Grandfather II - 6. Chapter 6

We were off to the business center. I took a tape measure with me but the first thing I wanted, was to go to the doctors with Kana. We had to wait about twenty minutes. The doctor examined Kana’s wounds, he gave me a prescription for a salve to put on his back. He looked at his foot, gave me another prescription for him to use to soak his foot. Now I needed to get the prescription filled at the apothecary. While I waited for the prescriptions to be filled, I picked up some items for my first aid kit. I was about to leave with the prescriptions when I noticed a box that contained bandages. I added that to my packages.

“I need to measure you boys for clothes that you’ll need to wear when we leave here.” They stood quietly as I measured them. I guess the idea we’d be leaving began to sink in. The clothing store didn’t have what I wanted, so I got t-shirts and shorts. I gave the packages to Akela to take to the boat. Liko and Kana stayed with me, I didn’t want Kana to walk too much.

When Akela returned, we went to the passport office. On the way we stopped for pictures. “Wait here, they will call you when your passports are ready. While they waited, I went to the fresh market and started to look around. I found a stall that sold a vegetable that looked like a potato. I asked if I bought the whole basket could I have the basket, he said no. “Is there someone around here who could help me?”

Before he could answer me, a young boy answered, “I can help you sir.”

“Great, do you know someone who has a wagon and where can I get some baskets.”

“I’ll be right back.”

Within five minutes he came back with a wagon, two baskets and two additional boys.

“The baskets cost two dollars each,” the island dollars were about fifty percent of the US dollar. I gave him the four dollars and he took off. The other boys helped to load the basket with the vegetables. It didn’t take long for the boy to be back. We went stall to stall. If I didn’t know what was on sale, the boys would tell me. I bought things I hoped my boys would know.

“If you take these to my boat. I’ll buy you lunch when you come back.” They all smiled, I called the Captain to tell him some boys were bringing food. I watched the boys as they headed to the boat, I saw Moe coming down the gangway to help.

While I was watching and waiting, I was joined by the boys. “Do you have your passports?”

“No, they were closing for lunch.”

“As soon as the rest of the gang gets here, we can go to lunch.”

“Rest of the gang?”

“The rest of the people I invited to lunch.”

The boys looked puzzled, I pointed to the wagon coming back from the boat. The smallest was sitting in the wagon while one pushed and one pulled. “Ready for lunch?”

“Yes”

“Where shall we go?”

“We’ll show you” We followed them down a side street to a cafe with outdoor seating. Then boys went and said hello to the woman behind the counter.

He pointed to us and then came over, “We can sit here.” The woman brought us a one page menu, mostly hamburgers with various condiments. The boys looked at me.

“Order what ever you want.” And they did, my boys joined right in. I couldn’t believe the amount of food they ordered. My little hamburger felt lonely.

The woman came back, “Malo, do you have enough? I’ll give you one for tonight.”

Akela started to talk in the island language. After a while he stopped and looked at me. “He’s my brother, we must take him with us.” I looked at him, I knew according to the island practice everyone was a brother.

“Talk to me Akela.”

“My brother is alone.” Then I knew he was an orphan who lived on the streets, being fed by people like this woman who ran this cafe.

“Akela, he may not want to go with us.” Akela began to talk to him in their language, the other boy listened and smiled.

“He’ll go with us but he has no papers.”

“Billy, I think I can help him get papers.”

“Ok, Kana” We walked to the government building and when I say we, I mean all of us.

Kana went and asked for a certain person. The man greeted Kana, they talked for a few minutes, the man went back into an office.

He retuned and gave Kana a form, “You need to fill this out.” It was in the language of the island. Kana laughed, “Sign here and I’ll fill out the rest.” I did, he gave the papers back to the man, they talked some more and then they laughed looking at me.

We waited another ten minutes, the man came back and handed a paper to Kana.

“Okay, we can go Dad.” I looked at him, he showed me the paper. “This is his mother’s name, they had that on file, but no father’s name. We need a father's name and here it is.”

There was my name, I laughed.“Ok, son lets go and get you some clothes.”

I stopped at a stall on the way back to the passport office. “You know since it’s all the same building, you’d think they’d have a hall way connecting the two.” The boys smiled, I stopped and bought three sarongs for Malo and three sarongs for Kana. Leaving the boys to put a sarong on Malo. Malo now looked like the other boys, almost, I walked around the stalls until I saw what I wanted, a puke necklace. I looked them over, I bought four blue and white necklaces and put one around Malo’s neck.

“Billy, that’s a necklace a father gives his son.” The island has colors for everything.

“Give me your necklaces.” They took them off but weren’t happy about doing it. Then I gave each of them a necklace like Malo’s. I got hugs from all three of them. Somehow, the necklaces cemented our relationships. The island culture, not sure I’ll ever understand them.