank; two mini “supermarkets” that sell everything from frozen chicken and kitchen tools to clothes, electronics, and machetes; three wholesale food stores where villagers buy forty-kilogram bags of rice and flour to feed the village for a month; two “kai bars” (New Guinean fast-food stands); a guesthouse; an Air Niugini (the local airlines) office; numerous dives that serve as bars (though only one or two are official); and a gas station. In the center of the

town is the cultural zenith of the Island, the local market. Here, under 1,800 square feet of thatched roofing, sit countless locals every afternoon WILD HAPPY 55 selling everything from smoked fish and fresh fruit to dried tobacco leaves and buai, yes, buai, lots of buai. Buai is the pidgin word for betel nut. It’s chewed religiously in Papua New Guinea. Like cigarettes, chewing buai offers a slightly intoxicating, appetite-suppressing buzz. Unlike tobacco, however, chewing buai produces massive amounts of chunky, rusty red saliva that needs to be spit out. With so many people incessantly chewing it, red-stained blotches cover sidewalks, house posts, public buildings, roads, grass and trees, everywhere that people can spit. As I make it to the market, I struggle to maintain a poker face and keep from cringing in disgust. I had seen people chew buai at the Litaus’ house, but it’s much more extreme at the market, where so many are just hanging around. As a guest, I try to repress being so judgmental. But as an outsider, it’s repulsive to see the masses spitting sloppy red gunk everywhere. Over time, their mouths and teeth turn completely red, even when they aren’t chewing. Older buai chewers are easy to pick out because their teeth eventually turn black or fall out. At one point in the afternoon while leaning over to give a ten-kina coin to a woman selling fresh picked peanuts, a scraggly dog walks by. His furry back is covered with no less than five revolting splatters of buai spit. Apparently, a group of village boys thought the mutt made a good target. I look up to find that the village “boys” are around thirty years old. I’m trying to take it all in and enjoy myself, but my guard’s up. There’s no shortage of mini panics that remind me of being a skinny kid in middle school fearing someone might randomly give me a hard time. I don’t feel like I’m in danger or anything, but there’s a fear of being harassed or worse. But it doesn’t happen. My Tok Pisin is still nonexistent aside from a couple words, so there’s plenty of charades to buy a pineapple

and a mystery food wrapped nicely in a banana leaf. I gave up trying to figure out what’s in the banana leaf, resorting, finally, to just buying it. It’s not much of a risk with my curiosity costing the equivalent of around twenty-five cents. 56 Ryan Casseau While I don’t find that much to actually buy, there’s a potent energy to the market that I enjoy. I’m glad to be here, but the isolation is palpable. I can’t speak the language. No one from the Litau family is with me, and everyone else I know is on the other side of the world. As I browse everyone’s offerings, spread on leaves or sitting directly on the ground in front of their sitting vendors, I’m momentarily lost in thought of what everyone else back home could be doing. There are jobs and cars and rent and TV. And here I am, faking it ’til I make it on a lost little Island, watching a foreign world pass by in front of me, feeling very, very far and very, very small. I let out a couple deep breaths. It’s OK. This was what I wanted, remember? This is the dream. No, I correct myself. My dream is the jungle. It’s time to get to the jungle and start getting work done. This isn’t a vacation. And if I don’t want to throw away everything I’ve done over the past decade, I need to get moving. Work would save me. I walk home nibbling on my pleasant surprise inside the banana leaf, a sweet sago dessert. It’s the only homemade local dessert I would experience in my months on the Island, but I have no idea of that at this point. Sago is the inner pith of the sago palm trees. It goes through a complex process to eventually get to a protein-rich flour. The sago flour is then boiled or baked or combined with coconut milk and sugar into the delightful sticky treat I have found myself currently indulging in. The closest way to describe it is to imagine a Rice Krispies treat, but swap out marshmallow for coconut milk and take the crunchiness of the Rice Krispies and replace it with a rubbery toughness. It’s one of the

best things I’ve tasted since landing on the Island. Savoring the pleasant surprise and contemplating exactly how I’m going to get all my work done, I wander and ponder. I need to collect plants for my research, I need to find several villages where I can speak to people about which plants they use for medicines, which means I also need to figure WILD HAPPY 57 out how to get to those villages and where to stay at those villages, and who to talk to and how to talk to them… ugh, too much. Plus, lest I not forget, I need to collect hundreds of plant samples for the National Cancer Institute, press the plants, identify the plants, and dry them out so I can ship them home to the labs. The last part is particularly important because in order to get the specimens home, they need to be completely dry. This involves chopping them up into small pieces, letting them sit in the sun, turning them once or twice a day in the sun, and then moving them from the large nylon green net bags to small white cotton bags. If they aren’t completely dry, they’ll weigh and cost a ton to ship home. Plus, if there is any moisture and they grow mold or mildew during transit, the USDA won’t allow them to enter the US, at which point this entire project goes up in smoke. The plan works perfectly. I no longer feel lonely. Now I’m completely stressed out. Just beyond the center of town, a giant tree catches my eye. Instead of leaves, it’s covered in thin, floppy green needles as long as my fingers. It looks like a huge pine tree stuck in the middle of the tropics. It even has tiny cones the size of marbles. But it isn’t a pine tree, that much I know. It’s intriguing and exotic enough that I find myself in pause, gazing at the familiar yet totally foreign tree. Everything is so different here. I nibble my sago and stare, lost in the bizarreness. My brain wrestles with how every little detail is profoundly foreign and different from home. It feels like I’m hallucinating, like the line between real and fantasy is blurred. “Hallo?” a small voice says from my side.

Seemingly from nowhere is a small boy, probably around nine years old. “Hello,” I reply. He turns his stare from me to the fake pine tree and for a moment we’re twins. He’s a miniature version of me, standing on the side of the path, staring at the tree. 58 Ryan Casseau “I like this tree too,” he says after a minute of contemplation. I smile, thrilled with his English and his company. “Me too.” The tree’s needles blow in the sea breeze. “You don’t speak Tok Pisin?” the boy asks. “I know. I’m trying to learn, though.” “Hmm,” the boy replies simply and turns back to the tree. “I know some words,” I defend myself, inspiring his attention, but he doesn’t speak, waiting for proof. “You are Pikinini, right?” I say with pride of knowing this singular word. It’s easy to remember because it’s so much fun. Pikinini—child. I won’t learn of its associations with the racist slur, pickaninny, until decades later. “Hmm.” He nods. “Well, I haven’t been here very long. Hopefully, I’ll learn more soon.” A couple palm stumps nearby look comfy, so I make my way over and sit. I seem to be waiting for life to start on the Island, so it seems as good a spot as any to eat my sago and figure out what to do next. To my surprise, the boy walks over to join me on the nearest stump.

“Is that why you came here? To learn Tok Pisin?” Pikinini asks with a harmless curiosity only kids seem to be able to pull off. I laugh. “Oh no. I came to study the plants here.” “Hmm.” I’m not sure if he understands but I am mid sago bite and the rubbery mouthful won’t allow me to elaborate. I gulp it down and am about to speak when— “This seems very far to come for some plants.” “It is.” “Why come so far for plants?” “Well, I think you may have special plants here.” WILD HAPPY 59 “Hmm…” By now, he’s already answered this way several times and it puzzles me as to whether he’s processing the English or my answers. Or, as is probably the case, he’s just bored with the conversation. It’s a peaceful little exchange and I feel myself suddenly not wanting him to go. “Would you like some sago?” I offer. His face lights up, nodding in excitement. Ah. This is why he’s become my little friend. I have more than enough to share and the rubberiness is starting to wear down my jaw, so I tear off a large chunk of what I have left and hand it to him. “Thank you,” he replies formally.

“Your English is very good.” “Hmm.” He smiles and nods, his mouth too full of sago to speak. I half expect him to run off, having gotten what he wanted, but he doesn’t. And so we both sit for a couple minutes in silence eating our treat. I scan the area in our silence, momentarily afraid that his mother is going to come running and screaming and make a scene with me appearing as a sort of kidnapper. But no one is paying us any attention. No one cares that he’s off sitting with a random white guy. It’s odd; the other kids I see around his same age are all playing or near their families. After a while, I stand and turn to head back to my house, opposite the direction of the market. I can’t just sit here all day with my new little friend. “It was nice meeting you, Pikinini.” Our eyes meet, but he doesn’t react. I might as well be talking to the stump he’s sitting on. I don’t mind, I was so desperate for a friendly conversation that I’m thrilled he joined me. With a smile and a full belly, I walk back to my lonely little house. 60 Ryan Casseau That night I’m excited to get back to the Litaus’ house for dinner so I can continue talking with Joseph about how I might go about doing any of the things I need to get done for my project. Dinner is parrot fish, the pretty ones you see snorkeling or at the aquarium. I think they were originally an iridescent green and pink, but the color has been all but boiled out of them. They taste delicious saturated in steamy coconut milk. The only problem is that since parrot fish apparently have thin scales, the locals eat the scales with the fish. It’s hard to do, because your mouth is telling you to spit it out. It’s hard and crunchy and you can’t help but imagine it traveling down your throat and stomach, slicing and tearing along the way. So I kinda eat some and then take the bigger scales off. Or find myself subtly taking the scales out of my mouth in hopes no one notices enough to ask me if everything is OK. It’s a delicate balancing

act of how many times I can pick food out of my mouth before they notice and how many scales I can physically crunch through. We had some baby shrimp the other day and I had the same problem. It’s not as bad as I’m making it sound, it just ends up taking me three times as long to eat and at the end of the meal I have a pile of shit I didn’t eat that’s five times the size of the piles on their plates. After dinner Joseph and I are able to chat about where I might be able to collect plants. He has a person in mind who he thinks will let me collect from his property. It’s “big jungle” and just outside of town, so it sounds very promising. Also, he says he’ll introduce me to a couple of guys he thinks could help me. “Good mangis.” Village boys. I ask him what I should pay them and he laughs in reply, which makes me a bit uncomfortable. “No. Em gutpela mangis. Em Wantoks,” Joseph reasserts. They’re good village boys. By calling them Wantoks, I’m not sure if he means Wantoks of his or if this includes me inside the circle. Either way, it doesn’t offer much clarity on the payment thing, but I’ll have to figure out something I can do for them. WILD HAPPY 61 His son Denys is back from studying at a university in Australia, which is super expensive for someone from Papua New Guinea. He doesn’t seem back on a break or having graduated so I assume this means he either quit or failed out, but I really have no idea. Regardless, as his father, it seems like Joseph wants me to include Denys so he is doing something productive. Denys is a nice guy and only a couple years younger than me at twenty-two, plus he speaks great English. I’m happy to have any help I can get. The other guy, who I meet the next day, is rougher around the edges. His name is Pahuk. He’s a little older, harder, especially next to the doughy naive dispositions of Denys and me. He wears a harsh, almost angry expression when we meet. No smiles. Few words. I’m not going to lie, it’s intimidating. Is he supposed to be a bodyguard? Do I need a bodyguard? Do I need a bodyguard to protect me

from him? Either way, things seem like they’re moving. I’m happy. This, however, is Papua New Guinea and things are different here, which I still haven’t apparently learned. Though, I should have by now. A smart person would have seen this coming. My god, it’s Papua New Guinea: “Land of the Unexpected.” No really, that’s their country motto. USA —“Home of the Brave,” PNG—“Land of the Unexpected.” Days pass. I bounce between wandering town trying to find people I was told might be able to help, trying to learn Tok Pisin from Denys, and checking to see if the Internet is working at the Shell station, a forty-five-minute walk from my house. Despite my attempts to will things forward, there’s always something. Something blocking my ability to get anything done. Frustration, fury, impatience, despair, and regret play on incessant shuffle in my mind. With the inconsistency of the Internet and the frustrations with the spotty connection, I start writing emails in advance on my computer, so that I can just copy and paste them into email when/if I ever make it back online. Often, it feels as though things are spiraling with no 62 Ryan Casseau end in sight. The emails become a sanity check. A cathartic diary that, if I want, I can also share with the world. Before I know it, it’s the end of another week and my prewriting of emails has become a virtual therapy session. Today is kinda like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m just so fucking frustrated. It’s now been another week and I’ve gotten NO work done. People are just SO FUCKING SLOW, and lazy! If I have to wait for anyone for any reason, it means me sitting somewhere sweating for like three fucking hours, just to have them show up and say, “Oh I couldn’t do it, blah, blah, blah, but I’ll do it tomorrow.” It’s driving me insane. Today I was promised, guaranteed, assured I would be able to go start collecting plants. But the guy who owns the land is supposed to come into town to show me where and he hasn’t shown up yet. I met the guy last Thursday

and yet I won’t be able to do anything until Wednesday, since this is the weekend and Tuesday is the PNG Independence Day. It’s the epitome of PNG life, “Oh, there’s a holiday in about a week so we really shouldn’t plan on doing anything until after that”—ridiculous! Sorry I’m so pissy today. It’s just that today I thought I would be collecting plants, when that didn’t happen I was going to check email, then I tried to connect and it didn’t work, then I went to the bank and it took 1 hour and a $20 fee to exchange some traveler’s checks, which is just fucking ridiculous—I’m never buying traveler’s checks again—why should it cost $20 to exchange money!!! I just want to scream, hop on a plane, fly all the way home, and say fuck it to ever working in a remote country again! I can’t send something like this in a big group email. In the last couple rounds of email, I’ve started to tailor them for different groups. The college buddies with superficial humor, my brother with inside jokes and reminiscences of childhood thrown in, the extended family and friend group for generically fun and adventurous updates, the careful email to my parents so they don’t worry any more than they already do, and, finally, the blunt, honest emails to someone I can vent to and trust, a girl I’m dating back in WILD HAPPY 63 Chicago. That’s where I can send an email like this. She’s chill and balances her worries for me with an appreciation of the adventure I’m on. Plus this trip was part of the plan long before I met her, so it’s always just been part of who I am and what was coming. It’s good to have someone I can bitch to like this as my flame of optimism burns down the match so far I can start to feel the heat on my fingertips. Soon they’ll be burnt out, and it’ll be over. I spend that afternoon wondering what else I can do. As in do, do. Career-wise. I’ve never considered a plan B, but it doesn’t look like I’m going to have a choice. What are some good alternatives? I could be a… A what?? A nothing! This is it. You can’t just throw away fantasies you’ve had since middle school. Plus I’m here. Living it.

Doing it. Well, I was here at least. With no idea how to get it done. As I sit at my computer, lost in frustration, I begin to hear voices. This time, I’m pretty sure it’s not my imagination. I make my way to the windows in the front and peer out to find a group of seven or eight boys playing soccer in the grassy area in front of the house. My cultural upbringing reacts with an immediate feeling of violation, but it’s quickly tempered with a subtle joy of seeing other human beings. It’s amazing how we foolishly deal with loneliness by removing ourselves from other people. The boys aren’t wearing shoes or shirts as is often the case on the Island. They dribble and pass, running and yelling at the other team members and celebrating their goals. It reminds me of my youthful summers without anything to do except play outside. I catch myself watching them, a vicarious smile stretching wide, but quickly fear a reaction if they catch me spying. I decide to go out and sit on the steps in front of the house as an audience member. I played soccer throughout childhood and feel a pang of wanting to prove myself to this foreign world. To show that I can do something they can. But I’m still in too much of a funk to do so. So I sit. The sun is setting, and the temperature has become bearable as evening creeps across the yard. It’s a dramatic improvement since moments before. 64 Ryan Casseau “Do you want to play?” asks a little voice. It’s Pikinini from the market, appearing next to me like magic. “Em aright,” I reply. I’m all right. “You speak Tok Pisin now!” “No,” I answer. “I’ve learned a little more, though.” “You don’t play soccer?” “I do, just not right now.” “Hmm,” he replies and takes a seat on the stairs next to me. I’m about to

convince him to go back out there and not sit with boring old me, but don’t. As if reading my mind, he replies, “Em aright. Three against three now.” Apparently, he’s the odd man, so the teams work better now anyway. We sit quietly for a little while watching the other boys play. Reacting when someone almost scores or even more when they do. It’s simple and nice. “I don’t think it’s why you come here.” Pikinini breaks the silence as if our previous conversation had never ended. I smiled. “You don’t?” “No,” he states calmly without taking his eyes off the game. “Well then, I sure brought a lot of equipment for nothing,” I joke. “Hmm.” I wait a moment but can’t help myself. “So, why do you think I came here?” “I don’t know.” “But it’s not to study plants?” “I’m sure the plants are good too. We have many special plants in the big bush.” “Then why wouldn’t that be why I came?” WILD HAPPY 65 “It is very far.” “Yes, I know.”

The one team of smaller boys is getting close to scoring and it momentarily steals our attention. At the last second, the shot is blocked, knocking the ball just to the wrong side of the stick shoved into the dirt as a goal post. Excitement over. Pikinini continues. “Do you live in a nice place?” “Yes.” “Do you not have family there?” “I do.” “And friends there?” “Yes.” “Then why come so far away from them? It can’t be for just plants.” I smile and am about to correct him, but he beats me to it. “… even special plants.” “But no one has studied the plants from your island before. There may be something very exciting hidden in them. Maybe medicines.” Still, Pikinini seems unimpressed. “And they have studied all the plants from where you come from?” I think about his astute point. There are so many plants in North America that still haven’t been thoroughly studied. And yet I’ve come to the other side of the world. My mind argues within my skull that it’s the ethnobotany that drew me here. That I had to find people who lived beyond the reach of modern medicine and were forced to still live with traditional herbs and knowledge on botanical medicine. But the other voice in my head counters that there are still libraries of Native American plant medicines that haven’t been thoroughly explored in the lab either. In the end, I say nothing. 66

Ryan Casseau The game holds our attention until it’s interrupted when the ball goes way out of bounds and needs to be retrieved. “Don’t they miss you?” Pikinini asks. “Who? People back home?” He nods. “Yes. I hope so. And I miss them. But it’s OK.” “They must be brave to let you come so far,” he speaks with a touch of longing. “I don’t like when my father goes very far. I like that he’s home when I go to bed.” “Yes, that is much better.” We watch the remaining bits of the game as the sun dips below the horizon. When a final goal breaks the tie score, the game is over and the group disbands to head home, just as we did in my own childhood. I turn to Pikinini, but he’s already gone. I’m back to being alone, but the world feels a little more familiar. There’s nothing like a little nostalgia to make the world seem a little smaller. Part II What the Hell Was I Going to Do? CHAPTER FIVE I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work. ~ Thomas A. Edison ~ I think back on my time on the Island with strange regard. The naivety. The invincibility of youth. But what strikes me most is the limited scope of perspective. The narrow lens through which I viewed the experience. So

much has changed since my time on the Island. The magic of a trip such as one to remote Papua New Guinea is that it anchors the moment in time. Youth, in its fleeting beauty, is progressive and vague. But this was a moment, distinct from the rest of life, locked in time and place. At the age of twenty-four, far away from the trappings of normal life, something was beginning to happen. It was a notch in the door frame marking another couple inches obtained in the world. The growth came from so many things. The newness. The wild. The challenges. The isolation. It’s hard to stray from romanticizing travel, especially solitary travel. You’re stuck with your own thoughts to carry you through your experiences. They aren’t diluted or dissipated through conversations with other people. In “normal life,” I’m one of those people who can’t be alone. I loathe boredom and the easiest fix is 70 Ryan Casseau usually finding someone to hang out with. Perhaps I’m facing the aftereffects of growing up with a brother less than two years from my own age and being inseparable for over a decade. Now, as if outside of myself, I see myself sitting in a chair off to the side of a concrete landing under a house in PNG, surrounded by numerous men and women who would love to hear some of my stories and give me attention. However, I’ve chosen to isolate myself to my own thoughts, locked in the world of my mind. It doesn’t take long for them to notice my lack of interest in participating in the conversations and graciously ignore me. At first in these situations, I’d feel lonelier than if I had been trapped on a deserted island, but now this place has become comfortable enough to disregard it. I’ve learned to stay in this little world (all the while giving the appropriately timed nods or smiles when I half-consciously notice someone telling a story that involved me) for hours at a time, often while waiting for someone who’s following the norm here of showing up anywhere from two to seven hours late. I suppose it’s become a survival adaptation, this newfound comfort with being alone. While many already possess this simplistic trait, this was new to me. Foreign. There was a presence to being alone. As if I wasn’t really alone. There was a sort of ghost that lingered in the air and provided solace. It followed me through Papua New Guinea. It follows me now, tucked into the pensive silences. And as the time grinds

beyond the present, crushing it into a workable flour, it gains shape and focus. Reminding me. Translating the moments for me. Seeing beyond the narrow lens for me. The beauty of growth is that you need not notice it to receive it. I didn’t have to find it on the Island, it had to find me. I just needed to learn how to get out of the way. My narrow lens at the moment, however, didn’t see a need to live beyond the physical. Life was lived extrinsically. When I couldn’t satisfy tangible progress on my work, I intended to satisfy my cravings for adventure and fun. This was an adventure, after all. The corporeal satisfactions of youth. And while industrious headway WILD HAPPY 71 and scientific achievement were clearly not in the momentary cards, amusement presented its own set of challenges on the Island. The sun beats down in its typical Island blaze, and I, similarly enflamed in frustration, pace the grassy spot outside my house. I can’t wait any longer. Some days hold hope. Today does not. It doesn’t take much objective evaluation to realize that there is no way the guy I was waiting for will show. Looking out into the bay, I’m reminded of where I am and how magical it could seem. I decide it’s time for an adventure. One I don’t have to wait on someone for. Hunger for autonomy flares inside me. I dash up to my backpack and dig through the remaining odds and ends that haven’t yet been unpacked. My arm thrusts down the open nylon tube. It pushes aside work gloves, a ball of string, a carabiner, a small roll of duct tape. Shuffling them around, stirring the pot of unnecessaries with my arm, I begin to doubt if I’ve brought them while hoping it won’t be a tipping point in my psyche if I haven’t. I fight off excitement from the idea, tempering the potential disappointment. Just as my mind begins its downward spiral, my fingertips brush against the thin rubber strap. They loop back to the spot, thrust in deeper, and seize the pair of plastic lenses. I yank them out in glee, looking as if I’ve just ripped out the black heart of my backpack. In reality, it’s a pair of swim goggles.

I re-strap my Teva hiking sandals to tighten them up and dash out the door. My house is positioned on a bump of land on the coast, which pulls it away from the main road and tucks it away in a quiet nook. As a result, there is no one nearby. I’ve developed a tendency of attracting attention, due often to nothing more than the rarity of my pale skin, so I’m happy not to have an audience. Interestingly, you rarely see locals in the water. Occasionally, children play in the dappling waves, but adults are never seen enjoying the beach or the sea for its beauty or entertainment. I would soon partly learn why. Along the front of the house, past the small patch of short broadleaf grass, are a pair of packed sand tire ruts that serve as 72 Ryan Casseau the road to access my house and the couple beyond it. I walk along the path trying to find a suitable place to sneak through the tall overgrown weeds and grasses that block me from the water. I bought a machete from the grocery store the other day, but am hesitant to use it since, one, there’s a good chance I’d accidentally dismember myself, and two, I’d have a gaping hole in the weeds. As much as I was excited to see the beach, this is the land of the unexpected. The grass wall is up to my waist and the nearest I can see of the water is about twenty yards past the shoreline. That leaves a lot of space for something unexpected. My first couple attempts to walk through the tall grass quickly leads to giant rusted metal beams and jagged twisted metal sheets. Rusted carcasses of building equipment that longed for a proper burial. Another couple tries lead to more of the same. I follow the limbs of the metal beast, until I find the break between him and the next of his kin. I carefully push through, delicately placing one foot after another, knowing that slicing open my foot would certainly ruin my day. When I reach the sand beyond the industrial graveyard, I’m pleased to find just that. Sand. It’s not white and powdery, but a dark tan bordering on brown, sprinkled with pebbles, reminiscent of the Delaware beaches I’d

been raised on. No care has been taken on the small patch of beach where I find myself, resulting in trash littered up and down the coastline. Plastic jugs, frayed ropes, pieces of metal cages. A brown glass SP lager bottle bobbles face down in the water, its label mostly gone, but recognizable because it has the same distinctive shape as a Jamaican Red Stripe bottle. The water is shallow and clear enough near the shore to see that I’m going to have to go out at least twenty feet before it even manages to get a foot deep. I throw my towel and shirt aside on a rock. It’s slippery as I step into the water, my clumsy sandals shuffling to find footing. I can see more giant rusted figures down the coast, protruding out of the water like mechanical dinosaur skeletons. There’s a dirtiness to the WILD HAPPY 73 water that makes me nervous. Brown sea grass grows in pockets and slushes forward and back with the lapping waves. I continue to walk out in hopes it won’t be too far before I can actually swim. I just need to get away from the beach and its collection of flotsam. I need to get my feet off of the ground. It’s not as though I’m some landlocked Midwesterner who’s never been in the ocean. I grew up not far from the beach and love the ocean. At the moment, though, sewn into the foreignness of Papua New Guinea, it feels deeply alien. My brain cajoles me forward repeating, It’s fine, it’s no big deal, it’s just the ocean. Finally, it’s gotten to around four feet deep and I flatten myself out to avoid the ocean floor and swim. By now I’m properly freaked out, feeling vulnerable and alone and far away from anything I’ve ever known in the ocean and all the weird things floating and living in it. Things are fine for about ten minutes. I can’t relax, but I push through the nervousness just enough to momentarily enjoy myself. Then I see it. A giant black sea urchin, over a foot long, with hundreds of spikes. I don’t want to get any closer to it, so I pivot directions. But now that I know what to look for, I see two more, one right under my feet. I turn back. Another couple. They’re everywhere. Abort!

I squirm and turn, trying my best to think floaty thoughts so I don’t sink enough to get pierced. It’s hard to even find a space free of sea urchins that’s large enough for me to put my feet down. Finally, I find a spot and upright myself. The ridiculousness of feeling trapped in two feet of water isn’t lost on me. With my sandaled feet down, I rush to try and find the path where I walked out, dashing as carefully as possible to get the hell outta the ocean! If I swim, I’ll go somewhere else. As my feet leave the water, I sigh in relief. I’ve barely left the house today, but I’ve already had enough of the world in general and turn to retreat back to my house. Perhaps I overreacted; maybe 74 Ryan Casseau the sea urchins aren’t poisonous. Maybe I wasn’t really in danger. What the hell do I know? I’m proud of attempting the adventure, but dismayed at my pathetic display of courage. At least I’ve been able to hold my work frustrations at bay for a solid hour. Progress. Dejectedly, I begin the short walk back down the tire ruts. It’s hot and lonely and disheartening. I feel like I can’t seem to do anything right. I’m hit by a wave of frustrated homesickness, where I just want to go home. I just want something to be easy. “Oy! Swim no gut!” a voice yells. “Oy, youpela! It’s no good there!” I turn to see an older man standing in the grass waving at me as I make my walk of shame from the sea. It’s as if he’s appeared out of nowhere. There’s no one else around. I’m not sure what he’s saying so I give him an awkward half nod and smile. He’s persistent though and walks to meet me in my path. “It’s no good to swim there,” he repeats.

“Yeah, I realize that now.” “Did you get spiked?” he asks with sincere concern. “No, just a little freaked out. I didn’t realize they were all over the rocks.” “To swim, you must go to beach in town.” I nod, not overly keen for the company. “Thanks. I didn’t know. I’m lucky I didn’t stupidly get myself hurt.” The older man nods. “Em aright. You couldn’t know. We never know what we don’t know.” I freeze at the combination of words. While it isn’t the most novel of concepts, it’s something my father had often said. I finally notice the older man beyond my dismissive glance. There’s a strength to him. His presence is calm and comforting. “You are the masta my liklik pikinini talks to me about,” he states more than asks. WILD HAPPY 75 “Masta?” I reply in partial shock. “White man.” “Oh, Pikinini. Yes.” I nod. “Are you his father?” He bounces his head in an awkward partial nod that I take to mean that he isn’t his true father. Perhaps a grandfather? “He likes you.” I smile. “I like him too. He’s a clever kid.” “Hmm.” The familiar reply makes me reconsider.

“You are from America,” he again states more than asks. “Yes. I’m here to study how people use plants as medicines here.” He nods. Since I hadn’t stopped to speak with him, it occurs to me we’re now walking together back to my house. “How do you like it here?” he asks. This time a real question. I’m about to blow off the question with a generic answer, but there’s something about the man that makes me reconsider. “It’s… very different from home.” “Well, yes,” he replies. We continue. “Both the land and the people, yes?” “Yes!” I reply a bit overzealously. The man smiles at the ground as he walks alongside me. “This is a very different world. The land of the unexpected. Have you heard that?” “Yes, unfortunately.” “And you have not found your happiness here.” It’s an awkward segue I blame on translation. “My happiness?” I inquire. The old man pauses to look me in the eyes. His expression is momentarily as serious as one can be, but an instant later his wide smile spreads open. “Yes.” 76 Ryan Casseau I return the smile and with mild condescension reply, “Well, not everything we do is just to be happy. I actually have a lot of work to do here.” He turns to the path that leads to my house. “Yes, I know.”

My immediate reaction is surprise at this, but I figure people talk. Perhaps Pikinini told him. “It must be hard to be so far from your home.” My turn to reply with a silent nod. “And you are still a pikinini here.” “A child?” I ask, doubting my understanding of the word momentarily. “Yes. A pikinini of our island. Of our way. You are not Wantok.” I recall the word from my previous conversations in Port Moresby. “Yes, I’m trying to learn Tok Pisin.” “Yes. Pikinini said you are different than the other mastas that come to the Island. This is why I came to meet you.” He smiles. “But no. Wantok is more than words. Wantok is a way.” “A way?” “You are Wantok with a different way, far from here. So it is hard to be here. To be happy here, you must be Wantok of here.” It hints at making sense and I enjoy the way the man speaks. “And how do I learn to be Wantok?” “You must be here.” I half-laugh. “I am here.” “No,” he replies calmly. “No?” I spread my arms out, gesturing to the world around me. The man stops walking and brings his gaze to mine. He smiles a wise, soothing smile. “No.” He tilts his head a bit to the side, gazing at me like an odd little bird. “It is nice meeting you, Tetae. Lukim yu.” Then he turns and heads off.

WILD HAPPY 77 For several seconds I watch him walk away, then turn with a smile back to my little house. It’s a curious conversation that sticks with me through the night. What more did I need to do to be here? The next day is Independence Day for Papua New Guinea. To celebrate, the Litaus have planned a big feast at the house. While the women will spend the day cooking up all of the finest food on the Island, our day is to be consumed with speeches in the center of town, where the big sing-sing celebration is happening. Much of the town is there, along with many who’ve come from the villages to enjoy the holiday. Most of the day is spent sin daun stori, which basically means chatting, but more literally means sitting down telling stories. Several people who seem to know me, yet seem like complete strangers to me, wave me over and try to include me in their conversations. I’m still not very good with the language, however, and find myself bouncing from group to group until I’ll find the one I’m most comfortable with. My usual conversation partners, the children. Whether at the Litaus’ house or in town, my conversations with the children in Tok Pisin are always the most enjoyable. They talk about simple things and laugh and play. They aren’t bothered by my constant Tok tok esi requests to get them to speak more slowly. On Independence Day, when the men stand around chewing buai and sharing the same stories they’ve told dozens of times before and the women are back in their haus kuk, outdoor kitchens, I’m engulfed in the swarm of excited children. We play soccer and run around playing tag. When the garamut band starts up, they dance with explosive energy. It’s a percussion-only band with vocals layered over a pandemonium of garamut drums, each a work of art from hand-carved hollowed out logs with a slit down the center. They range from the size of a shoe box to huge log drums equivalent to an upright bass. Each garamut is played by single person with two 78

Ryan Casseau sticks that beat at different tempos and tones. The beats are hypnotic and spirited, reminiscent of boys playing a collection of five-gallon buckets on the sidewalks of New York City. The Island dancing parallels the frenetic beats, seeming almost like a game to see if you can move your feet fast enough for the rhythm. It’s one of the few dances that rivals the wild Samba dances of Carnival in Rio. The children refuse to let me retreat, grabbing my hands and showing me just how easy it is to move your feet as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. It’s impossible not to smile, not to laugh at our feeble attempts. Though there’s no contest that I’m inspiring the most chuckles. More than once I catch someone choking on their buai or keeling over in laughter. My own smile stretches from ear to ear. Sweat pours down my face as I lean in. Eventually, only moments before heat exhaustion overcomes me, the setting sun magnificently signals that it’s time to wind things down. When the rhythm stops, I fold in half, bracing my hands on my knees, breathing the heavy humid air in hopes it can give me the oxygen I need before I black out. I’m still staggering when I move on. “You be careful!” Nialow, Martha’s friendly sister teases. “Em mangis will have you dead.” She laughs and continues walking by. I know she’s joking but I’m huffing and struggling to see straight. I squint across the clearing and think I see a familiar face. “Oy! Yupela gut?” I call out to Pikinini. I’m sweaty and tired but energized. Hey, are you doing good? He smiles and dashes up to me. “You were playing today and smiling lots.” I return his happy smile. “Yes, of course. It’s a celebration!” I spread my arms, gesturing with a half turn to the festivities. “I’m glad you are not trying to work today.” “Yes, me too.” I smile. “How could I?”

“You are getting better at letting things be what they are.” He speaks innocently, as if he doesn’t grasp the depth in which his words hit me. WILD HAPPY 79 I’m still catching my breath from the dancing and the heat but take pause. “Yes?” “Things here happen as they happen. Like the garamuts! Now you see.” He smiles wide. “Yes, I guess I do,” but I wasn’t sure I did. “That is very good for you, Tetae. Because now it is easy.” He begins to skip away. “OK. Good,” I say more to myself than to him as he heads away. “Lukim you!” He calls out without turning back. “Yes, lukim yu too.” When I turn to rejoin the others walking back to the Litaus’ house, I realize they’re gone. It’s just me, all alone in the empty field. It’s only a short walk back, but by the time I arrive, the sky’s orange and purple swirls have yielded to a rich inky darkness. With my city eyes, I have but a fraction of their night vision and it’s tricky navigating the path up the hill to the Litaus’ house. We smell the food long before we arrive, filling the air with tropical, sweet aromas, warm and welcoming. On the concrete pad beneath the Litaus’ raised house is a long table covered with baskets woven from palm fronds as temporary serving dishes. They’re full with all kinds of different foods, from cassava in coconut milk, to chicken in coconut milk, to sago in coconut milk, to fish in coconut milk, to fresh fruit (the juiciest pineapple and papaya I’ll ever taste) and fried bananas (that luckily haven’t been put in coconut milk). The only source of light is one long institutional fluorescent light at the far end of the room, its bluish halo a harsh jolt from the darkness we’re climbing out of. With only one light, they’ve opted to place the chairs and stumps where people will eat

under the glow, leaving little to no illumination over the buffet-style spread on the opposite side. I’m happy to realize my guest status has been partially reduced, as those visiting from the villages are invited to help themselves to the food first. However, after a day in the sun dancing and running and sweating and NOT eating, I’m starving. When it’s my turn to 80 Ryan Casseau join the line, I can’t see the food very well. I grab a bit of this and a bit of that to make sure that I don’t fill up my plate before I get a bit of everything. I move down the line, filling up my plate while nodding to the man on the other side of the table, who is excitedly telling me about something (I only pick up bits and pieces of his story). Toward the end of the table, I reach a darkened bowl that has clearly been a big hit, since there aren’t many pieces left. It’s meat, not fish, which is rare. I assume it’s chicken as that’s all I’ve seen besides fish so far. Without much thought, other than trying to decipher the excited man’s story, I grab a piece. I’m pretty good about trying new things but this time would test me. The rambling man leads us over to a bench under the light at the far side of the room to eat and continue the conversation. As I sit and begin to eat, a glance at my plate is like a punch to the face. I look away. What the hell was that? I take another bite of safe coconut rice and try to get a better look. That’s not chicken. I don’t know what that is. It’s animal, that’s for sure. Because whatever it is, I’ve grabbed the piece that includes its penis! I’m suddenly staring at the chatty older man, terrified to look back at my plate. I try my best to keep nodding and chewing and wonder if I’m still smiling or now wearing a “There’s some animal’s penis on my plate!” expression on my face. My eyes bounce back and forth between half-smile nods to the chatty man, scans of the room in hopes this is some kind of PNG practical joke, and scrutinizing glances at my plate for what seems like twenty minutes. The area is packed with people. All are chatting and eating and smiling. Some are still getting food at the table. There’s no escape. This isn’t a joke. I feel the fluorescent light beating down on me like a police interrogation. I can’t toss this behind me or drop it on the floor, it’d make a scene.

