39 
It is also obvious that I have worked our team a bit too hard and 
done little to make sure that they have enjoyed their stay on Merelava. 
The adverse conditions of living ashore and the hazards of landing from and 
reboarding the ship, have discouraged them, as has the rough sojourn on the 
ship in high seas, and finally, once on shore the climbing and hiking has 
been a bit much for Judy and Richard, and the work load of over 250 children’s 
50 adults’ physical examinations and a great many additional sick patients 
with complaints has exhausted everyone. Paul has taken on direction of our 
studies at every stage when I have been absent, and the group has gone to 
huge concerted effort to get the work done. It has been a bit too much to 
have undertaken, for the circumferential walk around Merelava requires four 
to six hours, and the population is now about 1000. Four days to survey all 
of the complex culture has been far too little. The Alpha Helix crew has 
not set foot on shore, and all night the ship cruises the sea far offshore. 
We have had a waxing moon since our arrival and full moon tonight. The 
dangers of some of the landings cannot be exaggerated and I must seek to be 
more cautious in the future. The small boat operation has fallen almost 
exclusively to Jean Guiart. Jean and I have been on shore all the time since 
disembarking, and Paul has also managed to sleep all four nights on shore, 
as we have. To have been so thoroughly enthralled with the people so as 
to leave almost no time for discussions with any tema has been the major 
problem and ertui of this short and strenuous initial survey. I hope that 
now we shall be more realistic and more efficient on the other islands, and 
that we shall not tackle such an extensive population again on this trip. 
The local school boys speak and read English well and thus cramp my 
style severely when reading over ray shoulder all I^viO^rite herein, almost 
as fast as I write. This makes it necessary for me to remember much that I 
wish to record for later. 
... 1 0 p * m ... 
It is late, and with all five of my team who are on shore with me now 
asleep, the guitar music for moonlight dancing has started. The people 
have tactfully come down to the school playing ground field for the dancing 
in order not to awaken the "waitmen” who are sleeping. I am writing by 
Coleman lamp light at the Dispensary porch where I have worked on three 
of my previous four nights on the island. The girls have clustered about 
noisily and tried to get me off to the dance. I have not obliged them. 
Seeing ray reluctance and hesitation and noticing that I often beat time 
or sway to the guitar music, Alban tactfully tells me: "If you want to 
dance, you must try!" and all the boys say they want me to dance. Yet, it 
is the same deep revulsion and shyness in social gatherings that thrust me 
from then in childhood and adolescence that remains with me. I prefer 
to turn instead to any kind of work and look on at these gatherings as 
social or cultural events from which I am exculded. The ease with which 
Alban spots the problem is amazing. Fortunately he is very verbal and 
minces no words and loses no time in setting me straight. The dancing 
remains, as was yesterday’s, very conventional and "Western" and none 
of the solo dancing by men or accomplished boys has yet turned up. . .although 
when they are not seen publically, I notice that the boys often practice 
steps of the solo-type dances, v;hich must thus sometimes be performed. 
