36 
of a schoolboy is a difficult thing to do. It is a lifelong turning point 
which these boys would rather not have reached. 
The guitar music, singing and dancing outside of our Bishop's house 
will, obviously, go on for most of the night. Most of the dancing is with 
couples and solo dancing, such as I see so often in New Britain and New 
Ireland, is not a part of the dance. Instead, even the small boys have age- 
mates of their own sex to dance with, as most girls dance with other girls, 
and the men and boys often interrupt them and dance with girls or women much 
older or younger than they. Boys of seven to ten years of age dance with 
girls of fifteen to twenty, and men with girls of ten to twelve are often 
dancing partners. 
St. Barnabas, A'ota, Merelava September 23, 1972 
Here I find a nineteen year old youth with a hypoplastic right leg, some 
two to three inches shorter than his left, which is normal. He is said to 
have had hot, tender swelling of the inner thigh, just above the knee, as an 
infant, and the leg has since remained hypoplastic. He stands with tilted 
pelvis and walks with a waddle. He has developed a compensatory scoliosis 
for his telted pelvis, and his thigh and leg are both atrophic, with very 
hypoplastic musculature. I do not think any further surgical correction is 
likely here in New Hebrides, but need to discuss orthopedic recommendation 
with someone doing work in this field. Obviously, we can do nothing, for even 
a builtup shoe sole would not be acceptable to him here. He gets around well 
as it is with a stick, but now prefers to waddle without using the stick. 
His name is Frank Adam, and his difficulty is traced to the acute inflammatory 
leg disease since early childhood. 
The people have prepared for us an enormous breakfast of sweet potato, 
yams and manioc, meat, rice and sugared tea, and we are all stuffed. They 
treat the six boys from St. John, St. Paul and St. Steven as guests as well, 
and provide them with food and with sheets and blankets for their sleep with 
us last night. 
The buildings of A'ota are almost all made traditionally, and the stone 
work on the terraces and platforms is executed very finely. I find the vil- 
lage very much more beautiful than that at St. Paul Lekwel, with none of the 
messy building material used at Lekwel. The houses are more compact on a very 
steep slope near the church site of Matliwog, although the A'ota group have 
scattered homesteads which lie far apart, along the south side of Merelava, as 
well as those clustered about the social center of the community. 
I revisited Erik Por, who has the huge abscess of the right arm, and 
have given him another 0.5 gm. of ampicillin. 