Alternatively, there’s NO WAY I’m eating it. I have other food. I nibble on that, stalling. I start to think, if I eat slowly enough, eventually everyone will leave and go home, right? But then I picture everyone finishing their food and crowding around me to chat. WILD HAPPY 81 I occasionally poke at it and try to convince myself it’s not a penis. I don’t even know what animal this is. Maybe it’s just some sort of internal organ, but there’s nothing else on the piece, some skin, some fur—that’s it. No meat at all, and it’s a sizeable piece. I can’t even make it look like I’ve eaten a bunch but just didn’t finish. I think about eating it and whether it’s penis or boiled colon, I feel myself start to lurch. Nope. Not gonna happen. In a moment of sudden excitement, like the heavens opening up an offer to escape, I notice there’s no one at the food table. I practically fling myself out of my seat, completely disregarding wherever we are in chatty man’s story, and gesture with a full mouth about how this something or other on my plate is so delicious and I need more, all the while terrified that this could be my only opportunity without causing a scene. I dart to the food table, trying my best not to showcase my panic. I search for the bowl that had the penis animal in it. Halfway down the table I spot it. It’s empty but for the greasy blotches the reflect the traces of fluorescent light from the far side of the room. To the left of it is a bowl of fried bananas. Halleluiah! Fried bananas! My savior! I need more fried bananas! That’s why I came up here, I answer with the voice inside my head as if a game show host has just inquired. I look around and the coast is clear. No one is paying me any attention. While scooping bananas onto my plate, I attempt to accidentally knock the dreaded thing back into the dark bowl. It’d be subtler if it hadn’t decided to become practically glued to my plate. Now I’m shaking my plate. Pushing it, shoving it, prying it off the plate with the fried bananas’ spoon. My teeth clench, and it suddenly shoots off my plate and into the bowl. Victory! I look up, wide-eyed in delight, scanning the room for anyone

giving me dirty looks. None. I did it. I breathe a sigh of relief. I’m only three steps away when an elderly lady arrives at the food table and happily blurts, “Oh good, there’s some cuscus left.” I keep walking— it’s all yours! It wouldn’t be my last adventure with the curious creature, but I’m thrilled to be free of it for now. 82 Ryan Casseau As I walk back to my seat, I hear the man’s words from yesterday on the beach. That I had to become Wantok. That I had to be here. I realize I’m still holding the Island at an arm’s length. Eating animal penis is not happening, but I need to better embrace the Island, embrace the differences. I also have to get a ton of work done and these two things seem to have become mutually exclusive. I push it out of my mind. Thoughts of work are for another time. I have to lean in and see if the Island will catch me, a sort of trust-fall with the Island. I look around the room. Things here happen as they happen. I hear Pikinini’s words from earlier. These are good people, Island people, not conditioned to alarm clocks and schedules and deadlines. They chat with each other in Tok Pisin, laughing and carrying on. It suddenly doesn’t look like villagers at the far end of the world, it looks no different than a family barbecue back in the US. “Ah, what a day!” Joseph sighs as he approaches. His bear paw of a hand lands on my shoulder. “It was a lot of fun.” “I’m very glad you were here for this, Ryan. We’re all very glad you’re here,” he continues. He towers over me. I look up and nod. The moment feels identical to a father commenting to his son having returned from college for Thanksgiving. He scans the room taking it all in. “So,” he begins again, “I spoke with Paias. He’ll be there tomorrow to meet you. Denys and Pahuk know how to get there.” I stop chewing and stand up in a flash. “Really?” I gulp down the food.

“That’s great! Thank you!” I grab his hand in a shake and wrap my other around him in an awkward embrace as the excitement and gratitude overtake me. The American handshake-man-hug is apparently foreign to PNG. Suddenly, I realize I may have overstepped and start to pull back. The Islanders aren’t affectionate like that. But I’m put at ease at the sight of Joseph’s white teeth reflecting the fluorescent lights in a wide smile. WILD HAPPY 83 In the morning, plant collections begin! It’s barely seven a.m. and Pahuk and Denys are here. At my house. Waiting for me. Crazy. This shit is actually happening! I grab my backpack, since I can’t get everything I need in my bilum bag: green fine-netted nylon bags, a plant press that is basically alternating newspaper and cardboard pieces layered and sandwiched in between two wood lattice frames tightened together with strong back straps and buckles, a bottle of sunscreen, a can of insect repellant, and a bottle of water. I toss my hat on my head, sling the backpack over my shoulder, and grab my bush knife (machete) before I pop out to meet them. Denys is quieter at this hour in the morning. No Starbucks on the Island. We walk in general silence up into town and take a left to head inland. Then we walk some more. The houses quickly thin out as we move out of town and away from the coast. We’ve only gone about a half mile and the houses are fully scattered. They shift in style as well, from painted plywood to small traditional bush houses made from woven leaves. It has a dramatic effect of making it seem like we are a long way from town. The road in this direction isn’t paved. Really, it’s only paved in the stretch between the airport and the Shell station at the western end of town. The sandy soil of the coast quickly resigns to a dense sticky red clay as the road penetrates the trees. Both sides are lined with secondary forest. Junior jungle. There is some scrub and weeds on the edge of the road before the trees start and the walls of green. The walk is nice, peaceful, and laced in anticipation and excitement. I’m doing it.

It’s only a matter of time, hours, minutes until I’d be collecting plants in a remote jungle. I break the silence. “How long should it take to get there?” Denys doesn’t answer. We’re in a long uphill section and he can’t be bothered. 84 Ryan Casseau “About an hour, hour and a half,” Pahuk replies. It’s only been about fifteen to twenty minutes. Did an hour or so mean total or did it mean from here? It doesn’t matter. It’s only a matter of time. We keep walking. The sun is warm. Not hot, but you can tell it’s going to be. When they cleared the jungle for the road, they made a wide path, about three times the width of a normal road. As a result, there’s no shade. Only over in the shrubs and undergrowth, off the road. We keep walking. Without stopping, I swing the backpack around to my chest and dig out my water bottle. It’s nothing fancy. This is before the water bottle craze has hit. It’s a one-liter disposable bottle that I bought with water in it. It reads MosinFresh. I guess that’s the brand. I take a swig and it suddenly occurs to me that Denys and Pahuk brought nothing. Pahuk is carrying a bush knife the length of his arm. They call them bush knives, so I decide to call them bush knives, but that makes them sound like a Swiss army knife. They are machetes. Giant honking, slice a watermelon in half, hack off a branch as thick as your arm, or, in a pinch, lop off someone’s head in a single swing, machetes. Which is good, because we are going to the jungle. The real jungle where people use machetes, where they need machetes. I’ve seen the movies, I know. Pahuk’s machete is matte black, but mine is shiny glistening silver.

“Did I buy the wrong kind?” I ask in sincerity, raising my machete. I don’t remember there being options. Denys and Pahuk exchange a confused look, so I add, “I didn’t see any of the black ones.” Pahuk smiles. “Em same. Yours just baby bush knife.” “They all start out clean,” Denys clarifies. “It’s all the plant stuff that sticks to it and turns it black. After you use it a lot it’ll turn black.” WILD HAPPY 85 I nod. Pahuk’s right, my machete is a newborn. Other than Pahuk’s jungle sword, Pahuk and Denys have nothing. Shorts, shirts, flip-flops. They certainly don’t look like we’re going on any kind of expedition, that’s for sure… save the machete. One liter of water isn’t going to be enough for the three of us. Not sure how that’s going to work, but I push it from my mind. We keep walking. The air is thickening, as if the morning sun is personally tucking water droplets into it, like a pillow in a pillowcase. Did I say it’s not hot? It is. It’s hot. Every now and then we see people walking in the opposite direction, heading into town to start their day. At one point, a pickup truck packed with people comes bouncing down the road. The people are jostled around in the back, but it’s much easier than walking so no one complains. Three children dash out of the jungle and hoot to the truck and it slows down to let them squeeze into the back. The youngest is probably about six or seven and is handed into the crowd, where he is accepted with smiles from the women. Buai spit comes from all sides of the truck. Sister climbs in and the oldest boy gets on last. He bangs the side of the truck to signal the driver, crouching down onto his feet which rest tenuously on the back bumper

since he can’t fit inside. They head off to school. We keep walking. After two hours, having suppressed the urge dozens of times, I finally ask. “You guys are sure you know where we’re going?” I try to ask as if I’m joking around. “Yeah, not too much longer,” Pahuk replies. I fill the time with asking them questions. About themselves, about other people, about the Island, about Tok Pisin. I learn a lot. They don’t reciprocate the questions, but it passes the time. Occasionally I can manage smiles. I’m pretty sure I gathered why Denys is here, but I’m not sure about Pahuk. I ask him why he’s 86 Ryan Casseau helping and he simply replies, “Em samting nating.” It’s something nothing. It’s their way of saying it’s no big deal. Finally, after another thirty minutes, we turn off the road and take a long tire rut driveway, which turns into a foot path to a small home in the jungle. It’s up on thick branches that serve as stilts, which I assume is in case it floods but really is to get away from the insects on the jungle floor. Four simple walls are made of woven sago palm fronds. As is the roof. Six small panels, about eight feet wide, fastened together with vines. It looks like the perfect playhouse. A jungle fort for elementary kids. Pahuk stops. “So, where do you want to start?” “This is it?” He nods. “Should we find Paias and let him know or check if there is an area he

wants us to use?” Denys and Pahuk look to each other and shake their heads. “Em Gutpela.” It’s fine. OK. Let’s do this. I grab a roll of red plastic tape to tag the trees we select and my plant press, knowing that’s the first step. And one of the green fine-netted nylon bags. So where to start? “All right, guys. The goal is to pick trees big enough to have leaves that can fill this bag, but obviously not so big that we can’t get to any of the leaves.” They nod. “I need like a hundred of them.” I’ve made the decision in my weeks of waiting that we’ll start with collecting plants for the National Cancer Institute since they just want any plants. Then I can worry about my own medicinal plant quest. They nod. WILD HAPPY 87 I look around. Wow, there are a lot of trees. It really all kind of blends together. “Let’s start with this one,” I say, half expecting them to argue or comment, but they’re indifferent. It’s a medium-sized tree with some lower-hanging branches. I grab one of the branches and clip off a twig at the end that contains a couple leaves and two small flowers, which will make it easier to identify later. “You said this one,” Pahuk says, smacking the trunk I had just gestured to. “Yeah,” I reply, barely looking up. I’m finding my zone, opening up the plant press, laying the specimen gently on the newspaper I had sought out

in town last week, getting it situated just so for it to look great once I press it down… “That’s a different tree,” Pahuk says. He’s standing over me now, looking over my shoulder. I look up at Pahuk in confusion. “This one,” I confirm, pointing to the trunk with my sharpie and follow it up and around to the branch coming off and arching down to where I grabbed the specimen. Pahuk walks over and rips the clump of leaves apart where I took the specimen. “Em is different.” He stretches his arms as wide as he can, one branch in each hand. And they finally separate. They are different. I took the specimen from a different tree. Shit, there goes any credibility I had. Denys is shaking his head. I look around and take it in. The tangle of greens and browns. The beautiful verdant expanse, towering into the sky. The creaks and croaks of a thousand hidden lives surrounding us. The bright sky poking through interwoven layers of leaves and branches and vines in specks, like stars in the night. Beautiful. Amazing. Overwhelming. I couldn’t follow one branch with my eyes from the trunk to its end. It all blends together. I need 150 specimens just to get started. I don’t see 150 species. I see one: Jungle. 88 Ryan Casseau I push it aside. It’s just the opposite of beginner’s luck. What’s that called? Maybe that’s not a thing. Either way I’m not going to let it get me down. I’m here. In this jungle, in this moment. My moment. “OK,” I chuckle. “Let’s get that one then.” I point to the trunk of the tree I had actually collected. “We’ve got to fill this.” I say, tossing a green finenetted nylon bag towards them. They look the tree up and down and without a word proceed to hack off

branches that float almost silently to the damp soft jungle floor. Ten minutes later, I’ve got the voucher specimen in the plant press, I’ve tagged the tree with red plastic tape, and have taken photos of the leaves, trunk, and flowers. I start shoving branches into the nylon bag, breaking them with my hands since Denys is using my bush knife. I have to yell to them to stop because we’ve got more than enough to fill it. In fact, upon noticing all they’ve cut, I dump the bag out and start over. This time stripping just the leaves into the bag. Soon, it’s brimming and plump. One down. Nearly a month in PNG, but I’ve got one bag. One hundred forty-nine to go. “Let’s do this one now,” I say with a smile, pointing at the other tree’s trunk. No reaction. The afternoon moves swiftly, but knowing there is a two-anda-half to three-hour walk home, we can’t stay as long as I want. I’m not interested in taking the hike home in the dark. I’m still mangi city (a city boy), as they say. We talk about little besides the plants and the work while we’re in the jungle, which feels odd to me. Even Denys and Pahuk barely talk to each other. After some hours, Pahuk looks around and says we should get going. It’s as if he’s using the sun to see what time it is, but you WILD HAPPY 89 can’t see the sun in the jungle. Like he smelled something in the air or heard something in the distance. But it went from nothing to Boom. Done. Time to go. I’m confused but agree due to exhaustion and anticipation of the hike back. All in all, we’ve marked nineteen trees with photos and plant voucher specimens to match. The system where Pahuk and Denys collect leaves while I mark the trees had quickly broken down when I needed so much of their help to find suitable, unique trees. I’m happy though. My goal was fifteen plants and my secret dream for the afternoon was to get thirty, so nineteen was in the middle. (And I’ll conveniently

dismiss that we only got four full specimens in nylon bags.) The walk home is quiet and long, but one of those bonding moments where you don’t feel the need to speak. Friendship blooms in silence as much as chatter. We all just want to get back. When we get back to town it’s late evening and twilight has painted the world over in purplish gray. The formalities from the morning, with Pahuk and Denys meeting me at my house, have been lost to exhaustion. We bid each other good night and split in different directions to our homes. I half expect to see Pikinini and the kids playing soccer by my house, but it’s quiet. Which is just as well since I’m too tired to deal with all his questions. The cold shower that night is no struggle at all. The peace and quiet from my restless soul are like a cool blanket over the evening. Even Roachman is a pleasant sight as I come home. Because it’s home. My home. On this little island at the edge of the world. Where I work in the jungle. Just as I dreamt. CHAPTER SIX No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche ~ The next morning isn’t as exciting but still enough to have me jumping out of bed. I meet Pahuk and Poto this time instead of Denys and we head out. There’s not much more to say about the day as it’s a facsimile of the one before. Long walk down worn-out road, plant collections, long walk up worn-out road. The major difference is that there’s significantly less enthusiasm. We talk a bit more on the walk. Poto is nice but his English isn’t nearly as good as Denys’s. When we quickly run out of things to chat about, I use the time to practice my Tok Pisin. I have to ask How do you say that? every third word.

In the bush, it’s a welcome sight to find our little red tags around the trees that we had collected the day before. It makes it feel like our little corner of the jungle, like I’m actually doing real fieldwork. But it’s the second day, so while the little red tags are cute, we have to find new trees that we didn’t collect the day before. It’s a giant swath of jungle. It sounds unremarkable. It sounds like it would be easy. But it presents a challenge. 92 Ryan Casseau The day passes and before long, I’m back in my house, writing emails home. Another day in the jungle. Another day of collections. We doubled up to get voucher specimens and bulk collections done at the same time. So we ended up getting 11 plants and 13 bulk collections. About equal to yesterday, just different. I still need at least 100 more plants and about 130 bulk collections. No problem. But then, as if my fingers tap deeper into my mind without permission, they continue. Actually, it’s really tough. I feel like this is impossible. I just don’t have the right training or the right knowledge. Every plant looks just like the other, and I’m supposed to have a “trained eye” for it. I feel foolish but even worse I’m way over my head here! I have no idea how this is all going to turn out or actually get done. I kinda have no choice but to just go with it, but it seems hopeless. For example, the National Cancer Institute wants bigger trees, but the leaves to collect from a “bigger” tree are ten thousand feet in the air. These aren’t trees like in your backyard, these trees are like a football field high. I say, “OK, how about this smaller tree,” but then I need enough leaves to fill this big green bag, and after we’ve stripped all the leaves off the tree, the bag is only ¼ full. So then I have to find another tree of the same species. But like I said before, everything looks the same! Ugh! I have to rely on the two guys I’m working with (locals). They’re pretty good—I guess that’s

how you get when you are raised in the forest and use the plants for everything. I mean I have a degree in botany, and I get in the forest and I’m like “Wow, 10,000 of the same thing.” And they go, “How about this one, did we get this one already?” Then we all think about it for a minute or two, decide no, we haven’t, and then they’re like, “OK, there’s another of the same over here.” I couldn’t even focus in the field today because all I could think was “This is hopeless… this is impossible… this is hopeless… this is impossible… What different job do I want?” And WILD HAPPY 93 then I think about all the non-traveling-to-developing-countries jobs that I would be happy with. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here doing this without a clue of how to get it done. Maybe my frustrations with getting started were bullshit. A total excuse. Maybe it was my own procrastination knowing that I was steering the Titanic into this iceberg of incompetence. What the hell am I doing?! What the hell am I going to do?! I slam the computer closed, happy to extinguish the harsh bright screen. I can’t take its judgmental stare any longer. I contemplate if I’ll even send the email and come to the conclusion I probably won’t. Not even to the girl I’m dating, where it’d usually be safe. But this time it’s too much. It’s bad enough she worries about the physical dangers here. This emotional breakdown followed by a typical disappearance that lasts days to weeks before I check in again wouldn’t be fair. Plus, if I’m being completely honest, I can’t share how pathetic I feel. I picture the smiles or frowns on people’s faces as they try to imagine me here. This. I feel their expectations. My identity wound up tight in some modern-day Indiana Jones fantasy that I’ve generally embraced. But I don’t feel like Indiana Jones. I feel incompetent. Naïve. Foolish. What hurts most is that I feel like a fraud. How long have I been talking about this? This stupid dream. Now I’m here. A foolish, incompetent fraud living in a naïve fantasy version of reality. My eyes stare beyond the table. They want to shut but I don’t allow them to close. They want to shut out the world and escape.

But they can’t. They don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve it. I can’t run away and hide. I did this. I have to live with it. In life and in this moment. I shove the laptop away. The pools that have been collecting in my eyes finally break. A single hot tear slides down my cheek and falls. It’s agonizingly silent. The world beyond these little walls has faded to nothing. Nothing but a sad scared angry boy who doesn’t belong here. I’m twenty-four but suddenly I’m nine. Helpless and 94 Ryan Casseau lost and alone. I wrestle with my mind, as its logic attempts to get us out of this. Whether this is the entire situation or just this moment of emotions run wild, I’m not sure. My thoughts pendulum between hating myself for getting us into this mess and then feeling like we can get through it with the right strategy. Either way, no good answers come. No solutions. None but a word that frames these moments. Why? Why any of this? Why did I do this to myself? I rub my eye sockets with the palms of my hands as my mind grapples with the question like a rock climber that loses his footing. Grappling, reaching, scratching the rock face with my fingertips in hopes something will catch. While I fall. The only question is when, if ever, I’ll hit the ground and break. “Are you OK?” a mousy voice inquires from the darkness. It startles me. “Pikinini?” My eyes are blurry from pressing and rubbing on them. The tears filling the aquariums in my eye sockets. “It must be very hard to be so very far from your home.” “Yes, but”—I adjust my voice when it starts to crack—“I’ve done it before.”

“Hmm.” His typical pensive reply. He pauses to give me a moment. “Is this trip different?” I answer too quickly. “No. … Yes. I suppose in some ways it’s very different.” “Because it is longer?” “No.” “Because it is farther?” “No.” “Why is it so different then?” I pause to reflect, to find the right words. “This was my dream.” WILD HAPPY 95 We both sit in silence. The mention of my dream floating in the room like a feather falling from the sky that we both need to watch. It bobs back and forth, floating to rest between us as we each contemplate it. Finally, Pikinini breaks the silence. The feather lying still for a full moment on the floor. Dead. “And now you don’t have to dream of it.” “Now, I suppose, I’ve achieved it,” I say as if part of a eulogy of a lost life. My lost life. “And for this you are sad?” I am sad. I’m angry and frustrated and disappointed and self-loathing, but most of all I am sad. I couldn’t have predicted it, but there is something inherently sad about achieving such a long-standing, life-defining goal. Saying farewell to a part of my life. Trading the life of what could be for the life that is. But this moment was not distraught by the farewell. It wasn’t saying goodbye as if to an old

friend. There’s something more. Perhaps achieving our dreams is an overrated mistake, as once you’ve reached them, they have no choice but to crumble under the heady weight of our naive expectations. Just as people say you should never meet your heroes, perhaps it is best to never fulfill your dreams. Expectations can be nasty, feral things. If they get what they want they seem tame and loving, but if they don’t, they froth at the mouth. They destroy things in their paths. A tiger we thought we could keep as a pet. If we’ve left them alone in our minds, unchecked and unchained, sleeping peacefully when we last saw them, we come home to a disaster. Worst of all, as we come home and try to restrain them and get things back in order, we have only ourselves to blame. We never should have trusted them. And if we’re not careful, they will eviscerate us when we aren’t looking. That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep expectations. We just have to be mindful of their tempers, of their wildness. I tell myself that I’ll put the work in, sweat and cry and bleed over them. Trying to convince myself that I can still restrain them. 96 Ryan Casseau We’ve had magical times together, when I have something to feed them. That pursuit and passion and flow to fulfill a dream are some of the deepest moments of contentment I’ve ever experienced. The partial accomplishments and achievements are priceless and legitimate. But ideally, however it may occur, it is best, safest, to retain the tiniest shred of unfulfilled fantasy; to leave something on the table for your wild expectations to gnaw on. This was how I had gone wrong. I had made it. There was nothing left to feed my unbridled starving expectations. Nothing lingered. My previous trips to Ecuador and Peru and Brazil had always left me partially unfulfilled. In Ecuador, I barely made it to the jungle despite being there as a study abroad for botany. In Peru, two years later, I had made it deep into the verdant jungle I had dreamt of, but it was more of a vacation. One week and no sense of purpose despite the guise of my trip

being to offer volunteer help at a research station. In Brazil, I hadn’t even pursued the dream. I was lost in the fantasy of travel and freedom, backpacking around the continent, making friends and experiencing a life untethered to reality. But while these trips all contributed to making me who I was, they scratched an itch without satisfying it. They irritated it, leaving it tickled even more. Like poison ivy. Momentary relief followed by a spreading exacerbated itch. A piece of the dream stayed out of reach. The trips could stay pure and enjoyable because the dream remained safe, just out of reach. On the Island, there was no getting around it. I had built the trip around the dream. Jungle? Check. Remote villagers? Check. Self-reliance in a foreign world? Check. Botanical fieldwork? Check. Self-actualization and deep contented bliss of accomplishment and fulfillment… not so much. Happiness? No. Reevaluation of everything I thought I wanted or knew… I sit in silence. I have no answers other than to persevere. I’ve missed something, but it is long beyond my frustrations at my little desk on my little island on the far side of the world. The answers WILD HAPPY 97 won’t be found tonight. My mind is silent and offers no solutions. In contrast, the world is a clatter. I can hear the lapping of the waves just outside my house. The frogs chirp in loud rok-roks. The night is a chorus of insects and frogs and disenchantment. In the morning, there is no Pahuk or Denys or Poto. Perhaps they felt the hopelessness as well. Perhaps two days in a row of trekking to the jungle is their max. Whatever the reason, we’ve decided to take a break. A decision was never really made or discussed, it just happened. I debate trying to track some of the boys down, but I realize I

don’t actually know where anyone but Denys lives. They always just sort of magically appear and disappear every morning and evening. I let it go. It’s a weekend after a two-day work week. Another day of productivity lost, but I don’t give a shit. Maybe I’m starting to assimilate. I’m frustrated but ultimately happy. I need the break too. I hang around the house prewriting emails, reading books I’ve brought, and generally forgetting the rest of the world exists. It’s nice, an extended version of a warm cup of coffee on a Sunday morning when it’s rainy out and you can convince yourself there’s nothing that needs to get done. I lean in. The day after that, the guys meet me at the usual time, usual place, and carry on as if the break day in between didn’t exist at all. It’s deeply puzzling, but I’m more focused on the elation from getting back on track. More days pass. Weeks even. Much of the same. Some days we work. Others we don’t. There seems to be no way to predict when or why, something in the wind that my Island friends can hear but I can’t. They just show up sometimes to work and other days they don’t. But I’m becoming more desensitized to it all, at least sometimes. My mindset ebbs and flows. Some days it’s indifference 98 Ryan Casseau to being stood up, other days it’s infuriating. Even days when we work, I unpredictably bounce between excitement and despair. A couple times I head alone up the road on the three-hour hike toward the plot without any help, but word through those heading into town spreads to Pahuk and he joins me before I get to the bush plot. It’s a bluff, of course. I’m worthless alone to get my work done. The hour I may walk by myself on those mornings is a solid journey of self-loathing at my incompetence. It’s not sustainable so I decide to abandon that strategy. Not wanting to push my luck. Not wanting to face myself in the jungle alone having walked three hours only to fully experience how little I can get done by myself. How pathetic I am. The cycle continues, alternating between productive, semi-productive, and

completely useless (sorry, I mean relaxing) days, and collections are going great. Which really means I have figured out how to manage my own expectations for productivity. There’s no meeting in the middle when it comes to culture shock. You may be able to pull them a millimeter closer toward your expectations, but the rest of the gaping chasm between your two worlds you need to cover, which hindsight notes is really the entire point of these little adventures. Culture shock is just that, a great awakening. Living on the Island makes interesting progress. My Tok Pisin continues to improve, leaving me sometimes wondering after the fact if the conversation I just had was in English or Tok Pisin. I’m amused at how I would get bothered back in the US when there were ants in the house. Here I live with thousands of ants, countless flies, geckos running around the walls, one giant, yet friendly roach roommate (at least I keep telling myself it’s just one), and numerous weird things that swarm and dive bomb the table for the first hour after I settle down with the computer. It’s a little annoying, but I’m mostly indifferent. The other day in the forest I saw some of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen. They were the size of my open hand, which I know WILD HAPPY 99 is something people say even back home when talking about little grass spiders and other relatively large species, but these really were a good six inches across. Black and yellow, and looking scary as hell. Someone who studies spiders would love it here. I must have seen at least a dozen different species just yesterday. There were little, furry jumping spiders, green scurrying tree spiders, iridescent red web spiders, giant scary spiders (as noted above), and everything in between. I especially love that both Poto and Pahuk are about a foot shorter than me, so when I follow them through a path, they are just short enough to leave most spider webs unharmed so that I walk face first into them. There was a good one today when I saw a big black dot grow onto my face. I jumped back to find a small plump spider with two giant horns. Luckily, he was still there on the web instead of my face, so I was happy. The spiders were just a bit of a shock because I’ve otherwise become pretty desensitized to bugs, whether

they’re crawling on me in the field or scurrying across the bathroom floor. Roachman likes water, so I try not to return to the bathroom shortly after my shower—he needs his space. I grow more comfortable with each passing day, but the gap is so huge between this world and my old one that I wonder if it’ll ever feel like a new normal. I think there will always be things that puzzle me. For example, I cannot determine the cause of the frequent, inconvenient blackouts that they have in town. I have asked and was given the types of answers one would expect—power lines down from trees falling, or lightning, but when they occur in the middle of the afternoon of a beautiful day, I am confused. I thought they were conserving power since the town is run by gasoline generators, but the people I asked about this work for the gasoline company and would know this. And yet they knew nothing. As if no one has knowledge or control over this. The electricity having adopted a fickle powerlessness like that of the weather. I’ve had lots of frustrations over the last week. Most of them having to do with “PNG-time.” Things never happen when you want them to. Plans are never actually plans. People are completely 100 Ryan Casseau unreliable. I’ve spent countless wasted hours waiting for people or changing plans around people. The plant collection part is going as well as it’s going to go, in spite of all my flaws, but I need to focus on the second part of my project: interviewing people on the Island for what plans they use for medicines. This is, after all, the reason I came so far away from civilization. Three days earlier, I met an elderly villager, a lapan, as they respectfully call them here, who I was told may know a lot about medicinal plants. He was visiting town and was willing to be interviewed about the plants in the village, but he said he needed to be in the village for the interview. OK, no problem. I just had to find a boat. The following day I spent going all around to everyone with a boat to see if they could give me a ride but had no luck. Yesterday, I found a guy with a boat who agreed to take me to the elderly man’s village just outside of town.

When we reached an agreement that I’d pay him and buy the gas for the round trip and he could bring family members with him, yadda yadda, he insisted we go early in the morning. It’s a tricky thing talking about time with the people here. He said early, I didn’t know what he meant. To clarify, I said, “You mean like this time?” It was seven a.m. He agreed. This was all the better for me since I had lots to do that day and could use all the time I could get. So, I wake up this morning around six. I didn’t set an alarm. That’s when the sun gets up and you just feel it. My computer said 6:15. I was ready and at the spot at 6:45. He came at 10:30. Tenfucking-thirty! Oh, dear god, I can’t even begin to express the repressed anger I had. For three hours I paced the town and sat on the beach where his boat was. When he arrived, I couldn’t even say anything. In his mind and that of everyone else around, he didn’t do anything wrong. There was nothing to do but tuck it down deep inside me and hope I didn’t explode. In the end it worked out all right—my goal was to interview the villager and I was able to do that. Simple. In fact, I ran into Pahuk in the town and he decided to join us. The interview went great with Pahuk’s help. My Tok Pisin needed occasional clarifications so it was great that he was there. WILD HAPPY 101 We walked around the jungle for over an hour while the lapan gave his thoughts and comments on the plants as they passed. Most of his anecdotes were on the plants’ local names and how they were used. This one was the best for canoes, this one best for thatching for the roofs of their huts. Others, he noted were used as medicines. He grabbed a handful of leaves and told me that you mix them with hot water to wash when you got itchy bumps all over. I thought he meant like poison ivy rash, but with Pahuk’s help we realized he meant chicken pox. He crushed it in his hands and smelled it before offering me a whiff. It was aromatic, like menthol, a member of the mint family that includes most of the cooking herbs we use in the Western world, like basil, rosemary, sage, and, of course, peppermint. He noted it made a nice tea also. I was so

excited to be living the dream that all the frustrations momentarily subsided. A couple times, from my own curiosity, I’d point at a random tree and ask, “What about this one? Do you use it for anything?” Sometimes he replied with a random use, “Yes, that is Bokuai. It is best for axe handles.” More often, he’d shake his head, simply replying, “Em nating.” It’s nothing, which left me wondering if it wasn’t used for anything or if he didn’t even recognize the tree. When we were ready to leave the village and head back to town, we couldn’t find the boat guy. Hours went by. No one knew anything. It was as if the boat guy and his four cousins had just up and vanished. Finally, around five or six p.m., who knows, they’re at the boat wondering where I am because they’re ready to leave. It makes me crazy! My frustrated, overwhelmed brain spirals. No wonder the country is underdeveloped! I find myself basically just thinking that ALL THE TIME now. The worst part is that I can’t even share my thoughts with anyone, because I haven’t met anyone who isn’t this way. When I was at the village, waiting, frustrated, I kept almost going off to Pahuk as if he would commiserate with me. Thinking at least he could actually understand because we’ve spent so much time together. But then I look over and he’s totally content. Any frustrations he showed or pressure he put on the 102 Ryan Casseau villagers to help us figure out what had happened with the boat guy was all for me. When I imagine myself complaining to him, I have to remember that he can be like that too. So, who the hell knows…? In the end, I got a second interview while we were waiting in the village. Somehow, miraculously, shit is actually getting done. What did Pikinini say at the sing-sing? Things here happen as they happen.

Geezus… The air at night is so much nicer than it is during the day. It carries the breeze off the water and welcomes me outside to be met by a dazzling sky of moon and stars. I love the southern hemisphere. At some point in my life, I had become so fascinated with the stars that I learned the major constellations of the northern hemisphere. It was a cute trick to impress girls. But the sky became familiar. I knew Orion and the Dippers, Cassiopeia and Leo, Cygnus and Taurus. I knew the winter sky from the summer sky. I could find the planets with ease appearing as out of place alphas. But in learning them, I lost the magic of the starry night. The stars went from the mystical splatter shot of wonder to being familiar. Boring. Here, the sky is foreign and bursting in magic, which is exactly what I need in this moment of peace and solitude. A little fantasy. “You are a fan of the stars.” I smile. I recognize the voice. “Gut nait, Lapan.” Good-night, Lapan. “Gut nait. It is late for you to be out. Are you not working tonight?” he asks. I hesitate in answering, which doesn’t go unnoticed. “I am. Or I was,” I reply. “It was a frustrating day.” He takes it as an invitation to sit, which I suppose it was. I expect him to speak, but he just sits with me as we both admire the sky. Then, almost as a surprise to myself, I hear my own words. WILD HAPPY 103 “I don’t think I can do this.” He listens and sits, finally saying, “We all feel frustrated sometimes.”

I sigh deeply. If only there was someone I could relate to, someone to share in this cultural disconnect, someone to tell me I’m not the crazy one. But I’m alone. “That may be. But it doesn’t make me feel any better.” We sit. A night sky with a billion unfamiliar stars. “There are two parts to a person, what they do and who they are. The coconut and the tree. What we do makes us who we are, but who we are decides what we do. We cannot be just the coconut or just the tree.” His voice is calm. He speaks soberly without tone to console me, just to explain. “But what if I can’t do what I need to do to become who I am supposed to be?” Lapan smiles. “We cannot be just the coconut or just the tree.” “I just need to get this done and get out of here,” I reply in frustration, turning my hopeless gaze back to the sky. His smile remains. “And yet, is this not your frustration?” “Yeah. Exactly.” I turn to him in a jolt. His riddles aren’t helping me feel any better. “If I can’t get this work done, the whole trip is a waste. That’s why I’m here. I know it’s hard for you and the other Islanders to grasp, but this is like my job. I’m not here on vacation or just visiting. I only have funding for this one trip. I have to collect hundreds of plants, chop them up, dry them out, make up a notebook of plants, do interviews with people all over the Island on what plants they use as medicines, and then figure out how to get it all back to the US. And the longer I’m here, the longer it takes me to get my degree and to graduate and…” I trail off as I notice Lapan’s relentless smile, recognizing the futility in my tirade. “I’m just saying it’s complicated and important,” I conclude. 104 Ryan Casseau “Yes,” Lapan replies simply. “It sounds very important. And very hard. It

is different here.” “Yeah!” I reply, though immediately unhappy with how aggressively I say it. “It’s tough, that’s all.” “You are very far from home. It is expected,” Lapan replies. “Have you seen the Australian mastas in the town?” “A couple.” “Do you see how they are treated?” I give it a moment of thought. “No, not really. I guess I wasn’t paying attention.” “If you see them again, you will notice. You will see our anger towards them. It is not on the outside, in the sun. It is in the shade of our actions to them. The Australian mastas, they come to take. You’ve come to learn. Many mastas have come before. Many to take. But you see with different eyes. There is openness. You walk with a bilum bag and you try to speak Tok Pisin. That is Wantok. That is why you are welcomed.” As my Tok Pisin improved over my time on the Island, I heard people speak badly about the Australians. They had a poor relationship with PNG in general. The PNG perspective was that Australia helped with aid, while extracting (“stealing”) what value they could from the lands in PNG. I had heard the Islanders talk about an oil pipeline that was to run from the mainland to Australia. This was so the Australians could take it and have the good jobs, and make all the money, as a man in town put it. I was flattered by Lapan’s words and was relieved that they saw me differently. “Thank you, Lapan. It is kind of you to say.” “You will not find what you are looking for if you do not listen. There is Wantok. Many do not listen. They do not hear the Wantok and they cannot be Wantok. This is why you are here. Your plants are very nice too. But it is not why you are here.”

WILD HAPPY 105 A reluctant smile grows across my face. He’s clever enough to see right through me. I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off. “We cannot be just the coconut or just the tree. This is a gift. If you don’t see that now, then you must wait longer. But this gift you are receiving is one to carry with you. One that you carry, but also carries you. You’ve come here, to the Island, without seeing what the Island is. And when the Island turns to dust from your pikinini mind, it will carry you still. Learn what you must while you are here. The world you know will change too. Not all have been so lucky as to have an island. Here we are Wantok. Here you will learn. You will be the coconut AND the tree. Then you will know who you are and what you do.” I sigh deeply. His words help, but I have a long way to go. We both look out over the sea. You can barely tell where the sea meets the sky. Two shades of black meeting somewhere far away. “It is no surprise you are frustrated,” the Lapan continues. “You have left all that love you and all that you love behind. It is very different here than how you are in the US. The Island is taking what it needs to before it can give you what it has to offer. A man wearing shoes will never have feet as strong as one who walks barefoot.” Few on the Island wore shoes. The ones who did wore flip-flops. I always wore shoes. I could only imagine stepping on broken glass or something and spending the next weeks hobbling around. I feel the need to embrace the Island way of life, to become Wantok as the Lapan said, but some differences are just going to be what they’re going to be. I’m not sure if he’s helping or making me feel even more overwhelmed and lost. Seriously, what the hell am I doing here? And yet, oddly, in this exact moment there is a breath of peace.

