Tales of a Female Nomad

by Rita Golden Gelman

  The kids fly to Auckland for their flight home, and I drive to meet Christine (my writer and computer friend from Coromandel), who is taking me to see D’Urville Island (20 miles long and 6 miles wide), where she grew up, one of five children of a sheep farmer and a nurse. She and her parents left long ago, but friends of hers, Percy and Gill, are still there. They own 1,700 acres of land, rolling hills, sandy bays, rocky cliffs, and about three thousand sheep. They’ve invited us to stay with them.

  Our timing is perfect. Tomorrow, the sheep are going to be mustered and brought to the barns for crutching (shearing their rears) and drenching (giving them medicine). The day after we arrive, Percy piles us and two dogs, a black-and-white one and a brown one, into the pickup. We start out on a dirt road and turn off into the paddocks, bouncing and rocking up hills, across fields, down slopes. Then he stops, opens a gate, and lets the dogs out, shouting directions to them as they bark and eye and run the sheep through a complex series of gates that open up and close off paddocks. The dogs direct the flock along paths, across and up and down hills, until they all end up, miles away, at the barns.

  The whole farm is a brilliant series of spaces that move into other spaces through strategically placed gates that eventually lead to the barns. When one paddock has been cleared, Percy gets back in the truck or runs up the hills to open or close gates.

  The whole farm is a fabulous maze that is constantly changing by a flip of a board and a shouted order to a dog. And the water and rocks and hills that these sheep look down upon are postcard-perfect scenes. By the end of the day, most of the sheep are down by the barn.

  The shearing gang arrives the next morning for the crutching and drenching. The shearing sheds are as well planned as the paddock paths. There are two floors with ramps and doors and pens and fencing. When the sheep are crutched, they are slid down a slide to another area, where they line up for medicine. There are four men and two women, well-practiced teams, delivering the sheep, shearing the rumps, sweeping the wool, shoving the sheep down the slide. It’s hard work and they barely stop all day. Tomorrow they’ll be at it again. A shearing gang eats and sleeps on the farm until the job is done.

  Yesterday, Gill, Percy’s wife, complained that she hated cooking for the gang. I volunteered. Now, a couple of hours before dinner, the potatoes are boiling in salted water, enough for two nights’ worth of mashed potatoes, and I’m sautéing onions and beef (from home-grown cattle), and tossing in carrots and celery and tomatoes. I have decided on stew because my bloke research said that blokes like stews, and these guys are definitely blokes.

  The only way on or off this island is by boat. When our visit is over, Percy rows Christine and me out to the mail boat, which will drop us on the mainland. People get their mail by rowing out to meet the boat. There are lots of sheep on D’Urville Island, but not many people. Most of the children who live here are home schooled.

  We make a stop at another island, where Charlie, a small man with a beard, meets us in a rowboat and Peter, the mailman, passes him a box with a new television set inside. Charlie lives alone on the island, with fifty sheep. He used to have five hundred, but now he keeps just enough for food. Charlie sometimes goes for two years without leaving. Peter tells us that Charlie watches rugby (powering the TV with a generator) and reads books.

  I find myself wondering what it would be like to live alone for two years, with nothing but books, a TV, and sheep. I don’t think I’d do well as a hermit.

  After six months in New Zealand, I pay a visit to the U.S. When I return to New Zealand, I have a contract, a check, and a deadline for my nomad book. I’m ready to write seriously.

  Marian is back from the South Island and we’re sharing the house. I like living with her. She’s generous, respectful, and stone solid. And she understands that while I’m here, I need to feel that this is my house as well as hers. She has given me two of the three bedrooms so I can set up an office. And she and I have rearranged the kitchen the way she knows I like it . . . putting the spices out in the open and burying the decorative pieces. And she has no objection to my spreading a few Balinese sarongs around for color and familiarity.

  The most interesting part of our shared life revolves around food. We cook and eat together. I learn to like her oats and bran and various seeds and oils at breakfast, and we chop together in the preparation of my Asian and Mexican dinner dishes.

  Between breakfast and dinner, I write, nonstop, all day every day. My only break comes one cool spring morning in October, when, for the first time, I go out on a mussel barge. My Uncle Bob and Aunt Elaine are visiting from the States, and Marian has helped me set up the trip.

