If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Well if you around my age with an interest in cartoons from your childhood, then there is barely a consideration to be made - you will of course be calling the Ghostbusters.
However, when this particular strangeness began, my neighbourhood was a hammock strung up between a couple of palm trees on the Tuvaluan island of Niutao, an island with a distinct lack of phone or internet networks which meant making a call to Peter Venkman and the gang was simply out of the question - I was going to have to taken matters into my own hands…
Niutao has a reputation for being a very spiritual island, where ghosts and spirits abound. Let’s be clear though, we aren’t talking about Casper here, these ghosts are anything but friendly, and they are often blamed for a variety of problems encountered by the islanders - If you don’t catch anything whilst out fishing, the ghosts are stealing your bait. Fall out of a coconut tree , the ghosts have pushed you, and if you get too drunk and wake up with a hangover, you can safely blame it on the ghosts. Although their ghoulish mischief can be found all over the island, the ghosts are said to mainly congregate in the South East corner - as coincidence would have, the very same corner I was currently in taking part in the Niutao Scout Camp – it was time to go ghost hunting.
Here be ghosts...
As some of you will know, when camping in the wild, there comes a time when the call of nature becomes too much and the search begins for a suitable place to 'take a load off' if you pardon the expression. For many people this has become somewhat of an art form, and depending on the camping company you keep, your bashfulness, and your choice of camp food, this can be a simple affair or a lengthy challenge.
Sometimes you are lucky, and you will find a suitable rock, or log to perch on with just the right dimensions and within arm’s length of some large leaves, or soft moss. Alternatively, you could be unlucky, in which case you might be forced to undertake such proceedings in the open air, with an icy wind biting at your bare buttocks, whilst your thighs and calves burn in a bid to prevent your from falling from your precarious squatting position whilst simultaneously frantically searching for something a little more forgiving then gravel to wipe with.
Having been invited to spend two weeks in the jungle of Niutao with the Scouts I knew I would at some stage have to undertake my own quest for the perfect spot, but I had no idea how eventful it would eventually turn out to be.
My search began in the early hours of the morning; donning my flip-flops and letting the dusty blue moonlight light my way, I set off in search of the perfect place in which to answer nature’s call. Fortunately, thanks to the mountains of rice and breadfruit I had been eating, there was no need to rush, and as I slowly walked through the dense undergrowth I leisurely examined and rejected a number of good looking logs mainly on account of their lack of view.
There was a moment of hope as I passed a secluded banana tree with its usefully large leaves within easy reach, but just as I dropped my shorts, and began to assume the position, an intimidatingly large coconut crab leapt towards me out of the darkness, wielding its giant claws menacingly and threatening to detach any appendage it might happen to encounter flapping in the wind. I quickly considered the lack of medical facilities on the island and how fond I was of all of my various appendages, and concluded that it was probably best to move on.
The task at hand was become slightly more urgent, and I was about to give up hope and settle for a simple pile of leaves, when I saw a small track leading out of the undergrowth towards the sea, and towards the sound of the crashing waves.
The view from my idyllic location...
I hurried along the path, and as it opened out onto the stony beach I was confronted with a vision of wonder. A natural channel ran through the coral from the inky ocean, leading into a shallow pool of crystal clear sea water. The pool was surrounded by an ornate wall of rocks and palm trunks providing maximum privacy from stray coconut crabs, and prying eyes. Standing at the edge of the pool of water and looking back at the dark Pacific illuminated only by the chalky full moon, I felt as if I had discovered the perfect place to answer the call. The whole situation was idyllic – it was private, the view across the beach and out to sea was fantastic, and the pool was naturally flushed out daily by the rising tide, never has a more perfect place been discovered in which to contemplate life and answer natures call, and so with a smile on my face, I did just that and returned to my hammock a content and happy man.
A formidable ghost hunting team...
The next day I awoke feeling fresh and ready to take on the world. My friend had promised that he would take me out into the jungle to look for the famous ghosts of Niutao, and that we were in with a good chance as our campsite wasn't very far from the alleged most haunted location on the whole island. So arming myself with a machete and a bottle of water (Unfortunately I had left my plastic proton pack and foot grabber thingy back in 1994) we headed out on our tropical ghost hunt.