Right now, it feels OK for some reason. “Do you know when it is coldest?” Lapan asks without pause for reply. “Just before dawn. Just as the sun is about to reward the earth. The night can seem long, but it rarely is.” 106 Ryan Casseau “I’ve heard it’s darkest before dawn.” “Yes, but here we don’t fear the dark. The cold, however, cold can be quite unpleasant.” Just then, at the horizon, I see hints of light. The slightest glow from the edge of the water. Somehow, I’ve been up all night. Where has it gone? It is a new day. WILD HAPPY 107

CHAPTER SEVEN Love is our essential nutrient. Without it, life has little meaning. It’s the best thing we have to give and the most valuable thing we receive. It’s worthy of all the hullabaloo. ~ Cheryl Strayed, Wild ~ More water… I take another glug from the bottle. I imagine it cooling my insides with an icy freeze, but it’s warm and stale from a reused cheap plastic bottle. The oppressive heat beats down. I glance at the bottle to find two-thirds of it replaced in worthless air. I need to be careful. I can hardly see the town from where I am. Despite the momentary trepidation, my smile is wide as I continue to paddle. My right hand is awkward on the end of the paddle. The straight hand-carved handle doesn’t have the “T” at the end like I’m used to. If I was back in the white water of Maine from a childhood trip, I’d miss the extra control that style of paddle offers, but in the vastness of the South Pacific, I don’t need control. I just need to keep paddling. The horizon is a Lionel scale model of the Island, stretching from jungle edge to jungle edge. In the other direction is endless reflective glare from the afternoon sun. “So, do most people finish high school?” I ask Pahuk, continuing our conversation. He shrugs. “Half, me think. But me not for sure. Em not so good for getting jobs.” It’s quiet for a moment but he continues. “Em gutpela place to find someone to marry.” 108 Ryan Casseau

We’ve been out here for hours already. Other than the dwindling supply of water and the hellish sun, it’s pure bliss. The outrigger of our small dugout canoe bobs and skims over the turquoise surface. The handiwork of natural cordage strapping it to branches that connect it to the canoe is a work of art. It amazes me that the canoe and outrigger were each once two trees separate trees, fallen and turned into a functional boat through hours of artful hacking, digging, and burning techniques that have been passed down through generations. I don’t know people who do things like this. That toil over weeks with simple tools to make functional works of art. I don’t know anyone who builds their own transportation. Well, I didn’t before the Island. I’m excited over the notion that the canoe will be mine to use for the rest of my trip if we make it across the enormous harbor. The brilliant plan was to paddle from Mokarange village, where Pahuk grew up, back to town. The Island, I’ve learned, is actually two islands. They’re nestled so cozy together that you don’t even realize the small bridge you cross in heading out of town is more than just a river. The second island is mostly made up of a long peninsula curving up and back toward the town like an arm trying to show off its bicep. Between the imaginary fist and shoulder is an immense harbor. When Pahuk’s brother offered the canoe for me to use, the big question was how to get it to town. According to several people we asked, the distance was somewhere between five and twenty kilometers and would take anywhere from three to “impossible” hours to paddle across. In other words, no one had any idea. How had no one done this before? It looked doable to me, we had a free day, and how else was I going to get the canoe back to my little house? We said our goodbyes and set off just after a breakfast of sago and smoked fish. A great ending to a couple great days. It didn’t start this way. As always, I had hoped it would go totally differently. Four days earlier, with several productive days in the jungle finally behind me, I decided that from a research perspective, it’d WILD HAPPY

109 be best to do half the collections from the jungle plot and collect the other half from a coastal plot. This would allow me to do comparisons, the scientist’s best friend. I’ve changed the way I plan to explore the medicinal plants on the Island. Instead of just asking people what plants they use, which I’ll still do, I’ve decided to also make a small book with pictures of all the plants we’ve collected and take it to several villages to discuss what plants people recognize, use, and use medicinally. With this data, I’ll be able to analyze how much the different groups know the flora. Having two different plots introduces another variable, another set of analyses, and could very well be another ten pages in my eventual dissertation. And that’s the Holy Grail here, people. So I’m happy. Several days over several weeks to the bush with two to three helpers had gone a long way. Denys and Poto sometimes join, but I could always count on Pahuk. He’s a great worker. He gets very serious about it and yells at the others sometimes if they mess around and aren’t getting anything done. By now you may be thinking: Are you even paying them? Well, the answer is… sort of. Generally, Pahuk and the other mangis don’t have that much to do so they’re happy to have something that’s a little different. They know I’ll buy the beer when we hang out and each morning we have full intentions of grabbing some beers after we’re done. But the days often go longer than planned and by the time we get back, everyone’s exhausted, so we skip the beers. By now I owe them at least a twelve-pack each, and a full case to Pahuk. Lucky for me, beers are only about forty cents apiece. I’m good for it. This is part of the magic of the Island. These are the nicest, kindest people I’ve ever met. Where is the fierceness, the brutality from the stories? This is Papua New Guinea. The land of the cannibals and tribal beheadings and dark stories. The land of the unexpected for everything except violence and primitivity. I’m experiencing the opposite. Everyone’s helpful and kind and never seeking anything in return. Like a bellhop who just lugged twelve giant pieces of luggage to your room on the fifteenth floor but when 110

Ryan Casseau you turn around with his tip money, he’s gone. Young people want to help. Older people want the younger people to help. My celebrity status on the Island was a big part of it (an American researcher wants to study our island!), but they treat each other this way too. I regularly see people helping others without being asked. In a land where older cars break down or get stuck in the mud, or people try to carry three times the number of things they can possibly hold, there is a gentle reliance on the community. And the community rises to the occasion without being asked and without expectations. From my upbringing outside of Philadelphia, it’s as foreign as sago. And the smiles! So many smiles. Of every shape and size, from the littlest to the elders. The Islanders are a happy and loving people. It’s magic, locked away in this tiny island, removed from worldly news of crises and disasters and dread and darkness. There’s no other way to put it. It’s as if I’ve stumbled into a secret enchanted pocket of the world. There are lessons to be learned. This isn’t a land of savagery. The peace and love and community that they share on the Island is something I haven’t experienced before beyond the leaves of my family tree. There’s so much to learn. And it has little to do with plants and medicines. Four days ago, Pahuk showed up as he would before we head in the bush, but he seemed different. When I approached, he calmly said he couldn’t help me that day. It was odd because usually, he just wouldn’t show up if we weren’t working. Here he had made a point to meet me just to tell me he couldn’t do it. It was disappointing because we were starting to get on a roll. I had most of the voucher specimens I needed from the jungle and many of the bulk collections. I was excited to check something off my list. Then I would turn my attention to the coastal areas and things would really start to— “My mom died,” he spoke, matter-of-factly. He glanced to the ground a bit like a child who had done something wrong. There was

WILD HAPPY 111 no emotion in his voice. Despite the profound words, he seemed indifferent. “Oh my gosh, Pahuk, I’m so sorry.” “Em all right. Me need go back long tok ples bilong me,” he began. He needed to go back to his village. But, he explained, his village of Mokarange was on the coast and his brother and uncle had land there that we could use for collections of coastal plants. He invited me to come along. Pahuk assured me that it was easy to find plenty of different kinds of plants there. It seemed a terrible time to talk about work or to invite me along, but he did. And it seemed like he wanted me to come. I agreed. I ran inside and started throwing items into a bag, realizing at this point that I had no idea how long we were going for. It was underwear that halted me. How many pairs to bring? If this was just a day trip, I was going to look stupid bringing an overnight bag. If we were going overnight and I didn’t bring anything, no one would notice (they bring nothing), but I’d be pretty uncomfortable. What if we were going for several days? A week? How far away is it? How are we getting there? Shit, I didn’t know anything. I poked my head outside and saw Pahuk sitting quietly by the tire ruts in front of the house. He twisted a small palm leaflet around his finger mindlessly. “Pahuk, how long are we going for?” I yelled down. He shrugged. “Coupla days?” “Got it.” I dashed back to my stuff. It wasn’t a big issue with the clothes, to be honest. By now I basically lived off of two T-shirts and two pairs of underwear, one to wear and one to dry having rinsed them when I took them off. As I was walking out, I threw in the last three green nylon collection bags just in case and grabbed my plant press.

We walked up the trail to the road without a word. My brain swinging between excitement of getting to the village and remorse 112 Ryan Casseau over my friend’s mother’s passing. I repeatedly looked over to see if Pahuk wanted to talk, but he didn’t take the bait, choosing to look forward and trudge on. When we reached the road, we sat. Again, no words, just walk, walk, walk, sit. This was a challenge for me. I’m one of those people who generally struggles with silence. It’s one thing if I don’t know the language, which can turn anyone introverted. But I could communicate with Pahuk and had about… hmm… 276 questions ping-ponging around my brain. I wanted to be respectful, but the vault lock was breaking. “So… should I be bringing something? In your tok ples, is there a typical way people say ‘Sorry for your loss’?” He gave me a confused look. “Because your mother died.” … “In the US, we use flowers to brighten up someone’s home or try and cheer them up.” “Flowers?” he asked, splaying his hands out. Just sitting on the side of the road I could see more than a dozen different types of tropical flowers covering the rainbow’s worth of colors. “Em all right. You no need to bring somepela.” “Are we going to your mother’s house where you grew up?” Finally, he looked at me. With a stern, almost angry look. Yikes. What did I say?

He shook his head and then returned his gaze forward. … “Mama bilong me, em no gut.” My mother, she’s no good. I was taken aback. “What do you mean?” Now there was a clear snarl as he spoke. “Em paiariz.” It sounded like he said “pie rice.” “Sorry, Pahuk I don’t know that word.” WILD HAPPY 113 “Paiariz! Em paiariz, tasol!” OK, tasol means “that’s all” in a final sort of way. But that wasn’t all. I still had no clue on pie rice. I tempered my confusion. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it. … … … “Pie rice?” I asked delicately. Still working on patience. “Paiariz! Em riz youpela cookim too gut.” Ah, OK—not pie rice, pie-a rice = fire rice, rice you cook too long… “Pie rice is burnt rice?” He sighed and calmed a bit, realizing that it didn’t translate beyond the words. “Yes. Paiariz is burnt rice. No one like burnt rice. It all used up and no

good to eat. Like a woman. Been cooking everywhere and all burnt up.” This last part he said with clenched eyes and an expression of disgust that added more meaning than his words. There was a deep anger, the kind I remember from childhood when you were so angry and couldn’t express it well enough that the tears would form. All the while your insides were ready to explode. Paiariz was a whore. A woman who slept around. Pahuk was calling his mother a whore. I suddenly got more comfortable with the silence. Up to this point, I hadn’t been paying much attention to family dynamics on the Island. When I considered it, I realized that generally families and marriages were pretty secure. Everyone I had met was either young and single or older and married. Divorce wasn’t common. Neither was single parenting. Pahuk didn’t seem to care for his mother very much, and that was ten minutes after he had just told me she died. This is probably the time you’d be nicest and most forgiving. 114 Ryan Casseau Moments later a mini-minivan flew down the road and came to a quick halt in front of us. It was a style that we don’t have in the US with three tiny bench seats that are only designed to fit two people, but I’m sure people have squeezed three into. It was white with red, blue, and green stripes going through the middle along with lots of Asian writing on each side. The kind with circles and lines. Korean maybe? I didn’t know. It was smaller than a real car, bigger than a go-cart. It was so out of place on this tiny tropical island filled with native Papuans. How did it get here? Why did it get here? I hadn’t seen anyone who looked the slightest bit Asian since being on the Island. I couldn’t imagine anyone here speaking or being able to read the writing covering its walls. It was as if it had floated here on the tides like the other scattered foreign junk that occasionally arrives. But it was in good shape. Older, but cared for. Pahuk stood and I realized this was our ride. He opened the tiny sliding

door and a thin, kind man smiled and said hello. He was quite a bit older than Pahuk, not that I had any idea how old Pahuk was. It was a real enigma. Most of the time I thought he was in his mid-twenties like me, but other times he’d seem much older, maybe even forty or so. After a short dance with Tok Pisin and broken English, I put it together that this was Pahuk’s brother-in-law, his sister’s husband. Pahuk hopped in the front seat and I slid into the middle bench and whipped the sliding door closed. It banged shut louder than I had intended. It was such a cute, tiny door; it didn’t weigh anything. I was used to big heavy minivan doors from the US. Both Pahuk and his brother-in-law gave me a grave look at the loud clang. “Sorry,” I muttered while giving my best I didn’t mean to break your toy van’s door look. Apparently, it was no big concern because the van lurched and whipped into a U-turn before I had even sat back. I was tossed sideways but quickly up-righted myself and clicked the seat belt on as fast as I could. WILD HAPPY 115 We sped off opposite the direction of the town, back toward the airport, which I realized I hadn’t gone past since I had first arrived. Curiosity and the comfort of the well-kept, modern, seat-belt-installed interior spun in a whirl of excitement. To the village! I called out in my mind. I was welcomed into the family with smiles and joy. We arrived at his big sister’s house where she lived with her husband and their two daughters, one of whom, I’d later learn, is actually Pahuk’s daughter from a lapse in judgment with a girl he thought he would marry in high school. They had a proper wooden home with a cinder block foundation. They gave Pahuk and me the second bedroom. And their girls slept with them. Apparently, the minibus was a lucrative transportation business that afforded them an upgraded village lifestyle complete with a modern (read: non-thatched) house.

The days in the village were a bizarre dichotomy of joy and welcoming around Pahuk’s family and darkness and mourning related to the funeral. But I suppose the time around death is always that way; the sadness reminding us of how lucky and gracious and temporary we all may be. This was particularly dark in that Pahuk’s mom was an exception to the norm. She had three children with two different men and was with numerous others. There were stories of her “black magic,” like how her brother was killed using a line of some powder that had been cursed and when he walked over the line, he starved himself to death. Then the spirit of the dead brother harassed her until she convinced the spirit it wasn’t she who’d done it (it was actually their other brother who wanted the land). But through the experience, Pahuk’s mother had learned how to talk to the spirits and used them to keep her from having more babies while sleeping around. Pahuk had no love to show for his mother, who apparently hadn’t mothered him or his siblings at all. She had never lived with them as kids. Pahuk and his siblings were raised by their aunt. And 116 Ryan Casseau while I know thousands of these family dynamics exist in the US, on the Island this was unheard of. It was blasphemy. An atrocity. Pahuk referred to her as Paiariz, not Mom. I’ve seen rage and hatred and long-standing grudges, but someone openly referring to their recently departed mom as “Whore,” like it’s her name, seemed harsh. It was my first peek behind the curtain of this magical enclave of kindness. The Islanders were kind and generous, but judged harshly. I’d later hear stories of people doing bad things and paying the price, Island-style. There was a man who raped a young woman in a nearby village. Within two days, he was hacked to pieces by machetes. He had fled to his own village seeking sanctuary within his people, but as the angry mob from the woman’s village began their trek over, the news traveled. He was dead before they arrived at the hands of his own Wantoks who were disgusted and enraged by his actions. Another story, of a man who slept with several different women, was shunned from his own and all the neighboring villages, left to live alone in the bush. Without the support

of a community, he was dead within the year. When I was told the story, it was clear that was the planned conclusion. For Pahuk’s mother, the funeral was muted from usual customs due to her past errs. Pahuk relished in telling me all the things they would have done if she had been a “good” person. For example, usually the immediate family would stay inside the house for five days to mourn their loss and to remove the spirits from the house. After five days, they would emerge, the men with newly shaven heads to show respect for their lost family member and to remind others that they were still in mourning. With each story, each detail, he gave another last spiritual middle finger to his dead mother. The one death-related custom that was most inspiring, the most take-noteand-bring-back-to-the-States tradition, was the Haus krai. The night after someone dies on the Island, friends and family gather at the family’s house, sit outside on a tarp, and tell stories, cry, and console each other in respect for the recently deceased. WILD HAPPY 117 Pahuk’s mother received no such honor. However, two days into our stay in Mokarange village, an elder woman who was loved and respected also died. As you can imagine, the timing of this was incredibly suspect and the village was abuzz with gossip and rumors as people tried to piece together why Pahuk’s mother would use her black magic to kill the older woman whom she barely knew. A love triangle? Envy of the other woman’s good life or respect? Random vengeance for being dead? It was my own little island soap opera. If we found out that the older woman was actually Pahuk’s mother’s lost twin sister, I was ready. The ideas got more absurd as they went down the line. The one thing that was clear was that coincidence wasn’t an option. Regardless of the final theory, the older woman’s death served to ruin Pahuk’s mother’s reputation further and in contrast, raise the older woman’s to near sainthood levels.

In daily life, the Islanders aren’t very affectionate. They basically have two moods, wonderfully happy or harsh and stern. They wear smiles big and wide or their eyes bead down as if to destroy all that they see. By now, I had spent a good amount of time on the Island as a wallflower, slipping behind the curtain of “display behavior” to the real side of Island. I had seen parents raising, disciplining, and loving their children. I had seen couples together, new and old. They aren’t affectionate. There’s no PDA at all. Couples barely sit close to one another unless they’re teenagers. In fact, the most I ever saw people touch one another in any way from hugs to kisses to the slightest human contact is men walking together holding hands. It certainly isn’t a gay thing. It’s a friendship thing. In a converted-by-missionaries Catholic culture on the Island, homosexuality is forbidden. There are rare stories of men who liked men and how the villages had “taken care of it,” which seemed like unfathomably calm conversations of murder. But despite this deeply rooted bible-inspired, blasphemous loathing for homosexuality, you can find men walking hand in hand with other 118 Ryan Casseau men. Adults. Married, respected members of the community, just walking around town or down the sidewalk holding hands. There wasn’t the tiniest hint of sexuality associated with it, which is the only reason it was accepted. And while their smiles were big, warm, and welcoming, they also weren’t affectionate in how they spoke to each other. They don’t say good-bye to loved ones by saying I love you. Being emotional or affectionate just isn’t part of the culture. This made the Haus krai so much more incredible. This was a different side of the Island; an overwhelming deluge of emotion. After we learned of Mama Laumai’s passing, the women of the village promptly started preparing vast quantities of food. It was mid-afternoon and there were only a handful of hours before sunset. Pahuk insisted I come along. I argued it didn’t seem appropriate since I didn’t know her, but Pahuk and his family insisted that Mama Laumai’s

family would prefer me to join. I was met with amiable smiles spread across damp cheeks still dealing with the afternoon’s news. When I arrived at the clearing just outside the village, a group was collecting and beginning to eat, seated in a large circle on several large tarps that spanned a good thirty-five square feet. Just beyond the tarp, the huge wall of dense looming jungle surrounded us with just enough space to clear the way to the sky, which was getting dark quickly. Kerosene lanterns sat on and off the tarp, and without any formal organization someone began to speak. They spoke in their tok ples so I couldn’t understand, but I didn’t need to translate the words. They had just lost a loved one. They grieved. Unfettered. They shared their sorrow, their heartache with the village. Their vulnerabilities pouring into the night on the words of their Wantoks. One after another they spoke. There was no order. But the stories flowed like a well-scripted play. There were funny stories, sad stories, shocking stories. The immediate family was easy to identify. When my Tok Pisin would improve, I’d learn that they would stay inside the house, not to remove spirits from the house WILD HAPPY 119 but to properly send off the spirit of the dead while protecting it from nefarious spirits. It was as if the deceased had become a child in their new life within the spirit realm and the last gesture your living family could offer was to protect you in your rediscovered infancy. The night wore on, story after story, tear after tear. The sky went from swirls of pink to deep purple to inky black and speckled with stars as the time slipped into the night. I hadn’t met Mama Laumai, but I shared the loss the villagers held. I remembered funerals I had experienced as a kid, when it seemed an entire generation had left within a handful of years. I could recall both grandmothers’ funerals, their counterparts having passed too early for me to remember. And while it had been over a decade since I had lost my last grandparent, I felt a sadness that they hadn’t had this. That they couldn’t have seen the Haus krai from their village and heard the stories sending them off into their new world. It was so much more than our funerals back home. It would stay with me forever.

*** Damn, my skin is frying out here. I try to put more sunblock on my face, but I’m sweating so much it won’t get into my skin. I try to dry my skin, but my shirt is soaked in sweat. So I rub. Sweat and sunscreen smear and swirl across my face. I’m sure I look ridiculous, but what can I do? We’ve still got a good distance to the shoreline. In some ways, I’m fearful and worried. In others, it’s pure bliss. The quiet conversation with Pahuk has been pleasant. What is it about men, that you seem to have better conversations when you’re not looking at each other? Sporting events, horseshoes, bowling, fishing. Talking can’t be the main activity. It has to hide behind something else. It apparently crosses cultures. The canoe is good for that. I start up another chorus and Pahuk reluctantly joins in. A childhood song that all on the Island know, and I have just learned. Pahuk just taught me. He said our canoe trip reminded him of it. 120 Ryan Casseau I’m going far from home and from my people To distant lands away across the sea. And while I see the light of mighty ci-ty, I… still miss my home of grass. A simple melody, a simple song, a simple message. A simple life in a simple world. These moments steal me away from my obsession and anxiety over getting things done. The dense cobwebs of productivity and societal pressure clear away, and I can finally see. This is joy. Mindfully simple. Two men in a canoe, unintentionally sharing their lives in a memorable moment and the depth beyond. We don’t need to talk about how to paddle or steer the boat; those banal tasks are easy. But they’re enough of a distraction to trick and free our minds to open up to each other. An accidental friendship as Aristotle would say, of utility and

then of pleasure. But perhaps of goodness, of virtue. It’s not just Pahuk who’s different in the canoe. I’m no exception. I’m different in the canoe too. I’m comfortable with the silence because we’re not just sitting in silence, we’re canoeing. We’re doing. And once I’m doing, my brain receives the all clear to calm down. Ugh, cue the psychoanalysis. Everyone thought it was a crazy idea for Pahuk and me to paddle back to town because it was too far. This included Pahuk, but he just went with it. We can see the town in the distance, but it’s hard to tell how far away we are. Up ahead on our right is a little tropical island, right out of the movies. “That’s cool!” I point out to Pahuk. He turns back to see what I’m suggesting and follows my paddle to the little oasis of palm trees. “The island? That’s Nialow’s,” he comments indifferently. “Nialow, like Martha’s sister, Nialow?!” I ask with a jolt. WILD HAPPY 121 “Yeah.” “That’s HER island?” “Yeah.” He turns back to me and is starting to enjoy how I’m so excited and he is indifferent. It’s become a common occurrence. “Do you want to visit?” “Uh, yeah!” Our casual paddling picks up to a level of ramming speed out of Ben-Hur. The outrigger bobs between open air and slices through the tops of the waves as we race over. I imagine Pahuk’s Melanesian ancestors, who

traveled the South Pacific in larger version of this homemade canoe moving through ancient times settling the various islands. Back then, the canoes were built with a deck over the outrigger arms large enough for a family to sleep inside a thatched tent on top. A tall mast with a square sail helped them traverse the endless seas. And on these primitive catamarans, long ago, they found the Island. It partly explains how I’ve found such a special pocket of the world. Like Darwin’s finches, the Island is its own unique cultural ecosystem. Its inimitable blend of peoples from Papuan and Melanesian heritage mixed with centuries of isolated societal evolution has let it become the gentle magic I’ve stumbled upon. We arrive in no time. Nialow is just like her sister, wonderfully kind. I had never put it together that she lived out on an island with her family off the coast from the town. She always seemed to pop in and out of the Litaus’ house, so I knew she didn’t live far. We’re greeted as we approach by their three children, Fifia, Andros, and Nina, who wave and run across the banks in delight. The Island is right out of my childhood imagination. Three simple acres covered in coconut palms and tropical bush. One side is lined in postcardperfect, white sandy beaches while the other is a rocky mangrove coast where the fish love to hide. I’m speechless. It’s Robinson Crusoe meets Swiss Family Robinson. Scattered chickens and pigs wander the Island without a need for fences or pens, 122 Ryan Casseau unconcerned with the goings-on of the people and commotion our visit brings. In a clearing, there’s a modest, typical thatched hut with a haus kuk hut nearby. Just past the huts are a couple rows of plants forming a garden. My eyes are drawn to the two rows of broad-leafed plants with baby pineapples sticking off of them. They’re dollhouse sized now but will eventually turn so big and sweet they’re nearly orange. Nialow greets me with a big smile as if to say, it’s about time you visited me out here.

It’s a vacation break for the kids, so we were lucky to catch them at home on the Island. Usually, they spend the weeks at the school in town, which has boarding for all the kids from nearby villages who can’t go back and forth. While the visit already seems as delightful as it can get, we’re just in time for lunch. Mangos, papaya, and fish right out of the ocean. We sit and relax in the shade, chatting over lunch. Juices run down the sides of my cheeks and it’s rapture. After lunch I’m coaxed into playing in the “salwara” (ocean – “salt water”) with the kids. I’ve been wanting to since I got to the Island, but it’s the first time I’m finally making it. We start off at the sandy beach, but they’re excited to show me where they jump off mangrove trees branches into the water. It’s a tenuous climb. There’s one good tree with a large branch that extends out ten feet up over the water, but to get to the safe jumping spot, you have to climb up and walk out over a bunch of coral rocks and roots to where the water is deep enough to jump in. The branch is a giant branch, but it’s round and the kids have been going up and down multiple times so it’s soaking wet. After jumping in twice and checking out the depth of the water, I use my third jump to swan dive and it’s a huge hit. I’ve always loved diving. They don’t know how to dive on the Island, and they’re blown away. Even Pahuk’s face is in awe when I break the surface after the dive. “How you do that flying?!” Nialow’s oldest yells out. WILD HAPPY 123 I feel like a superhero. They‘re all so impressed. I think it’s the only time I’ve impressed anyone since being here. They’re so excited that I have to do it again, but halfway out the walk my one foot slips a little and I’m reminded that I’m going to crack my head open to impress some kids. So, I do one final flying dive and then hang up my cape. After that I spend some time with the kids trying to teach them how to dive. Sadly, they don’t really get it. But they want me to come back as soon as I can to keep teaching them and I’m happy to have an invitation to this magical place. I’ve been wanting to play in the ocean ever since I got here, but it’s too nasty in town. Now I’ll be able to use my new canoe to paddle here

whenever I want. It’s been an incredible week. Between the Haus krai, getting to see Pahuk’s village, the canoe journey, and now this tropical private island, I feel like I might as well have snuck into a land of fairies and elves, it seems so enchantingly unreal. As we say our farewells and climb back into the canoe, I can feel the stress of reality creeping in. The afternoon and days before in Pahuk’s village have been a fantasy. We can see the town on the horizon, and I feel the dread. It’s come to represent the work I struggle to get done. Still no word from Peter, the botany professor from the university. I make a mental note to try and call him tomorrow. He’s the plant taxonomist who works for the biology department I had met when I was in Port Moresby staying with Modi. Lucky for me, the Island is considered exotic even for PNG standards, so when he heard I was going, he offered to come to the Island to help me identify my plants if I paid for his flight and lodging. I wasn’t sure if I could afford it at the time, but with the house I’m renting there’s plenty of room. I wrote to him weeks ago to tell him he had a deal. Now, of course, I’m having second thoughts as he’s non-responsive. I tried using the phone system for the first time last week to call him, but the system was down (oh Papua New Guinea!). Hopefully, Joseph will let me try again tomorrow. Phones are fairly hard to find. I used the one at the 124 Ryan Casseau Shell headquarters where the dial-up Internet is. So I rely on his generosity to use it. I glance to my feet where three giant ripe papayas, a gift from Nialow, roll in the bottom of the canoe. It helps me push reality aside. I’ll deal with it all tomorrow. I look out over the world. Turquoise expanding in swirling shades of deep blue to light green in all directions. It’s OK, I whisper to myself. This is why I came. CHAPTER EIGHT

Our need for love lies at the very foundation of our existence. ~ Dalai Lama ~ S orry I haven’t written much—I’ve been working hard! Really hard! Now of course I am sitting in my house not doing much because I am waiting to find a boat that will take me to the villages of the southern coast. I wanted to go today, but there’s no boat. It’s a common problem here. There are only so many boats and people use them for themselves, so you have to know someone with a boat. I’m waiting for that person to come back to town now. I’ve had a really good week. I went to Pere, a village on the south coast, on Saturday. It was a good time, though more than enough down time that I was really bored with. I got to conduct some of my research interviews with some of the people there and before that I got to talk to a bunch of people in town. So, I now have several interviews completed! This may just work! Meanwhile, I’m waiting for the plants to dry in the sun. I need the bags they’re in in order to go get different samples. I’m starting to get worried that I’ll be stuck here for a week just waiting around for plants to dry. So, there’s plenty of waiting… but now that I can slow down, I get to write to you—so that’s a good thing! 126 Ryan Casseau It’s great to hear from everyone, but especially from Lisa, the girl I’ve been dating. I’ve been on the Island long enough that the shock and awe of my stories over email has waned. Most tell me about what’s going on in their lives but I find it harder and harder to relate. Roommate drama, arguments with parents, details on first dates or who they hooked up with at a party… it all blurs together like a TV show from my childhood that I’m rewatching but hasn’t held up over time. But Lisa’s emails don’t do that. They read like we’re having a conversation even though weeks have passed. She asks follow-up questions and comments and indulges me in her fascination with seemingly everything I write. And when she talks about what’s going on in her world, it doesn’t feel irrelevant. It feels like I’m there. I’m lucky that while friends and family write back some or most times, I always have multiple emails waiting for me from her. It always

makes my day. I can only do so much waiting at the house, so I head into town to see if I can find a hole puncher to make my ethnobotany notebook. The plant taxonomy professor is proving to be a no-show, so I’ve decided to move on without him. I can’t wait forever. I’m pleased at the store when they tell me the government buildings probably have a hole puncher I can borrow. I’ll stop by on my way back. On a whim, I decide to swing by the Air Niugini office in town. It’s the national PNG airline, the only one that serves the Island. There are two flights in and out each week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. “Apinun tru.” Good afternoon. “Apinun.” I always got farther using Tok Pisin, so I continue that way. “I’m looking for a passenger. A man. Peter Lukapat. Can you look up to see if he has a ticket?” WILD HAPPY 127 They’re happy to oblige, though the technology is the limiting factor. Their computer with dial-up Internet won’t connect, so they try the phone. Then they try again. The fourth time is the charm and they’re finally able to have a complete conversation with someone on the mainland. By now I’ve been in the Air Niugini office for over twenty minutes. But when she hangs up the phone, she gives me a big Island smile. “Em say he’s on the flight.” “He bought a ticket?” I receive a confused look. “Yes, of course. He is arriving this afternoon.” “WHAT?” She nods and smiles.

“What time is it?” I suddenly ask. It’s just before ten a.m. The flight gets in at one. “Tenk yu tru!” I shout as I dash out the door. Just when I think I know how things operate in PNG, it reminds it of how accurate its slogan is: Land of the Unexpected. I’ll never figure out how to stop getting caught off guard. I’m dumbfounded, but it doesn’t matter. He’ll be here in three hours! By the next day, the world has changed color. I have someone to work with and ask lots of questions to and critique all the work issues I’ve been alone to stumble over since I arrived. It’s incredible! I’ve been asking him things incessantly! He confirmed that most of my voucher specimens were fine. There are eight that I need to recollect, which is amazing since at times I felt like they were so bad I would need to practically start over. Peter and I have already spent hours going through them to identify them. He’s staying at the big house I’m renting, so he can’t disappear. It’s nice to have company and there’s plenty of space. Plus, I’m with him all the time. I know where he is and therefore he feels the subtle pressure 128 Ryan Casseau to be working all the time. Maybe I am figuring out this whole Land of the Unexpected thing. Truly, Peter has been great. I think he’s entertained by my enthusiasm. Plus, he’s away from his family, out of the big, dirty city and on this beautiful tropical island. It’s not a bad gig. We’ve already identified nearly a hundred plant specimens down to genus, many down to the species level. This is his expertise, so it goes pretty quickly. If he hadn’t come, I don’t know what I would have done. I was fooling myself when I thought I could do it without him. It would have taken me a year to figure these out by myself. The days continue to be incredible. We head to the field site together and he confirms a number of the specimens. Then a couple days later we go to the other site to identify the rest. He really knows his PNG plants. Plus,

we’ve been getting along pretty well in the house. Every evening we head up to the Litaus’ house and they all go nuts telling stories in Tok Pisin. I get a little overwhelmed when they speak so fast and multiple people at once, but in general I can follow the conversation. When I lose it or just get too exhausted from translating, I drift off in fantasies about actually finishing this and going back home. Peter is only around for the week. After that, I need to shift gears and focus on meeting with villagers to interview them about the plants they use as medicines. I’m still learning how to get things done here. For example, I learned you have to ask and confirm about planning details three or four times in order to get to the truth because no one ever gives you a straight answer. They always lie to make the situation sound easier and better, because they don’t want to admit that in PNG, things are always slow and will take five times longer than planned. They don’t see it as lying though. It’s just the way everyone handles things. And it’s not just the Island. Peter is the same way. I’ve been trying to clarify and confirm things that have to get done so that I can get the plants back to the lab in Chicago. After five different WILD HAPPY 129 times of asking Peter about the export permits and how long it will take to get them and him giving a range of answers, he finally said, “Well, it should only take one day, or a couple of hours, but someone has to do it, so it may take like a week.” Which I know probably still means longer than a week, but at least I’m figuring it out. Ahh, PNG. This is, of course, how every question about PNG time should be answered, but people don’t just tell you that. They just say a day, or a week, or not long, and then you’re like “OK, look, asshole, I’ve asked you the same question three times and you’ve given me three different answers, what is the real answer?” Luckily, now I think I know how to translate it. My improvements in Tok Pisin and my comfort here have helped much more than just increasing productivity. They’ve greatly improved my

mood. I can now tell stories in Tok Pisin and really understand most of the things other people are saying. In the evening, Joseph Litau, Denys, Pahuk, and I decide to go for a long walk so that Joseph can get exercise. Most of the walk is silent, and I’m OK with it. It’s nice. Evening walks are so underappreciated. After a while, Eddie picks us up at the far edge of town. Apparently, this is the pattern. Walk until Eddie finishes with work and comes and gets Joseph wherever he’s made it by then. As he pulls up, he barely stops, and we hop into the back of the truck and drive off. For a culture unconcerned with time and efficiency, it seems odd that getting in and out of cars is done in such a rush. It also occurs to me that somewhere along the way I’ve become more accustomed to riding in the back of a pickup than in a seat. On the way home, we stop to get some beer. Joseph is used to paying, but I insist on buying it. Which I do, in bulk. I’m happy to get a chance to offer something since I owe them all about a million favors by now. I’m riding high off the great week we’ve had. The moon peeks over the horizon and the way it shimmers across the sea reminds me how magical the moment is. It’s one of the first times since I arrived that I’m in the mood for a beer too. My grand 130 Ryan Casseau plans for the following day are to wait for a boat. That’s it. Wait for a boat. So I’m all in for a night of hanging out. When I enter the back part of the Papindo where they have the beer, I only find two types of beers. I gravitate toward the South Pacific Lager bottle in the short, stubby Red Stripe–style bottles, but Denys gives a nod to the Niugini Ice that comes in cans. I take it to mean that I don’t have to splurge on the expensive bottled stuff, but am confused when I see the handwritten price by the Niugini Ice. “This costs more?” “Oh yeah, this one’s much better,” Denys replies. “It’s better in the cans because it gives it that sweet metal taste; bottles don’t leave any taste.” I try to hide my laugh as I lean to pick some up. I figure it’s probably because they reuse the bottles but not the cans, but hey, what do I know?

