Going to Market

For at least the last two weeks, ladies from our village have taken different kinds of shellfish and crabs and loaded onto the Bikoi.  They ride all night on the boat, arrive early in the morning in Honiara, and take their wares to Central Market.  After selling all week, they return home on the Bikoi on Sunday.  This week, several ladies are going again so the last twenty four hours have been a big time of preparation.  Last night, many of them went "shell lighting" or hunting for shells by night.  Today, I found a family group finishing last minute preparations for the trip while eating some of their spoils.  They roasted crab on an open fire.  I watched as one of the ladies just picked up a small crab, plopped it on the coals, and held it there with a stick until it quit squirming.  They were working while they munched.  In the pictures, June (one of the ladies who participated in the hair-cutting ceremony last week to mourn her brother) is weaving a basket from coconut leaves to help carry some of the food to market.  Naomi (a little girl about Olivia's age) is standing by a boat full of "kalemeto".  To prepare the critter inside, you boil the whole thing in salt water, then extract the meat and boil it again in coconut milk.