Kandengey is a place to die for – and I should know, I nearly did
Last night I dreamt I went to Kandengey again – Kandengey being a village in Papua New Guinea and not at all the same as Manderley, the house in Rebecca blighted by a Mrs Danvers, the sinister housekeeper with an unfortunate allegiance to the first Mrs de Winter. Eventually the whole place burns down.
Kandengey, by contrast, is nestled in the sleepy backwaters of the Sepik River. There, a cooling breeze shimmers over the lilies that decorate the waterfront, a pleasing array of thatched houses nestled between gently leaning coconut palms. Herons stalk the friendly lagoon; egrets traverse the indigo sky. In short, Kandengey village, in the heart of the world’s largest tropical island, is a place to die for. And I should know. I almost died there.
Many years ago, aged 24 – young enough still to be idealistic – I settled into the remote community, determined not be impose myself, as explorers were wont to do, but instead listen and learn. And listen I did. I listened to the elders, the fishing women, the children – and through each night I listened to the innumerable mosquitoes that resided with them. In time, I even underwent Kandengey’s male initiation ceremony and became a “man as strong as a crocodile”. So far so good. The ceremony itself had been a tad longer than anyone expected – six weeks – and its secret ordeals rather more brutal (we were beaten mercilessly five times a day) but what I’d like to share with you on this occasion is a matter altogether more delicate.
For it emerged that going through the ceremony brought about certain privileges – not enough, some would say – and one such privilege was female companionship.
I realised this when the first girl turned up in my mosquito net. And a lovely first girl she was. But did we kiss affectionately, accompanied by a chorus of marshland frogs, gently lit perhaps by fireflies as we gave vent to our passions, along with the other creatures of the night? No. For although it’s true that once you are an initiated man of the Sepik River, you do indeed have the right to make love with the girl of your dreams, sadly there will be consequences. There is no such thing, as it were, as a free midnight feast.
That didn’t discourage my guest from attempting to have one. Just as it hadn’t discouraged the numerous family members who were undoubtedly in on this, because even on a moonless night, a girl doesn’t manage to slip through a Sepik village, however neatly arrayed along a waterfront, without an awful lot of help.
She dropped out of the darkness like a bat. And, actually, the girl was quite a catch – much admired on
account of her generous dimensions and puce nail varnish. She was known as the Typist.
“Oh Wumbunavan,” she began cooing, using my honorary name. “Wumbunavan, I think we will evermore be together” – or romantic words to that effect. She began undressing.
“Evermore?” I thought.
Further adding to my distress was the knowledge that a certain Lutheran priest had suffered a not unrelated fate. A posse of men had marched to his house bearing flaming torches and threatening to burn him alive if he didn’t marry a young lady who had once turned up in a similar fashion and was now with child.
“Vich girl? I do not even know vich girl has got herself pregnant!” he exclaimed as the men waved their torches. But still she refused to reveal the identity of the real father, so he had to marry her – resign his ministry, too. It was all very awkward.
And now here was the Typist already down to her underwear, and I could virtually hear her delighted relatives assembling with their brushwood.
So this is how I almost ended my days in Kandengey. It would have been a quite interesting life – richer in some ways that an existence in Basingstoke, or wherever else I might have ended up. With the Typist as my spouse, and a dozen scampering children besides, I might have been content – and been a better explorer, too. But it was not to be. I arranged a hasty exit – the other benefit of going through the initiation ceremony being that fellow initiates had a sworn allegiance to each other; they were now usefully deployed to escort the Typist back home. All sorted, then.
Until two nights later, when the next girl turned up.