Cutting through the jungle it was hard to keep my sense of direction, and it wasn’t long before I didn’t have a clue where we were. Fortunately with Niutao being such a small island, you are rarely very far from the sea, and soon I could see the white wave crests through the lush undergrowth, and before long we found a path which lead us onto the beach, a path which seemed remarkably familiar…
“Oh Shit!”
The irony of uttering such a phrase didn’t fully register at the time, and a pang on guilt ran through me as my eyes were presented with the scene of last night’s defecation perfection. The conveniently placed channel, the secluded pool, and the undoubtedly beautiful view, nothing had changed except the sun now illuminated the scene instead of the moon. I started to panic, why had I been brought here? Had I been followed last night? Had I taken someone else’s spot? Was this some sort of cruel joke? Stay calm, it’s probably just a coincidence and we’ll be moving on in a minute, won’t we? My mind was full of possibilities, outcomes and potential cultural faux pas I could have made, but nothing could prepare me for the truth, and as soon as my friend began to explain why we had stopped here and the significance of this spot, my heart rate rose and my jaw dropped.
On the way to the ghost's hot tub...
It was a brutal story; three ghosts being summoned by the full moon are supposed to have entered the village in the early hours of the morning to steal three babies whilst they were sleeping. As they ran back into the jungle the villagers chased the ghosts, and the babies started to scream. To stop the screaming, the ghosts ate the babies and then ran to the sea to get rid of the evidence, only they didn’t get as far as the sea. Spotting a secluded pool of water that was fed by a convenient channel, the ghosts stopped and washed the blood off themselves and then waited for the perusing villagers.
My friend’s words sank in, and my brain began to process them – So effectively I had taken a dump in the middle of the ghost’s hot tub whilst they all sat around washing dead baby blood off themselves – brilliant.
Now I don’t know a great deal about ghosts, but I assumed that taking a defecating in their hiding place wasn’t the best way to make friends. As casually as I could, I asked my friend what happened to the villagers who were chasing the ghosts; apparently those that weren’t killed and eaten on the spot were so stricken by fear that they ran back to the village where a plethora of horrible curses finished them all off one by one.
My friend continued to tell me of the brave young men who had gone hunting for the ghosts and of the inept fools who had stumbled upon them by accident, each one either disappeared or returned to the village cursed – falling slap-bang into the inept fool category , I began to worry what my fate might be…
Apparently climbing coconut trees is an effective way of avoiding some of the more land-based ghosts...
Beforehand the only people I thought who got cursed were pirates, and anyone who decided to play Jumunji, but now I could well an truly join the ranks of the doomed. I immediately began looking for signs of any curse curse which may have befallen me - no visible boils which was a good start, my hair hadn’t fallen out, and I hadn’t become possessed as far as I knew. After a full day of worrying, I got ready for bed and with an ominous feeling in my stomach I fell into a fitful sleep.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the next morning that I truly discovered what my curse was. Almost exactly 24 hours after my bodily functions had gate crashed the baby eating party, my stomach imploded and let out a disconcerting gurgle which, for anyone who is fluent in digestion could only mean one thing – “you have 30 seconds to get to a toilet or you will regret it”.
Running with the awkward gait demonstrated only by those in my situation, I staggered and stumbled into the undergrowth grabbing a handful of leaves as I went, and managed to get rid of my shorts just in time before what felt like everything I have ever eaten in my life, left my body in the most abhorrent torrent you can imagine.
In a wonderful twist of spiritual irony, for defecating in their hot tub the ghosts had deemed it appropriate to curse me with the worst diarrhoea I have ever had the discomfort to experience. It is one thing having this affliction within easy reach of a toilet, but quite another when you are camping in the jungle of a remote tropical island.
Chalky blue moonlight...
Unfortunately this wasn’t a one off occurrence, and my cursed digestive system continued to wreak havoc for the rest of my stay in Niutao, not stopping until I was on the boat back home and out of sight of the island – perhaps the ghosts were trying to tell me something?
Of course, you could take the sceptical view of my condition as the doctors did upon my return to Funafuti, and tell me that I had picked up the parasite Giardia which was hitch-hiking through my digestive system, most likely on account of me walking around bare foot most of the time or eating sketchy looking seabirds, however I think that diagnosis lacks a little imagination, and so please, head this story as a warning, and the next time you are “caught sauvage without the business section” (a euphemism only 2 people will get, but one I like) please consider the potential night time ghoulish activities of any location you chose, or alternatively take your own proton pack.