Maybe that’ll be the next canned beer marketing campaign in the US. We hop out of the truck at the Litaus’, but instead of hanging out on the concrete pad under the house as we typically do, we head for the haus boi. Despite all the progress I’ve made on the Island building relations, I’ve never been invited into this special building. Tucked behind Joseph’s fairly modern wooden house is a small thatched traditional hut that looks like it was plucked out of the jungle villages and plopped into the yard. It looks like a shed, but it’s actually Joseph’s haus boi and it’s exactly what it claims to be. A house for boys. The original indigenous man-cave. In Island culture, where men and women generally don’t hang out socially, men retire to the haus boi while the women hang out by the haus kuk, the outdoor kitchen hut. Joseph’s haus boi is a little different, however, from the village haus bois. While the outside is made from woven palm fronds, the inside floor is covered in a large rug and at one end of the room is a small TV sitting on a tree stump. I’m blown away. I’ve been living WILD HAPPY 131 on the Island for months and only now come to learn there’s a TV! Further behind the house, tucked away and out of sight, is a huge oldschool satellite dish bigger than the haus boi. It provides one station from the mainland, and tonight is rugby night. In some mystical stroke of luck, the upcoming game is Scotland versus… wait for it… the US! I can’t believe it. It’s as if I’ve gotten a free temporary pass out of PNG to a world of soft rugs, cold beer, and sports on TV. Well, rugby at least. I didn’t even know Americans knew how to play rugby. We’re just in time to catch the start of the game, and when the US national anthem comes on, I’m feeling exceptionally patriotic and homesick. Plus I’ve just had my first beer in months and on an empty stomach no less. This all adds up to me standing up, placing my hand over my heart, and belting along with the TV. I sing every word. Loud and proud. They’re all sitting on the floor, so I tower over them in dramatic effect. My Island

family loves it. They whistle and cheer and give me big handshakes and pats on the back when it’s over. It kicks off the night perfectly. They’re happy I’m here. I’m thrilled even more. For the next several hours, we drink beer, talk about the rules of rugby (I am so confused) and root loudly for the US who embarrassingly goes on to lose 39 to 15. But what a night! Everyone on the Island has such love for the US, and that night they clarify why for me. Back in WWII, US troops had come to the Island as part of their campaign in the South Pacific. They eliminated the Japanese forces who had commandeered the Island and been ruthlessly cruel to the locals, or so their stories went. Since then, with little excitement to draw from simple island life, the stories were told and retold over the generations since the war, each time making the US out to be more and more superhero-like. To this day, the Islanders love the US and think of it as their big brother that can do no wrong. I’m sure it’s one of the reasons I’ve been so embraced by the locals. They root for the US rugby team that night like die-hard fans. After plenty of beers and boos at Scotland and stories in Tok Pisin, the night winds down and I crash 132 Ryan Casseau there, sleeping on the floor of the haus boi, under the roof of sago leaves, just like everyone else. The next morning, the rugby match feels like a distant memory. The sun seems to be exceptionally bright today. I squint to will it away from amplifying the thumping in my head. One thing’s for sure, the fun metal taste of Niugini Ice doesn’t seem to impair its ability to give you a hangover. The town is alive and moving about more busily than usual. It’s as if I missed the news that something important is happening today and everyone is scrambling around. The world always seems busier than normal when your head is swimming in lost songs from past revelry. I’m

confused as to why I’m even in town, since my little house is the opposite direction from the Litaus’ than the town and all I want to do is go back to bed in peace. What am I doing? My head is a foggy mess. I right myself toward home. It’s quiet down the little dirt path to my little quiet house on the edge of the sea. I long to get there and not be bothered by the world. The breeze is magnificent, blowing off the fiery beams of the sun, soothing my flushed, glistening face. A cool moment of relief. But it quickly passes and the sun returns its stubborn stare. It’s an ugly, hot, relentless gaze. I purse my face tight as if I can squeeze it away. Leave me alone, Sun. I don’t want you today. I keep walking, growing more excited for my bed and the sea breeze with each step. I pause. My stomach has other plans. Two steps to the coconut palm on my left. Puke waits for no man. Like an ocean storm, the waves of vomit crash down. When it’s over, I’m leaning forward, my shoulder against the sturdy palm trunk. Tired, hot, sweaty, shaky, and weak. Between the repressive sun and the throbbing delirium in my head, I’m teetering on the brink of reality. I’m dizzy and delusional. I swear the coconut tree is swaying like it’s made of rubber. But the breeze returns to my face and I know I’ll be fine. I just need some rest and some— WILD HAPPY 133 “Wara?” I peek through squinty eyes. The familiar voice is closer now. “Ooh, Tetae. Come drink wara now.” It’s the Lapan. He helps me stand as if I can’t walk. “Come sin daun in shade. Drink wara.” He hands me a bottle that is the coldest thing I’ve ever felt.

“How did you get this?” I immediately roll it on my forehead, the cheap plastic crinkling against my skull. “I just came from Papindo. I got it special because it’s so hot tetae.” “Oh, but you got it for you.” I meekly attempt to hand it back. “No, no,” he refuses with a smile. “Em for you.” “Well… thank you.” I take a small sip and it rips at my dry throat, tearing and soothing at the same time. “So…” his smile even wider. “You are Wantok now?” He jabs at my evening of debauchery with the guys and the price I’m paying for it. I don’t think getting drunk and staying up all night is exactly the idea of being here he had in mind. His laugh is deep but weightless. Playful bubbles from his chest. “Yeah…” Apparently rolling your eyes is universal. “Em aright. Wantok has its good and its not so good.” I sit and embrace the moment of stillness and cold against my skin. He doesn’t mind the silence either. The breeze, the light waves. I’m feeling much better already. It’s nice to just sit sometimes. The shade helps too. “How does it go for you?” “It’s good. I’ve already collected a lot of plants. I think things are moving now so it will be better.” I roll the water bottle against my face and feel his stare. “That’s not what you meant, is it?” 134 Ryan Casseau His only reply is a gentle unwavering smile.

“I’m not sure what you want from me.” “Your plants are very important, yes. But there are plants everywhere and you chose to come here. I don’t think that is coincidence.” He’s right. My professor had suggested Cambodia because he was already working in Vietnam and Laos. It seemed as good a place as any until I learned that there were still millions of active land mines and hundreds, if not thousands, of land mine casualties per year. I was surprised when I had to argue that it didn’t seem like the best place to go running around in the jungle. “This is a nice place to do fieldwork.” “Yes. It is a nice place to learn of things.” “Well, I’m trying to be here as you said.” “Hmmm.” We sit in silence for another moment, staring out into the sea, its opalescent shimmering. The breeze is incredible against my face. Campfires and the ocean seem to be the only things I can find myself comfortably staring at for any real length of time. The tiny waves lap over each other, hitting the rusted, mangled junk beyond the swaying tall grass. The Lapan shuffles and stands up to move on. “Well, as long as you are happy.” There is disappointment in his voice, it aggravates me. I squint to look up at him, the brightness of the sky backlighting him brilliantly. “You know, there’s more to life than just being happy.” Beyond the blazing sky, I can see his grin, but instead of it being comforting, I find it condescending. “Really?” he asks innocently. “Of course,” I reply too boldly. “And you have figured out what that is?” he asks calmly. WILD HAPPY

135 The throbbing in my head wants me to write him off, unwilling to deal with his riddles. But my ego welcomes the opportunity to inform him of the greater world beyond his insignificant little island and its foolish, naive people. “I want something more than happiness. I want something real. Something authentic… to become the best that I can be. To find my truth.” “Hmm.” He nods. “Is your life not real now? Not authentic?” I sigh. “An authentic life is where we have the freedom to define life on our own terms,” I reply, settling into my lecture. The Lapan sits back down on his palm stump. His calmness is unwavering. “It sounds simple. What are your terms?” And we are back to this. His reducing everything to such simplicity. Sometimes charming, other times infuriating. “I doubt you’ve heard of Abraham Maslow and his theory on the hierarchy of human needs, but he determined that humans will seek to meet their needs in a certain order, satisfying one tier and then the next. The first level is physiological needs, for example. Water, food, air to breathe, shelter. Without these, we won’t survive.” His reply is pensive attention. “Once we have achieved those needs, we move to the next level, safety and security. This includes being safe and healthy, confident in your next meal; in my world it means having a job.” A nod this time. “Then it starts to get deeper. After the second level, you have everything you need to physically survive, and so our needs expand to love and belonging, family and friends. Then self-esteem, which comes from our achievements and gaining the respect of our community. This is the level most people will strive to accomplish.

To feel authentic and true.” The Lapan finally moves, tilting his head slightly and opening his mouth to speak, but I’m not finished. 136 Ryan Casseau “Ah, but there’s one more level. Maslow called this self-actualization. This level, he noted, would only be accomplished by a very small number of people in the world. Those who became the absolute best of who they could be. Those people who fulfilled their every potential, who succeeded at finding and accomplishing their life’s purpose.” I pause, expecting the Lapan to comment but he waits. “I suppose this is what I am hoping my work will bring me. This is what I hope to gain from the Island.” The Lapan smiles a large, closed mouth smile. The deep grumblings of laughter escape from his chest. “We make it hard when it is easy,” he says with gentle turns of his head. “This does not sound pleasant. When in this journey is one happy?” And like that, my discourse is deflated. “It’s not about happiness.” “Why is it not?” “It’s about something more.” He shakes it away. “Yes, yes, I hear what you say with your Maslow needs. So how does one get to this level you so desire?” “Well…” I flounder. “There aren’t instructions. It is an obser-vation of Maslow’s. No one can be told how to accomplish self-actualization. It is like how you speak of being Wantok.” At this the Lapan shakes his head vigorously. “No. To be Wantok is simple. To be Wantok is to be happy.”

I seize the point. “Ah, but that is the same! How does one achieve happiness?” I lean back against the coconut palm, content with my counter. My headache has become little more than a memory. The Lapan gazes momentarily to the distance, beyond the scattered clouds. “I find there are three types of men. Those who seek happiness through pleasure, for which we sadly have too many on the Island. They spend their days with their buai and cigarettes, WILD HAPPY 137 wasting away the days as young men, or spending their evenings with different paiariz women, making messes without care, those that have lost their Wantok.” His resentment is palpable. The words are like venom. “Then there are those who seek happiness through accomplishment. In the world beyond the Island there is so much focus on success and achieving things. As you say, they fall into a trap. A Delusion of Greatness. There are many here too, who move to town from the village or even go to Moresby for what they see as a better life. Chasing dreams of things they’ve seen in the newspaper or on the television. But I have been to Moresby and it is not where happiness is born. There is so much unhappiness even though these men and women of success and achievement may achieve so much.” I nod. There’s a lot of this at home. “The third seek happiness through love.” “Love?” I ask skeptically. “Yes.” I sigh deeply, questioning why I expected more from my simple Island friend. He turns as if to speak to the sea directly. “Love has always been that which gives life purpose. More than success or accomplishments. More than progress.”

I smile. He continues. “But love, in all its complexity, is too simple to be recognized for its importance. There is no hidden motive of love. It works for no one and no one works for her. It is not profitable or sellable. And so it is sometimes left to sleep in the grass at the side of the road while the world drives by.” It’s his turn to sigh. “That is Wantok.” I turn to the old man in his peace and wisdom as it struggles to take hold. “That is Wantok?” 138 Ryan Casseau He smiles deeply. “Our one-talk. Our one, true language of the world leading all to happiness. That is Wantok. We are all brothers when we speak the Wantok, the language of love.” “But can’t we pursue both?” I ask in genuine curiosity. “Many have made great accomplishments and still have love in their lives.” He nods. “Yes. One may play in different ponds, but it is the sea in which he swims that calls his path. Happiness is to live life well. And to live well is to be an expert at having satisfied one’s needs, as you say. But the greatest of all needs is that to love and to be loved. To share in the affections of life. I’m afraid your Maslow had this mistaken. This is what separates us from the lesser creatures on this planet. Our joy in shared love.” The Lapan’s words wash over me. I try to listen without arguing, without doubting, but it’s hard. It feels like there is more he wants to say, so I wait. The patient student. “A man has great capacity to love many things but just as only one stone sits at the top of the pile, there may be only one true love. One that the rest of the stones hold up. A priority for a life that goes beyond time or place. If you choose the wrong things to love, you will find

yourself lost. The greatest decision one must make in their life is what they will love most.” “And did you choose?” He nods with his eyes beyond the horizon. “I chose simply to love.” “To love love…” I repeat him just to hear the words again. “To love.” The Lapan smiles and offers it again. We let it sit for a moment before I can’t contain my need to clarify. “And so… to be Wantok, I would also choose to love. Otherwise, I am lost in a delusion—what did you call it?” “The Delusion of Greatness.” I smile wide. I particularly like this. I imagine going back to my university and walking up to my professor to tell him that I didn’t WILD HAPPY 139 get all of his plants because I was no longer suffering from the Delusion of Greatness. “Why is it a delusion to want to achieve something for the greater good?” I ask. “That is not the delusion. That is admirable. To expect it to bring your greatest happiness is the delusion. To think the achievements are what make us important and valuable to the world, that is the delusion. To expect accomplishments to bring happiness is the delusion. If I were to do big things that would have me noticed in Moresby, is that more or less important than teaching my children to fish and to enjoy the sea? When I turn to dust, what is better remembered? A thousand people that know my name or my children that love me? Those that know my name do not love me. That is why the answer is clear. I am glad someone invented the television. I am glad some have made such beautiful music and written wise books. But I do not love them. They have done great things. They are

the beautiful fish swimming in the sea. But the love I have for my family and my wife and my children and the love they have for me, that is the water.” I’m beginning to see. I lean back to lie in the wide leafed grass. Thin wisps of clouds float in the rich cerulean sky. My afternoon has become like that of a children’s story rather than a debate. “A man who does not feel loved will never feel greatness. While a man well-loved can write his own greatness. We are a speck in time. To give up your Delusion of Greatness is not to give up on your doings. It is not to sit around town like the mangis that waste their days. It is freedom. It frees you to live life for life’s sake. To enjoy the sun’s warmth and to feel the sea breeze. To embrace the people in our lives and not the doings of achieving. The freedom to be happy.” He takes a moment to gaze beyond the sea once more and without turning to me adds, “You may call me simple. And I take it as a compliment. We all need something to believe in. I believe that life can be filled with much happiness and the Wantok path is simple. It is to be guided by love.” 140 Ryan Casseau With these words it’s clear the Lapan is done. I stare into the sky, letting his words wash over me. After a little while, I sit up delicately, careful not to jostle my head into aching again. I turn to him in hopes of thanking him for his perspective, one that goes beyond my years, but he is gone. The reality of how “Wantok” I’m not hits me as I enter my house and am reminded of just how “white tourist” I actually am. With the Lapan’s words still dancing in my muddled mind, I notice the bed. The one I’ve been dreaming about since I woke. On top of the thin foam mattress is a homemade sheet sleeping bag I sewed before I left the States. I doubt the Papindo store sells sheets in town. They definitely don’t sell fitted sheets. I doubt they know what they are. It seems momentarily symbolic of my cushy spot in this foreign world.

It’s not like I’m roughing it. I mean, yes, I’m surrounded by all kinds of strange people who don’t look like me, talk like me, eat like me, or think like me, and the land is hot and foreign. But there are times when I can sit and listen to music on my computer in a fairly well-built house with solid walls and views of tropical waters, surrounded by the comforts I’ve mostly brought; books, food, a couple movies to watch on my computer. I even brought Baldur’s Gate, a role-playing dungeons and dragons computer game to play when I really need an escape. No one’s bothering me and today I have little work that I can do. What more do I want? Am I not literally living my dreams? It’s amazing the power of the human mind to dismiss things that happen to us personally, to humble things out. Our life is the only one we’ll ever know. It will be the only standard, the only normal. It puts us in a house of our own mind. It’s a greenhouse, full of glass and vibrancy, but through the glass is another world. A world of everyone else. And I sit in my world of one. How could my world of one ever compete with the world of everyone? It’s an afternoon of peace and stillness. Of calmness and contentment. Especially after my chat with the Lapan. Peter WILD HAPPY 141 must’ve decided to hang out at the Litaus’ since I haven’t seen him. I’m sure he’s afraid I’ll try to get him to get some work done. But I don’t care today. I use the time to sit in my little house reading a book a friend gave me before I left as a hand-me-down bon voyage present. Initially, my thought was to simply test it out knowing I would need something to read and escape when I head to the villages on the west coast of the Island soon. My plan is to be gone for several weeks so I’ll need a nice distraction at times. Its cover shows a broken-down bus. It’s title in unadorned letters: INTO THE WILD. It’s 2003 and while I immediately connect with the story and protagonist, there’s no way I can predict it becoming a movie four years later. If you’re not familiar, it’s “a heart-rending drama of human yearning” and a “sad saga of a stubborn idealistic young man” as two critics are quoted

on the back cover. (Geez, these people lay it on thick.) It’s a true story about Christopher McCandless, a kid who hitchhiked all over the US for two years before hiking out into Alaska, where he was found dead four months later. Jon Krakauer wrote an article on the story for Outside magazine and when it became popular enough, he went back and put the pieces together leading to the thin, two hundred or so pages I now hold on the far side of the world. Never being such a big reader, I sit down with limited expectations. I surprise myself when I realize time has slipped away and I’m already to page sixty (much more than my rationed allowance). It’s welcoming to know there is a promise of more freedom from boredom in the hundred forty remaining pages. McCandless is obsessed with the freedom of living against capitalist society, opting for the romance of the open road with few material possessions over the stale existence he’s seen thus far. You’ve got to admire it. I can’t help but draw some parallels with my current situation, despite there being so many differences. One section really grabs me and shakes me out of my own head. Krakauer writes: 142 Ryan Casseau “McCandless had been infatuated with (Jack) London since childhood. London’s fervent condemnation of capitalist society, his glorification of the primordial world, his championing of the great unwashed—all of it mirrored McCandless’s passions. Mesmerized by London’s turgid portrayal of life in Alaska and the Yukon, McCandless read and reread The Call of the Wild, White Fang, ‘To Build a Fire,’ ‘An Odyssey of the North,’ ‘The Wit of Porportuk.’ He was so enthralled by these tales, however, that he seemed to forget they were works of fiction, constructions of the imagination that had more to do with London’s romantic sensibilities than with the actualities of life in the subarctic wilderness. McCandless conveniently overlooked the fact that London himself had spent just a single winter in the North and that he’d

died by his own hand on his California estate at the age of forty, a fatuous drunk, obese and pathetic, maintaining a sedentary existence that bore scant resemblance to the ideals he espoused in print.” Thank you, Jon. I can’t express the amount of emotional release I experience upon reading this. You have to understand, I don’t really like to read. In fact, I’d go as far to say, other than some isolated moments, I generally can’t stand sitting and reading. I easily made it all the way through college without ever having read a book from cover to cover that was over fifty pages. (How many pages does The Adventures of Frog and Toad have?) My sedentary attention span wouldn’t allow it. My relationship with reading was akin to the relationship most have with working out: occasional, temporarily inspired, yet never able to get it sewn into my life permanently despite really wanting to be a person who reads often. When I’m traveling, however, books become saviors from boredom in the long quiet moments. But back to my point: I didn’t know this about Jack London. To some extent, I’ve always felt a bit guilty for not being inspired to read these classic works. I knew the stories, of course, thanks to Disney and CliffsNotes. I had tried, like many incredible books, to read them yet had only survived the first few chapters, plus WILD HAPPY 143 random excerpts. It just never stuck. The same goes for Tolstoy and Thoreau, Dickens, and Kerouac… Now I could reaffirm my faith that life was too short to be inspired by books when given the alternative of being inspired by life itself (I suppose this opinion may also change as I start to calm down with age, but for now fuck it). I feel a kinship with McCandless, admiring his dreams of simplicity and the romance of nature. Sometimes I get caught up in it too. The mix of life’s promise and inspiration with a rebellion from the ennui and malaise of everyday life is a powerful combination. I never took things to the extent that McCandless chose. It was similar feelings of inadequacy with society that had driven me to travel and get

beyond the bubble. But while I haven’t taken nearly the leap McCandless took (I still have plenty of material possessions and don’t see myself setting fire to any cash I’ve got…), I went “out there” enough to taste the world. It’s hard to find our place in the world if we can’t get past thinking that it’s hopelessly broken. The romance of the road becomes undeniable. But to learn that Jack London, one of the greatest romanticists of survival in the natural world, was actually a lazy, pathetic fat-ass with an overactive imagination, well shit, that just makes my day! Perhaps the world outside my mind’s house of glass isn’t so ugly. Perhaps I should stop spending so much time staring out of its windows. The frustrations Krakauer expounds of McCandless as he retreated from society are all too real for me as I read in my little house on the Island. I feel his angst, his wistful dreams. I share his hope for more somewhere beyond the worlds we knew from our limited lives. I knew the answers wouldn’t be found inside the bubbles in which we were born. Life needed to be lived in order to be understood. I doubt it is coincidence that, at age twenty-four, I am the exact age McCandless was when he ventured deep into Alaska. But while I indulged in our fellowship of disillusionment and longing, something was different. Something I couldn’t see in that moment. Something I needed more time to grasp. Something that 144 Ryan Casseau would prevent me from being the fatal character McCandless turned out to be. It brought back into focus the words from the Lapan. Was I was living some Delusion of Greatness? Was I imagining a connection between accomplishment and happiness that wasn’t real? Had I misinterpreted ambition entirely? Certainly, the Island had more lessons for me. These were some of the happiest people I had ever encountered. And they were all tucked away on this little island at the edge of the world. There is a strength, a victory in accepting and embracing our existential insignificance. Is that possible? Is it that simple? No. There is no way the path to self-actualization is paved in societal

indifference. And yet, I sit grappling with it. I’m searching for something. I have been searching for years. For what? For dreams of the jungle? For adventures and excitement? For some career or achievement that will fulfill some destined potential? Is it a delusion? Is happiness the ultimate goal? And if it is, is achieving it so simple? The words play in my head, an epiphany of platitudes. But if he’s right… if the conclusion to this little journey called life is happiness and that happiness is so simple as to be obtained through love, what does that change? How do I live differently? It sticks in my head like tiny repetitive notes on the violin. Humming and ringing together like a fuzzy, clumsy bumblebee buzzing in and out of my mind. A tinnitus of ideas. I try to push it away. I begin to reconsider the Island and the work I still have left to do. The hurdles I still need to jump. I will soon head to the villages, the ultimate journey, to conduct my interviews and fulfill the dream. Finally, I will be an ethnobotanist, discussing medicinal plants with the indigenous people, exactly as I’ve dreamed since my earliest teenage moments. I’m the closest I’ve ever been to realizing the dream, just as I feel it shifting under my feet. My journey to become Wantok is only getting started. There’s no way to know how I would be changed forever in the weeks ahead. CHAPTER NINE Happiness only Real when shared. ~ Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild ~ written in Doctor Zhivago, the last book McCandless would ever read. You know, sometimes when I try to write about things here it fools me into thinking it’s nicer than it is. A house on the beach in the South Pacific. I start picturing having a house on a beautiful tropical island like Aruba, with gorgeous beaches and everything clean and well-kept. But here on the Island it’s different. The water of the beaches around town is so dirty, and the coastline is lined with junk. They have no system of garbage here, so the only way to take care of it is

to burn it or throw it in the sea. It’s pretty bad. I’m thankful I have long grass blocking my view of the junk. The fantasy sometimes helps me get through it, though. I had sea turtle the other day. It’s really tasty. Of course, I also had various scattered interior organs in with my meat, so it was still a mind game in order to enjoy it. But the meat parts were really good. Who knew sea turtle is red meat? It’s so funny as I’m learning the language here. They really don’t notice the similarities between Tok Pisin and English, yet most here are fairly fluent in both. In their minds, they are 146 Ryan Casseau two totally independent languages, but sometimes the similarities are obvious and not in a good way. They taught me that the word for sea turtle was tertlsel, and I said oh, like “turtle shell” and they all made comments like “Oh, wow, maybe that is where it comes from.” I can tell you, it really sounds exactly the same except there’s an “s” sound where the “sh” sound is in English. And I said yeah, maybe when traders came to the Island, they wanted lots of turtle shells to sell, but the people thought they meant the whole turtles. Everyone was astounded at this revelation. Man, I don’t even want to start on the whole white man is “masta” and village boy is “mangi,” like master and monkey thing. They say it all the time and every time I get scared they’re going to suddenly put it together, that this time is when it’s going to click and somehow blame me for decades of using these racist terms. But they’ve been using these words for decades. My presence isn’t going to suddenly throttle them into Western social awareness. In fact, they’re very proud of being mangis. It’s a term of pride. There have been a couple times when I’ll meet new people and Pahuk will defend me and say: “Em no masta, em mangi ples!” “He’s no white man, he’s a village boy!” It’s a big compliment. “I have to go where?” I ask, damn near crossing my legs in a pee-pee dance.

Pahuk motions with the machete toward the shack, just as I feared he might. I’m in Pelipowai village, south coast of the Island and dusk has rolled in with the tide. The shack isn’t just a shack. It’s a tiny thatched hut mounted on tree trunk pillars eight feet or so above the sea. It’s also about fifty feet from the beach with a balance beam bridge of cross-sectioned logs and springy palm boards as its only tether to the land. I look over and see two men on the bridge walking out and another walking back in. How very communal. What fun. Down the beach, about a football field further on, is a second hut for the ladies. Maybe I don’t have to go number 2… WILD HAPPY 147 I sneak off into the nearby jungle and decide just to pee. Not the best decision when nature calls, but I can’t convince myself to go balance beaming out there. One would think I’d have learned my lesson having just had a bathroom fiasco a week earlier when we were in Loi village, but I’m stubborn. In fact, now that I consider it, I really haven’t had the best luck when it comes to bathrooms and travel. I have vivid memories of running naked through a campground in Brazil, having woken up in the middle of the night in a panic and not making it to the bath house. Since it was Brazil, it was hot. I had been sleeping in nothing but my pair of boxers. They did not survive the dash to the bathrooms. In fact, they were so destroyed I had given up on them, left them behind in the bath house from hell. It was the middle of the night, so I was confident I’d be able to sneak back to my tent au naturel. However, the universe had different plans. Just as I was preparing for my run back to my tent, all my friends returned from the bars in town. (I had declined as I felt a little off.) So instead of just sprinting back to my tent, my new mission was to get as far away from the bath house as possible. For the next half an hour, I dashed from tent to tent, leapfrogging my way

wide around the group, deep through the campground at two a.m. totally naked. Thank God no one found me, because my Portuguese was nowhere near good enough to explain to a furious Brazilian camper why I was lurking naked behind his tent in the middle of the night. Loi village had presented a similar but different problem. Another panic-stricken, startling wake-up in the middle of the night as my body screams, “I’ll give you twenty-five seconds to get somewhere, but this is happening regardless.” In Loi, it was a dash through the village in my boxers (it’s hot here too) to the little hut with pit toilets. It was actually one of the nicest village “toilets” I had seen. Inside there was a wooden box bench with a hole cut out, underneath of which was fifteen feet down to a foul hell of disgust. But the bench was a nice touch. Much better then straddling the same foul hole, wondering if the ground under your feet would cave 148 Ryan Casseau in. However, as I sat on the little bench in the middle of the night, in total relief since I actually made it this time, I heard something odd. Frogs. Loud rok-rok frogs. Rok-roks are well known on Island for their “rok-rok” chirp that sounds like a stick being dragging across a corrugated steel panel. Except in this case, their chirping was coming from below me. Way down below me, about fifteen feet below me. But instead of leaving it well enough alone, my curiosity got the best of me. I grabbed my flashlight, leaned to the side just enough, and peeked down. Let me just take a moment to offer a piece of advice: no good can come of this. You can run a hundred scenarios in your head on the best possible result of checking the shit hole underneath you and I’m telling you none is good. There could be a pile of diamonds down there and I’ll argue you’d still be better off not knowing. In Loi, there were no diamonds. There were, however, webs. Countless giant, elaborate, recently disturbed webs crisscrossing the pit a thousand different ways, filling the chasm below and reflecting my flashlight like a dense fog. And inside the webs were their hosts.

Giant, recently disturbed, crawling, moving, creeping families of black and yellow spiders that were the size of the palm of my hand. The closest of which was about a foot away and did not seem pleased that my deposit had taken out a chunk of his hard work. I jumped up, flashlight spinning around the hut only to see the same webs and spiders filling the walls and corners of the hut. I’m not necessarily scared of spiders, but holy shit I got out of there fast. Somehow, regardless of the challenges these panic-stricken bathroom dashes have brought in my past, my brain seems to think it’ll be fine to postpone the inevitable. My stomach has been solid. I have no idea how it’ll do processing the sea turtle and sago meal we just had, but that’s for future me to worry about. Walking through Pelipowai village is a charming stroll. The village at the water’s edge has a lovely unkempt beach littered with stands of dried seaweed, shells, and pebbles. Beyond it, two rows of thatched palm-board huts sit on stilts that separate the beach from WILD HAPPY 149 the dense jungle. Between two rows of houses is a packed, worn sandy main street of sorts. Kids playing soccer. Men working on canoes. People doing the most typical of Island activities: “sin daun stori,” sitting and chatting. It’s basically a PNG version of a small main-street town in the US. Dinner had been a bit of a celebration. Martha has family here, so we were welcomed as Wantoks. The men had caught a large sea turtle that afternoon and it was enough to feed nearly the entire village. It crossed my mind that it could be endangered, but even if it was, it wasn’t the Islanders who were threatening the population. It was a welcome break from the food I’ve been having. Red meat is extremely rare on the Island. I’m happy to have something beyond sago or fish and am excited to indulge in the dense, rich protein. My steak from the sea.

It’s busy in the main area near the tables of food, so I wander a bit until I find Choli sitting in a boat on the water. Conveniently, there’s another boat next to him, so I awkwardly climb in while balancing my plate of food to follow his lead. It’s nice to sit and chat with Choli. He helped me arrange the boat and deal with some of the headache in town and generally seems like a nice guy. Plus, I find I do a lot better one on one than in the big crowds. It’s a big, beautiful black night with billions of stars free from the light of the missing moon. The Milky Way swirls, smudging the sky in its web. It’s more than beautiful to eat in complete darkness because it allows me to toss bits of fatty turtle intestine overboard as I eat. Plus, it hides the fact that I probably have rice all over me—it’s hard to eat rice with your hands while sitting in a tiny boat that’s rocking in the waves of the sea. The conversation is light and easy. The meal is rich and welcoming. It’s a lovely combination. That night I lie on the hut floor. The long palm boards are much springier than wood, but it’s still a hard surface. I can’t sleep. I try and try to will myself to pass out, but we know how well that works. The sweat pours off of me for about an hour before I can’t take it anymore. Pahuk and Choli are asleep on the floor nearby. I’m 150 Ryan Casseau jealous. They look perfectly comfortable. Grabbing my small travel towel and a bucket, I sneak outside to wash up. That’s when it hits. Before I can give it any thought, I’m dashing to the shoreline. I should have known. These things don’t just go away. It’s biology. I hear Jeff Goldblum’s silly voice resonate like a conscience: “Nature finds a way.” Thankfully, the moon has marked the sky with her presence by now. Her waxing leaves a half-full spotlight in the cloudless sky, but it’s more than enough to engulf the beach in moonlight. It’s a good thing because I haven’t grabbed a flashlight. Just before I go to hop onto the log bridge, it occurs to me that I don’t have any toilet paper.

The bucket! I realize with excitement. I scoop the bucket into the little waves of the sea and step up onto the first log. I’m dashing fairly quickly down the log, thinking it’s not so bad as I step to the second. I’m nearing the third when I realize I’m really high. Over ten feet above the water. I’m only about halfway out. Looking on, it seems when I make it to the hut at the end, I’ll be sky high. Some twentyplus feet over the water. It’s low tide. Suddenly, the nine-inch-wide path is as narrow as a balance beam. I continue to walk quickly, propelled by the pending biology, desperately trying to convince myself it’s no big deal. If I fall, it’s just the ocean. No big deal. I’m sure even with low tide it’s deep enough that I’ll be fine. I know of course that this isn’t true, and it may only be a couple feet of water down there. Finally, at the end of my perilous balancing act I reach a small palm board landing, adjacent to the small thatched hut bathroom. I arrive with a deep sigh of relief—and surprise. Inside the little hut bathroom, there is something missing. The floor. There are four small thatched walls. A thatched roof. But no floor! Instead of a solid floor, there are two narrow planks laid in parallel, about fifteen inches—shoulder-width—apart, that span from the landing, where I’m standing, to the opposite wall of the hut. The rest of the floor WILD HAPPY 151 is open darkness to the sea below. I can see the surf churning down below. It feels less like a bathroom and more like a deathtrap dunk tank. The two planks acting as the floor are even narrower than the balance beam I’ve just survived to get here, each one only about six inches wide. It takes a moment of me staring and processing at the boards before it clicks. I shuffle into the hut with one foot on each board, straddling the open ocean that appears like a bottomless pit below me. Every now and then the ripples of the water catch the moonlight to remind me just how far down it is. I pull my shorts down to my knees as they tilt in toward each other slightly. I want something to hold on to, but there’s nothing I can

reach unless I want to shuffle all the way across to the far wall, which I do not. I crouch down and stabilize myself with my hands gripping my knees and sticking my ass out as if I’m setting up for a great mooning prank to the next person to walk in, which sends alarm with my realization that I should have checked down the bridge before I had gotten all the way into this position. Now I’m squatting, shaking in fear that I’m going to slip into the ocean, terrified that at any second a group of village mangis are going to show up to share in this sovereign moment of vulnerability. The thing about palm boards versus wood boards is that palm has a lot of give to it. My shaking is amplified by the springy palm boards on which I’m standing. Before long, I’m bouncing like I’m on a trampoline, tucked into a squat. Sweat drips down both sides of my forehead. The bucket, full of water, dangles and bobs in my right hand resting on my knee. I’m trying to concentrate, to will my body however I may to do what we came to do so this everlasting nightmare will end. It seems to be taking forever. It’s enough time to allow my brain to once again scold myself for getting into this mess. Eventually it happens. My insides praise the relief. My terror subsides. The bouncing relaxes. While still balancing in my squat across the two balance beams, I carefully dump the bucket down my backside. The water hits the ocean like a bomb. Sploooosh! There is 152 Ryan Casseau nothing subtle about the entire ordeal. It jolts me into action that while I’m indulging in the relief, I don’t want to linger. As I’m heading back toward the beach, I notice a shadowy figure standing at the end of the walkway, arms crossed, looking down the coast. My boxer shorts are back on but that’s all I’ve got. I feel my pale skin glowing in the dark, reflecting every ounce of moonlight. My little bucket bounces along like a teddy bear in my hands as I alternate quick glances between the crosscut log walkway and the man lurking at the end of the path. My vulnerability from the last fifteen minutes is still ripe, fresh. It’s not until I’m on the last log that I realize who it is.

“Pahuk? What are you doing here?” “Em sompela mangis.” He motions to huts down the beach where I can ever so slightly make out a couple of dark silhouettes. There are some village boys. “You were sleeping,” I state, though it’s more of a question. “Mmm.” He nods, still looking down the beach. “You no want trouble. Em mangis i spak.” Spak, drunk. Pahuk thought they might mess with me. And while his actions speak volumes, that’s the end of the conversation. We stroll back to the hut. Within what seems like seconds, Pahuk is back asleep on the palm board floor. His gentle snore lost in the chirps and cries of the jungle beyond our hut. I lie back on the floor and it feels ever so slightly softer. There is a new sense of comfort. In more ways than one. The next morning, Pahuk and I head to another village. It’s the village Joseph Litau is from and I’m excited to see where this incredible man had begun. Kambos is a smaller village than most and getting to it is tricky. Most of the villages on the Island are nestled along the coast. They fish and occasionally travel to town on dugout outrigger canoes they’ve learned to build from their WILD HAPPY 153 ancestors. They build their thatched huts of springy palm boards and woven sago leaves on stilts to accommodate storms and high tides. They live tied to the sea in a perfect sustainable balance. But Kambos is a jungle village. Here lives a different kind of Islander. They’re more reclusive, living deep in the bush of the Island’s verdant interior. The centuries have eroded many of the differences between the two worlds as people trade secrets and tips for living.

The hut construction from the jungle villages, for example, has crossed to the coastal villagers. And similarly, the jungle inhabitants build canoes, often leaving them at the base of the trail that tethers them to the sea. It’s a blended world but based on how Pahuk and the others talk in town, you would think it’s an entirely different galaxy. The bush mangis versus the sea mangis. Leaving our fiberglass banana boat tied up amongst the canoes, we head into the jungle. Or try to at least. The path is just that, a path. No roads here. I slip and struggle on the slippery wet red clay ground up the bank. I grab at roots and trunks of small trees to try and pull myself up, but I’m not getting any help from my feet. I notice Pahuk’s footprints with their deep indented toe prints, his bare feet having literally grabbed at the earth. I try and try to get a grip with my strong strapped sandals, but they just slip over and over. I’m a car, spinning its wheels pointlessly as it slides sideways down a hill of ice. Just then my feet kick out completely and I fall to my knees and elbows. I hear Pahuk let out a chuckle without turning around. My brain starts to seriously consider that I may not actually be able to get up the bank. I’m no mangi ples. “Is it all like this?” I ask, referencing the ground and the steepness of the path. Pahuk offers a red buai grin. Shit. I keep trying. The straps on my Teva sandals continue being put to the test balancing between my clumsy feet and the slippery earth. I can’t grasp how it’s so slippery. The grade isn’t all that intense, but 154 Ryan Casseau the wet clay is impossible. Dense and solid but with a slick oil-like layer of wetness on top. Like water on ice. Without a better option, I lean in, placing my hands on the ground in hopes that four feet are better than two.

