The Invisible Woman

Four of us are in the boat.  The driver is taking us from Moso island, across the channel to Efate, But first we make a stop elsewhere on Moso to pickup someone else.

A woman who I do not know is in the boat, but she is not from Moso.  A small boy is with us. The two are related somehow, like people here are.  By that I mean that there are no "distant relatives" here like there are in the U.S.  Family is family here.

The driver ties off the boat, and goes to get the other passenger.  The woman, the boy and I are waiting in the boat.  The boy has infinite energy, and can't stop climbing over everything.

I am next to the woman, who is trying very hard not to be sitting next to me.  She won't look my way, instead keeping her head turned to the right, peering under the dock.  She is leaning toward it too, as though she is about to step out underneath it.  There isn't anything under the dock, only large dry rocks.

I try making conversation while she tries to be invisible.  I ask her if she fishes, and what she has planted in her garden.  They call them gardens here, but they are farms and many people are subsistence farmers.  She answers me, but minimally and still won't look even in my general direction.

She is alone in a boat with a man who is not her husband or relative.  If there were other people with us that would be alright.  If she were old that would be alright.  She is a little older.  Not old but older, so more traditional even this close to Port Vila.  Being alone with a man like this is not normal.  I am white.  Does that make it more or less acceptable?  I don't know.  She is trying to be invisible until the others return.

I can't stand making her so uncomfortable so I get out of the boat and walk around.  The boy follows, and for every step I take he takes ten, and picks up sticks and rocks and throws them, or climbs a small wall, or goes there and then there.

I look back at the woman.  She is no longer straining.  She is just sitting, in the way someone who is waiting and a little bored sits.  My absence makes her more comfortable.

After a long wait, the others return.  They have two more men with them.  The men are doing work on a house, but they're from Port Vila and need to go back. Everybody is back in the boat.

The woman isn't uncomfortable now because there are so many of us.  There is nothing wrong with being a lone woman among a group.  One man apologizes two or three times to me for making us wait so long.  He doesn't apologize to her, only to me.  I think get the apology because I am white.  Maybe it is because I am a man.  Maybe it doesn't mean anything.  I was not supposed to be on this boat anyway, so I say the wait was no problem, which it wasn't.  I'm happy just to have a ride.  She doesn't say anything.

When walking in the village, or even in Port Vila, some women will try to make themselves invisible.  That is, they will go to great lengths to not be in my way and to make sure I am not inconvenienced in any way.  Some women will step off to the side of a path to give way, sometimes before I notice them at all.  The people are polite in this way, to an extent that makes me uncomfortable sometimes.  I don't expect or need the deference.  We're just two people passing.  But it happens all the time.  I don't know if women volunteers get the same treatment.

On the other hand, one time I went to a store to have a paper laminated.  The store was busy and I'd been waiting in line for over 15 minutes.  Lines here are usually about 50% observed.  In African countries I've visited, lining up is not a thing.  There is always just a big crowd and it is up to you to see to it that you make it to the front at some point.  But here, sometimes lines are observed. but not always by everyone.  Also, people often don't actually stand in a line; they just stand around, yet somehow people keep track of who is next.  Or they appear to.  Sometimes I can't tell.  Other times there seems to be a clear line but someone will start a new line.

Anyway, I had been waiting in line a long time and was finally at the counter.  A small woman squeezed between me and the person next to me, and started tapping her passport on the counter to get the clerk's attention.  She probably needed a copy of it.  I know I was before her.  I saw her come in.  When the clerk turned around, I immediately put my paper on top of her passport, covering it, made eye contact with the clerk and asked for a lamination.  Passport woman looked at me and said, "Sorry."  I said that was alright.  The only reason it was alright is because I didn't let her jump the queue.  Nobody says anything.

On another occasion I was at the hospital, waiting to have an exam.  Four of us were waiting.  Another guy came up and started waiting too.   When the previous patient came out of the exam room, the guy quickly rushed for the door and went in, jumping the queue.  A woman I was next to looked unhappy about this, the way people do when someone is a jerk.  I commented that was "rubbish fashion", what they call bad behavior here.  She didn't say anything, which is normal here.  When other people act like jerks, the bystanders who have to put up with them often won't say a thing.  I refer to this as movie theater behavior, and it is the same in the US.  When someone is bothering everyone in a theater by talking, only one person, if that, might say something.  The rest won't.

After a little while that woman went in next to the exam room, and after her it was my turn.  Another woman sat down, waiting for her exam.  When the exam room opened, the new woman immediately rushed for the door.  Anticipating this, I rushed ahead of her and she bumped into me.  She didn't look happy about it.  I shrugged and went in.

So that happens too.  These are all kind of extreme cases, that's why I'm writing about them.  Like anywhere else, the women here are individuals, and trying to sum them up with an adjective or two doesn't make sense.