Ascending the pole, comes Montro's blind wife, gaunt, steady, weighed down with a large bundle of branches.. My God! How do these people do it! What happened to his first wife? Is this how people die here? They fall off these poles and die in the swamp when they can't see and their sense of balance is gone? There certainly aren't any disabled people that I see aside from Mrs. Montro.

Mrs Montro is introduced to me, smiles and gives me a perfunctory hug. Then she busies herself preparing for dinner. Sonny's wife and I are to help. There is a deep basket full of sago starch. The Missus reaches in and takes out chunks from this storage and begins grating them. They are adept at making these 20 inch long rolls into neat packages, ends tucked in somehow.

I am a dismal failure. Mine come unrolled, the fillings fall out. They laugh merrily, but I am fired.

I wander around trying to be useful, but am obviously inept. I break the long twigs into smaller pieces that seem more reasonable, but was stopped. NO NO! these long pieces are just what they want. They can lay them into the fire without getting too close. They can also lay our sago bundles on them to cook.

Dinner time : I am starving. We sit on the floor, unrolling and eating the crumbling sago. EEEEEE. My mouth is totally dry. My tongue sticks to my teeth. The starch has sucked up all my saliva.

They point to a leaf on which there are small cubes of pork fat. So that's how to get down that still dry mouthful! A little WD40 or a hunk of grease.