Three months in

Apologies for a bit of a delay in posting another blog entry, we have settled into a pretty regular life of going to work and the days seem to have flown by. However, rest assured that over the next couple of weeks there should be some good entries as we are off to Tanna (an island to the south of Efate) for a festival at the start of next week. Most of the islands of Vanuatu are unique, with their own cultures and languages, however Tanna is possibly one of the most famous (apparently Channel 4 will be showing a documentary about a group of people from Tanna at some point soon). It fought for independence back in 1980 and still maintains quite an independent mindset from the rest of the country. The very mention of 'ManTanna' seems to have people fidgeting nervously as befits the reputation of the toughest men in the country. The island is famous for its volcano, the John Frum cult and the Prince Philip cult - hopefully we will be able to report fully on our return next week.

And so to life in Vila. The weather has been amazing for the last week although we are both a bit concerned that we might already be heading into summer as it is getting pretty hot. We generally get up about 6 and go to the small shop near our house to get some bread for breakfast (or at least one of us does - the other one appears to have some problems getting out of bed - plus ca change). At about that time of the morning it is the sort of heat you get on a nice hot august afternoon back home. Our walk to work is therefore pretty melting, but this is compensated by the fact that we can see the lovely blue sea for most of the journey. The other indicator that the seasons might be changing is the market which is now absolutely stuffed with produce. We appear to be entering tomato, pawpaw and carrot season - the carrots are so big you feel a bit like you're in Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Wererabbit - oranges, mangoes and avocados are on their way. There continues to be a plentiful supply of coconuts, island cabbage, sweet potatoes and yam - we both try to ignore the odd bound coconut crab or chicken that tends to be lying around slowly suffocating.

The 'mamas' come to the market during the course of the week, bringing their produce from all the different islands and will then stay for a few days, sleeping in the market. They never seem to get bored of us asking "wanem emi ia" although we both felt a bit stupid when we asked "wanem emi ia" and the reply came back "brocolli" - it was pretty bloody obvious to all of us that it was brocolli. The only part of the market we haven't tried is the area at the back where they serve laplap - maybe later!
And so, three months in we are feeling pretty settled; playing a bit of scrabble without seeming to get any better at it and trying to find different ways to cook yam and pumpkin.
Three cheers to the Vanuatu football team who took the bronze medal in the South Pacifc Games which means they get to enter the regional qualifying competition for the world cup. Having predicted that the Soloman Islands would win they failed to even get a medal.