The Truck Ride

I have always felt that when experiencing a place, the mode of transportation is equally important as the place itself. For example, to experience Sydney the most effective mode of transportation is the trains. It is the harbor that strikes you as you burst out of the underground tunnels of Wynyard that I am mildly homesick for.

In Chuuk, this form is the flatbed truck. With its absence of public transport and affinity for unnecessary fuel consumption, the island seems to revolve around the passage of these machines. The island’s economy (if it can be granted such a term) is completely dependent on it, but even more curiously is their role in the social life of its citizens. If one considers the number of people in flatbeds at any given time compared to the number of people on the island who actually need to go anywhere, one gets the impression that many of the passengers simply ride on the back of the truck to remind themselves that the other sections of the island are still there.

My daily commute back from Cecilia’s has made me particularly enamored of the flatbed lift. Originally, due to a combination of Ivan Milat and a vague knowledge of drunken Chuukese violence, I only accepted lifts from English speakers without handlebar moustaches. However, both fatigue and the local dogs led to relaxing such standards. They currently stand at ‘sober and non-threatening’. Even these less stringent terms have been applied creatively on the occasion.

The flatbed allows you an open air feel for the place. It is a view that allows you to admire the eccentricities of the buildings whilst fast enough to deny you the opportunity to ponder their structural integrity. The added bonus is the company, which, whilst wildly varying, generally does not speak English but remains strangely comfortable of this arrangement. On top of this, of course, is that it is fun. The shoddy roads are not nearly as nauseating as being in a closed vehicle and the feeling of wind through hair can be liberating after a tough days teaching. Best of all is the rain, to which you are completely and utterly defenceless and are thus led to an odd acceptance of your saturation. Overall, it’s a bit of a thrill ride.
But for all the wonderful things you see along the side of those metal rafters, nature demands that you are exposed to its wild negatives in almost equal parts.

By far the most eventful truck ride in my two months here has been the return from the inter-school athletics carnival. The carnival itself was, in true Chuukese style, bizarre. The competition included such events as coconut husking and basket weaving, but it was eclipsed by the crowd that came to watch. IT was gigantic. Considering that this meet is the closest thing to a regular sporting event on the island, the numbers attending are mind-boggling. Even the Chuukese police force, whose underwhelming policing methods deserve their own article, made an appearance on the pretence of crowd control. It’s the sort of non-threatening situation that they thrive on. To complement the size of the crowds was the style of cheering. It was enthusiastic, to put it gently. Whereas Western sporting events use rhythm and control to produce cheering (Aussie Aussie Aussie etc…) the Chuukese prefer to scream at the top of their lungs. Particularly animated were the women who run around the front of the crowd either dancing in an almost violent manner or smashing something on the ground, preferably somebody else’s umbrella, into small pieces. The most adept are able to do all of this at the same time.

Therefore, still in a state of slight culture shock, the day ended with me being bundled into a large red flatbed with a few staff and a multitude of Xavier boys. I soon learned that the truck’s distinctive colour was due to the incredible amount of rusting, which invariably ended up on my pants. And as the sun began to set on the Pacific, we began the trip back to the other side of the island.

The first notable instance was on the road that runs parallel to the airport runway. Roadworks has reduced the traffic to a sluggish pace at all times of the day but the flow from the athletics carnival exacerbated this. So, as we found ourselves filing along the lethargic road, we became aware of amazingly loud gangster rap behind us. The setting sun afforded us a glance at the source, another flatbed with a smattering of young-ish men with T-shirt’s on their heads (the height of fashion here) with their heads rising and falling in time with the music.

The students, with a strong disposition for hip-hop (though this stuff wasn’t quite as pasteurized and auto-tuned as their preferred variety), began joining. A couple of heads nodded, a couple of hands waved in sync with the sub-woofer driven beats. When the occupants became aware of this, they gave a sudden expression of joy. Had you seen them, you would have judged that this group of teenage boys, the majority of which don’t speak Chuukese, joining in with their gangster rap was simply the best thing ever. I find it difficult to describe the sheer ecstasy of this moment, but it was exhilarating to watch. Oh the small and simple things.

The traffic flowed on, and the car to our rear turned away, much to their disappointment. Along the roads we plodded; a few recognizing the school and shouting out name, even offering a few war-cries. For the boys, who had experienced these war-cries for twelve hot hours straight, their response was understandably muted. The truck rolled on.

Further ahead, we heard shouting and screaming. This is certainly not uncommon and even with only two months exposure the extent to which I am desensitized to it startles me. Even on the Xavier campus such noises barely grant the batting of an eyelid. However these were of an exceptionally loud quality that defied even our trained ears. It took a good couple of minutes until the source of the shouts came into view. At last we turned a corner to see a large crowd of people. And within it two young women. The whole scene was filled with a frenetic jostling. But even considering the shouting, screaming and jostling does not adequately express the fury of this sight. There was a wildness to these two girls; hurling what I assumed were obscenities at each other in Chuukese. It took at least twelve people to restrain them. The scene was most effectively summed up by one of the Americans, Sam, who said bluntly:
“I hope that she puts that rock down.”

But on a flatbed, you maintain your distance. You are not directly confronted by the sights you see. You are only an observer. Perhaps this explains my affinity for them. As we passed a village called Mitchitin there was the familiar sight of a makeshift wall of palm fronds in front of a house. It signaled the ubiquitous sight of a Chuukese funeral. Two of my students sat among the scattered crowd in formal dresses. We went past the lake, past the school I teach at. The sky was darkening, twilight was approaching.

We drove into the village of Peddia. I pass it every day in my walks from Cecilias. It stretches around a bay of polluted water and ends with an unspectacular bridge across an even more polluted river. I looked out for a few of my students who live in it.

Before the bridge a crowd of drunken men loitered on the road. This corner generally bears such a crowd, and they dispersed awkwardly to avoid the truck. Crowds of drunks generally begin appearing at five, though individual drunks can roam at just about any imaginable hour. Their cans of cheap Filipino beer litter every street. As we turned into the bridge, one heavily intoxicated man remained in the center of the road. The truck slowed down and the man turned towards us. It was only then that I saw the contents of the man’s right hand. It was a pachinko.

The pachinko is a local weapon. However I fear that I may disappoint you in revealing that it is in reality, just a slingshot. It is not far removed, and possibly less complex, than the type wielded by Dennis the Menace and appropriated by Bart Simpson. However, they are just about the most dangerous thing on the island. If their darts hit a particularly weak spot in the body such as the temple or the throat, death is pretty instant. Otherwise it can cause huge injuries. These things are vicious. The fact that slingshots, for us associated with lighthearted childhood mischief, instills significantly more fear than the gigantic machetes carried by all the men is one of the many odd things about this place.

So, brandishing such a comically dangerous weapon, he turned to the truck, raised it to his eye level, and with enough time for a desperate cry of ‘duck’, fired straight at us. From my newly acquired vantage point face down in the tray of the truck, I could not see how the shot eventuated. However, another teacher’s cry of “Is anyone hurt?” yielded no results. When I sat up, I saw through the back window that the window was cracked from top to bottom. This didn’t seem to faze the driver. As twilight grew we began the gradual ascent up to Xavier.

That’s why I like seeing Chuuk on a flatbed. You are thrown into both its joys and its horrors doled out in an approximate equilibrium. You share the same air, the same rain and the same dust as these things. But they are mere observances. The truck goes on. And all going well, you are still on it.