oconut crabs roast atop a sheet of roofing iron, heated by a fire below, as the Manele family prepares for a typical Monday night dinner in Guadalcanal.
Standing next to the fire which has been set at the foot of the stairs leading up to the house, John Manele, a subsistence farmer, chats with his sons – 13-year-old Junior Dominic and 17-year-old Jeffry – as the sun goes down.
A few yards away, Loretta Manele, the boys’ mother, fixes the rest of the meal next to the family’s traditional thatched-hut kitchen.
The cooking fire snaps. It cracks again. Then it explodes.