  Ever since I first arrived more than a year ago, I have been cooking and eating the greenshell New Zealand mussels. I have had steamed mussels, fried mussels, mussel fritters, marinated mussels, mussel chowder, mussels with pasta, mussels on rice, mussel salad, and avocado stuffed with mussels. There’s a cookbook in Marian’s kitchen that was put out in 1988 by the local school to raise funds. It has twenty-two mussel recipes, including mussel quiche, creamed mussels, curried mussels, bacon-wrapped mussels, mussel turnovers, mussel munchies, and mussels in fresh tomato sauce.

  I’m actually kind of a purist about my mussels. I like them steamed with garlic, wine, and a little bit of water. When the mussles open up, they provide plenty of liquid for the steaming, and a nice base for a chowder.

  They’re big and sweet and juicy, these greenshell mollusks. I try to always have some uncooked ones in the refrigerator so I can pop one into the microwave (for less than a minute) when I’m in the mood for a snack. Today I’m finally going to see where they come from.

  It is just light out when we take off at 6:15. There is still one star in the sky and the moon is about to set. We ride for less than fifteen minutes and stop just a few coves away, about a half mile from the shore.

  On the surface, a mussel farm is hundreds of huge black floats (each about one and a half meters long) neatly lined up in rows. The rows are anchored at the ends, and the floats are held together by a thick rope. That’s all you see from the surface.

  We stop at the beginning of a row and the action begins. A hydraulic crane lowers a hook into the water, and when it comes up, it’s holding an endless rope covered with thick bunches of mussels in clusters of ten, twenty, thirty. There is also an assortment of slimy hangers-on. Our crew tells us that the hangers-on are orange fudge, dogs’ balls, and sea slugs. There are also heaps of little crabs, tiny fish, goo that squirts, goo that looks like white and orange eggs, grassy stuff, seaweed, and a few oysters that got into the wrong farm.

  The end of the rope is threaded through a hole in an onboard machine, and as the rope is mechanically pulled through the hole, the mussels and their slimy friends are scraped off into a spinning barrel, where they get washed. Then they spin some more and all the extra stuff goes one way and the mussels go onto a conveyer belt, up, over, and in front of Beany, the crew member in charge of tossing away what’s left of the orange fudge, dogs’ balls, and other slimy things. Nearly clean, the mussels are then dumped into white bags, until the bags weigh in at thirty-three kilos.

  The whole operation is a bit like a dance. From time to time the other crew member speeds up the rope and conveyer belt and Beany moves like Charlie Chaplin, his hands rapidly grabbing and tossing before the conveyer belt dumps the dogs’ balls into the bag.

  Mussel farms are good places to fish. Most people who are lucky enough to be guests on a mussel barge bring their rods. It’s the smashed mussels that attract the fish. Uncle Bob catches a snapper and two other fish that Beany says are no good. I ask if I can buy a bag of mussels, thinking six kilos but not being specific. I end up with a thirty-three kilo bag, more than I, my guests, and my neighbors can eat.

  The next day Bob and Elaine leave for the South Island and I go back to being a sedentary writer. But not for long. I’m getting restless.

  Thailand

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

&
nbsp; IN THAILAND SPEAKING FOOD

  I’ve been in New Zealand on and off for nine months. It’s feeling like home. I have a gym, a library card, a house, two pets, and six potted plants. The garden tomatoes are hearty, the lettuce is ripe, and when I walk down the street in town, I always meet people I know. I’m much too comfortable.

  Tomorrow I leave for a vacation in Thailand. My spirit gets nourished in faraway places. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a biological need, perhaps a biological flaw, that compels me to seek the excitement and challenge that comes of being in a place where nobody knows me.

  Other times I think that my compulsion to settle into communities that are different from the ones I know is related to my passion for experiential learning. I learn best and most happily by doing, touching, sharing, tasting. When I’m somewhere I’ve never been before, learning goes on all day, every day. In Thailand, I plan to specialize in tasting.

  Thai cuisine is one of the most playful and exciting eating experiences in the world; it tickles, taunts, challenges, and teases the palate. I’ve decided that I want to watch and cook with Thai women in their kitchens.