My fingertips first, then my whole hands, but with a slip both forearms join the battle. By the time I get to the top, clay coats my arms from bicep to fingertip. My entire front side looks like I’ve laid face first in a bed of wet rust-colored paint. Pahuk’s grin has grown even wider. But not one for humor, he turns to the path. “Oy. Kam.” Come. Standing up, wiping the clay across my body, I’m suddenly taken aback by the jungle. In my struggles with the clay bank, I had forgotten where I was. It yells and screams at my arrival. Birds and frogs and bugs either squawk in warning or beckon in welcoming me to the newest chapter from my dreams. For a moment, it’s overwhelming. A sensory overload. A million shades of green speckled in light that bounces around the forest as if from a disco ball across the wet and glossy tangle. Two steps in and the snarl of branches and leaves and thick woody lianas lock away the world beyond us. The air is thick and wet and fragrant in rich earthen moss. Its essence of life penetrates my lungs, as if I’ve never taken a true deep breath before. It’s majestic. Powerful. Spiritual. I feel as if I’ve stumbled upon the heart of the world. The fountain from which all life is born and sent into existence. I try to take it all in, but there’s too much. I feel my eyes momentarily dampen, but I blink it away. Interrupting my indulgence, I’m hit by a second emotion, one I’ve felt before. Years earlier. A melancholic breeze. When life presents us with something that fills us with such awe and perspective and overwhelming appreciation for life and existence, there is a sadness that accompanies it. A fear that most will never see and feel what I’m seeing and feeling. For all that I wish to bottle it up and share it with those back home, I can’t. It carries sorrow. I recall the rainforest in Peru. The moment I climbed atop a canopy walkway WILD HAPPY 155 deep in the Amazon. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. The expanse of the world spread out before my eyes. The countless shades

of green pouring in and out of the hills and valleys in all directions beyond the horizon. You could feel LIFE, its power, its energy. I knew I was looking at more species of plants than the entire United States possessed, and within the vastness were limitless undiscovered species, not because no one had tried but because there were simply too many species to catalogue them all. The internal and external bliss I feel while taking in the soul of the forest is slightly interrupted by a voice in the back of my head. I can’t help but wonder what I have done to deserve such magic. I remember how I looked out over the forest in awe, while the back of my mind wondered how I could convince the world that life couldn’t be lived without this mystical moment. I immediately felt saddened knowing all those I care about probably wouldn’t ever experience it. It was more than beauty. It was spiritual. I’m not a very religious person. Spiritual, yes. But religious? No. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I detest religion. No. I don’t detest religion. I hate dogma. I hate rules and stipulations. Walls and fences and chains on our thoughts and behaviors. But the term atheist is ugly now too. There is too much in our consciousness to believe nothing and feel nothing. Where these worlds overlap, where the ugliness of religion and the emptiness of atheism overlap, live ten thousand shades of spirituality. The difference is that this version forces us to look deep enough inside ourselves to find answers to the questions of life. Not right or wrong. Not mine versus yours. But yours as part of ours. I get that in the beginning, at the dawn of civilization and society, humans were struggling to develop a way of living together. Religion became a way to connect people and prepare them for a new world, a society. It provided reasons and threats to persuade our morality. But society has evolved beyond these simple needs. The questions that exist, that remain unresolved over ages, must be 156 Ryan Casseau

answered with belief. But we’ve evolved into being able to explore and determine these things for ourselves as individuals. Whereas before, man had to evolve outwardly and build society, we now face an internal evolution where we must look into ourselves. Does it matter if others share the same beliefs? Why should this dictate belief? It shouldn’t affect your thoughts. Deep inside you, you form your beliefs, based on your own mind, your own soul. Of course, as part of society, this means respecting others’ beliefs too. Spirituality is loving and appreciating, while religion can be dangerous and hateful. Why embrace such hatred? Today dogma and religion provide a way of segregating ourselves. It divides us and prevents us from being an all loving, peaceful society. Why do so many have such trouble in accepting the right of each individual to be just that—individual? Has religion not, over the time of society, caused more wars than any other cause? While we are busy pulling ourselves apart, we could be sharing our world, embracing others and sharing the morality in allowing the human spirit to soar. In this new world, it is dogma that reduces our morality rather than providing it. We must look to something new. Inside ourselves. We must explore and evolve to find something to believe in. Peace may only come from acceptance and openness. We are different, it is our individuality, it is our humanity. I was asked plenty of times what religion I was when I stayed in PNG. Christianity (mostly Catholicism) is a huge part of life here. I dared not tell any of the locals my actual beliefs, remnants of guidance given by my father long ago to “never discuss religion or politics with strangers.” I couldn’t imagine telling the Islanders that I didn’t believe in any sort of Abrahamic God or Jesus as the Son of God. I fear they wouldn’t understand that my beliefs should be irrelevant to them. That we each get to choose, as one of the greatest gifts of being human. But this would have been lost. It would have torn down the life I had worked so hard to build on the Island. It would ruin my relationships with my family here. And WILD HAPPY 157 so, in this way, I would remain disconnected. I am at a different spiritual place than they are. I come from a world separated by decades of development and progressivism.

Once I was a bit too comfortable with the conversation and almost revealed that I hadn’t been baptized. I fear that in that one sentence I could have changed everything and was relieved that the voice had remained in my head. The Island has a powerful history of missionaries, all of whom arrived with the goal of persuading the Islanders to relinquish their indigenous beliefs and converting the masses to Christianity, the dominance of Catholicism. If I wasn’t distracted with my current efforts on the Island, I’d consider a life of being an anti-missionary. I’d keep all the elements of promise and good, the supplies and the medications, the hard work and financial support, but meanwhile support a spiritual liberation. Can we not support others without the guise of zealous conversion? Can we not offer help while teaching that as long as we maintain a shared societal sense of morality, life is but a playground for the soul? Why let it be caged by religious dogma? But I don’t. I won’t. I dodge their question awkwardly like an inexperienced politician. And if cornered, I would rather lie than share the truth and face its repercussions. Authentic it is not, but practicality survives idealism. Instead, I am selfish to find the Something I believe in. In how we live our lives. In how we find importance in existence. And for that, I will need help. By the time we return to town from our trip to the villages of the south coast, I’ve had over a dozen interviews. The dream is becoming fulfilled. The work is getting done. My contemplations on the Island are beginning to shift. I temporarily push them aside, relishing being back in town. It feels different than it did when I left. It feels like coming home. I hop out of the boat and my bare feet splash down on the beach. As the salty froth hits my ankles, it occurs to me that I don’t remember when I last had shoes on. I hope they’re in my bag, but suddenly they don’t seem important. I 158 Ryan Casseau look down to my feet and see the sandal strap tan lines have all but faded. It’s weird that I hadn’t even noticed not wearing them. I grab my bag, say my thank-yous and farewells, and casually head to my little house. It’s been a seemingly infinite amount of time since I’ve been all by myself and

I’m anxiously excited. Later that afternoon, I unpack and shower and indulge with my computer, listening to music, entering data from my interviews, and drafting emails back home. The day whizzes by and before long the sun’s glare has dimmed to a mild golden halo. I don’t know how the hours pass. I’m lost in indulgence of my own magical world and my time alone. “Do you always write to the same person?” asks the familiar mousy voice. I don’t need to look. My smile is wide across my face. “Pikinini!” I turn to face him. “How are you?” He’s not as enthusiastic as I am to see him. But it doesn’t diminish my joy. “Hmm.” He ponders for a second, thrown off by my enthusiasm. “I’m good.” “That’s good!” I reply in an attempt to get him to my level. “So, is it?” he persists. “You said before that you write letters in the computer to get sent home. Is it always to the same person?” “No, not really… Well, I write to lots of people, but I mostly write to one person first. Then I decide how much of that I want to share with everyone else. It’s easy to do that on the computer.” “Hmm. It’s always the same person that gets the special letters?” I smile. “Yes.” “That person must be very special. You must like him the most.” “Yes, I guess I do. But it’s a her, not a him.” “Hmm.” There it is. That innocent Pikinini pause. I take the opportunity to turn back to my computer to finish the anecdote I’m in the middle of writing, but instead I’m stuck thinking about the “her” the email is addressed to, my girlfriend back in Chicago, Lisa. WILD HAPPY

159 When we first started dating, I was consumed with my research and planning my trip, stressing about grants and bureaucracy and logistics. I was so focused on the work that I didn’t take the relationship all that seriously. It worked out well that she was coming off of a bad breakup and wasn’t really looking for anything serious. And with my big trip to PNG looming in the near future, it gave us a good reason not to think so hard on labels and details. I miss her a lot. And judging by her emails she misses me too. We both know this trip is important though. As I sit in the silent vacuum of Pikinini’s pause, it makes me smile to think that she’s the one on the other end of these emails. “Are you writing about your trip?” “Yes.” “And did you learn things there on your trip?” “I was able to speak to many villagers on the south coast about plants they use as medicine.” I stop typing and pause. I look to his curious little face with a smile. “I learned a great many things, but I’m starting to fear I have not learned what I came here to learn.” “What have you come here to learn?” I exhale a half-laugh, half-sigh. “Well, I thought it was to learn about the medicinal plants of the Island, but now I’m starting to think otherwise.” “Hmm,” he replies cautiously, as if it’s a trap. There’s a long pause and we stare in each other’s direction without making eye contact. Finally, he continues as if he’s had an epiphany. “That doesn’t seem like enough to learn for such a big, big trip. What else are you here to learn?” I smile. “Have you seen the Lapan this afternoon?” “Yes, he was walking earlier.” “Where do you think he is now?” I ask.

“I suppose he is where you could find him.” 160 Ryan Casseau I stand up from the chair and it almost startles Pikinini. “Very well. Lead the way!” I’m swimming in a sea of whimsy, lost in my contentment. My momentary illusion of serenity. We’ve barely left the yard outside my little house when we find the Lapan sitting on a stump watching the sea. “Ah, Tetae,” he exclaims. “You have returned from the villages.” My smile is wide enough to squint my eyes. “Yes.” “And it was a good trip?” “Yes, it was.” There is another overturned stump nearby and I roll it toward the Lapan and take a seat. “And now you are mangi ples,” he states as a question. “I’m a bit more mangi ples now, yes.” “It is a gut nait, tonight.” The palm fronds swung in the breeze. I nod. “A gut nait for sin daun stori.” I look out over the sea. “Yes, a great night for a nice chat,” I reply. There is no one else around. It’s as if we are the only two beings on a planet of our own. We both sit in silence until I break the quiet. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said last time.” “Mm-hmm.” “I’m not saying I agree with you in experiencing some kind of Delusion of Greatness, as you called it, but the concept of happiness as the ultimate goal makes some sense.”

I wait for a reply, but it doesn’t come. “The thing is, where I come from, love and happiness are cute topics for movies, but in real life it’s been found that you need more out of life than just love. Even if you acknowledge happiness as the goal, happiness is about finding contentment and fulfillment.” Again, I wait, but no reply comes, so I get to the point. “What I’m trying to say is that finding someone to marry you can’t be the point of life.” WILD HAPPY 161 Finally, the Lapan takes his eyes away from the sea. His grin is rich and full. “I never said that finding a wife was the key to happiness. I said that of all the things in the world that I can choose to sit at the top of the pile of life, the one which I place above all else is love. And that is how one finds happiness.” My smile fades. “It’s basically the same thing.” The Lapan’s face melts to a stern grimace. It reminds me of the first time I met Pahuk and thought he was furious at me. “It is not.” “It’s not?” The Lapan turns back to the sea. He sits in the stillness, watching the sun in its last glimmer before it carries its warmth below the sea. He exhales deeply through his nose before continuing. “Love is complicated. It is complex and deep like the sea. It is not marriage. Especially not the marriage of which you speak. I hear stories from places like the US, where so many are divorced and others still… they are married but they know nothing of love. They know nothing of happiness. They are not Wantok. They have chosen a different stone to put at the top of their pile. And they suffer from it.” I sigh. It’s not going as I had imagined it. The Lapan’s wisdom from last

time now sounds more like ramblings from a hopeless, love-struck teenager. I sit in silence for several minutes debating on whether it’s worth it to continue. I’m happy when he breaks the uncomfortable lull. “Did you find sago when you were in the bush?” “Sago? The food or the tree?” “The tree, from which we make the food. Did you find it when you were in Kambos?” “Yes, in fact,” I answer, partially stunned at his seemingly psychic question. He wasn’t there. How would he know that? “The village needed sago, so they had a sago day while I was there.” “Good. And you helped?” he asks. 162 Ryan Casseau “Yes. It was quite a day. It’s much more work than I thought it’d be.” “That is love! That is the work. That is how it is complicated.” I struggle to connect the two. “I’m not sure what you mean.” “The sago day,” he answers, anticipating my challenge. “Tell me about it.” I sigh but humor the Lapan and begin to recount the story. Back when we were in the bush village of Kambos a week or so ago, I woke one morning to find the village nearly empty of people. In the bush villages, people live farther apart than they do in coastal ones that have a dense main street village center. Still, most people, if not working on some sort of project, can be found lingering around a central area that’s been cleared. In Kambos, there’s a school and a small health center, funded by Joseph Litau. There is typically a church as well. I asked Pahuk where everyone was and he casually replied, “It’s sago day,” as if it was to mean something to me. I had been eating sago nearly every day for months. It was a staple side dish or occasional main entree, like rice in

China. “What’s sago day?” I asked Pahuk. “Em the day them all go to get sago.” This wasn’t helping. “It comes from a tree, right? Can we go see?” I was here to study useful plants, after all. He nodded indifferently and moments later we were headed into the bush. After a brief walk, we arrived at a small river and the forest came alive with villagers. There were more people than I thought lived in Kambos, certainly more than I had seen in my couple days staying there. They dashed around, working and moving with an intensity and organization that I hadn’t witnessed since arriving on the Island. Instruments in a wellconducted orchestra. The men lined either side of a giant downed palm trunk that stretched across the forest floor for nearly fifty feet. They split it lengthwise and had it pulled open, like they were field dressing a giant animal. The inside revealed a dense, spongy core at least three WILD HAPPY 163 feet in diameter. The men took turns beating this inner pith of the tree with poles curved forward and tied similar to bows used to shoot arrows. They swung them over their heads like axes striking down on the tree, the ninety-degree curve allowing the end of the bow to land downward into the pith. They pounded and pummeled it rhythmically with three to four men on a side. They glistened in the sun, none wearing more than a worn pair of shorts. Their rich chocolate skin glossy and taut. Veins snaked like roots across their forearms, while every muscle flexed and released in each swing. While they worked, they chewed buai and laughed and sang songs. As soon as one man lost a little steam, there were plenty to take his place. As they pounded the center of the tree out, they moved up the trunk, leaving the empty carcass of the lower half empty. Pahuk and I approached, and I asked in Tok Pisin if I could help.

Some of the men I had met the day before in the village, so they at least knew why there was a white man in the jungle with them. The others froze in shock. Based on their expressions, I guessed some may never have seen a white man in person before. I doubt any of them had seen a white man in their village. And to add that the white man had appeared in the jungle, speaking Tok Pisin and asking to help beat sago pith, probably explained why they all looked so severely dumbstruck. By now, I had the confidence in Tok Pisin and the faith in the humor of the Islanders to preemptively add, “Em aright, mi mangi ples.” It’s all right, I’m a village boy. To which they all laughed. One of the men I’d met the day before handed me his bow and stepped aside. He explained where I should aim the end of the bow and that I should swing hard! The others all took a step back. I had been watching them as we approached and their effortless rhythm and swinging and pounding looked easy. I had chopped wood plenty of times. I lifted the bow over my head and swung down. The head of the bow just barely nicked the edge of the solid pith, bounced off, and landed at the empty floor. A whiff. OK, no problem. I lifted it higher into the air and came down hard. This time it landed in the 164 Ryan Casseau body of the palm pith with a whoomp. As we had walked up, they had made it look like they were smashing the pith away like a child destroys a sandcastle. But this was no sandcastle. The bow hit the pith in a dense deep pound as if landing on a sandbag. Nothing moved. No pith broke off. I swung again and again and again. The men enjoyed it. They smiled wide and patted each other on the shoulders and pointed at me. They enjoyed that I was trying. They enjoyed that, for the most part, I was failing. Eventually, I landed a couple good hits and was starting to see how it worked. The others joined in, remembering that they had a lot of work left. Two joined my side giving me a wide berth, and three more across and

staggered from us. We took turns swinging and beating the sago on each side of the fallen tree. Their rhythm with the heavy bows was more challenging than it appeared, and I tried my best to keep up. After a couple minutes, I tossed my shirt and bilum to the side, which garnered hoots and calls of encouragement. I was just as they were now. No shoes, no shirt, sweating and glistening in the jungle heat and wearing the wide smile of my jungle friends beating at the trees of their ancestors to feed their families. Every so often, we’d step back and two children would jump into the tree and scoop the powdered pith away, pushing it down the trunk and out of our way. Once they were clear, we resumed, and it was a good opportunity to tag out. More children joined at the lower end of the trunk and using large leathery banana leaves would transport the pith to a series of homemade troughs that wove along the edge of the river. Here the women took over. They had constructed several troughs from giant leaves, fronds, and bamboo that wove back and forth every twelve feet or so. At each length, six to ten women worked the sago pith with their hands, washing it in water and leading it to the end of their length, where screens and filters of decreasing size eliminated unwanted pieces. At the end of the last trough, the sago dissolved into a thin watery mud poured into a bilum bag. These were similar in design to the one I wore slung WILD HAPPY 165 across my chest; however, these were woven so tightly that nothing but water could escape. When the bags were filled, they were replaced, and a woman would squeeze and rub the bilum until little water remained, then they were hung in the sun to dry. The edge of the clearing was a spectacle of bilum bags that hung like Christmas ornaments, adorning every reachable limb where the jungle met the clearing. The next day, they were dumped out onto a large tarp spread in the sunny clearing to allow the sago to fully dry. The result of everyone’s intense efforts was a clean, fine flour. After those two days of work, the village produced nearly six hundred pounds of sago flour from the single giant sago tree. Each family took their share home to eat over the next month or so.

I’ve barely begun to wrap up my story when the Lapan cuts in. “That is love!” he proclaims. “How is that love? Because love is a big collaborative project?” I ask facetiously. “No. Because there are steps. Each step is most important. Each step leads to another step.” “Like Maslow’s hierarchy,” I clarify, trying to connect the dots and see where he’s going with this. “So it is with love,” the Lapan agrees. I adjust myself on the stump and fix my eyes on the Lapan. I’m trying my best to open my mind and reject the reflex to dismiss him. “Please explain.” The Lapan smiles wide, appreciating my engagement. “Love does not mean love between two people as in marriage, though that is important. You must see life as a journey like that of the sago day. Every journey has a beginning. On sago day, you missed the beginning, but I can tell you that the morning was spent searching the bush for the perfect tree. The tree that would make the entire day possible. The men search and sometimes argue, but eventually agree on the right tree and chop it down. It is the most important step. If we are lucky, we find the perfect tree and cut it down the best way.” 166 Ryan Casseau I nod. I can only imagine how long it took with their machetes. The Lapan continues. “In life, we begin in childhood. If we are blessed, if we are lucky, a child learns love from their family. He feels their love as they care for him. Like when you spoke of Maslow, this is the foundation. A child has his family’s love as they provide everything for him, food and a home. But also,

warmth and safety. The child takes up the love like a sponge takes up water. He is learning what it is to be loved. For many years this love carries him. From his time as a baby and through being a man. He grows as a child, he goes beyond the village, to meet others, teachers, other children, other adults. But he knows that it is his parents, his family, that love him. He will fight with his family, they will argue and feel such anger, but from this he will learn that the anger is not enough to take away the love. It remains. This is to feel what it is to be loved.” The Lapan speaks calmly but intensely and I am lost in the fantasy of his bedtime story. I nod subconsciously, urging him to continue. “But the child grows, with his family’s love to carry him, he begins to yearn for those that are the same as himself. He begins to make friendships. Not friendships of little childhood, but friendships of youth and early adulthood. These are deep, heavy friendships with those who he can share his inner feelings and thoughts. They will guide him differently than his family, for sometimes, in a family’s love, they can be misguiding. Families can struggle to let go of their pikinini because they love him so much. And so, he begins to love and trust his friends as he does with his family. It is a different kind of love than that from his family. It is not absolute until it has grown strong this way. It must have time to grow deep roots, so that it may stand through the storms. If the storm comes before this, friendships may be blown down and die. This is good. He will learn what love requires from him. It is not given so freely. It must be nurtured. As the roots of friendship grow, he learns he can be loved from others as he is from his family.” WILD HAPPY 167 The Lapan pauses and cocks his head to inspect my attention, but it is unwavering. He melts into a peaceful seriousness. “Now, with love from family and friends, the pikinini must learn a new kind of love. This new love is different, which is why he must be supported by his family and lifted by

his friends. This is the love for himself. By now his journey has taken him to many places and many people. But it is in this time that he learns the true nature of love. That love is heavy as stone but light as air. Love flows like water but stands like the great Meranti tree. And only he may decide how he shall love himself. In this, many shall fall to the Delusion of Greatness, many shall lose the Wantok path. Man chooses who he is to be and how he is to live. He becomes the coconut and the tree. But a man who chooses happiness on the Wantok path follows love. He accepts who he is and what he does and learns to give himself to his love. This is why so many stumble. They cannot hear the Wantok.” I’ve enjoyed the story so far, the Lapan’s fabled words, but can’t help myself but to interject. “What of those who aren’t born into great families or great situations? We were lucky to have this. But what about those who were not? What if they are not loved as a child very well? What are they to do? Is it hopeless?” “Not at all!” the Lapan lashes back. “But it is much harder for them, yes. Without the foundation love as a child, he may find himself forced to jump ahead. But he must be careful. Without feeling loved, we can misunderstand love. We crave something we think is love. But we do not crave it like sago, not like a meal to keep us healthy and alive. We crave it like buai or cigarettes.” The Lapan spits to the ground, emphasizing his disgust. “This is not Wantok. He must be patient. He must listen to the Wantok. It speaks to us all. Here.” He grabs at his chest with his hands. “It will teach us to understand love. If he listens, the Wantok will teach him to love himself. And by loving himself, he will be open to learning of love from others. In time, he will learn to trust the love of others and they will teach him how it is to be loved. But most important of all, 168 Ryan Casseau he cannot be Wantok without this. He cannot choose to live for love and follow the Wantok path without trusting the love of himself.” Just then, Pikinini appears and asks if I can play soccer with him. “I’m sorry,” I answer. “The Lapan is telling me a very interesting story and I

can’t right now.” Pikinini glances to where the Lapan sits before turning to me with a smile. “Are you finding what you were looking for?” I return his smile. “I think I may be.” “Mmm,” he replies innocently. “OK. It is good that you are finding those things then.” He sits beside the Lapan, the soccer ball in his lap, resting his head against the man’s shoulder. I turn my attention back to the Lapan. “We have family love as a child, then love in friendship, and now love of oneself. We’ve spoken of love all this time and not even gotten to true love.” “True love?” Lapan laughs. “Oh, Tetae. I fear you are not listening. All love can be true, just as all love can be false.” My head bobs foolishly in an accepting nod. “Yes, I see, I see. What I mean is love of another person. Romantic love. The love of kisses and marriage and movies and sonnets and love songs.” Now I sound like the swooning teenager. The Lapan smiles wide, offering a gentle laugh. “This is the love of one. The love of companionship. It is a powerful but delicate love. This is why it can only come after the love of oneself. We must be strong enough in the love we have received and the love we have built to hold up the love of another.” “Well, love is a two-way street, right? We fall in love with them and they fall in love with us,” I attempt to add. “We do not fall. I have heard others use this term before and I do not care for it. One doesn’t fall in love. It is not a leap of faith. This is a fault of not having built the love within ourselves first. Love is strength. And when we are ready and have found someone to love, we offer our strength to that person. If it is to be love, they

WILD HAPPY 169 return that strength to us. Together, we are as powerful as the sea. Never still, never unchanging. Rising and shrinking like the tides, but never weak, never departing, because we have the love of each other. We are as one.” I nod. I have no answer but to listen. We sit in a prolonged pensive silence, staring beyond the long grasses to the sea. The edge of the waves is hidden from view but hypnotic in its quiet sounds of the surf. The moon has returned to check in on us, her thin crescent slicing open the dappled sky. It reflects in a thousand eyes on the tips of waves stretching to the edge of the world. I’m lost in thoughts about the Lapan, about what life he must’ve lived to arrive at such heartfelt conclusions. I wonder about his wife, who I’ve never seen. Did he have children? Did he have siblings? How different is his life from mine? It feels like he knows me so deeply, like we’re connected beyond our conversations on the Island. Like we are one. He has a way of making everything seem so simple, so clear. Is it an epiphany of platitudes? Or is it more? I ponder, but at the same time, I know the answers. They come to me as if spoken with my own voice. I’m starting to understand. I’m starting to hear the universal language of which the Lapan speaks. The Wantok. At that moment, in the clicks and chirps and croaks of the night, it sounds just like waves lapping against the sand. Part III Why the Hell Was This Happening? CHAPTER TEN To be stupid, selfless and in good health are three requirements of happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost. ~ Gustave Flaubert ~

I had an idea of who I was supposed to be. It had been forged in dreams and naivety and led me to a place where reality could come crashing down upon it. The pillars of ambition and will and expectations couldn’t hold against the powerful torrent of doubt and loneliness and challenge that I experienced in PNG. And so, it broke. The line tethering the kite snapped. And off we went. We floated amongst the clouds, dancing in the wind together. We bobbed on gusts and breezes and life. Free and wide-eyed and open to what the world could show me. We floated higher and higher. The Jonathan Livingston Seagull of kites fulfilling their unbound will to go beyond where we had seen before. To the place where the sky met the tip of the world. And we could do whatever, go wherever, be whatever. The kite floated on. I had arrived at the altar in the trees. Its verdant glistening leaves stood stoic in lessons of life and purpose and contentment. Its vines tangled and strangled and pulled at my false expectations and innocence. Its strong woody trunks buttressed and rooted in truth. 174 Ryan Casseau Life isn’t about becoming who you think you should be. Life is about becoming who you are. Fulfillment and actualization lie at the moment when you determine what is the dream and what is real. In life. In us. Down to the core. In the damp, rotting, rejuvenating compost of the jungle floor I lay and dreamt a new dream, anchored in reality. The path before me was unseen, unknown, and untethered. It had taken a vast jungle on a tiny island at the edge of the world for me to become open and exposed and vulnerable. Free and uncertain and awake. “What?! ” I wake with a start. It’s Denys’s face. It’s unusually close to mine. Beyond it, in the distance, is the speckled canopy of the jungle. “Shhh. You’re lucky I saw you.” He’s touching my forehead. “Huh?” I mumble groggily. “You can’t sleep here. The jungle is no place for a nap. It is dangerous. The masalai.” Denys is the least indigenous person I’ve met on the Island. Not a villager who lives in a hut and eats what he catches in a spear. Denys

is the privileged governor’s son. The one who went to Melbourne to study at the expensive, white, Australian, English-speaking university. I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s as if I’ve been drugged. Like an evil spell has been cast on me. “What are you doing?” I ask without moving. “The masalai. The spirits that hide in the dark places in the bush. They will find you if you sleep here.” “I’m so tired…” “Yes. It’s fine. You just have to protect yourself.” He shoves his fingers back into a worn white plastic pill bottle he uses for his buai chewing. It’s filled with a white powder that looks like a stash of cocaine. It’s calcium lime, a fine ash chewed with the buai to raise the pH and get a better kick. He pinches the powder between his index finger and thumb to sprinkle and smear a thick, chalky line of it across my sweaty forehead. WILD HAPPY 175 “This will protect you from the masalai. It makes it so they can’t see you and won’t attack you.” In my intoxicated state it makes perfect sense. Just as lying on the wet muddy leaves of the jungle floor makes sense as a good place to take a nap. There’s a momentary image in my mind of all the ants and bugs that make the jungle their home crawling over me by the millions. I recall reading once that there are a million ants for every human on our planet. But the thought passes by as quickly as it came, and I drift back to sleep. Of all the things from my days on the Island, it is the stench of malaria that I will never forget. The ripe, pungent smell of oil and death. I had been warned once in South America about the stench of malaria. You take someone flipping between freezing, feverish, and a deluge equivalent of sweating stuck inside a tent all night and you won’t forget the blast of

warm stench that hits you in the face in the morning, or so I was told. I’m in the tent now. I’m the source of the rancid odor. But the tent isn’t a tent, it’s a small black room. So black that I can’t see my hand in front of my face. It messes with your mind to not see anything, especially when you wake up in a soaking pool of wet foam and sticky damp sheet tangled around your legs. I might as well be wrestling a giant squid in the dark depths of the ocean. My mind is slow. My head throbbing. My arms slick and damp. That’s when I touch my forehead. The dry, crumbly caked powder flakes off in muddy globs. Panic! My skin is falling off! No. It’s the buai powder Denys put on me in the jungle. To ward off the masalai, the evil forest spirits. 176 Ryan Casseau I thought I was getting a cold. The night before, I had a mild headache, possibly a fever. But the coolness of the night and the breeze were so nice. I enjoyed it without realizing that these were early chills associated with malaria. It never gets cool here. But I didn’t piece it together. Everyone told me it was malaria. That I shouldn’t go. I should stay home and rest. And take medicine. They told me not to mess around with malaria, sharing stories about lost family members and the toll it’s taken on families around the Island. Terrible stories. But I just had a cold.

So, we hiked three hours out of town in the sun, up the dried-out roadbed to our jungle plot as we have so many times before. We had to get the last plant samples from the interior forest area. The previous batch of samples had dried, so we were due for another. I couldn’t have the green mesh bags sit empty when there were more plants to collect and dry. It was about the worst thing we could have done. Because, apparently, when malaria hits you, it’s like a truck. I had been really tired all morning, but that’s normal—remember the cold I was getting? But once we got into the forest, I had nothing. I was completely wiped out, like an alien energy ray had sucked the life force out of my body. I was hot and cold and tired. So tired. My brain was groggy and lost. I vaguely recall telling the guys I’d buy them a case of beer for helping me out if they got the plants for me. Then there’s nothing. I remember waking up to Denys’s face outlined in a forested canopy of speckled sunlight. He was touching me. My face. Why was he floating over me? Why was he touching my face? I’m delirious. I think I smiled at him. It was actually quite pleasant, my nap on the forest floor. I mean, I didn’t feel the greatest, but for the situation, it was pretty nice, at least based on the patchwork of images and scenes that I recall. Peaceful. We came home sometime later, afternoon. I can’t recall many details. I was confused to where we were going because it seemed to WILD HAPPY 177 be taking forever. The road was endless. I swore we had taken it in the wrong direction because we should have been back hours ago. I was only half awake when we made it back, but I remember the feeling of relief. Pahuk and Denys led me back to the Litaus’ house and it felt like home. Martha was sweet and bossy, telling me I was crazy to go to the bush with malaria while telling me all the things I was going to do now, one of which was not to leave their house. Joseph, equally parental, was shaking his head and repeating, “You don’t mess around with malaria.” Since malaria is only transmitted by

mosquitoes, they aren’t worried about catching it from me. And while I listened and nodded, I still thought they were blowing this out of proportion. It was a cold. It’s amazing how powerful our beliefs are. Despite the afternoon I had experienced, I still couldn’t be convinced I had malaria. It was a cold. I was really tired. I couldn’t let go of the belief that malaria is something people talk about a lot, but people like me don’t get it. It happens to other people, not me. Like DUIs and accidental pregnancies. And what do the Islanders know? They have their views on malaria and I know some are off. It’s like telling a little kid something about science and then him explaining it to his parents. It just gets mixed up. I ate dinner with them and took some meds they offered after reading the labels and comparing them to what I already knew, which, as a Ph.D. student studying malaria, was a fair bit. The Litaus offered (insisted) I sleep in a tiny spare room under the house so I wasn’t in my house by myself. Really, this should have been my first clue that things were serious. No one seems to worry about anything on the Island, and yet I was too out of it to see that they were actually, finally stressing about something. And that something they were worrying about was ME. It was a long night. I fell asleep in no time, but since I had gone to sleep early in the evening and had slept most of the afternoon, 178 Ryan Casseau I woke up and rolled around for several hours only able to take cat naps because my head was pounding and I couldn’t shake the stressed American mentality that, holy shit, I had malaria. It had finally sunk in that this was really happening. I really had malaria. The same malaria I’ve studied. The same malaria that kills people by the thousands. Over 700,000 died of malaria that year.

Joseph Litau came in at one point, thinking I was in a different room. He was more startled than I. “Are you OK?” he asked. “Yeah, it’s just this headache. My head is pounding.” “Yeah, all right. Let me see.” He reappeared a minute later with some medicine (no idea what I took). After that, I turned cold again, and with the placeboed hope that my headache was on its way out, it was quite pleasant, and I fell back to sleep. And so, the rotation began. Hot fevers, shivering chills, and then sweating like a madman. The timing of the shift was unpredictable, but the order was always the same. Hot, cold, sweat. Hot, cold, sweat. Eventually, the little foam mattress I was lying on was soaked through, as well as my hair and my pillow. It was surreal during the sweating times because, unlike in the other two phases, I was completely comfortable. Not hot or cold, just perfectly comfortable but with sweat coming out of my arms. The Goldilocks of malaria, with my temperature just right like baby bear’s porridge. But the sweating brought the smell. So specifically foul. I’ll never forget it. Twenty years later, I could be anywhere, in the middle of a business lunch, watching a movie, or taking my kids to school, and with one whiff of that smell I’d immediately know someone nearby has malaria. At one point, just after dawn, I was so intrigued by the process that I sat up watching myself sweat. Magically sweating without feeling like I should be sweating. If it wasn’t putting my mortality at risk, I really would have enjoyed the fascination with it. I don’t remember much sleep or waking up the next morning, but at some point, I did, fifteen hours later. I was feeling much WILD HAPPY 179 better, however still very weak. While I still had a bit of a headache and didn’t feel amazing, it felt like maybe the worst was over.

There is magic in the moments when you feel better after having felt terrible. Or when you no longer think you’re going to die after thinking you might. If we could bottle that, we could save the world. The next afternoon, I get the green light to go home from the Litaus’. I’m still weak and tired and my body needs more time for the medicine to work, but I can do it at home. I’m invited, of course, to stay but choose to get some peace and quiet at home. I ask them if I should go to the small health center on the island, but they shrug and note there’s nothing they’re going to do for me. The first day is mostly resting and reading, when my headaches allow it. I try getting on my computer a couple of times to write emails home or get some work done, but never last ten minutes. I don’t feel the pressure to get anything done, though. I have malaria. No one’s going to blame me for slacking off, right? That evening, as the sun is setting and I’ve barely realized the day has passed me by, there’s a small knock at the door. It’s Pahuk. “Apinun,” he says in a timid tone. It’s guilt. I have a feeling the Litaus have scolded him and Denys for taking me to the jungle the day before. He lifts a bowl of food. “Come in, come in!” I say as I realize this is the first time Pahuk’s ever actually come inside the little house. He always waits outside for me, often in silent patience without even alerting me to his arrival. “Did you cook?” I ask in shock. “No. Em from Momma Litau.” Ah. He’s the delivery boy. Martha is clearly still worried about me. It reminds me of my own mom. “Did you eat? There is plenty here to share.” “I ate ’ready.” His hands on his stomach as if he were so full, he couldn’t eat another bite. 180

Ryan Casseau “OK,” I say, looking around for a place where two people can sit. “Well, come sit.” I gesture to the old school chair I use at the desk. I sit across from him on the bed with my bowl of fish and sago. I’m suddenly feeling the best I have all day. There’s a slight giddiness, like a nine-year-old having his first sleepover. I take a bite of fish and immediately remember I’ve been waiting to have fish at my house. I jump up and grab the small bottle of green Tabasco sauce I brought from the States. It’s one of two things I always bring when traveling abroad. The second is a tea light candle for meditation. I plop back down on the bed and begin to dowse the fish in the green, spicy sauce. I don’t love hot and spicy foods, but the green version of the famous sauce is a little milder and adds a rich flavor when food needs a boost. “What’s that?” Pahuk asks. “Hot sauce,” I reply just before I get the first bite into my mouth. His eyebrows shoot up his head. “It makes the food hot?” I chortle with my mouth full, though thankfully not enough to launch it. “Not hot like hot and cold. Hot like spicy.” As I hear my words, I realize they have no context. I haven’t seen any use of spices on the Island. I haven’t encountered anything like it. No herbs. No peppers. No spices. They use a lot of sugar in their tea and there’s salt sometimes, but that’s it. The only thing I’ve seen on the Island that would fit into a spice cabinet in the States is vanilla bean, but it’s all sold for big bucks due to flooding rains in Madagascar this year that caused a shortage. No one on the Island even knows what to do with it other than grow it as a fad cash crop. The menu here is always the same: food boiled in coconut milk. It doesn’t matter what it is or who is cooking it. Everything eventually is thrown into a pot over the fire that’s full of coconut milk. Luckily, I love the flavor of coconut, but anything repeated two hundred times gets old. The real shame is with the fish. Fish is plucked from the ocean, often

minutes before, and thrown into the pot of coconut milk. WILD HAPPY 181 They have trees overflowing with plump, juicy limes that they basically ignore. The sourness is too strong for them. But oh, what amazing meals we could be having of fresh fish grilled over the fire with fresh lime. Alas, this isn’t my place. Women do the cooking in the haus kuk. Men don’t even get near it, though most seem to have no interest; they’d much rather sin daun stori, chat and hang out, in the haus boi. It’d be too disruptive for me to advise a bunch of women how to cook. And they don’t feel like they’re missing anything. We don’t know what we don’t know. They like the simple routine. They like their fish boiled in coconut milk. “Do you want to try it?” I ask. He nods inquisitively and reaches for the bottle. The tiny glass vial is lost in his strong hands and he whips the top off in one quick motion. It looks like he’s going to try and drink it straight from the bottle. “Wait!” I shout. “It’s not… You just need the tiniest taste.” I take the bottle back and demonstrate how to put the tiniest drop on my finger and taste it that way. He copies me perfectly, putting only a tiny dab of the green viscous sauce on his fingertip. He gives it a smell and reacts exactly as I expect with a recoil of disgust. Then, without more time to reconsider, he sticks his whole finger in his mouth. Here is this ripped, gruff, intimidating guy sitting on a school chair with his finger in his mouth, sucking on it like a two-year-old. It’s hard not to giggle. But it’s short lived. His eyebrows shoot down to a point. Yet his eyes remain wide with curiosity that turns dark and angry. It’s an odd angry, confused, crazy look. Like his face can’t agree on what expression to make. One eye big, one small, one eyebrow pointed down, the other not. “Hah!” he exclaims, whipping his tongue out of his mouth. He pants, a hot sauce Lamaze. He scrapes his tongue against the roof of his mouth and teeth trying to get the fire away. His face is fully enraged now. He’s back to intimidating, but I know him well enough not to be afraid. In fact, it’s hilarious.

