Kaibola Village & Yam Houses Walk

In the Trobriands, yams are much more than food. Every year a man's family fills his sister's husband's yam house, and the full storehouse, built of logs with gaps to show off the harvest and topped with painted gables, is displayed as a measure of status. Kaibola has several of these bwayma, and a guide will explain who owns which and why. Walks usually take in the village paths, the school and the church, and longer versions continue into the coral ridge behind the village to the old burial caves, where skulls and bones of ancestors were once placed. Ask before entering any yard, and before photographing people. Guides wait at the tender landing. Agree a route, a price (K20–50 per group is typical) and a finish time before you set off, and pay in kina.