  I also want to remind myself what it’s like to be in a setting where I don’t speak the language. For the next three weeks I’m going to cook, eat, and write in Ban Krud, a small village tucked into the waistline of Thailand, four hours by car south of Bangkok, where hardly anyone speaks English.

  Jip, my friend from Seattle, grew up in Ban Krud; and when I first decided to visit her village, she was expecting to be there. I was hoping she would introduce me to the best cooks in the village so I could become an observer in their kitchens. But Jip had to cancel. I’m going anyway. Without Jip as my translator, I plan to communicate through “food.”

  I’ll be staying in Rim Haad, a small bungalow resort for Thai tourists that Jip has recommended. “If you call Fon,” Jip e-mailed to New Zealand, “she will pick you up at the station. Rim Haad is her family’s business.” Before I board the train in Bangkok, I find someone to make the call.

  Fon is at the station in a white pickup. She’s a pretty woman in her thirties with a take-charge manner. I tell her my name and mention that I’m a friend of Jip’s. When John and Jip got married in Ban Krud several years ago, about twenty of their foreign guests stayed in Fon’s “resort,” a complex of bungalows and a patio restaurant that looks across the street at the beach.

  When we arrive at Rim Haad, I am greeted by a friend of Fon’s who speaks English. This is the first and last time I see him; but I am glad he’s there. I tell him I’m planning to stay for three weeks, and that I’m hoping Fon’s family will let me learn about Thai cooking in their kitchen. He passes the message on to Fon. She is pleased. Most of her guests come for a weekend.

  We negotiate a price of five hundred baht (about thirteen U.S. dollars a day) for an air-conditioned cabin. The room is white and clean; the floor tiles, shiny. And there’s a television, a table and chair, a small refrigerator, and a bathroom with a cold-water shower and a drain in the floor.

  I tell Fon’s friend that if it is possible, I would very much like to see the village tomorrow. I’d like to get a sense of where I am.

  He discusses my request with Fon and answers, “Willage no tomollow. Fon busy. Gobamen. Clouds.” I have no idea what he’s saying.

  “Is there a bicycle I can use?” I ask. I do not need to bother Fon.

  Fon smiles and gets a bike. “No money,” she says.

  I thank her and we all go to sleep. It’s after eleven.

  I wake up starving and wander over to the dining area, which is a big covered patio about twenty by thirty feet, with tables and chairs for forty. There are three women standing near the kitchen; I’m the only guest.

  I mime that I want to eat. Ei, the eighteen-year-old maid, points to a picture of scrambled eggs and toast, but I shake my head. I’m in Thailand; I want a Thai breakfast. But I have no idea what that might be.

  I look at Ei. “What do you eat?” She does not understand me.

  Finally a small woman wearing sunglasses, whom I later learn is Manit, Fon’s mother, says something about rice and soup. I nod and smile.

  A few minutes later I get a tasty breakfast soup with celery, green onion, rice, and fish; and cilantro sprinkled on top. As I eat, I look across a small road at the sea. It’s calm and quiet, but the motorcycles shooting by in both directions are not. They are nearly all family occupied . . . two, three, four, and five people; no one is wearing a helmet.

  When I finish the soup, I decide to go into the village to see if I can figure out what the young man was talking about when he said the English words “Gobamen. Clouds.” I climb on the small red bike and the seat rolls back, almost dumping me. I straighten the seat to a horizontal position and discover that the handlebars have a life of their own that has nothing to do with the front wheel. And the chain keeps slipping.

  Fon’s father, Somkit, a handsome man wearing a sarong and sandals and a T-shirt, brings out the tools and goes to work tightening bolts and attaching chains. While he is working, Fon’s mother, Manit, beckons to me. She is getting into a car and gestures for me to join her. I do.

  A smart-looking western-dressed man in his fifties is sitting at the wheel; his wife is sitting next to him. I later find out that the man is Fon’s uncle, Nark, who is down for the weekend from a town an hour north of here. I sit silently in the backseat.