182 Ryan Casseau “It’s OK. It’ll go away in a second,” I laugh. “It’s really not that hot.” Truly. The green Tabasco is really mild. I laugh and laugh. Every time I look up to his face of fury, like he wants to pulverize something but doesn’t know what to attack, I lose it again. My stomach begins to cramp from the laughter and my body’s lingering weakness. My eyes are watering. This tiny drop of mildly hot sauce has brought down this Hercules of a man. He’s a lion with a splinter. I knew he probably wouldn’t like it, but I hadn’t expected this. I can’t stop laughing. Eventually, as I’m forced to alternate between laughing and whining at the pain from the laugh cramps, Pahuk begins laughing at me too. Both of us indulging in the other’s pain, like only good friends can. It’s just what the doctor ordered. *** For the next two days, I’m at peace. I rest and recuperate. I average a couple visitors each day which breaks up the monotony. But basically, I read. I nap. I heal. My plants are drying nicely in their green mesh bags outside in the sun. To help them along, I go out a couple times a day and turn them over. If I don’t flip them the moisture at the bottom may cause the plants to rot or grow mold. It’s a simple routine lost in my haze of recovery. “Hallo,” the recognizable little voice calls out. “Hallo, Pikinini. How are you?” He trots over, the worn soccer ball kicked along the way. “Gut. You were sick?” he asks. “Yes, I got malaria.” I turn over a heavy bag of plant material that I fear may never dry.

“You’re aright though? You seem good.” I smile. “Yes, I am. I was lucky to have good medicines to treat it.” “And lucky for your Wantoks that took care of you.” WILD HAPPY 183 I turn to him. It’s the first time someone besides the voice in my head acknowledges me having Wantoks on the Island. “Yes. I am most lucky for that.” “Can I help?” he asks, trapping the soccer ball in stillness. “Sure. I haven’t flipped these ones yet.” Some of the bags are so full they look as big as he is. They start out like empty zippered pillowcases made from a fine green nylon mesh, but once they’re packed with plant material, they can get rather heavy. I appreciate his efforts to lift and flip them. After flipping a particularly heavy one, he gives me an odd look. “Yes?” I ask. “How long will you stay?” His eyes are innocent. “A couple more months. I really can’t go home until I get my work done.” “How do you know it’s enough time?” he asks, dashing to grab the last bag before I can.

“I don’t really. That’s why I have to try hard to get it done as quickly as possible.” “Hmm,” he answers in his simple thoughtful way. “But I’m starting to think I may have been pushing it too hard. I did end up passed out on the jungle floor with malaria, after all.” “Hmm.” I’ve come to enjoy his pregnant pauses. It makes me wish more conversations went this way, with time to listen and think about what you say. I’m always rushing, always behind. I’m the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. I’m late. I’m late. For a very important date… But I’m not late. I mean, I’m sure I’m behind compared to my original timelines, but they were just stupid. Here I am down the rabbit hole on the far side of the world, struggling to recognize that it’s as different as it is. Trying to push and push is only driving myself crazy. For every ton of effort, I’m only getting an ounce of benefit. And it literally almost killed me. Ignoring 184 Ryan Casseau what everyone told me. Those who knew better than I did. Those who told me it was malaria days before. When I rolled my eyes and insisted on hiking three hours into the sun to the jungle because of my timelines. It’s hubris. Plain and simple. If I was in a Greek tragedy, I’d be dead. The moral revealed. The chorus closing out the show. But I had what the Greek heroes didn’t. I had Wantoks. The only difference between my story and their tragedies was that my story was set in a tiny island at the edge of the world filled with a depth of kindness and simplicity that I had never known existed. And so my story wasn’t a tragedy, it was something else. Time would tell. “I heard Lapan call you Tetae,” Pikinini says from the silence. “Why doesn’t he call you by your name?”

“I don’t know.” “I do, I think,” he replies in pride of his wisdom. “I think it’s because you aren’t from here. And you’re just visiting. Will you come back to Island?” “I don’t know.” “Hmm. I don’t think you will.” “I might. I probably will.” I feel myself being defensive, despite a strong sense that he’s right. Returning seems out of the question, but perhaps that’s the White Rabbit speaking. “No. I don’t think you will. You seem to be finding what you were looking for.” “Well, I have to get these specimens or I can’t keep doing my research. And right now, there’s no more money for me to come back.” I have to remind myself I’m chatting with a child. Pikinini has a way of making me forget he’s only nine years old. “Mmm-hmm.” I struggle to flip a particularly wet and heavy bag of plant material in my sickened weak state. When I stand up, I’m dizzy. Pikinini is gone. WILD HAPPY 185 “Hello? Are you there?” I call out. I brace my arms on my knees in a crouch to stabilize myself, my vision blurring as the blood rushes to my head. After half a minute, I stand up and catch a glimpse of Pikinini in my peripheral vision. “I certainly would like to return someday,” I continue as if nothing happened. “Mmm,” and after a pause, “No. I don’t think you will,” he replies.

I can hear him, but can’t see him. He must be behind me, but I can’t be bothered to turn around. I wonder if the thought of me leaving is making him sad. “Why not?” His voice fills my head, as if he’s tapped directly into my mind. “If you find what you are looking for, you won’t need to, and if you don’t find what you are looking for, you won’t want to. So, you are just here for today. That’s why Lapan calls you Tetae.” I turn around to find him staring at me with his head cocked at an angle like he does sometimes. The curious bird. “I think I will call you Tetae too.” “That’s OK with me, Pikinini.” I stress that I too don’t call him by his name. “How old are you again?” I laugh to myself, challenging his age. The plants are all turned over, the chopped bits of plant material now sharing their damp underside with the sun. They look like big, green jellyfish floating on the dirt in front of my little house. They’re synthetic and foreign, but they’re working, sort of. Like me. I wonder how well they’re really working as it occurs to me that these green mesh bags and their job to dry all the plant material could be what holds me up from going home. I only have fifteen bags and I need to dry all the 150 or so plant specimens. My brain starts to do the calculations but catches itself. I pause. It’ll take as long as it will take. I just overcame malaria in a foreign land devoid of proper hospitals and medical care. And yet, here I am, nearly fully recovered. I, of course, am lucky. 186 Ryan Casseau Lucky, to have good medicines to treat it. Luckier still to have a family of Wantoks who took care of me when I needed them. At the moment, with the rising sun, that seems to matter a lot more than how long it’ll take for my stupid plants to dry. I look forward to telling the Lapan, though I suspect my little friend will beat me to it.

CHAPTER ELEVEN To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust. It is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically. ~ Henry David Thoreau ~ After a slow bit to get through the shallow water around the town, Captain Kipo guns the fifteen-horsepower motor, lifting the bow of our long fiberglass banana boat into the air and leaving the town in our wake. After days of planning and negotiating, we’re finally off to “Sundaun,” the west coast of the Island, where the sun goes down. I adjust my ass on the hard, wooden plank laid across the boat that serves as my seat. It won’t seem to get any softer. Pahuk and the other mangis sit on the gunnels lining the edge of the boat toward the front. With the acceleration out of town they tower over me. The salty air whips through my unkempt hair, my mind settling into our journey to the far side of the Island. Every time I think I can’t get farther away from home, I seem to find a path farther. 188 Ryan Casseau I’ve made great progress in collecting plans so far with my limitations being drying bulk collections in the green bags. However, I’ve only done about half the interviews I’d like to do. My plan is to get as many interviews in these remote villages as possible over the next several weeks, so that by the time I return, it’s just collect, chop, and dry plants and move on. It’s unclear when we’ll return to town. We’ll figure that out later. For now, there is an endless horizon of open ocean and a gentle bob over the waves that I’m hoping doesn’t cross into seasickness. At the moment it’s quite pleasant. Captain Kipo, our driver and boat owner, said it would take between three and five hours. The Island is only about fifty miles long, but Lorengau is the northeast corner and we need to get to the southwest corner. There’s an art to navigating all the reefs and coral atolls speckled around the surrounding ocean, but for all I know Captain Kipo is calculating in a two-hour lunch break somewhere. Let’s face it, it wouldn’t surprise me. He stands at the back making sure to read

the colors of the water and avoid any coral that would damage the boat while we’re still fairly close to the shore. He’s wearing a worn yellow polo shirt and a blue cap that gives him a striking resemblance to the Skipper from Gilligan’s Island, albeit the PNG version. I started calling him “Captain Kipo,” a moniker that I don’t think had been used before, but it’s easy to tell he likes the feel of it. By the time we had everything packed up and had left town, everyone was using it. He taps me on the shoulder, and I turn back. He gestures with a wide-open hand. Five. There’s a strong headwind. It’s going to take five hours. For the next couple of hours, I relax and take in the exotic distant shoreline. The alien coast is dense and green, peppered every so often with a collection of thatched huts on stilts over the water. We pass fishermen in outrigger canoes who wave like neighbors, and uninhabited coral atolls that serve as unofficial nature sanctuaries. Suddenly, a school of tiny flying fish bursts from the sea, shimmering their silver scaly wings as they glide ahead. WILD HAPPY 189 They disappear back into the sea but moments later explode from the water again. There are over a hundred of them and they seem to follow the boat, like we’re in a Disney movie and they are guiding us, confirming that this is the right way. Tiny iridescent ocean fairies leading the way. Even the mangis on the bow are captivated by them. Then, just as suddenly as they had appeared, the entire school darts to the left and heads off away from us. I watch them dive and glide, glinting like diamonds in the sun, beyond our sight. In the center of the Island is a mountain, or so they call it. It’s not very tall as mountains go, but it gives the Island an exotic topography I hadn’t appreciated. From the sea, the rich billowing shades of green jungle cover the entire island. They offer a misleading disparity to the dense treacherous world within. From the boat, it’s peaceful and serene. The Island looks as though it’s a world forgotten and was hoping to keep it that way. The sun is directly overhead hours later when Captain Kipo aims the bow toward the shore. With the help of the mangis peering through the crystal-

clear water and offering guidance, he weaves his way through the rocky reef guarding the shore. I can see children playing on the sandy beach. Meanwhile, men work on their canoes and fishing gear, preparing to go out once the sun is past its sizzling prime. As we pull up, I grab my backpack, swing it over my shoulder, and hop out into the warm shallow water. A couple kids find us interesting enough to stop what they’re doing, but otherwise few have any interest. It’s quite the opposite of other places I’ve visited before where I was a minority as a white man. I take it as a compliment of the contentment of the people. The village is a short expanse of huts that line the stunted beach before the shoreline is taken over by mangroves. Palm-thatched huts are on either side of a well-packed sandy area wide enough for an eighteen-wheeler truck to drive through, despite one never being within a hundred miles. The houses are on stilts and, on the ocean side of the village, stand in the water. I follow Pahuk and Captain Kipo, who bring me to Mama Hage, a kind, older woman who offers 190 Ryan Casseau us a hut where we can stay. We’ll stay in Likum for a couple days before heading to the larger village of Bundrahii that serves as the main village for the west coast. I haven’t done anything but sit in a boat all day, but somehow, I’m exhausted. Excited, but exhausted. It doesn’t take long for twilight to cast its shadow over the village. The second shift of noises come into symphony, as the wall of forest at the edge of the village grows darker. Bird sounds are replaced with bug sounds, though the elaborate range of each offers significant overlap in my untrained ears. There seem to be significantly more whizzes and buzzes, and fewer squawks and calls. I’d say the evening is relaxing because we don’t have much to do, but there is a whirlwind of excitement as the villagers have become aware of my arrival. Like everywhere else on the Island, they treat me like a longlost relative who has finally returned. From the kindness down to the guilt of “Why has it taken me so long to visit them?” It makes me uncomfortable when they buzz and flit around me trying to make sure I have the most pleasant time possible, not realizing that I’d enjoy myself

much more if they just treated me like a normal person. They offer me the first serving of food. I can never even wash up my battered tin plate like everyone else, even if the seven-year-olds are taking care of their own. Honestly, I can barely stand up without everyone stopping to make sure everything is “aright.” Speaking Tok Pisin helps a lot to calm some of them and have them believe that I’m fine and don’t need anything. Eventually some of the pressure to have everything perfect for me wears off, but it shifts to the interrogation phase, where I’m asked a million questions, the most common of which are, How did I learn Tok Pisin? How do I like the Island? And various versions of, Why would you do this? which is their kind way of telling me that I don’t belong here, and they are worried for me. It reminds me of when I stayed at Modi’s house at the university in Port Moresby. One evening, they were watching TV and one of the Australian networks piped into the capital was airing the season of Survivor. In WILD HAPPY 191 the pilot, for dramatic effect, they took all of the contestants’ shoes away before forcing them off the boat for a short swim to the shore of their new survival home. Modi’s family all reacted so strongly. “Oh no, they can’t do that!” “Oh, what are they going to do?” “Oh, those poor people!” I looked at them and couldn’t help myself. “What are you guys talking about? You rarely even wear shoes.” They all looked at me in puzzlement. “Yes, but these are poor Americans. They can’t do that!” And so it was in the villages too. So many were so worried for me wherever I went. Surprisingly few would ever ask about the US or where I lived. It was always about the Island. They were comfortable in their

bubble of Island life, not unlike those in the US who relished being safe in their own bubbles. People have a common way of sticking to what’s familiar. Talking versus listening. It’s as common here as it is anywhere. After a couple days in Likum, and three interviews completed, it’s time to head to Bundrahii but the boat and our captain are nowhere to be found. This type of thing has happened to me countless times before, but that doesn’t prevent it from being frustrating. “Where’s the boat? And Captain Kipo?” “Em mas not tingtink wepela bai go tetae.” He must not think we go today. “How is that possible?” I push back in Tok Pisin. “We said three days, it’s been three days. Where could he have even gone?” Captain Kipo didn’t live in Likum village. “Does he have family here? Or friends? Is there somewhere else he could have gone? Is there a good way to find him?” I fire off. These are the kinds of typical logic-based follow-up questions an American asks in trying to solve 192 Ryan Casseau a problem. I, however, know my asking them is more rhetorical than anything. They are only met with indifferent shrugs. Moments later, as if called from the heavens, we hear the lawn-mowery sound of the small outboard motor. Captain Kipo has miraculously returned without making us wait hours. “Fantastic. Let’s go!” I belt out impatiently. “We can’t,” Captain Kipo replies as he kills the motor. “What do you mean we can’t? Why not?” “The others. They are not here.” “What others?” I ask in confusion. “The others that came on the boat.”

Ah, right. Those others. There was a set of parents with their daughter and two unrelated older village boys who had caught a ride with us to the west coast of the Island from town. They had heard we were heading to Sundaun, as they called it since the sun sets on the west coast of the island, and had asked us if they could catch a ride. We had plenty of space, so Captain Kipo had left the decision to me since I was the one who chartered his boat and was buying the gasoline. He noted the gas cost would go up a little because of the additional weight, but not much. I agreed. A couple bucks of gas was no big deal and it was hard to predict when there would be another boat going that far. With great appreciation, they piled in and we were off. We had stopped at Likum village for three days, which was part of our plan and which was explained to them as part of the deal if they wanted to get all the way to Bundrahii. “So… where are they?” I ask impatiently, knowing any answer beyond “not here” is irrelevant. “I was trying to find them, but I can’t,” Kipo replies, trying to keep the peace. “Welp, it looks like they made other plans,” I unsympathetically note, tossing my backpack over my shoulder and heading toward WILD HAPPY 193 the fiberglass banana boat. “We told them three days and they’re not here.” I notice Captain Kipo shoot Pahuk a look. Shit. What now? Pahuk sighs and pulls me aside like a drunken brother-in-law at a wedding. “What’s going on, Pahuk? Why is this a big deal?” I plead. “We can’t go without them,” Pahuk states plainly. “Why not?”

“You agreed to bring them. You are responsible for them.” “What? Responsible? They asked for a ride. I was nice enough to agree. We got them this far and now they’re gone.” “Yes,” he replies as if I’ve just reinforced his point. “Yes? Yes, what? This isn’t our problem. They were told to be here, but they aren’t here, so we are free to go.” “No.” By now, I can tell Pahuk is struggling to play diplomat. He’s being more delicate than I’ve experienced before. “Here,” he stresses, “when you agree to bring others, you are agreeing to take care of them. They are like your children. We can’t leave them. We have their food and their boat.” Two thoughts immediately strike me: One—the only boat I see is the one I hired. Two—what food? “They didn’t bring any food, Pahuk,” I clarify. “The only food here is what we brought. The food for you, me, Captain Kipo, and to give as gifts for the villages that host us.” “Because they did not bring food, this is their food now too.” I look at the giant bag of rice and realize it seems considerably smaller than it should if only the three of us have been eating from it. My mind is spinning. It’s already been a tough couple of days, but let’s face it, every couple of days are a tough couple of days trying to get work done on the Island. 194 Ryan Casseau How could no one think to mention any of this to me? What the fuck is going on? I want to scream. But I don’t. I take a deep breath. It is different here, I recite in my head.

Geezus. Another deep breath. “OK,” I begin calmly. “What can we do?” Pahuk gestures that he has an idea but needs a moment to figure it out. He speaks with Captain Kipo and a couple of the villagers nearby. They all look concerned, but I can’t tell if it’s sympathy or indignation. They speak calmly, which is always a good sign when dealing with people who have been known to attack each other with machetes when they’re pissed off. After a minute, he walks back to me and suggests an alternative: we can walk through the jungle to get to Bundrahii. It’s easier by sea, but we can go on foot also. Captain Kipo will head over in the boat with the others once they return. “Why don’t we just take the boat and they” I stop myself when I see Pahuk shaking his head vigorously. “How far is it?” I ask. “Probably only about four hours,” Pahuk replies merrily. This isn’t my first day in PNG, so it translates in my head to a five-toseven-hour hike. But I’m annoyed and impatient. It might take days for the others to return. There’s no way to tell. Every time I think I’ve adjusted to life in PNG, it punches me in the face. I think of the Lapan and his potential disappointment. “Fine. Let’s do it.” Hours later, we’re deep in the jungle and I’m still trying to move on from my frustrations with this ass-backwards commitment that I was scammed into. I’m open to anything that will get my mind off of it. A light breeze whips through the trees and I catch my first glimpse WILD HAPPY 195

of vibrant yellow plumage of a bird of paradise. The incredible birds of numerous varieties and colors are mostly endemic to New Guinea and the surrounding islands. This one soars over our heads and attempts to disappear back into the dark green canopy but chooses first to settle on a high branch of a giant ficus tree above us. The massive strangler fig tree has all but engulfed a smaller Rubiaceae variety, incorporating its branches as the fig’s own. The branch the bird of paradise has chosen is thin but only bends slightly at the weight of the bird as it lands. It’s surprising given the size of the bird, but its weight is negligent in its cloud of soft yellow and white feathers. He lets out a peaceful call to the jungle, singing to the ears of those who revere him, those who put him proudly on the national flag. He is a national symbol and he sings proudly. Thirty meters below the exquisite bird, the ficus tree’s roots pour over the face of the earth, reaching and spreading to support the tree’s monstrous size. “Ahh!” I exclaim as I stub my toe against the heavy roots. My Teva sandals dangle from straps on my backpack and I debate putting them on but know that I’m doing better barefoot than I would with them on. The soles on my feet have grown tougher in the past month but are clearly still vulnerable. Pahuk looks back in reflex but turns back to the trail when he sees there’s no emergency. We continue hiking as we have for the past couple hours. “Mi tellin’ you, kaikai buai!” Pahuk says before spitting a red mouthful of saliva onto a shrub he passes. “It’ll give you energy.” “Thanks,” I reply sarcastically. “But I’ll stick to water.” He chuckles and turns back to get another glimpse of the giant red stain that runs down the front of my shirt, remnants from my failed attempt earlier. “No one mentioned it was going to make my mouth overflow with that red shit,” I defend myself. “I couldn’t spit it fast enough.” 196 Ryan Casseau

“Em aright. It’s not for everyone. You must still be mangi city a little,” he laughs. “It’s not really good for you, anyway,” I reply with inconsequential warning. “Hmph, not good for you maybe, but it’s good for mangi ples like me,” he says without turning back. “Fine,” I laugh. “But just remember that when all your teeth fall out like the old men in the villages.” He laughs. And we walk. It’s a steady pace but manageable. My lungs have become significantly more tolerant of the extreme humidity over my time on the Island. Every so often, Pahuk finds something of interest in the jungle and we stop. Mostly for buai. In town, you have to buy buai, but the jungle provides plenty and it’s an opportunity to stock up. The buai palms are smaller than coconut palms but their trunk is smoother, making it more challenging to climb. Pahuk, however, is the best tree climber I’ve ever seen. Many of the men, even most in their twenties in peak physical shape, use a lap-lap, a loop made from strong reeds and fibers to hold their feet together. Then they climb with their hands and fingers locked together and their feet bound in the lap-lap. They scoot up the tree alternating between their hands and feet up the tree, like giant inchworms. Pahuk, however, has his own style. He grabs the far side of the tree with one hand and practically runs up the trunk foot after foot on the front side and hand after hand on the far side, like a monkey. If not stopping for buai, he’s stopping to swing his machete and lop off lengths of thick, woody liana vines to show off. He tips them to his mouth and the crystal-clear water pours out. I swing to take out another section and more often than not it takes two or three hacks. Which he enjoys. Either way, the water is as refreshing as ever. Half teasing to parry his sense of manliness, I reprise Pahuk’s childhood song from our time in the canoe as we walk: I’m going far from home and from my people WILD HAPPY

197 To distant lands away across the sea. And when I see the light of mighty ci-ty, I still miss my home of grass. He doesn’t join in, but even from behind him, I can see his cheeks extend in a smile. Before long, er, maybe after long, we make it to Bundrahii village. I have no idea how long it took. I have no idea where my watch is. The first thing that distinguishes Bundrahii is the regional high school (the region being the entire west half of the Island). It’s a boarding school, since most students come from far away, and spans several buildings. A little jungle campus. It works out well that I got to know a teacher when he was visiting town a couple weeks ago. He arranged it so I could have one of the teacher cabins all to myself— well, not all to myself. Me and Pahuk. It’s another tiny, tired house with a couple pieces of dilapidated furniture, but it works. From six p.m. to nine p.m. every night there is even electricity at the school. That night is a long one. I fall asleep easily at first, but sometime after, I toss and turn, attempting my best to hold tightly onto the tiny thread that kept me unconscious. But I can’t. I lay in bed, engulfed in the dense stagnant air. I’m sweating, hot, miserable. I think about home. I haven’t thought about home much over the past months and it surprises me when it pops into my mind. I think about how different home seems. How home has become the foreign place to me now. It’s the first time in a while that I’m lost in thoughts of the ten thousand things that I miss or nearly forget. Mostly, though, it’s a game I’m playing in my mind to try and keep myself from going crazy because I’m trapped in a prison of time and heat and misery. Finally, I remember that I have my large backpack in the room with me and get excited. Usually, I just have the small one, but this trip is long enough that I brought the big backpacking

198 Ryan Casseau one and I never fully unpacked it in my little house in town. I quietly slide it over to my bed and attempt to silently remove a Ziploc bag containing some baby wipes. I do my best to do this all surreptitiously since Pahuk is asleep on the floor at the foot of the bed. I fear, if discovered, I’ll look like a pathetic wussy American wiping myself down with baby wipes in the middle of the night. I manage to get them from the front pocket of my bag and begin to wipe my face, arms, chest, and back with a pair of them. It’s deliciously cool against my hot skin and I’m proud of myself for packing them and for not disturbing Pahuk. I feel like a genius super spy. I sit up an extra moment or two to dry and then lie back onto the foam mattress atop the creaky spring bed. So much better now. Moments later I’m sure I feel the pressure change in the air and I’m happy to think that there will be rain soon. Sure enough, about an hour later I wake to thundering rain on the corrugated steel roof. It’s so loud that I sit up with a slight anxiety that the whole cabin may fall apart. The rain grows louder and louder and every time I think wow, it can’t possibly rain any harder, it only takes about ten minutes to get louder again. After a while, it’s as if the rain is so aggressive and torrential that it calls to me. I focus on it, hearing it clearer and clearer as I concentrate. It is a voice. A human voice that sounds as though it’s coming from a long way away but is calling to me. Calling me by name. I’m in the groggy, just-woken-up, where-am-I, what’s-going-on state, so I’m lost in the clatter and the rain and the voice, unsure if I’m still on the verge of dreamland. After a couple minutes, I notice Pahuk isn’t asleep on the floor. Shit! Pahuk! It was him trying his best to call me over the rain. He’d gone outside to “rausim wara” (rouse water), as they say in Tok Pisin, and the wind had blown the door shut, locking him out. I dash out of bed and head to the door. As I head outside, I feel the cool, sodden breeze on my skin. I secure the door open and Pahuk and I sit on the small porch outside,

peacefully listening to the torrential downpour. I’m indulging WILD HAPPY 199 in the rain’s coolness, but I notice Pahuk is practically shivering, even though it’s still nearly eighty degrees out. I grab a bundle of high-tech green cloth and hand it to him. He knows what it is immediately. My fancy Gore-Tex raincoat. It’s completely useless to me as it never gets cold enough to wear it, even with its fancy “breathability.” I’ve yet to find a time on the Island that I wouldn’t rather be soaked in the rain than stuck sweating in the raincoat. He excitedly puts it on like a kid wrapping himself in a blanket. I’m nearly a foot taller than him, so he’s got plenty of blanket. We sit silently for a bit, indulging in our conflicting yet equally enjoyable reactions to the temperature. Pahuk notes that at some point, this will probably ruin our plans to drive to a village on the northwest coast the next morning. The hard clay roads are now going to be impassible red goo. I reply with a quiet hum and try not to let it bother me as I lose myself in the blurred world. Not long after, when my head slips out of my hand propped up by my elbow, I head back inside, climb into bed, and have countless dreams about going back home. Pahuk was right. The next day, the red clay lining the earth is a slippery mess of red slop. The whole world has become the slippery impossible hill back in Kambos. There’s no way to drive to a village on the northwest coast. Luckily, we’ve only just arrived in Bundrahii, so there is plenty to do and explore. Pahuk and I meet up with Bernard, the teacher, in hopes of finding some people to interview, but it’s not looking good. School is out on break, and apparently, Bundrahii is the Island’s equivalent to a college town. This is how we’re able to use one of the teacher cabins for lodging, which is good. But the village is pretty much abandoned during break, which is bad. I momentarily consider how this information would have been valuable to know yesterday when we decided to trek through the jungle to get here instead of staying in Likum where there were people to interview, but

thoughts like that aren’t productive so I try to dismiss them. 200 Ryan Casseau Since there will be electricity in the evening, it’s safe for me to use up the battery of my computer and I spend much of the morning entering data. Pahuk, however, isn’t involved in that. He piddles around. He doesn’t know anyone here besides me. Since he rarely leaves town, I realize that, proportionally, this may be just as far from home for him as it is for me. I grab a sheet of paper and a pencil and offer it to him for something to do. He takes the pencil but pulls a folded piece of paper from his pocket and comments that he already has one. Regardless, it works. We can continue with a little conversation, but we both now have something else to do for the next couple hours. Pahuk sits on the floor doodling on his piece of paper. It’s already covered in some notes, an address, and other random things. This is his piece of paper. Meanwhile, I enter data into the computer. Still, he looks bored, so I ask him what he’d be doing now if he was at town, knowing that this is one of the few times he’s been far from home. “Sitting inside the fence, waiting for the next day.” The fence is his home in town. I haven’t actually seen it. I’m not even sure where it is exactly. And I imagine there’s some sort of building or hut in the fence, but I honestly don’t know. The big deal is that there is a fence around it, and it is his. Fences are nearly not existent on the Island. “Do you like to do that?” I asked with a bit of a smirk. He continues to draw on the piece of paper. “Yes, it’s nice to sit and have nothing to do.” His answers remind me of something Winnie the Pooh might say. I think about all the help he’s offered me and feel some guilt that for someone who seems to strongly appreciate doing nothing, he sure does a lot of something. Several times back in town, he’s found me at my little house chopping up the plant samples we’ve collected and volunteers to help. He seems happy to have something to do. When we’re down to the last one and I tell him I’ll chop it, he always insists.

WILD HAPPY 201 I enter more data and when I ask him if he wants to stay on the Island forever, I’m surprised when he says no. “You can’t save money. There are too many mangis without jobs wanting to go buy buai, smokes, and, if you have lots of money, beer.” “What will you do?” “I want to be a welder,” he replies without any thought. “It is hard to get that work, though. I want to go to Moresby or Lae or Madang [the big cities of PNG] to find work.” It’s one the few times he’s ever seemed to have any interest in money. “Have you tried to get a job in the cities before?” “No.” “Why not?” “The companies, they want a list of all the jobs I have and school I have and all this that I don’t have in a list.” “It sounds like they want a resume. We do the same thing for jobs in the US. If you want, I could help you.” I gesture to the computer. “No. You have big work to do.” “This?” I tease. “This isn’t important. Here, look…” We spend the next hour drafting a nice fancy resume together, listing all of his past jobs and schooling. We use the post office box Joseph uses as his address, because I doubt anyone would take an applicant seriously if they put “The Fence” as their address. I even put a section at the bottom for references with Joseph’s name and title as deputy governor and mine with my address in Chicago and my email. When we return to town, I’ll print several out for him to send to welding companies in the cities on the mainland. He’s excited and I’m thrilled I can finally do something for him.

202 Ryan Casseau As the day rolls on, our conversation weaves in and out of all sorts of topics. In one of the heavier moments, we get talking about Pahuk’s childhood, which brings up his mother. He had barely said anything about her when she died. Well, other than she was considered paiariz. Now it seems he is interested in sharing more. Pahuk mentions that his mom abandoned his family when he was little to run away with another man. He claims she’s had over thirty husbands, but there’s no way to tell if this is just hyperbole. On the Island, it’s very rare for a wife to leave her husband. Men don’t leave their wives either, but when they are unhappy with their wife, they simply get another. Polygamy is acceptable, divorce isn’t. To think that Pahuk’s mom had left her husband with four children, all at a young age, and gone to different villages, marrying dozens of other men… that was beyond unacceptable in Pahuk’s eyes, not to mention that it had left him to grow up without a mother. When Pahuk was seventeen, she returned, apologetic and looking for a second chance. He recalls being pulled out of high school one day, as is often the case on the Island. They took a boat from school to his village with little explanation until they arrived. The teacher who was taking him was also a distant relative and explained to Pahuk that his mother had returned. When they got to his family’s home, they made him sit down next to a strange woman who he was told was his mother. He sat silently until finally his father prompted him to say something, again stressing, “It’s your mother!” Pahuk looked at the woman and said simply, “I don’t know you and I don’t want you to live here.” Then without waiting for a reply, he returned to the small boat and sat silently looking out over the sea until his teacher would take him back to the school. His father asked the children whether or not they wanted her to stay, declaring that it was up to them if she would rejoin the family and life with them. Pahuk made it clear he thought they should send the stranger away but couldn’t persuade his siblings. He was mad at his sister and brothers for letting her come back, but he was seventeen, so “he had his own life to think about.” His mother stayed, but Pahuk never WILD HAPPY

203 changed his mind. He never talked to her, never forgave her, and rarely visited the village. After high school, he went to a vocational school in town to learn welding and never lived at home again. By the time I went with him to his sister’s house, more than a decade later, little had changed. He utters the story with indifference, barely looking up from his doodling. Later, as I think the evening is winding down the day, there is a commotion across the village. A pickup truck tearing through the high school skids to a stop in front of Bernard’s house where the three of us are eating. “Cuscus!” Pahuk’s and Bernard’s eyes widen. “Come on!” they yell to me. I hop in the back of the truck with no idea what’s happening. At the far end of the village, the truck stops, and I chase after Bernard, Pahuk, and the driver as they bound out and run down a logging road into the dark. I can see light somewhere ahead of us, but the jungle is dense and it’s impossible to tell how far away it is. Eventually, we reach a group of villagers by an old Jeep whose headlights are the source of the light I’d seen. They chatter in Tok Pisin so fast that I can only pick up specific words. But I follow the light from their flashlight into the trees. The beam swings from one place to another high up in the trees. I’m lost until I’m startled at the sight of a boy high up in the canopy. He’s half hanging, half gesturing with his spare hand, pointing to what looks like a brown furball in the tree nearby. Pahuk dashes off to another tree on the opposite side and zips up the tree as quickly as if he was running on the ground. The flashlight swirls through the treetops and I notice two other boys high up in the trees. “What are they?” I ask Bernard. “Cuscus.” Hmm, I’ve heard that word before, but can’t place it.

204 Ryan Casseau “Monkeys?” I try to clarify. “No, uglier. Dumber,” he replies. “Are they trying catch them?” “Yesss,” he answers with a big grin. “They’re very good to eat.” Eat! Oh god. The dreaded penis meal! That’s when I heard the word cuscus. I look up to the canopy with a sudden urgency to see what animal’s genitalia I was served, but all I see are men in trees. I shake my head in disbelief. I’ve seen people act similarly. One time when huge flying foxes, bats the size of house cats, were circling a couple trees in Pahuk’s village. Several villagers were practically drooling over them and ran toward them. I asked what they were going to do and they said, “Shoot them.” I hadn’t seen anyone on the Island with any type of firearm, so I was suspicious. When we got closer, they all grabbed large branches and attempted to chuck them into the sky to hit the radar-driven bats. It was futile and eventually the bats flew away, probably without even realizing that they were being hunted. It feels the same now. I spent plenty of afternoons as a kid with my brother in the woods trying to catch squirrels or rabbits or frogs with little hope of success other than with the frogs. Grabbing an ugly dumb monkey out of the treetops sounds even more impossible. It’s pandemonium in the jungle. I can’t imagine an animal still being anywhere nearby. Suddenly, with a dense clang, a black blur crashes into the hood of the Jeep. I jump back as flashlights spin toward the sound. The cuscus, dazed and slow, rolls to its feet and hisses in our direction. I can’t believe it until the light hits the animal’s face and I see what they

are. Certainly not monkeys. They’re a sort of jungle possum. Possums, one of the dumbest species of animal on the planet. Possums that, at least in the US, are known for playing possum, another way of saying they play dead. Maybe that’s what they’re doing in the trees, playing dead, waiting for the crazy climbers to WILD HAPPY 205 grab their tails and launch them at the hard ground. The cruelty to the animals is insane and I struggle to stand by. I debate just getting out of there, but it’s like watching a car accident. I honestly doubt I could even find my way back to the teacher cabin if I wanted to. I have to remind myself that this is normal to them and this is their foreign, foreign world. Another clang. Are they aiming for the Jeep?! They are. They want them to either die on impact or be knocked out enough to be grabbed. One of the men slips in the tree, and there’s an “oooh” as if it’s a tightrope act. He catches grip of the tree at the last second, saving him from plunging to his death. Men are hooting and hollering. Cuscus hissing. Jeeps clanging. It’s feral insanity. When the third clang hits the Jeep and the flashlight spins toward it, a second tiny head appears out of the mother’s belly. Possums are marsupials and this one has a baby. “Will they let it go?” I ask Bernard, trying to mask my hysteria. “Why?” “Because it has a baby!” I practically shout. The man who grabbed the mother by the back of the neck stuffs the cigarette into his mouth and uses his second hand to pull the baby out. It’s looks healthy, juvenile but not infantile. Completely clueless of its seconds of life remaining.

