island life

OK this is me rocking the Vanuatan 'island dress' look kindly given to me by our lovely host family. This is me with my 'pappa' who also happens to be the chief of the village. Below is a photo of john in his new 'island' shirt with our village 'momma.' Contrary to how it might look I am not pregnant and John has not become a pimp.

We got back on sunday from a 4 day trip to the island called Pele on the north coast of Efate. The village stay is part of our induction activities to experience life in the way that 80% of ni-vans live, eat, socialise etc. It was a pretty amazing trip. John and I were staying with the chief and his wife, son and daughter in law, three grandchildren and a couple of randomly selected cousins. The island is barely two miles long, it took about three hours to walk around it and i think there are about 400 hundred inhabitants. I think there are about 40 villagers in our village Piliura but it was hard to tell because all the islanders had congregated in Woliaru (just down the beach) because of a death the day before we arrived. The other reason it was hard to tell is that my bislama is rubbish and I'm not sure I understood what was going on most of the time. I can identify the nouns in most sentences (when they are the same word as english) but other than that I didnt have a clue. So someone says something about kakae (which I know is food) but i had no idea whether what was being said was, do you want some? will you make some? have you had some? we'll be eating over the road...you get the picture. I am pleased to say that not only did I 'scratch some coconuts' (thats a food preparation thing james), i also helped make lap-lap and tuluk (dont bother) - about three hours of work to make something which makes a veggie burger taste like a steak.

Anyway we had a fascinating time, it was a real privilege to experience life with a ni-van family who really couldnt have been more welcoming. It gave us a lot to think about..for example understanding the gender roles which we had been told are very prescribed in vanuatu and the women did spend a massive amount of time making lap-lap, and the men made the trips to town, did a lot of sitting around talking to each other, but at the same time the men also got involved in the domestic tasks helping to prepare fish, looking after the children etc. And the question of poverty is really difficult...on one hand the island has an amazingly plentiful supply of bananas, paw paw, clementines, yam, fish, a few chickens and the ubiquitous pigs for special occasions, the children (from about 2 upwards) have the safety of a whole (beautiful desert) island to play in... on the other hand they have to cook on wood fires, the children run around with gashes in their legs being feasted on by flies (the little girl who became my best friend on the island had to spend two weeks on a drip a couple of years ago after her leg got infected from a small cut) and they have very little access to cash when they need to pay for school fees and medical equipment. We didnt see an awful lot of the ceremonial/ kastom side of life as we werent invited to the funeral feast (quite glad as that would have meant watching a pig being battered to death) although the chief did make a speech when we left, I am very proud to say that John gave a smallfella speech (in bislama) in return. It was a really beautiful place and the people were lovely - I'm hoping we might be able to visit again at some point.