  Nark drives to the main road, which is lined with small, one-story shops selling pots and woks, clothes and paper goods, furniture and cleaning supplies. Then he turns down a small alleyway and stops. I look around and suddenly last night’s conversation becomes clear. We have arrived at a polling place. “Gobamen” meant “government”; it was the word Fon’s friend had used when he didn’t know the word election. “Clouds” meant there would be crowds of people waiting to vote; not a good day to see the village.

  I walk with Manit as she signs the book and enters a large room where three-sided wooden screens are perched on tables to assure privacy while people check off their paper ballots. Manit checks her ballot, folds the paper, and drops it into a box. Then she walks me over to a poster hanging on the wall outside and points to the picture of the number ten candidate. It is her husband, Somkit. He is running for local office. I shake my fist in the air, smile broadly, and say, “Yay!”

  At our next stop, another election district, a much bigger crowd is milling around. There are carts selling grilled chicken, meatballs on skewers, fruit on sticks. And inside, where the voting is taking place, is Fon. Working.

  “Willage. No tomollow. Fon busy. Gobamen. Clouds.” It all makes sense.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been in a country where I don’t speak the language. I feel stupid sitting in silence. I don’t like it. And I certainly don’t expect them to speak my language; I am in their country. I resolve to learn some basic words, so I can at least be polite in the Thai language.

  On the way home, Nark stops off at a roadside stand, where we all have a bowl of soup with noodles, pork balls, celery, and scallions.

  “Lawn,” says Nark, holding a bowl of red sauce and adding some to his bowl. Then, in English, he says, “Hot. Thai like hot.”

  “I do too,” I respond, spooning about the same amount into my soup along with marinated chilies and assorted leaves. I feel the heat on my lips, my throat, and all the way down. It is hotter than anything they serve in the U.S., but I’m determined to eat Thai food the Thai way. I only choke a little. Manit hands me a glass of water. As I eat, I remind myself to always carry a tissue. I love spicy hot foods, but they make my nose run.

  Everyone watches to see how I react. “Aloi,” I say. “Aloi mak mak.” Delicious. Very delicious. I learned it from Ei at breakfast. Everyone smiles.

  My hosts will not let me pay.

  It turns out that Nark knows more English than anyone else in the family. He spends the rest of the day teaching me basic Thai words, which I write in my notebook. Words like “thank yo
u,” “no problem,” “I like Thai food,” and “I am sixty-two years old.” (Everyone wants to know.)

  I try to memorize the words, but Thai is a tonal language. Even when I am staring at the words in my notebook, I have trouble saying them correctly. My voice doesn’t go up and down at the appropriate times.

  Late in the day, Nark takes me to see a spectacular temple that is still in the process of being built, and a massive golden Buddha who sits high on a hill looking out at the water. The Buddha must be forty feet high.

  At the temple there are men on scaffolding, gilding the spires, and both women and men delicately painting in the garments of outlined figures on the walls. There are people cutting and fitting marble floor tiles, and still others working on intricate carvings in alcoves. This is my kind of sight-seeing.

  I’d much rather see something in process than visit the finished product. I like workshops more than museums, rehearsals more than concerts. I would rather watch an artist painting or a sculptor chipping away at a piece of wood than view their finished works in a gallery.

  We climb over scaffolding, on stairs that have no rails yet, to the top of the temple where there is a 180-degree view of the area, miles of sandy beaches and sea on one side, acres of coconut groves on the other.

  When we get back to the bungalows, I go to my room. Two hours later, about seven o’clock, Fon knocks on my door calling, “Lita, Lita!” (The English r is almost impossible for the Thai speaker.) She charades the fact that there is cooking happening in the kitchen. I rush after her.

  The kitchen is filled with people, six women and Nark, all standing around the stainless island in the middle of the room, cleaning and cutting and dicing and slicing and chopping and pounding. As with Chinese food, the ingredients must be prepared before the cooking begins.

  Cherry tomatoes are popped in water to clean them, and then they’re cut in half. Onions are cut in half vertically and sliced into thin vertical strips; tiny celery with stems like toothpicks and thin green onions are washed and cut up into one-inch pieces. People are peeling and slicing cucumbers, and cutting off the top leaves of tiny eggplants the size of cherry tomatoes. Squids (which were cleaned in the afternoon) are scored and then cut into rings.