“Wait!” I yell in Tok Pisin. I dash forward and gesture to the baby with two open hands and the world freezes in an instant. A dozen pairs of eyes bear into me in a sea of confusion. Several notice me for the first time in a wave of addled pause. The man with the cigarette hesitantly places the baby cuscus into my hands. It’s barely bigger than the palm of my hand. “What are you going to do?” Bernard asks. “It’s just going to die.” I don’t actually know. There wasn’t really a plan, I just couldn’t watch the harmless little thing get killed. 206 Ryan Casseau I look around the clearing, and opposite the Jeep is a little girl who’s been watching the hunt with her mother. I walk up and kneel down. It’s not perfect but I attempt to say to her in my best Tok Pisin, “You have to take care of him now.” I have no idea how she or her mom will react but being so caught off guard with the white foreigner speaking Tok Pisin, she gives her mom a skeptical look. Her mom smiles and then the girl smiles wide and lets me place the baby in her hands. The mother was the last cuscus. It’s given the mangis time to climb down and I realize when I stand up that everyone is in a circle staring at me handing the baby cuscus to the girl. Just when I think someone is about to say something or challenge what just happened, they all start heading back to the village. A couple of them hop in the Jeep. They’ll back it out once the path is clear as there’s not enough room to turn around. The night is, thankfully, over. We wake sometime just after dawn from a hearty knock on the door. It’s Bernard with breakfast. How nice! Two huge bowls of sago, each with a gnarly, scrawny, furry leg of cuscus. Its little claw is clenched in a mini fist in my bowl. It’s better than being offered the penis, but not much. He gives his best wide, buai-stained smile. “The truck will be here in an hour,” he replies before leaving us to our prize from the horrendous evening the night before. The roads have mostly

dried out and the plan is to get to Ndrehet village on the northwest coast today. I try to stall breakfast. The sun is barely up and it’s too early to deal with this. I’m not a jump out of bed early and have breakfast kinda guy anyway. I get dressed and prep my stuff. I want it to take a half hour, but it takes four minutes. Pahuk is already outside with his bowl, scarfing away. His morning routine consists of peeing by a tree outside. I take the other seat on the porch, the same one I sat in on that rainy night two days ago. I’m doing my best to try and get psyched for the meal, but something else is bothering me WILD HAPPY 207 besides the gruesome look of it. It’s the smell. Greasy and gamey. It makes my stomach curl into a fetal position. Can’t I just have a cup of coffee? After staring at it for a couple minutes, I pick the thing up. I bite into the thickest part of its bicep, hoping it’s like a chicken drumstick once I get through the lingering fur. Hoping I don’t vomit. It’s tough and greasy. I have to bite and pull and yank tiny rubbery bits of flesh off the bones to get anything worth eating. I’ve got an entire limb in my bowl. Based on anatomy, it’s the little creature’s front right arm. And there’s simply nothing to eat. It’s bones and skin and fur and tendons. Meanwhile, Pahuk is crunching on bones, sucking out juices, and indulging in his Island delicacy, proud of his primal mastication. He’s got the left arm. He’s loving it. I catch him glancing at me and sneaking a smile at how I’m struggling. He’s teasing me. He hasn’t forgotten the hot sauce incident. “This is great, huh?” I’m facetious and he’s finally starting to get my sarcasm. He replies with a grisly smile with his mouth full. I’ve been totally cool with all the other craziness we’ve eaten, bony scaly fish, mud crabs, coconut crabs, sea turtle, chunks of pig with fur and organs. It’s all been workable. But this is pushing me to my limits. When he looks the other way, I chuck a section into jungle behind us. Then I grab a handful of sago and walk away with an excuse of something

I forgot in the cabin, hoping I don’t have to face cuscus ever again. I only have to wait a couple minutes before Bernard returns. What’s left of the cuscus leg is left in the bowl on the table. I hope someone or something gets to it before we get back. We’re met in the center of town by our driver and our… truck? I hesitate to call it a truck. It was once a truck, decades ago. A Toyota Land Cruiser, from… whatever year they first started making Land Cruisers. Now it’s a skeleton of a truck. Most of the body panels are gone, leaving the frame of the vehicle. The dashboard is a honeycomb of empty slots where a real truck has things like dials and gauges. The same goes for the center console. The windshield 208 Ryan Casseau is intact but shattered in front of the passenger seat in a web of cracks that look like they came from when someone’s head hit it, or maybe a cuscus falling from the sky. There’s one headlight. One windshield wiper. No doors. No windows. No tailgate. I can’t fathom that it actually runs. “This is Angra,” Bernard begins. “He’ll take us to Ndrehet. He knows the logging roads.” “Gut moning,” I reply distractedly, unable to process the vehicle. “You have the money for the beer?” Bernard asks. “Hmm?” I need to look away from the truck. “Oh, yes. We’re all set. Who all is going?” We’ve collected a bit of an audience. Bernard shrugs. “All of us?” I shrug indifferently. “Sure.” Bernard, Pahuk, and three other guys hop in the back of the truck as Angra offers me the passenger seat, right in front of the shattered windshield. I’m the honored guest. On the third try, the truck starts up and Angra gives me a big smile to show off the three teeth he has left. I suddenly feel like I’ve arrived in the Appalachia of the Island. As we lurch into gear, the truck fishtails slightly

on the slippery clay. Did I mention the tires were bald? We head into the bush on the logging road where we attacked the cuscus the night before. The next two hours are a blur of anxiety as the truck skids and glides through the jungle. At times, the road opens to the coast where I realize we’ve picked up fifty or so feet in altitude. The road swings uncomfortably close to the cliff side, including a homemade bridge of tree trunks and boards to cross a small chasm. The wheels spin and catch and we skid right across. I try to distract myself from the serpentine mud slide we’re calling a road, but when I take my eyes off the road, my focus is stuck on the innards of our mechanical relic. A light drizzle is swept inside with the wind. Water drips from exposed wires underneath the steering wheel. It’s a moment when I’m stuck contemplating how the hell WILD HAPPY 209 this is actually real, like retelling a dream, only to realize how absurd it sounds once you hear it aloud. When going over a huge series of ruts in the road, I ask Angra if the truck ever tips over. He tells me no but then follows up that he’ll tell me when to jump out. He’s not being sarcastic. Somewhere around halfway into our drive, we reach a logging camp that’s empty for some reason. It’s an expanse of bare, lifeless red clay surrounded on all sides by jungle. Dead trees and scattered logs are strewn about. In the middle of the clearing is a gas pump. A single odd gas pump sticking out of the ground, looking as out of place as if we had come across a McDonald’s. We pull up and the boys hop out to fill ’er up, all the while chain smoking cigarettes. I find humor in the fact that since the muddy roads haven’t killed us, I’ll soon die in a giant fiery explosion. Finally, we arrive in Ndrehet. Being on the coast and near the logging operations, it’s a more built-up village, including a wooden church and a small store. Bernard signals to me that this is the place where I’m to buy the beer, which is my payment to Angra and the gang for their help today. No need to pay for gas, we stole that from the logging camp. I buy two twelve-packs of SP Lager. No fancy tin can beer here. It costs me less than ten bucks, so it seems it’s a good deal. Meanwhile, Pahuk has talked to

some of the villagers and we’re good to proceed with the interviews. What a great partner! As I’m handing the beer over to Angra, an older villager makes an announcement on behalf of “the committee of Ndrehet” that they wish to welcome me and my important study of their village. I’m flattered. It seems they are too. The committee has identified the two people I am to speak with. The first is an older man who recognizes a lot of the plants and gives some indication of ones they use for different ailments. The second interview is with a woman the village is convinced is a witch and knows dark magic. Her interview is more entertaining than productive. A number of times she points at a tree and says, “That one is a powerful medicine but not yet.” 210 Ryan Casseau “Not yet?” I turn to Pahuk the first time it happens, to clarify that my Tok Pisin is correct. He shrugs and nods, not wanting to interrupt the witch’s flow. “What does not yet mean?” I ask to clarify. She’s impatient with me, as if I’m the fool for not understanding. “It is big medicine. But we don’t know what for yet.” Ah, right. Silly me. I’m feeling good after the interviews. I have lots of information. And I’m intrigued to test the plants the witch has shown me in the lab when I get back to Chicago. What a fun story that will be to write up in my dissertation if she’s right! When Pahuk and I return to the boys with the truck, I’m stopped in my tracks. Of the two twelve-packs, the twenty-four beers, only two remain.

Bernard, Angra, and the three mangis are having a great time. They’re laughing and loud and stumbly. They’re wasted. And most of all is Angra. His eyes are barely open, and the left side of his face looks like it’s melted. I’m speechless. It takes me a full minute of shock before I pull Pahuk aside and attempt stay calm while asking him, “What the hell is this? What the hell are we going to do?” He cocks his head in confusion. “They’re wasted. How is he going to drive us back?” Nothing. No reaction. It’s like I’m speaking a different language. Is this thing on? “We didn’t bring anything to spend the night here,” I continue. “No. We’re not staying,” Pahuk notes as if I’ve simply forgotten the plan. “We go back.” “How?” I press. “Angra is way too drunk to drive us back.” Pahuk looks to Angra, then looks back to me. His head cocks to the side in confusion. Geezus. WILD HAPPY 211 I pace. Pahuk is no help. I feel like it was a miracle we arrived here without dying and that was with Angra sober. Now… I look over again. Angra’s leaning against the truck carcass and I’m half expecting his feet to slide out from under him. Pahuk couldn’t be less bothered. He clearly thinks the conversation is over and hurries over to grab the last remaining beer before it’s taken. Shit. I walk away. I need to breathe, to find a solution. Maybe I could drive the truck? I know how to drive a stick. But the driver’s seat is on the right, and

the slippery roads, and the fact that this is no normal functioning truck to drive, and it would probably involve me fighting with them to let me drive… and, and, and, and… FUCK! After a little bit, Bernard comes over. “Hey’re you OK? We need t’ get goin’,” he slurs. “You red da go?” I laugh. “Pahuk said yer ’pset. Wha’s wrong?” “Angra can’t drive us back.” It’s a repeat of Pahuk ten minutes earlier. He glances over to Angra then back to me. “Whaddya mean?” It’s too much. I’m spiraling. There’s no way out of this. And yet, I’m arguing with a new small voice in the back of my head saying, Pshh, it’ll be fine, things happen as they happen. Months of foreign confusion and missteps and frustration crackles in thunderous discharges in the depths of my mind until something inside me breaks. The world breaks open. A psychotic break, I think, is what it’s called. I dart past Bernard and into the little store. By the time I’m out the door, I’ve nearly chugged the entire first beer. With my hands so close to my face, I can still smell the nasty reek of cuscus on my hands and almost gag. They’re shaking. I don’t want them to be. I throw the bottle onto the ground. I hand a beer to Pahuk since he only got one. I’m holding one more, for which the boys all cheer and plead to receive. I furrow my brow. 212 Ryan Casseau Yeah, right. I pop the last bottle open and chug it down, refusing to lower it until its entire contents are in my belly. I toss the empty bottle over my shoulder. “OK, let’s go.” I don’t remember much about the drive back, but I guess Angra did fine.

Chalk it up to traumatic repression and intoxication. Anger and fear and beer swirling in the cauldron. It didn’t help that the only thing I’d eaten that day was a handful of sago and half an arm of cuscus. I’m so emotionally exhausted when we get back that I just want to get away from everyone. I’m lost and angry. We got home fine, but I’m not in the mood to acknowledge it. I feel like being on the Island is pointless and dangerous. But just as it’s all feeling hopeless, I see something that makes me take pause. The girl from last night. The little village girl who was in the bush last night during all the craziness. The one I broke the night to approach. She’s walking through the village. On her shoulder, with its tail tucked into the girl’s armpit, is the baby cuscus. She’s smiling and showing it off to some other kids. It seems totally comfortable riding her shoulder. I realize I’m smiling. Suddenly, everything’s OK. Everything’s going to be OK. CHAPTER TWELVE For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~ Other than the life-risking perils on the drive home, the rest of my time on the west coast flies by with great success. After we return, we focus on nearby villages that are easy to get to (aka walking distance). After the Ndrehet drive, I realize I need to dial back my expectations. There are three nearby and we spend each of the following days going to a different one for interviews. With such success, I feel like I’m pushing my luck. Plus, Pahuk is clearly homesick. It’s time to head back to town. I’m overjoyed when Captain Kipo steers the boat to the shoreline and we see the sandy beach harbor of the town.

Quick farewells send us on our way and Pahuk is kind enough to help me walk my stuff back to my house. “Oh no! What happened?” I run to my plants, which are floating in their green net bags in a giant muddy puddle outside my house. 214 Ryan Casseau The puddle is large enough I can’t reach the middle of it. I begin to fish one out, holding it in the air so the water can stream out. They’re soaked. All of them. In order to get the ones in the middle, I have to wade through the puddle. My bare feet slip on the gravel. I toss them aside after trying to let as much water drain off as I can. They land alongside the dirt road, waterlogged corpses of our effort. “How could this happen?” Pahuk shrugs. “Probably pikininis.” “Oh, so this was funny? They did this for fun?” Pahuk shrugs again. “Pikininis are pikininis. They do dumb things.” “I needed all of these to be dry by the time we returned because I need these same bags to start drying other specimens.” Pahuk puts down the plant press he’s carried from town for me. He shrugs one more time and then turns to walk away as a reminder that this is my problem, not his. I move to the grass and turn the bags over, evaluating how bad the problem is. At least it’s sunny today. I head inside the house and drop my backpack. I was happy to be home, now I’m not sure. We’ve just had several great days and I hate that this is ruining my mood. I take the next hour to wash my clothes and organize my things and at the end of it I can’t help but sit down with my little notebook to jot down notes and do some math to try to figure out how this is all going to work. The interviews have gone well, notwithstanding the ones in

Ndrehet with the scary truck ride home. Now I’m starting to realize that what will keep me on the Island longer than I’d like is drying these plants. They have to be completely dry or it’ll cost a fortune to ship them to the US, where they’ll get rejected for having mold. Basically, the whole project falls apart. Kids throwing the plant material into puddles was not calculated into my equation. I look outside and again take note of my fifteen green net bags that we’ve just fished WILD HAPPY 215 out of a temporary pond. This isn’t good. Now I’m afraid I may have to be here an extra month just waiting for plants to dry. I decide that what will make me feel better is to go up to the Shell station and try to check email. It’s always wonderful to hear from people back home and so I hope that will cheer me up. The town is its normal bustle of life and activity on the Island. I’ve missed it as its busyness has become something of a familiar sight and feeling. I swing by and exchange a couple coins for another coconut sago Rice Krispies treat thing and munch on it as I saunter past the market to the Shell station. I know not to get my hopes up because there’s typically only a twenty-five-percent chance that the Internet is working. But with my sago treat, the nice weather, and the walk, I’m already feeling a little bit better. I’m in luck. Internet is working, so I pamper myself with an hour of reflection and nostalgia for home as I send my prewritten emails. I’m not sure how it happened, but things are going great! When I went to the south coast, I went for seven days and talked to nine people in three different villages. Now, in just the last three days, I’ve been to three different villages and talked to seven people. It’s amazing. I walk or get a boat to a village, and word has spread of my project. When one is finished, the villagers are very excited and have collectively chosen someone to go next. It’s crazy! I’m getting lots of work done and not having to feel like I’m pushing a boulder up a mountain. I only have three interviews left to get my goal of forty. I’m really happy about things. Everyone is great, both to work with and to

hang out with. Pahuk is the man. He’s so good now at helping me with the interviews. It’s funny that when people ask where I’m from, he says Kambos village, which is where Joseph is from and they say I come from there too. Pahuk’s becoming more of a people person and sees when people I’m interviewing are having trouble (sometimes they barely speak Tok Pisin since they always use their Tok Ples, village language). He’s really good with people. The hardest part of my day is trying to stay 216 Ryan Casseau awake when I’m listening to an old man, a lapan, go through 105 plants in my book, thinking on each one for about three to four long minutes before saying, “Nope, I don’t recognize this one.” Email replies have faded from many in my big email group by now. I get it, people are living their own lives. It’s hard to relate to a guy running around in the jungles of Papua New Guinea when you’re working in a cubicle. Thankfully, Lisa is always there. She’s the only one who writes to me without it strictly being in reply to one of my emails. As if you’re only allowed to send emails back and forth by taking turns, and even though I often send a series of emails at the same time that I’ve prewritten on multiple occasions in the time since I was last in town and with email access. As I’m wrapping up, I notice an email from Modi, the professor at the university in Port Moresby. There’s no indication the email is of any particular importance. No capital text in the subject or the message being tagged important. So, when I open the message up, I’m surprised when he tells me plainly that they forgot to file the paperwork in the capital for my visa. When I first arrived in Moresby, I had come on a tourist visa based on the advice of the professor. The plan, since the tourist visa only lasts sixty days, was that they would take care of filing an extension and then transfer my tourist visa to a study/student visa. I had to trust them because I was a long way from the capital on my little island. And despite me sending them reminders and asking of the status every time I got on email, they had apparently just followed up now, months after I passed my sixty-day

deadline. So this email was to calmly report back to me that I’m now living in the country illegally and that I should probably avoid any PNG defense force agents in case they ask me for my passport. Which they might, just to give me a hard time. It seems the phenomenon of law enforcement occasionally enjoying its power too much is consistent no matter where you are in the world. It seemed so simple to him; it seems crazy to me. WILD HAPPY 217 I leave the Shell station shell-shocked. My mind begins to envision what would happen if I was a caught in this country without a proper visa. A PNG prison cell was not on my list of experiences I was hoping to have while doing fieldwork. The worst part is that the professor hadn’t given me any instructions of what to do to solve this problem. I emailed him back hoping that we could find a time to talk on the phone but knew that would involve a lot of timing and logistics that aren’t exactly his strong suits. If we tried to figure it out over email, I fear it could take a month just for me to get clear information. I ask Joseph to use the Shell phone, a request saved only for emergencies because it’s so expensive and unreliable. He agrees and the phone lines are miraculously cooperative, but there’s no answer at the professor’s line. I leave a message, hoping to strike a tone of productive urgency, but only accomplish a panic-laden ramble. “Hi, Modi, this is Ryan. I got your email… about the visa. Uh… um… so what am I supposed to do now? What happened? We had months to get this done. What is the status now? Did you submit the paperwork and it’s just taking longer than expected? We need to talk. I don’t know what to do. Can we find a time to talk? I just… I’m not sure what I… anyway, we need to find a time to talk about this. Lukim yu.”

I’m at their mercy knowing there’s little I can do on the Island. I don’t trust sending my passport in the PNG post to Port Moresby. God knows if I would ever see it again if I did that. And I don’t want to fly back to Moresby to figure it out. For one, the work isn’t done. But secondly, won’t they need to check my passport to fly to the mainland? It’s the only ID I have in PNG. Would they see that my visa was expired? Would they let me on the plane? Would they let me on but put me into custody as soon as we landed back on the mainland? Or would I have to wait on the Island until all the paperwork cleared? How long would that take? My stomach turns and I suddenly feel nauseous. 218 Ryan Casseau I guess I just have to avoid the cops for the next however long it takes while getting the plants to dry as soon as possible. And then figure out a way to get back to Moresby. This is not the calming effect I was hoping to get from checking email. I stumble out of the Shell station trying to figure out what to do next but I’m really not sure. As if waiting for me like a guardian angel, the Lapan is sitting on a large rock just outside the office. He’s peeling a banana and stands to look at me. “Apinun, Tetae,” he calls out. I return his smile. “Hello, Lapan.” “You don’t seem so happy today,” the Lapan says. I let out a half laugh. “I’m in trouble. I’m way behind with my plants drying and now my visa has expired.” “That is bad news.”

I begin walking back toward my little house. He offers me the banana he’s just peeled but I wave it away. “I’m afraid I might get stuck here,” I begin. “Hopefully not in a prison cell…” I finish in a mumble to myself. “Stuck here?” the Lapan asks. “Yeah. Not be able to leave.” Before I get into a full rant, I stop myself. I don’t feel like getting into it with the Lapan. “I’m frustrated and don’t know what to do.” “Things here happen as they happen.” “Yes. I thought I had learned that. But PNG keeps pushing me. Don’t worry about it,” I finally say. “I’ll figure it out. I just have no idea how at this point.” “That is good. You will figure it out.” I laugh. It’s always so simple with the Lapan. We walk through the town side by side without talking to each other. I’m a little surprised that several people wave to me and nod WILD HAPPY 219 to me in recognition, but no one waves or acknowledges the Lapan. I would have expected him to be a rather popular figure. Twenty minutes later, we’re past the market and the main part of the town. We’re about to turn down the dirt road toward my little house, but my mind has become distracted with the Lapan’s presence. There are no good solutions to my plants and visa problems, and I’m tired of thinking about it. Now all I can think about is our last conversation and where Lapan and I left off. I’m enjoying the walk too much, so we continue straight down the road. There’s no discussion of our detour, yet

the Lapan continues to walk with me like a shadow. There’s nothing in this direction for miles. “Is there another tier in your hierarchy, Lapan?” I ask. “Oh yes,” he replies. We walk in silence until I can’t handle it. “Sooo, can you tell me about it?” “Not right now. Don’t let it worry you.” “Ah, a little secret, huh,” I tease. “Well, perhaps someday I’ll be worthy.” He’s not laughing. His face is stern. I hope I haven’t offended him. “I do wish to learn more,” I reply, trying to save the situation. He nods but doesn’t begin to speak. Work and my Delusion of Greatness are driving me crazy at the moment, so I dive into the Lapan’s theory. “Is there more to being Wantok?” I ask. “I feel like I’ve done everything I can to embrace the Island ways. And yet, I find myself stuck again. I’ve opened myself up and embraced the people and their ways. I’ve chosen to love the Island. I have many great friends and family here now. And I have learned to love myself and accept who I am. What am I missing?” “There is more. Many can learn to go through life loving in this way, but they still may miss what is important. Most important is that we must be open to learn of love.” 220 Ryan Casseau “Learn of love?” I’m surprised at this even though I had a feeling there would be more to his Chautauqua. “There are lessons that come from our love. So we may understand love. And it is this understanding that provides the love that leads to happiness and contentment.”

“Can you tell me what these lessons are?” “It is that love changes.” “How does it change?” “True happiness comes from an evolution of love. To be Wantok is to let love evolve in this way.” “What do you mean?” “When you are a pikinini, your love with your parents and your family is very selfish. It is expected. You are pikinini. Pikininis need much help. They need to learn what love is. And the love they need to learn about is that of feeling loved. So, the actions of love when you are a pikinini are very selfish. You take the love from your parents. And they give it freely. They are teaching you how important it is to feel loved, to take love up like a sponge takes up water. You give love to your parents too, but it is different. It is a pikinini love and they are drips of water in return for the seas which are poured onto you.” “I love my parents, but I see what you mean. For all they have done for me, I suppose I have done very little in regard to returning that level of love. It is the same here on the Island when I consider the Litau family and how much they have done for me and how little I have done for them.” I look to the ground and kick a stone out of the path. As if sensing my guilt, the Lapan replies, “This is not something to be upset by. This is Wantok. This is the way it should be between a parent and a child. But sometimes we don’t learn that it is a special love, only for pikininis and their parents. We must learn this from other love.” “You’re talking about the hierarchy from before?” WILD HAPPY 221 “Yes. Just as in the preparing the sago, it is different at each step. This is how we grow.”

“I can certainly see how friendship is different from the relationship you have with your parents. The relationship you have with your parents, if things are ideal, is unconditional. You are their child and they will love you no matter what or at least that’s how it should be. But with friends, it’s different. They don’t have any obligation to you. With friends, if you do something wrong, they can leave. Friendships break. It happens all the time.” The Lapan smiles. “Yes. You understand. You must make the love of friendship. It will not be given freely.” We walk for a couple minutes in silence as my brain kicks around the idea of friendship and the “love” I have for my friends. Friendships are complicated. They can be so powerful just like that of love from a parent. They can also be very frustrating or disappointing. “The next step you said was the love of oneself. This is the ultimate selfishness?” The Lapan walks without answering for nearly a minute, but I’ve become comfortable with his long pauses. “This is where we learn the most about selfishness and how it relates to love. And how love can change.” I nod, waiting for more. “Before you spoke of an authentic life.” “Yes.” “To have an authentic life you must experience authentic love. This means finding balance between taking love and offering love. It is the balance between selfish love and selfless love. That is what one must find to love oneself.” “Hmm.” “Selfish love is not always bad. Selfish love can be good. But we must

balance it. For example, I love to fish so it would seem selfish 222 Ryan Casseau if I chose to go fishing all the time just because that is what I want to do. But when I go fishing, I catch fish and I share them with my family. If I go fishing and catch more fish than my family can eat, I share them with my neighbors and friends. This is good. But it can still be bad if I am selfish. If I never spend time with my children because I’m always fishing, this is not good. But if I take my children with me and teach them to fish, we catch more fish and have much good time together. My selfishness has given me so many ways to be happy and it is a lovely day.” I try to think of a more relevant example that would apply to my life back home in the US, but I’m struggling. “Love is an action. Love is not simply to be loved, to have love happen to us. When we learn to love oneself, we learn to tap love from the source. Then we can see how happiness comes more from offering our love, giving our love, than from receiving it.” The trees along the road, in this area beyond the life of the town, are huge. They canopy the road entirely, forming a shadowy tunnel that’s easily ten degrees cooler than walking in the sun. Our pace has become slow and steady, and I’m enjoying the walk immensely. The Lapan continues. “Imagine a bucket of water. The water is our love, the love we feel and the love we share. When we are pikininis, the bucket is filled by the love of our parents. Hopefully, the bucket becomes very full. As we grow, we offer little cups of water to others to become friends. And they, in turn, offer little cups of water to us. However, we are learning to make friends. It is new. Some friends will not offer much water back to us. Sometimes we will not offer enough water to them. Friendships fall apart. But it is safe because the bucket remains full from the water of our parents. As we grow older, we begin to see life as it is, the hardships, the

challenges, the dangers, the things that we did not notice when we were a little pikinini. And these things make small holes in the bucket. Now, even though our parents continue to fill the bucket with water, it continues to leak out. We get better at making friends. At understanding friendship. WILD HAPPY 223 And by giving small cups away, they turn into big cups in return. This helps, but at some point, we must figure out how to fill the bucket with water of our own. This is the love of oneself. We must accept who we are. We must love who we are. It is an authentic love, as you would say. In this way, it is like there is a rain cloud over the bucket. From the cloud, the water of the rain continues to fall and fill the bucket. As this love of oneself grows, the drops grow. The holes in the bottom of the bucket seem smaller because there is always plenty of rainwater to keep it full.” I appreciate the analogy, but I’m not convinced. “But you can’t just sit back with a full bucket of love and be happy. There’s much more to it than that.” He smiles in reply to my protest. “Yes, of course. The world is always changing. The bucket is always changing. There are new holes, bigger holes. Some holes are repaired. And the flow of water is always changing as well. Friendships change, relationships with parents change, our relationship with oneself changes. We are growing and changing. Sometimes there is much water, others there is not so much. “But that is not all. Our nature is not to be alone. It calls to us like the rokroks in the night. Beckons us to companions. If we have love of oneself and the bucket is full, we have much love to give. Our bucket is full. We are free to give this love to others. Our relationships grow, friendships become deeper, more selfless, because we are not afraid of sharing the water. And so, beginning with small cups but then becoming bigger and bigger, we can offer the love to others and share it with them without fear that the bucket will empty. This is authentic love. The love of happiness. The Wantok knows of this.”

“You make it sound so simple,” I comment, looking to the treetops over the road where the sun pierces through like stars in the night. “So many make it hard, but it is easy.” 224 Ryan Casseau “Well, except how do we learn to love ourselves? How do we come to accept ourselves and find our rain cloud, as you say? That sounds hard.” “And yet you are here.” I laugh. “So, everyone should travel around the world and live amongst the villagers of the Island to find the secret?” He smiles wide. “It is not a secret. It is the Wantok. The language spoken by all. The language that can be heard by all. Everyone has their own Island to teach them such things if they seek to learn them.” His words resonate. At that moment, I think of friends who are each on their own journeys. After college, when we set off into the world, we headed in so many directions. I could see how we each chose different paths, but with the same goal of building happiness and contentment, whether we realized it or not. The only difference was our understanding of the path to get there. “You think this is why so many people from where I live get divorced? They didn’t listen to the Wantok? They tried skipping ahead?” I ask, making the jump. He nods. “We must be strong enough and fill the bucket without love of a companion first, before we are ready for what is required. The love of a companion is a love of giving.” The Lapan stops and speaks with a sudden melancholy. “Few find this. They seek the love of a companion without understanding love. Without listening to the Wantok. They seek it from their fears of not being loved. Their fears of being alone. They mistake aloneness for loneliness, because they have not learned to love themselves as they are. One may embrace aloneness without the

shadow of loneliness once they have fulfilled the first three levels. If the bucket is not full through love of family, friends, and oneself, love of a companion will only make it worse.” “How can falling in lo—” I catch myself before I misspeak. “How can finding one person to love as a companion make it worse?” “Some hope their companion will fill their bucket. They hope to rely on a companion to fill the bucket for them. They think WILD HAPPY 225 this will make them feel whole. They are selfish. They offer small cups of water and hope for them to return in large cups. But this is backwards. Love of one does not help fill the bucket. The love of a companion is a love of giving. The Wantok will have seen that love must shift from selfish love to selfless love for the love of a companion to be true. If they learn to love oneself, they accept themselves. The rain cloud will fill the bucket. We fill our own bucket.” “Is it always the rain cloud that fills the bucket? What about the love we feel, we receive, when we find true love?” The Lapan halts. With little animation beyond the gentle swing of his arms so far, it startles me when he suddenly outstretches his arms to the sky. Flecks of sunlight dapple his skin like he’s in a cloud of fireflies. His eyes shut and his smile spreads wide across his face. “In a true love, we share our love in big overflowing cups.” Frozen in his enthusiastic pose, his eyes peek open and shift to me. He knows he’s putting on a spectacle. And I laugh aloud. “You’re a passionate guy,” I titter. “We all need something to believe in,” he answers simply. His arms drop to his sides and we resume our walk. “So true love is dumping cups of water over the other person’s head. Got it!” I tease as we head deeper into our jungle tunnel.

“This is the magic of love. The larger the cup we offer to someone else, the more water rains down from the cloud. Of course, we hope the water is returned from our love in big overflowing cups. And if it doesn’t, it is not true. It is the promise that is made between companions, to offer each other big overflowing cups, without concern. If this is the love that is needed to fill the bucket, it will not last. It is the rain cloud that keeps us strong and happy, just as it does with the plants and the trees. This is what has to be learned in the love of oneself. This is the challenge. Those who do not listen, do not understand that true happiness comes from the change in how we love. Pikininis are fixed on how they are loved. They are pikininis. 226 Ryan Casseau But those who have grown must evolve to a love of giving, not of receiving. If we choose this stone to place on top of the pile, if we choose to love love, over success or money or power or achievements or status or selfishness, we can hear it. We become Wantok.” The Lapan’s arms fall to his side. That’s it. His grand point laid out in such simplicity. To love love. We continue to walk without anything left unexplained. It’s as if he might fade away, like a ghost who’s fulfilled his final task. His final wisdom imparted. All that needs to be said has been said. All except one thing. “I feel lucky to have met you,” I interject. The Lapan nods. “I am the lucky one, for you to have come to the Island and for you to see.” We walk in silence for several minutes, enjoying the shade and the breeze of our contemplative dream. A moment later, the roar of an engine interrupts us. We hear it nearly a full minute before we see the large black pickup truck zipping around the bend in the road. I recognize the Land Cruiser immediately. It’s Eddie, Joseph

Litau’s number two. It’s the second nicest truck on the Island, just behind Joseph’s own. It slows to a stop, and I see that Poto is with him. “Oy, what are you doing?” Eddie asks in Tok Pisin. “Taking a walk. Clearing my head,” I reply in Tok Pisin. “You want a ride back?” I nod. I’ve walked far enough. “Tenkyu tru!” I reply and swing myself into the back of the truck as we take off down the road. We zip through the tree-lined tunnel in reverse, sweeping away the wistful silence in a whoosh. It only takes a few minutes to pop into the sunshine, despite having walked so far and long. Who knows how long I would’ve walked? Lost in the moment, I may have wandered all night, but the blinding sun fetches me back to reality. CHAPTER THIRTEEN And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince ~ After my long walk with the Lapan, things seem different. I’m done fighting against the tides of unexpected challenges. I embrace the Island. I look at my time so far on the Island and start to see it differently. Perhaps altruistic motives are never as pure as we think they are. I had arrived with preconceived notions that I would somehow be able to help the poor primitive locals in their underdeveloped land. I thought I could help them see the jungle for what it was. As if I could help them see the value of their world. As if I could help the Islanders recognize the importance of the fleeting knowledge of their ancestors who had lived even more entwined and harmoniously with the natural world than they currently did. I thought I could document their knowledge and show them in a collective epiphany how magical their world was. But now I see it differently. Of course, I want to help. I want to find medicines

228 Ryan Casseau to rid the world of things like malaria and cancer. I want to help the Islanders in any way I can. But I can’t dismiss how much I’ve gained along the way and it makes me feel a selfishness I haven’t felt before. Idealism tends to have its blind spots. The Lapan has helped me see the truth. While I still hold hope that my plants and research can help the rest of the world, I see now that the people here don’t need my help. The Island doesn’t need me. Their ecosystem is balanced. Life is simple and well-understood. The jungle and the sea provide plenty for them, and they respect it. They take only what is needed. I had plunked our simplistic western vision of the world as a supplier of natural resources onto these people. They yearn for a healthy, happy life full of joy and love and peace. Sure, some move to cities and towns to earn money, but few feel the cursed sting of the Delusion of Greatness that we suffer with back home. Always striving. Always craving. Always unsatisfied. All while we dismiss the happiness in front of us. The epiphany of platitudes. We can choose only one thing to sit at the top of the pile, one thing that eclipses all else, to lead us to our ultimate happiness. And if that thing isn’t the people in our lives, isn’t love, then we will be forever lost. It is different now. I am different. The very next morning, I head to Joseph Litau’s house. He’s eating a breakfast of sago and smoked fish and is pleased by my unexpected visit. “Moning tru!” I greet him. “Moning tru.” Before he can offer me some food, I jump right into it. “Can I help you?” His face puckers in confusion. “What I mean is, you and Martha have done so much for me. Your kindness and generosity have been overwhelming. And I don’t know how much longer I will be here, but I am ashamed that I have

WILD HAPPY 229 not offered more in return. Is there anything I can do to help you or Martha or your family? Now or when I get back home.” He smiles in reply. “Anything,” I reiterate. “We are very happy that you’ve come to our little Island. We don’t get many visitors like you here. It is enough that you’ve shared some of your world with all of us here. We have all enjoyed having you.” I nod and take a seat at the table next to him. “Well, thanks. But are you sure? There’s nothing?” He laughs with his big baritone rumble of a laugh. “As you know, I am very fortunate. So I thank you, but there is nothing for me that I wish of you. However, there may be others that could use help on things. If you insist on feeling like you owe us something, which you do not, go to the town. Talk to Pahuk or the others. Perhaps there is something you can do for them.” “OK,” I concede. “There is Solok Solau, who lives in the yellow house by the school. Have you met him? I think you may be able to help him.” I’m thrilled with the potential opportunity. When you decide to help others, there’s a funny impatience to it. Selfishness dies hard apparently. “Thanks!” I rise to head into town, but he catches me. “But what of your visa? Did you figure anything out?” he asks, always the benevolent parent. “Nothing so far. I still haven’t been able to reach the professor by phone or email. I have no idea what I’m going to do. But I’ve decided to stop worrying about it.” “Good,” he says, and he turns back to his sago. “It is the land of the

unexpected, after all. Perhaps they will work it out.” “Perhaps,” I reply as I take off down the hill toward town. “Lukim yu!” The town is a flurry of activity as always, and yet it seems different today. I see the people, sitting around the market, selling 230 Ryan Casseau dried tobacco leaves and smoked fish, sago treats wrapped in banana leaves, and buai, bilum baskets, and chauka feathers. They talk with their friends and family and neighbors. They laugh and shout. They have so little and yet they are so happy. I haven’t seen a world of brutes. I’ve seen a world of kindness. At least here, in this back corner of PNG, the tribal wars and patterns of violence are gone. It seems I’ve stumbled into, possibly, the one place in the world where the people recognize that the grass isn’t greener somewhere else. They’ve embraced the life they have, unencumbered by the Delusion of Greatness, free to prioritize life around their relationships. It’s the same scene I’ve seen a hundred times, but today it looks different, the colors are brighter, the smiles are wider. The air seems richer, the smells more fragrant. Before my trip to the Island, I thought that if life was a movie, it must be an epic adventure story. But now I think I was wrong. What if it’s a coming-of-age story? Forget the car chases and special effects. Now I see that life is more like the quiet conversations. The character stories that break you down so they may build you up. It’s the stories that have you in tears of joy by the end. That’s what life is all about. I wander around the market until I find a couple of the guys who have helped me with plant collections a couple of times.

“Oy, apinun,” I call out. “Ryan!” they all call back. They’re excited about something and keep breaking off to talk about it. “Have you seen Mehdi?” Esmond asks. “No. Why?” “Ah! We need to find him,” he replies. “The tuna are schooling, but Gibson says if he takes us out in his boat, we have to pay the petrol, or he gets half of everything we catch.” “Yeah, look.” Another mangi points out to sea, where the water is churning in activity. Above it, a swarm of birds are swirling as well. “We could feed the whole town if we catch the school.” WILD HAPPY 231 “Wow,” I reply. “That’s all tuna?” “Yeah,” Esmond replies. “I know Mehdi would take us out for less than half, but we can’t find him.” “Gibson’s a good guy?” I ask. “How much would the petrol be?” “He’s all right. He just knows we’re stuck with the petrol. It’d be maybe thirty-five kina.” “Well, let’s go! I’ll buy the petrol,” I reply without much thought. Thirty-five kina is about ten US dollars. We head out with Gibson after gathering a couple more mangi fishermen to help. They insist I join as well and are excited to teach me “real fishing.” As we approach the school, there are three of us on each side of the boat, sitting up on the edge. We each hold a simple fishing line coiled around a stick and they tell me to hold the spool tight in my left hand while using the right to release slack into the water behind us and to “get ready!” There’s an electric energy in the boat, like little kids on Christmas morning. It’s the complete opposite of how I’ve felt the other few times I’ve been fishing, bored out of my mind with a bobber floating in a pond at

the local state park. They’re so excited, I’m actually feeling anxious and nervous about what’s going to happen. As we near the churning water, Gibson slows the motor to a crawl and the six lines are thrown over the sides. Esmond stands in the middle of the boat at the back, like a quarterback waiting for the snap. We’ve barely entered the splash zone and lines are suddenly tugged on the left first, then the right. I see the mangis using their hands and forearms to wind the fishing line in. Others are spinning the wood spool around the line to pull it in. On the opposite side, a two-foot long blue-finned tuna appears. It’s shimmery and beautiful. As soon as it’s out of the water, they swing the line to Esmond, who rips the hook out of its mouth and tosses the fish to the floor by his feet, where it flips around. He’s barely dropped it when another mangi swings his line at Esmond. This one’s a little bigger, nearly three feet long. Suddenly, my line tugs hard. I almost 232 Ryan Casseau lose it but manage to hold tight. It slices into the soft web of skin between my thumb and index finger. I try to wind it in with my forearm but can’t get it. The line is wet and slippery. After a couple tries, I resort to winding it bit by bit around the stick spool. It’s slow. I’m fighting for every inch of line that brings the beast closer. I look over to everyone else pulling the tuna in with ease. There must be a mistake. I must have a dolphin. “Come on, come on!” Esmond shouts. I’m winding as fast as I can, but it’s all too crazy. The water is flipping and splashing and churning outside the boat. I see flashes of the bodies of blue shimmery fish bounce in the waves. The other boys have already caught at least two fish each. The floor of the boat is hopping all around, covering Esmond’s feet. Blood is running down my hand and wrist. Tuna blood is splattered on the inside of the boat. It’s a flurry of seawater, blood, adrenaline, and crazy, and I just can’t seem to move fast enough. In a miraculous moment, I yank the fish from the water and swing it at Esmond.

