On Monday this week I went to Tanna, which is very nearly Vanuatu’s most southerly island, for two nights. It was a really great trip. Again I went with Moses, the Ugandan VSO who is working with the Ministry of Health here on developing an STI/HIV strategy. He is a lovely guy and because he has been in Vanuatu for over two years he knows how everything works and seems to know most people. We also spent an afternoon with Laurence, a Kenyan VSO who has been living in Tanna for almost two years as a road engineer advisor, who really did seem to know everyone on the island. Driving around Tanna with Laurence meant we would stop to discuss the road we were on every few hundred yards with the locals.Tanna is famous for the active volcano Yasur, and the John Frum cult, and is also the island where Captain Cook arrived (in Port Resolution) when he decided to call the country the New Hebrides in 1774. (Apparently there is going to be a documentary on Channel 4 quite soon about a bunch of Tannese men who came to experience how life in London differs from life in Tanna. I imagine
they had to make a bit of an adjustment). Tanna is pretty incredible; Kastom (i.e.custom - the traditional culture and practices) is very strong in Tanna and the western influences which are everywhere in Efate are very slight in Tanna. The main town, Lenakel is little more than a village and the guesthouse where I was staying had intermittent water and electricity (I also had a complimentary gecko under my sheet which was a nice surprise when I went to bed.)
Everyone I met was incredibly friendly which isn’t unusual in Vanuatu but it was pretty funny in the Nakamal (Kava bar) in the evenings when we pretty much shook hands with the whole place. I felt conspicuous not because I was the only white person there but because I was the only woman. The kava was very fresh and pretty strong. I had two shells and immediately after swallowing, my teeth and gums felt fizzy and my tongue went numb – obviously good shit. A couple of times sitting in the dark (kava makes you very light sensitive so there is minimal lighting – usually just a lamp in a tree near the bar), listening to the hacking and spitting of the men, I did wonder where the hell I wasI!
There was, not surprisingly, another side to Tanna. The poverty was pretty apparent the next day when w
e visited the hospital. I don’t know anything about clinical practice but the place was filthy; there was a bit of a clue about the hygiene standards when a friendly dog came along the corridor to say hello when we arrived. The hospital is one of 5 hospitals in Vanuatu and is meant to serve the 32,000 people who live in Tafea province. It has about 50 beds and 1 visiting volunteer doctor from Canada (a hospital in Victoria, BC send a series of doctors over on six month stints). There are about a dozen local nurses but no local doctor and not much prospect of one arriving any time soon. And the youth centre we visited was a concrete room with nothing in it to attract any young people. Being a Tannese woman doesn’t hold much attraction either, some of the kastom practices here include having to give birth in the bush and not being allowed back in the house for a month after the child is born, getting special cuts around your torso as a kind of tattoo when you first get your period (although boys get circumcised with a sharp bamboo, so its not all one way) and the guy who runs the youth centre told me that the week before three women in the village had been whipped with bougainvillea branches for attending an independence day dance...and as with much of Vanuatu, husbands (and his family) will pay a bride price giving him ownership of his wife which is interpreted pretty literally.
The photos are of me with one of the nurses from the hospital called Ruth in the back of a truck, and Moses with Laurence with his tomato plants in his garden, the other photo is me with Lawrence and his Tannese counterpart, Tom in a banyan tree.
I didn’t see the volcano or meet the John Frum gang but I am hoping to go back to Tanna with John at some point because it was a really fascinating place.
they had to make a bit of an adjustment). Tanna is pretty incredible; Kastom (i.e.custom - the traditional culture and practices) is very strong in Tanna and the western influences which are everywhere in Efate are very slight in Tanna. The main town, Lenakel is little more than a village and the guesthouse where I was staying had intermittent water and electricity (I also had a complimentary gecko under my sheet which was a nice surprise when I went to bed.)Everyone I met was incredibly friendly which isn’t unusual in Vanuatu but it was pretty funny in the Nakamal (Kava bar) in the evenings when we pretty much shook hands with the whole place. I felt conspicuous not because I was the only white person there but because I was the only woman. The kava was very fresh and pretty strong. I had two shells and immediately after swallowing, my teeth and gums felt fizzy and my tongue went numb – obviously good shit. A couple of times sitting in the dark (kava makes you very light sensitive so there is minimal lighting – usually just a lamp in a tree near the bar), listening to the hacking and spitting of the men, I did wonder where the hell I wasI!
There was, not surprisingly, another side to Tanna. The poverty was pretty apparent the next day when w
e visited the hospital. I don’t know anything about clinical practice but the place was filthy; there was a bit of a clue about the hygiene standards when a friendly dog came along the corridor to say hello when we arrived. The hospital is one of 5 hospitals in Vanuatu and is meant to serve the 32,000 people who live in Tafea province. It has about 50 beds and 1 visiting volunteer doctor from Canada (a hospital in Victoria, BC send a series of doctors over on six month stints). There are about a dozen local nurses but no local doctor and not much prospect of one arriving any time soon. And the youth centre we visited was a concrete room with nothing in it to attract any young people. Being a Tannese woman doesn’t hold much attraction either, some of the kastom practices here include having to give birth in the bush and not being allowed back in the house for a month after the child is born, getting special cuts around your torso as a kind of tattoo when you first get your period (although boys get circumcised with a sharp bamboo, so its not all one way) and the guy who runs the youth centre told me that the week before three women in the village had been whipped with bougainvillea branches for attending an independence day dance...and as with much of Vanuatu, husbands (and his family) will pay a bride price giving him ownership of his wife which is interpreted pretty literally.The photos are of me with one of the nurses from the hospital called Ruth in the back of a truck, and Moses with Laurence with his tomato plants in his garden, the other photo is me with Lawrence and his Tannese counterpart, Tom in a banyan tree.
I didn’t see the volcano or meet the John Frum gang but I am hoping to go back to Tanna with John at some point because it was a really fascinating place.
1 comment:
you didn't eat the gecko did you?
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