Kerema karu or Mosbi karu
SIUKE’s planned trip to the village for this month had been abruptly shelved until further notice.
And he was really looking forward to the trip too.
It had been 12 solid years since he touched base with his tribesmen and women. He had been reminiscing a lot lately about home, the relatives and more so the reception after all the time and the mere thoughts had taken him to new heights.
Then only yesterday, Sarufa dropped the bombshell in the course of catching up on old times.
“It’s like common knowledge back at the village that you are a greedy man,” Sarufa confided.
Siuke was shocked into silence, but deep within, he was seething and if Sarufa hadn’t been his ëbestie’ since their childhood days in the village, he would have received more than a fair share of his Siuke’s mind, and some.
“You’re not a Kerema karu, bro, you’re Mosbi karu,” Sarufa had rubbed it in.
Siuke had sputtered in response and decided to ride the storm that was brewing in his essence and clouding his logical thoughts.
By and by, he found his voice. “Bro, do they really think that of me?”
“Yeah, bro, that’s the description they have of you from one end of the village to the other.”
Siuke: But what have I done to deserve such a shameful tag?
Sarufa: They say you have a heart of stone. You do not share your things. They say you are not a generous man at all...
Questions flooded Siuke’s mind. Who, where, when, how ...?
Siuke: And you, bro? What do you believe?
Sarufa: I don’t know what to believe. Twelve years is a long time. People change...
Siuke: Oh, come on mate! That sounds like a line from the movie we watched last night.
Sarufa: Well, line or not, your reputation precedes you. You asked me a question earlier and my answer is, I don’t doubt for one minute that you are a mean man. People jump to conclusions; they make their own assessment from the perceptions they have of people. I mean, when was the last time we had a beer together?
Siuke mused on that. They’ve never had a beer together. But that was because they, or rather, Siuke could not afford to shout his mate the last time he visited. He did a quick calculation in his mind and came up with “something like seven years ago’.
Further conversation was soured by Siuke’s troubled look.
He’d always considered himself ëa friend to all and enemy to none’. He went out of his way to prove that time and time again.
Now, he just can’t come to terms with the tag that had been pinned on him, of all places, by his own people; the very village where he had his roots.
He saw the roots rotting, poisoned by the ignorant people who had an axe to grind with him.
And where did that place him?
Try as he might for the next hour, he just could not place a finger on the culprits.
They come by, with smiles and greetings and chat merrily as old friends do when they hadn’t seen each other in years.
He’d share what little food he had with the visitors and he’d swear on the Bible that on several occasions, he’d forgone his plate of food for the benefit of his visitor, even when his stomach rumbled no end with the pangs of hunger.
In his solitude, he felt sorry for himself.
As a teardrop swelled in his eye, it all came together, like pieces on a jigsaw puzzle falling into place.
There was Harofere who came to him to ask if he could assist him with his daughter’s school fees; Posu who came on two separate occasions to ask him for help, firstly to buy food for his sick father in hospital and secondly, to help fund the funeral and transportation of the body to the village; then there was Pisae who brought the message from Oii for Siuke to buy a spade and a Coleman lamp; and, there was Mitaharo, who came by and chatted with him until the wee hours of the morning before informing him that the salmon were really jumping up and down the river and if Siuke could contribute a two or three-inch fishing net, dried salmon would replenish his meagre larder on a regular basis.
There were other faces and names that crossed his mind and the purpose of their visits were all the same —- ask him for cash or kind.
The worst case, he thought, was that of Weka, a nephew who ran away from the village and stayed with him for two years before running off with a woman to her village Central coastal village. If there was a prize for persistence, Weka was the odds-on favourite as week in week out, he would be at Siuke’s doorsteps asking for a hand-out. This continued for nearly a year before his ëin-laws’ decided ëenough was enough’ and chased the freeloader all the way back to where he came from with the parting words “if you come back here, we’ll kill you”.
All of them turned up at his house for one thing —- help in cash or kind. And his answer had been the same —- “Sorry, I can’t help you.”
He was honest; he was truthful and he meant every word of that response.
Over the years, he had maintained a strict personal policy —- being very selective in catering to his visitors’ needs.
It was okay when the value of the kina was up there among the major currencies of the world. Its buying power could be stretched quite comfortably to accommodate a few ëwants’ as opposed to ëneeds’.
He was able to cater to the needs of his wantoks when they called.
Perhaps that put him in good stead with his clansmen and women.
And they did not fail to show their appreciation when he last visited the village 12 years ago.
Not today though, he thought. The buying power of the kina had diminished so significantly that even a few needy items —- things that he had to have to survive —- had to be omitted from the shopping list.
He was barely surviving and the demands from his wantoks weren’t helping the situation at all.
His generosity, when he had it, had preceded him but now under the circumstances, his constant denial of satisfying his clansmen and women’s demands had created another perception in their eyes.
He wants to tell them that he would give it to them if he had it, but he didn’t so he wasn’t lying under his breadth. He was telling them the honest truth.
And they have gone on to tell others that he had it but didn’t want to give it.
And because, there had been more than one refusal, the general consensus was that he was a greedy man.
And that perception had persisted and come back to spoil his plans for the trip home.
But despite the pain that comes with the knowledge of what others think of him, he rejoices in the moment of truth for which the Wise Counsellor aptly heralds: “Most of our suspicions of others are aroused by our knowledge of ourselves...”
Weekender Stories