“Woo! There ’em is!” he shouts in English. It goes on like this, in full pandemonium, for twenty minutes until the sea suddenly faints to silence. Poof! It’s over. The birds fly off, the sea is as calm as ever, and the boat is FULL of huge, blue shimmery tuna. The mangis all howl to the sky in a cheer. It’s been a huge success. I’m somewhere between exhaustion and shock. Esmond is up to his knees in flopping, hopping fish bodies. They weren’t kidding about feeding the town. There are nearly fifty huge, two-to-threefoot-long, beautiful fish in the boat. When we arrive back at shore, it’s become clear that a cheering squad has assembled on the beach. They clap and shout as we near and Esmond starts handing out fish to anyone and everyone who approaches. Many bring up Styrofoam coolers from the Papindo store, filling them with sea water and fish and then station themselves on the beach to hand out the fish. It’s like one big family, all helping each other out. I sit high on the gunnel of the boat and WILD HAPPY 233 watch it unfold. Pahuk is on the beach helping and looks up to give me a big thumbs-up. I take it all in. There is a magic to this place. It’s by far the best ten bucks I will ever spend. On my way home from town, Pahuk shows me to Solok Solau’s house. I argue that I need to shower first since I reek of fish, but he convinces me not to worry about it. I haven’t met Solok before, but I’ve heard a bit about him being a little arrogant and foolish from Pahuk and some of the other mangis. They also note that they think Joseph is crazy to keep helping him. He’s older than I expect, somewhere around sixty, I’d wager. And I never would have predicted the problem he was facing. How do you react to a man living in a tiny town whose limited exposure to

the western world has given him the taste for wealth? His naivety has inspired him to pay for a fancy PO box in town and he has somehow gotten himself on the “easy target” lists of several companies in the world that scam and swindle such people out of their money. I’m barely in the door of his little yellow-painted wooden—in other words, fancy—house at the edge of town, when he jumps into shaking my hand wildly and begging for my help. With no idea of what the problem is, I cautiously reply, “I’ll try.” He proceeds to produce a plastic grocery bag full of mail. He rambles for a bit about how important he is because he get lots of mail, and for a moment I get excited thinking that he’s going to ask me to help him read a letter or write letter to an old friend. But as he begins to dig through the bag, my trained American eyes immediately recognize it all as being junk mail. Exciting fonts, fake stamps screaming “Guaranteed Winner” and other pitiful ways to inspire the naïve cover the pages. In my mind, my eyes are rolling but I wait silently, now doubting my ability to help. As we get into the letters and his story, the 234 Ryan Casseau situation is more dire than I imagined. Solok explains how he had never received his check, but he had received the checkbook wallet, and he’d gotten the pen and pencil set, and he’d sent the registration in, and… it was horrible. This poor man had fallen right into some scam. I pick up one of the old letters and read it silently in my head with the voice of a game show announcer. If he just purchases the wallet for forty dollars, he’ll qualify to win a cash prize valuing up to twenty-seven thooouuusand dollars!! I recall him mentioning a wallet. “Did you send them forty dollars for the wallet?”

“Forty dollars, no,” he replies, taking the paper from my hands. Phew! That’s a great deal of money for someone on the Island. “It was thirty-something—oh here, thirty-nine ninety-five.” Shit. I don’t argue. “Oh. Did you send them thirty-nine ninety-five?” “Yes, and they sent me the wallet and I got it and I thought I was going to get a check, it says I’ll get a check, right?” “Umm, well, let me see.” I read more and more only to unravel more and more of the ongoing story noticing the dates on letters going back and forth over three years. Before I can figure out what to say, he continues. “And my brother and I wrote this letter to them.” He hands me another page, this time a simple white page with black Arial font. The English is fairly good, and I compliment him on it, for which he smiles in pride. Even though I know the answer, I ask, “And what did they write back?” “They didn’t. You can help?” Uhhh… I drop my head to read more, but really, it’s to buy some time to think of what to say. Do I tell him he’s been successfully scammed out of who knows how much money, or do I try to play WILD HAPPY 235 along and tell him to just sit tight and that I’m sure he’ll get another letter one of these days? Either way, he’s left feeling empty and foolish. But he is a fool, I say to myself; it’s a hard, cruel world, and if he wasn’t so money hungry, none of this would have happened. But I suppose I have a bit more compassion than that. I share an empathetic frown. “Well, a lot of these kinds of companies aren’t really very honest about things. Since you haven’t heard back from them yet…” I glance at the page to check the date from two years ago, “I think this is one

of those companies…” “Well, can you help me and write a letter to them, since my English isn’t really much good, and maybe if I had someone who could use big words to say things better it could help.” His desperation is haunting. I feel like I’m helping a grandfather recover his life savings. “I could try and write a letter to them for you, but I still think there’s a good chance they won’t write back. From now on, I wouldn’t send any of these companies money. It isn’t a good idea. There are a lot of dishonest people sending these types of letters.” “Yeah,” he replies quietly, admitting defeat. We exchange goodbyes and I head back to my little house. I’ve got his previous letter with me and the last one he received from them to help me with my new letter. We’re barely on the road and he shouts out to us, “And you can say things like ‘I know you tricked me’ in the letter.” I nod. The whole situation is so sad, and I know that my efforts will be pointless, but I want to do something so badly to help and at least this might help his feelings at least. I wasn’t concerned for his finances, but more for his innocence. Later that night, I sit at my computer to write the letter, but have no idea how to even start. He got swindled because he was messing around in stuff he shouldn’t have been—like a little kid playing with matches in this terribly cruel world. After staring at 236 Ryan Casseau the keys for a couple minutes, I resolve to think of the letter the way my dad had explained fishing lures to me once. “You see, fishing lures are designed for the fisherman to buy them, not for the fish,” he had said. “Some are better to catch fish with than others, but fishing lure companies make the most money off the ones that sell the best. That’s why you see all kinds of fancy ones with glitter and exciting colors.

Fish don’t want to eat that, but people buy them. That’s why they’ll keep making them that way.” I write the letter. I use a bunch of big, intelligent words, put a fancy header on the page as if it’s been printed on his personalized stationery, and manage to have a good time writing the letter. The hardest part is trying not to just tell them off or threaten them with crazy talk of black voodoo magic against their company and families for preying on this man’s naivety. In the end, I use a bit of both and am actually a little proud of my letter. It has enough sharpness to hopefully cut just a little into the heart of those who read it, and enough professionalism to impress the villager. I put it, along with the other two letters, in a little brown paper bag, because I don’t have any envelopes, write his name with a large black marker on the front, and staple it shut. When I head back to his house the next day, he isn’t home, so I leave it wedged in the doorway. Hopefully, the effort will make him smile. I’ll never know what happens to the letter, but generally prefer not to think about it, knowing that, more than likely, it’s sitting in a giant dump in the US, sealed in an envelope covered in stamps from a tiny island in the South Pacific where a little man waits patiently for its reply. By the end of the week, I still haven’t heard anything about my visa, but I’m tired of waiting around. Pahuk and I decide to head back to his village of Mokarange. My batch of jungle plants are dried, and I need to collect more from the coastal plot. But more than that, we owe his sister and family another visit. So much has changed since the first time I went. I throw a T-shirt and a pair of underwear in a bag with deodorant and a toothbrush. We might be going for one night. We may stay for four. There’s no plan. WILD HAPPY 237 On the way out, I stop to buy some buai for them. I’ve realized it’s the Island’s equivalent to bringing wine to a dinner party. I also grab some cans of tuna and other “city things” as Pahuk describes them. We’ve got to return the canoe, so we paddle back. But we’ve done it before and it’s early so the sun isn’t too bad. By the time we make it to the far shore near Pahuk’s village, it’s mid-afternoon and we arrive with lunch, an octopus we spear-fished on the rocks near the beach. Well, Pahuk spear-fished it. I threw a spear seven times without being close enough to even scare it

completely away. Then Pahuk nailed it on his second try. We look like we’ve been in an epic battle, dripping of sweat and octopus ink that runs down the spear and off Pahuk’s elbow. It’s all over my hands and forearms too, since I tried to help free it from everything it lashed on to within reach of its crazy sucker arms. Pahuk’s younger brother and wife take turns showing me how to cut out the organs, tenderize the meat between two papaya leaves, and chop it into the pot of coconut milk. When we’re done Pahuk is nowhere to be found and his brother explains that older brothers are not to have any contact with the wives of their younger brother. Ever. Even if they were friends before the couple meets. After marriage there is no contact. If they break the custom, they risk a family curse. I nod as if it’s totally logical. Not much surprises me anymore. We spend the afternoon sin daun stori. Sitting around telling stories. They tell me how it was the evil Australians who dressed their planes up to look Japanese when they attacked Pearl Harbor because they needed the US to come save them in the South Pacific. They explain it as if everyone knows this already. They show me dog tags of WWII soldiers from the US that they’ve found in the jungles and show me old Coca-Cola bottles and canteens. For dinner, we’re in for a special treat, binatang! No one will tell me what it is, so it’s a fun sign of what’s to come. They even make me close my eyes when they dip it out of the pot and into my serving bowl. They’re all huddled around me when they tell me to open my eyes. 238 Ryan Casseau “Da-taa!” they all shout on cue as if they share a collective dyslexia. It’s dark and I can’t tell what I’m looking at. Small sausages? They bring over the kerosene lantern, and I get a better look. Grubs. Giant wrinkly larvae of the sago beetle, the size of my thumb with

hard brown caps on either end. One is the head, the other is … the other end. You know you have a great local delicacy when even some of the locals are shaking their heads in disgust. It reminds me of scrapple back home. I give a disgusted but obliged smile, click a picture, and toss one into my mouth as they holler in delight as if there was a pool on whether I’d actually eat one. Someone won some money. It pops like a bubble when I bite into it as warm coconut milk and guts fill my mouth. I lurch but keep it under control. Chew, chew, chew, crunch… what was that? Chew, chew, swallow. I politely decline a whole bowl of it and learn that the only one who really enjoys them is Pahuk’s brother-inlaw, Selou, who is from the Sepik region of mainland PNG. It’s not that popular a dish on the Island. An hour later, after we eat real food, I’m still picking out crunchy bits of grub head that’re lodged between my teeth like popcorn shells. Selou laughs that he forgot to tell me to spit the heads out. And they roar in laughter again. The night winds down as the fire dies. It feels like family and I insist on sleeping on the floor in the house when they offer me their bed. A couple days later, we’re doing great collecting plants when Selou in his crazy Korean minivan comes to find us. He tells me that Joseph caught him in town. The professor from Port Moresby had called and was going to call back tomorrow at the same time. I’m torn because we’re making great progress, but I can’t deny the need to talk about my visa situation. Pahuk knows the situation, and I don’t have to say anything. He gets it. I jump in the van and Selou and I zip off toward town. To WILD HAPPY 239 get there, we have to go right past the PNG defense force base, and I slink down in my seat. I’ve really got to figure this visa shit out.

The professor calls a bit later than planned, but it’s within an hour, so it counts as on time. It’s a quick conversation, less than ten minutes. There’s not much to say. He hasn’t done anything. In fact, the first two minutes is me pressing the importance of the situation and the need for a solution. There isn’t one. The solution is, hopefully, I can fly to Moresby when I need to. When I get there, we’ll find the right person to bribe in order to fix the situation. What’s the big deal? My series of what-if disaster scenarios are all met with the same response: “I don’t know.” We hang up and I’ve got nothing to lean on besides idealistic hope and a firm grasp on the unexpected land of PNG. The bottom line, though, is that I’m free to go as soon as the work is done. I just need to get the work done. It’s too late to get back to Mokarange that afternoon, and I don’t catch up with Selou to get a ride back until late the next day. It’s late afternoon by the time we arrive and the golden light before twilight gives everything an ethereal glow. We have to go through the village center to get to Selou and Pahuk’s sister’s house. But we don’t make it past the clearing in the village. When we pull up, I’m speechless. Scattered around the clearing are large sheets of corrugated metal. And on each sheet are numerous piles of finely chopped plant material. Buzzing around like a hive of bees are more than a dozen people. Some carrying branches from the jungle, others chopping leaves. Kids are running from pile to pile and mixing and turning the piles around. Meanwhile, the sun beats down like an oven, even at the late hour. Off to the side are my green net bags, empty and discarded. We pull up and barely anyone even looks up. “Pahuk! What’s happening?” Sweat beads pool on his face and run down the side of his cheek. “Em want to help.” I’m frozen, staring at the village center with all of the people running around to help me. Several I had never even seen before.

240 Ryan Casseau “But I don’t even know some of these people.” “Yes, you do. From haus krai. You’re mangi ples!” He smiles. “Tauka!” I hear his brother shout from across the clearing. “Tauka!” another one of the villagers I’ve met yells. Several more look up to see me and smile. “Tauka?” I ask Pahuk. I don’t know this word in Tok Pisin. He wears a proud grin. “That’s you. They gave you mangi ples name. It’s the white birds you see on the Island.” He returns to chopping up the leaves he’s working on. “The green bags are no good. Take too long for the plants to dry. This is much better.” “They gave me a name?” I mutter in disbelief. “Yes,” he says as he chops more. “If you don’t like, they can get another one for you.” “I… I love it. I’m honored. And they… all this work!” I count the piles. Forty-two, not counting the ones being chopped. “It’s incredible! You got so many!” I exclaim. “Yeah. Some we didn’t know if you want leaves or roots or bark, so we got ’em all.” “This is more than I needed to finish!” He looks up with a smile. “Then we are all done,” he says with a laugh. I move around the village center, person by person shaking their hands and thanking them. Many, even those I haven’t formally met before, greet me with Tauka! I’m overwhelmed by it all. The vision in my head is of cups. Hundreds of overflowing cups of water, all being dumped into a bucket. CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Deep within us—no matter who we are—there lives a feeling of wanting to be lovable, of wanting to be the kind of person that others like to be with. And the greatest thing we can do is to let people know that they are loved and capable of loving. ~ Fred (Mister) Rodgers ~ Hi Angel,Things continue to go great! All but 5 plants are completely dried and packed into little bags. The last 5 I’ll carry to Port Moresby where I can finish drying them. I have a week with little else to do beyond negotiating the visa situation and waiting for the export permits to be completed. Changing my plane ticket was surprisingly easy at the Air Niugini office so I’m set all the way to Sydney. The “crazy” adventures just sort of seem normal now and I don’t get excited to write about them. I looked at some of my old emails I sent you. I was so excited to have so much to say about how wild it is. Now it seems pretty plain. Plus, I miss you like crazy so there’s a feeling of “OK, let’s just get on with it, time to actually see your face and hear your voice and give you a gigantic hug.” 242 Ryan Casseau For the longest time now I’ve been trying to figure out what to do for Pahuk. He’s helped me so much I can’t even attempt to thank him properly. I couldn’t have done this without him. He’s been my assistant for months. In the US I would’ve paid him probably $10,000 by now (which of course I wouldn’t have been able to). I really haven’t done much for him— I mean I’ve bought him lots of smokes, and buai, and beer (the only three things people here seem to want) but I haven’t paid him. I know he gets some shit sometimes because some of the mangis in town ask how much I’m paying him, figuring it must be a lot for all that he’s done for me. When he says nothing, they give him, that “then why are you wasting your time” bit. But he doesn’t seem to care. He’s loyal, and responsible, truly like a brother to me. I almost hope that I’m short on some plant material so I can ask him to send it to me in the US. That way I’ll have to pay him properly. Anyway, I’ve been trying and trying to figure out what to give him, and finally the other night I couldn’t take it anymore. We were

drinking and I just flat out asked him what I could give him or get him. He thought I meant did he want another beer. I had to explain that I meant that for all this time he’s helped me so much. He’s given up paying jobs to go ’round with me and given up nights of drinking with the guys to come collect plants with me. Without him, I don’t know what I would have done. And so I repeated… what can I do for you? What do you want? I have to give you something! I don’t have much money or else I would have paid you long ago. Is there anything I can give you?” He was uncomfortable with the conversation, as all generous souls seem to be. He gestured to my green Gore-Tex raincoat that he’s been wearing nonstop since I gave it to him in Bundrahii. I shook my head. That’s not nearly enough. Finally, he said, “I like your CD.” Which meant my CD player—my Discman. I remember him making comments about it before, admiring it, but I didn’t think he really cared to own it. He doesn’t seem to care about owning anything. He’s content in his fence. He helps out all over town so people constantly offer him food and buai and smokes. He’s kinda like me in that he’s basically adopted by the Litaus, WILD HAPPY 243 so anytime he actually needs something, from a hot meal to a place to relax, he can go there. The CD player threw me off. At first I thought it would be sort of a waste because you can buy a shitty Discman knockoff at Papindo and I doubted he would know the difference. And then there was the question of how would he get CDs? At any rate, now I understand that he likes it because it is a fancy US one, and I have a Bob Marley CD to give him, and I’ve got a bunch of extra CD-Rs so I can make him a bunch of CDs before I go. I’m happy I’ll be able to give him something he actually wants, but of course wish there was so much more I could do for him. Anyway, that’s life here. The sun has been great at cooperating to dry my plants. Remind me to tell you all about what the villagers in Mokarange did to help me. It’s incredible. I’ve already contacted Peter and Modi (the

2 profs at UPNG in Port Moresby) about getting the export permits squared away. I’m in pretty good shape with that because when I paid Peter for coming to Island months ago, I gave him traveler’s checks. Well, the stupid PNG bank in Port Moresby won’t cash them unless I come to confirm my signature. In other words, Peter still wants to stay on my good side because he needs me to cash his money. Hee hee. It’s a pleasant accident. I’ve heard that he’s already sent one list of plant names to Lae to speed up the processing of my permits! I think things should go smoothly, but I’ll just have to see how it goes. At this point, my biggest worry is not being able to get all my goodbyes in! OK, beautiful, talk to you soon, -Tauka (me) I close my laptop. This is it. My plane leaves in two days. I can’t believe it’s time. Where have the weeks gone? The months? It feels like a lifetime ago that I arrived, naive and lost, on the tarmac of the tiny airport in the jungle at the end of the world. Dropped in a land where I knew no one, nor the language, nor the air. That’s how it seemed. Like even the air was foreign and I had to relearn how to breathe. But I carried my list of seemingly endless and pointless tasks to accomplish without the slightest hint as to 244 Ryan Casseau how this new foreign world would allow it. Beyond the distractions of work and ambition, I was even more bewildered. The child of a distant world of comfort and ease that left me clueless to who I could be, who I wished to be. But now it is all different. The Island has taken me in and taught me more than I could have imagined. Not of surviving and accomplishing, but of the secrets whispered through the Wantok of the world. The universal language. The Island taught me not through lessons or proper education. It provided the medium. The blank canvas upon which I could draft who I

wished to be. With a thousand colors of paint in the smiles and frustrations and kindness and adventure. The matte white paint of my mundane existence has become splattered in life and color like a Jackson Pollock. My thoughts pour over the Island and its magical people. The overwhelming flood of emotions has nothing to do with work or my research. I barely recognize the boy who had arrived months before. His singular directive of diligence and efficiency. His lust for accomplishment has drifted off to the sea. The Delusion of Greatness extinguished. It is love that I feel in that moment and I breathe it deeply as if it floated heavy in the humid faithful air. Love from the trust to love oneself so that we could love others with all our hearts. To find our deepest contentment in our naked vulnerability of love, our endless generosity in offering our love. The way the Island has loved me. With no expectation of recompense. Somehow along my journey, unmarked on my map, there was a mountain. An unforeseen obstacle that I had to climb before I could move on. And in the climb, it had become an obsession. But with such an obsession, one often doesn’t see beyond the summit. Now, I felt like I was standing at the peak surveying the landscape beyond. I could feel that this was only the beginning. To continue on, to find what we need to find we trek onward. To succeed on the Island, I had to become one with the Island. And somehow, this is what I had done. But it felt different now. It was time to move on. I wouldn’t be me without the Island. I couldn’t be. But I couldn’t WILD HAPPY 245 stay. It was as if all that had taken me in was now sending me away. Like returning a rescued animal back to the wild. Only in reverse. What was important and what could be dismissed? In their simplicity and their smiles, in their frustrations and hassles, they let me grow. They let me learn to love who I was both now and forever.

That was what the Island did for me. They showed me the way. It was time to leave the Island. To return to my life that was real. But not the one I had left. One with a new path. That’s what it gave me, what they gave me. I would return to a new life, one where I chose to love love. To set it at the top of the pile. I would carry my lessons learned across the lens of time. From the Lapan’s kindness. His patience. His wisdom. His light humor and deep contemplations. He had given me so much as only hindsight can. Riding the wave of my imagination to temper my frustrations with the perspective and prudence of time, knowing that in the moment we are often lost in the experience. But experiences are sprouts that take lifetimes to bloom. And Pikinini. My lost boy of the Island. With his simple curiosities, my curiosities. His penetrating inquiries. His pensive silences. My childhood innocence personified in the illusions of my loneliness. My Winnie the Pooh. Just as Christopher Robin had indulged in his mind’s creative resourcefulness, so too had I. The three of us went to the Island together, that’s the magic hidden in experience. It transports us all, playing with time to bend and shape the ten thousand iterations of ourselves. The lost boy of wondrous, excited youth swimming in curiosity. And the pensive man, wise and mindful from my future, beyond my time on the Island, to provide forthcoming interpretations. They carried me. Just as they do for us all. We take the world and stir it up in our minds and memories and lessons and breath, then mold it into every living moment with the clay of time. Such were these friends of mine on Island. These ghosts of me. Shadows and reflections across time. 246 Ryan Casseau The plane rose away from the Island. It felt as if it would disappear into the clouds forever. The chapter folding closed inconsequentially as the new page lay bare beyond it. I was free and found. I thought of my friends and family of the Island who I’d left. Who waved as the plane had turned away, and were off with the future of their lives, touched momentarily by a passing stranger. Never knowing how much they’d given me. How could they know how much they had forever changed me? They had disrupted

my entire path, leaving me faithful but unsure of whether I could steady the course. If I could I steal away these lessons, these epiphanies, if I could carry them in my woven bilum bag of grass, tucked into my luggage that rested quietly in the bin over my head, I would be all right. I had grown a decade in months. And I owed every ounce of my new self, of my survival, to the kindness of these Wantoks, these strangers. The Island blurred as my eyes welled and watched it all shrink away. Beyond the clouds I could see the Litaus returning to their home. Martha preparing the night’s meal. Joseph swinging by the office to clean up whatever the newest problem was. Denys resting in the haus boi out back. And Pahuk in his little fence, wrapped in a Gore-Tex raincoat. Sitting. Just sitting and waiting for the next day. The confidence I had possessed on how I would return someday was already beginning to fade. The doubt creeping in. Pikinini was right. If you find what you are looking for, you won’t need to. What if I didn’t return? In the moment, it seemed impossible. But what if life scooped me up and carried me away? Could I carry the lessons and memories I had gleaned on the Island safely away? Was I enough to breathe life into those moments and discoveries across the sea of time? Or would they be forgotten? And so, I opened my laptop… That’s how it all came together. How I really saw what it was finally for. The Why of it all. It was about finding what was WILD HAPPY 247 important by taking everything away and starting over. From Maslow’s hierarchy to the belief that Maslow’s hierarchy was practically irrelevant. It was about finding who I was and what I would do. The coconut and the tree. And it wasn’t about my career or my research. It was about people. It was love. The ultimate happiness. I chose to love love, whether I realized it in that moment or not.

I would love to say that I flew home wise and aware, but it would take years for the lessons to grow and fully form, to materialize from the experiences rooting and sprouting in the soil of my maturing wisdom. I had found something to believe in. The Wantok path. Along the way, it led me back to you. Just as every trip to check email had led me to your replies. You were the next step in my sago day. The next tier on the revised hierarchy, one I liked much more than Maslow’s. One that led to happiness over false ambitions. The rain cloud poured into the bucket with a quiet gentle shower, the bucket comfortably full. Having found my love of oneself, a love of who and what I could be, the bucket filled; the only thing left to do was to offer it to you in overflowing cups. You were there the whole time. The voice at the end of my tin-can telephone wrapped around the world, the tether tying together my two worlds, my two lives. The life before and the life after. Your compassion and patience. Your courage and faith that I’d figure it out, one way or another. Your support in irregular supply whenever I could get to working email. Offering overflowing cups through Courier fonts. Some of us need an Island, a jungle at the end of the world, to find what’s in front of us. CHAPTER FIFTEEN You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say. ~ Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist ~ Days later it feels like I’ve reentered society, albeit still PNG society. It’s confusing and exciting. At times terrifying and moments later comforting. The back side of culture shock. I remember landing in Port Moresby having come from the US and thinking I was stepping into another world. Now, months later, having come from the Island, I feel the same way but in reverse.

I guess I really had become accustomed to life on the Island and could see how removed I’d been from the rest of the world. When I first came to Port Moresby, I thought it was a joke of a city. In the US, we’d probably call it a town. A big town, sure, maybe a tiny city, but certainly not a big city. And now, it’s overwhelming. My first day back I freak out with all the traffic and people everywhere. Everywhere people are listening to music, loudly, and it’s new, modern music, with melody beyond drums. I go to a grocery store with Modi and they’re playing techno dance music. It’s a contemporary foreign world. One I remember, but like a memory from a dream. 250 Ryan Casseau Most notably, the air feels so dry! I’ve become accustomed to the superhumid air of the Island. By the time I walk to the parking lot of the airport in Port Moresby, my neck is so dry it hurts to swallow and my mouth has a pasty stickiness like I’ve been out for a long run. As we hop in Modi’s car and I take in all the craziness, the food cravings start. They don’t have McDonald’s in Port Moresby, but when we drive past the Big Rooster, I’m practically drooling out the window for some French fries. When we get back to Modi’s house, I notice an empty container for chocolate ice cream in the trash. Mary catches me staring at it and makes a scene laughing at me, but promises to get some more from the store that afternoon. I didn’t realize I was stuck on it, staring at the empty container in the trash can like a homeless person. I don’t think a minute goes by after that without me thinking about the chocolate ice cream until we indulge after dinner. One of Modi and Mary’s kids mentions that there’s a Nintendo 64 in the living room, and that they have a new VCR if I want to watch a movie. It feels like another planet. But the biggest, most incredible surprise is… wait for it… hot water in the shower! HOT WATER! Holy shit, I had literally forgotten how heavenly it is. I hadn’t given it any thought when I went in to take a

shower; there was the normal little battle inside my mind drawing strength to hop into the cold water. When I get into the bathroom and see the second knob, it doesn’t shock me since I had a second knob on the shower in my little house on the Island too, it just wasn’t connected to anything. But then I start thinking, Wait, I’m in the city now, maybe it’s actually connected. I try the sink first because I’m so scared of getting my hopes up. But it works! Real hot water! I’m overjoyed in anticipation. It’s like I’m next in line for a rollercoaster I’ve waited two hours in line for! And it doesn’t disappoint. It’s incredible. My skin feels soft and warm when I’m done. It’s by far the best thing I’ve forgotten about modern society. WILD HAPPY 251 It’s funny how it totally snuck up on me. I hadn’t given it any thought. Modi’s wife, Mary, told me that there was a chance the water would be shut off sometime that night as there were some kind of protests or something going on, so if I wanted to washwash, shower in Tok Pisin, I shouldn’t wait too long. At the time, I was reading the newspaper in fascination. I didn’t give it any thought. In fact, I put off showering for a little bit, because I was comfortable and wasn’t ready to go chill myself in a cold shower yet. And it’s this giant, wonderful, incredible surprise! I can’t believe that I had forgotten hot water showers existed. It makes me realize how accustomed I’d become to life on the Island. It also makes me wonder if Pahuk or others on the Island have ever experienced this magic. What a tragedy that would be if not! Then I’m distracted and start wondering: Does a person who’s never had a hot shower find it equally difficult to get into a cold shower? Meanwhile, Mary is totally blown away with my Tok Pisin. When I left for the Island, months ago, I was doing my best to try and learn, but I was nowhere near able to understand anything. I had “monin” and “apinun” down because they’re intuitive, but that’s about it. And now we talk all night in Tok Pisin. Mary claims I’m perfectly fluent, but I argue with her, in Tok Pisin. There are plenty of times I want to say something but don’t know how. But it’s fun impressing her. Being back in the city, I

realize there are a lot of “city” words I never used on the Island, so I don’t know any of them. Everyone on the Island was there as I was learning, but here, they saw me before and now they jump to seeing me after months of Tok Pisin. It’s easy with Mary, as she always speaks so clearly and slowly that it’s easy to talk with her. My days in the capital city leave me in a frustrated state of purgatory. I’m mainly homesick, but also miss life on the Island. I think it’s because my last week on the Island had flown by so fast. Packing bags, packing plants, paying insane amounts of money to send plants (thank goodness I had saved enough), saying goodbyes, getting things together, and then poof, I was on a plane back to Port Moresby! 252 Ryan Casseau Things continue to go well with my return to civilization. I go to meet Peter and he tells me the export permit for the first 106 plants is already finished. We still have to identify the other 45 or so and send the list off to get approvals in order to add them to my export permit though. Then there are a couple of other certificate/ permission things to take care of, but that’s it. By the third day in the capital, things take a turn for the worse. Malaria again. I’m tired and feverish all day with a debilitating headache. I can barely lift my head all the way up. But I’m used to it by now. I know the signs and the feeling well. Fever. Chills. Sweat. I catch it early. By my count, this is the fourth time I’ve had it, I just hadn’t mentioned the others because once you’ve recovered from one big scare with malaria, the other times just seem commonplace. It’s like anything in life. It’s the unknown that’s scary. Once you know what to expect and have done it before, anything is easy. I have my malaria meds at the ready and don’t hesitate. It was my delusion of

invincibility and denial of malaria that had made it such a problem the first time. We live and we learn. When I wake up the following morning, I’m already feeling much better. The biggest stress in Moresby is figuring out the visa situation. But my island-trained, things happen as they happen mentality works wonders. It isn’t like the movies. No sliding envelopes of cash under the table or exchanging a briefcase at a park bench. Modi and I take a nice lady to lunch. She enjoys hearing about my adventures on the Island and appreciates that the entire conversation is in Tok Pisin. She jokes that instead of an extended visa, perhaps I want to move to PNG? We all have a good fake laugh over that one. I’m not sure if she had been planning to ask for money or anything. Modi told me he had no idea of what to expect either. In the end, she doesn’t want anything. I pay for lunch and it’s a lovely afternoon. She takes my passport and says she’ll have it for me “in a couple days.” WILD HAPPY 253 Four days later, I’m pacing at the airport, moments away from boarding my flight out of PNG, waiting for Modi, who is racing through Port Moresby to get me my passport in time. And just like that, I was off. It was over. A quick stop in Sydney, then to LA, then back to Chicago where you met me in the airport. You thought I was too skinny. I probably was. I couldn’t stop hugging you. Some days I still have that problem. There was a sadness to being back in the beginning. There was excitement and jubilation and relief and warmth but a sadness too. It was a quiet, deep sadness like the sea on a moonless night. Its gentle waves lapping at the shore as they would outside my little house on the Island. It’s a reminder of my love of the Island which has come to be a

reminder of love in general. I’ve found in the years since that I can run from sadness or I can swim in it. I can see it for what it is. Love. I let the sadness be, occasionally swimming in its depths, allowing me to love more deeply, more fully. It reminds me of how little the other things in life are. How big our love can be in a world of ten thousand little things. For those who struggle to recognize it, sadness can be like a photograph, showing the truth that we can’t see in the moment. My Wantoks on the Island had so little and yet had so much more than the people I see every day. I think about the haus krai, when they poured their words like tears into the night. When it comes to me now, I follow the sadness across the darkened sea in my mind to the little Island at the edge of the world. Everything changes. Life is unexpected. And yet the bucket splashes at the cusp of overflowing. Such a gift they’ve given to me. EPILOGUE The giving of love is an education in itself. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt ~ Years later, I’m overwhelmed. The bucket of love has been growing and expanding. The rain cloud so proficient, the cups so gigantic, that the bucket bulges from the weight of the love. There is so much, I fear I’ll burst. “I have so much love to give. There’s just too much,” I half-jokingly comment to my wife one day. It’s five years from when I had left for the Island and we’ve never left each other’s side since. Just as she hadn’t left my side for the months when I was on the Island. The bucket of love is overflowing. I have so much to share. I need somewhere to put it all. New vessels to fill with love. With whom I can dole it out without hesitation, unconditionally. I know immediately that this is the final stage to complete the cycle. Self-actualization on the Wantok path. It is, of course, when I realize it’s time to be a dad. So I was. Twice. 256

Ryan Casseau Without surprise, the water showered down from the rain cloud in endless supply. The magic of love maturing and growing as I offered it away in big overflowing cups to my own pikininis. The bucket bulged and overflowed until it broke open and became the sea. Boundless and endless in its depth. I had chosen to love love and it had made all the difference. The path to a deeper happiness. The Wantok path. The young man from the Island, Tetae, had become the ghost as I had become the Lapan. Changing roles over changing time. Past, present, and future reassigned but ever potent. When I was young, I dreamt of the jungle. It represented something to me. Something I couldn’t put into words. Something I didn’t understand. It called to me and I answered. Now, as I held pikininis of my own, the jungle seemed like a dream once more. A past life in a foreign world. I had other dreams now, that delicately nestled in my arms. And they would have their own dreams. Islands of their own. Life would continue to be unpredictable and wild. And happy. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A story and experience such as Wild Happy can’t become a reality without nearly infinite help from countless people. There are more names I’ve forgotten over the passing decades than those I can recall. I can only hope you know who you are and that my poor memory should not let you doubt that your help was vital and deeply appreciated. I want to acknowledge my parents, Lorraine and David Case, who somehow provided me with what seems to be an insatiable curiosity of the world and the confidence to pursue anything, including naively setting out to a random jungle island on the other side of the world.

The journey wouldn’t have happened without my professors and colleagues at the University of Illinois at Chicago. It pains me to admit that dealing with this all being was all “part of the learning experience” did actually lead to a more fulfilling experience. Thanks to Doel Soejarto, Guido Pauli, Norman Farnsworth, Scott Franzblau, Douglas Kinghorn, Marcy Balunas, Joanna Michels, Amanda Koch, Tatiana Lobo-Echeverri, Amey Libman, and Taichi Inui. Thanks to the Garden Club of America and the American Foundation for Pharmaceutical Education for their funding and for keeping the dream alive. I want to thank Laura and Kris Neely at Cresting Wave for giving Wild Happy a proper home. Thanks to my editors, Don Weise and 258 Ryan Casseau Christine LePorte, without whom this would have gotten way too sappy and damn near incoherent. Thanks to Lazar Kackarovski for the beautiful layout. Writing up my tales into what would become Wild Happy wouldn’t have happened without the incessant motivation and inspiration from my good friends (family) at Buddharoot Creative Collective, particularly Jim Barry, Ped Daneshgar, and, of course, Law Blank. Over hundreds of cups of coffee and endless hours of hilarity, creativity, and friendship, Law stands alone as the single most contributing factor to this book’s existence. If you’ve enjoyed it, he deserves partial credit. If you haven’t, I blame him entirely :) This is what happens when an artist and a scientist get too caffeinated. The cover is all his magic as well. I couldn’t have done any of this without the endless and overwhelming support from my family. To Zoe and Tayton, my pikininis, just knowing that someday you’ll be able to read about your dad doing “cool stuff” is enough to, apparently, get me up hours before dawn. Thank you for showing me a level of love I’d never have known without you. To Lisa, who keeps the bucket overflowing on a regular basis, I couldn’t possibly love you any more (but I’ve said that before and keep being wrong).

Thanks for being my alpha-reader and for reading so many books each year that your comments are always perfect. Finally, the people of “The Island” deserve my endless thanks and gratitude, especially Michael, Grace, and Pakop. They took me in as if I were family and introduced me to a world that reshaped my own. Thanks are also greatly deserved to Lohi, Clair, and Pius for their help and support in navigating the unexpected and wonderful world of PNG. To all the readers and dreamers, I truly hope you find your own Wild Happy and fill your bucket to the brim. Life’s too short to live superficially. For those looking to take the journey further, I hope you’ll join us at www.wild-happy.com and www.buddharoot.com.