A Vanuatu Christmas

 “Look I found one, but it’s not going to be easy to get.”

“Why not, what’s the problem?”

“Well, it’s in the garden of a house up by the hospital.  It is too public and it will be hard to get away with it.”

“Well, I’ve got a balaclava and some black fatigues.  Maybe we could do it one night this weekend, but then, Shari -- the chainsaw might give us away anyway don’t you think?”

“Yeah, you’re right, but a handsaw will take forever.”

I sat there listening to this conversation between Sonja, level-headed organiser extraordinaire and mother of two and the very enthusiastic yet sometimes less practical Shari, our friend and hairdresser, thinking, “it’s just too damn difficult to get a Christmas tree in Vanuatu”. 

Centrepoint's Snowy Santa Windows

Frankly, the whole “traditional” white Christmas thing just doesn’t work in Vanuatu despite numerous attempts to make it work.  When it is 33 degrees Celsius in the shade of a palm tree and afternoon tropical thunderstorms drive you from the pool on a daily basis Santa Claus in his big furry coat travelling in a sleigh with eight tiny reindeer seems just a little out of place.

Mobil Petrol Station's Snowy Santa Windows

Yet, as you drive down the dusty main road of Vila in late November you start to see the jolly little man in red popping up all over the place.  Centrepoint Supermarche has him painted on the windows, as does the Mobil station across the street.  They obviously used the same painter.  Bon Marche has him hanging over every aisle.  With no major department store or mall, there is nowhere to sit on Santa’s knee, but there is a Santa Parade.  Well, sort of, last year it consisted of some poor sod dressed up in a Santa suit on the back of a truck.  The truck went down the main street and Santa threw candy to pedestrians.  The dash to scoop up the tasty morsels nearly caused a riot. 

You had to feel sorry for Santa though.  It was sunny and about 35 degrees and the patches of darker red on the suit showed the poor man was slowing sweating to death.

It is not just Santa either.  The attempts to re-create snow are sometimes even more out of place.  You wouldn’t believe the number of shops that have “snow” sprayed on their windows, then again I guess it might be condensation… 

No, I’m pretty sure it’s that snow in a spray can stuff.  The snow obsession is not just for shopkeepers either.  Friends of ours told us that a few years ago, a guy decided to have a white Christmas and covered his house and garden in some kind of white confetti stuff.  It didn’t look much like snow apparently, but every one came to have a look anyway and a frolic in the winter wonderland. 

Centrepoints Christmas Cheer

I must say, I understand the desire to have a white Christmas. Having been raised in the colder regions of the Northern Hemisphere, the plummeting temperatures, the long dark nights, the hint of snow in the air are all signs that Christmas is just around the corner.  I mean, even in Arizona and California darkness falling at 5 in the afternoon gave you some hint.  I guess I should be grateful for the little reminders, because, if it weren’t for all this stuff popping up around town, I would probably completely forget Christmas was coming.

The Southern Hemisphere has none of the signs.  Christmas falls in the middle of summer, it’s hot even in New Zealand.  The days are long and the nights short.  Digging the car out of a snow bank to go to grandma house for Christmas dinner is replaced by packing the car for a barbecue at the beach.  It just doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.

Last Christmas, our first in Vanuatu, we decided to go for a less traditional type affair.  It really worked and we proved it could be done a tropical way.  We had 13 people including 3 children to Christmas lunch.  The event had originally been planned for the beach, but our usual beach spot was not available and our house had a pool for the kids – big and small.  So, it was at our place.  There wasn’t an evergreen in sight and not one flashing fairy light either.

Everyone brought something so it was not a big cooking thing and fortunately the farce of a hot roast dinner in the middle of summer as many families in New Zealand suffer through was foregone.  Everyone agreed to make it tropical and make it simple.  Many of the dishes, like the mussels, were served cold.  Except for the napkin rings it wasn’t beginning to look a lot like Christmas at all, at least not at our place.  Which was fine with me.  I don’t mean to sound a grinch and I was looking forward to the gathering, but with the sun shinning, the temperature pushing the top of the thermometer and the palm trees swaying in the light breeze it was a nice day, but not Christmas.

Being a Southern Hemisphere boy, however, Rob sees all the current signs of Christmas as normal, and he really got into the spirit.  He went for special, which means complicated, of course.  He made Christmasy napkin rings – two versions one toilet rolls covered in Christmas wrapping which he decided against and other using gilded cherubs which he went with in the end.  He designed a beautiful centrepiece for the table complete with gold and silver spray-painted pineapples and ferns placed around a gold coloured pedestaled orb.  He said the orb was to signify “the coming the new millennium”.  Yeah, I know… 

The table was set beautifully.  He made chocolate pecan fudge.  The fudge, together with nougat, was divided up, wrapped in clear cellophane with a holly print and tied off with red ribbon (in a small bow of course).  He found someone who imported salmon for the dish he was creating, etc., etc.  Let’s just leave it at he loves Christmas.

Christmas morning started with a champagne breakfast at our friends Tony and Julia’s place.  They had a tree and air-conditioning, so with the drapes pulled I could almost imagine Christmas morning. 

After ‘breakfast’, it was back to our place.  After more champagne, we sat down to the first course.  First entrée was prawns, scallops and calamari done in a cognac cream sauce.  This was served with cooked bananas.  Next was marinated green-lipped mussels in a chilli sauce.  The THIRD entrée was crayfish followed by a lime sorbet.  Then we took a break before the mains.  Most of us went outside on the deck.  Some swam, some chatted and everybody drank more champagne.

Rob and Julia stayed in the kitchen and created the mains.  A little while later we returned to the table still full from the entrées.  The mains were salmon stuffed with Chinese cabbage, roasted peppers and pinenuts by Rob and baked ham contributed by Julia and Tony (ok so we didn’t give up all the traditional fare).  And if all that was not enough we had Pavlova and cake for dessert.  The meal itself began at 2:30 and finished up at about 6.  I don’t think I’ve ever eaten and drank so much.

The next morning we got up to another brilliant day.  We had been invited to spend Boxing Day, Family Day here, at a bach (cabin) up the coast at Havana Harbour.  We arrived just before lunch was served still full from the day before.  We were introduced, had the obligatory glass of champagne, a look around, some conversation and then got into lunch, again.

Lunch consisted of a huge plate of whole crayfish, a pork roast, sweet potatoes, bananas roasted in their skins on the grill, French bread and lots of French red wine, nicely chilled as always in Vanauatu.

Needless to say, it was a fabulous two day event that most found to be Christmas in a Southern Hemisphere kind of way.  While it didn’t seem to be all that Christmasy to me, I liked the fact that it suited the environment - hot pudding, heavy food and Santa squeezing down the chimney were no where to be seen.  So, why the obsession with ‘traditional’ Northern Christmas stuff?  You would think that people down this part of the world would have adapted symbols to better fit the environment.

Vanuatu's Christmas Tree

I mean, take the tradition of decorating everything with red and green.  It is a bizarre tradition that has been transplanted to Vanuatu and it is out of place.  Against the bleak winter background of lifeless trees, dead grass, patches of white snow and dreary grey skies, red and green livens the scenery up a bit.  But, who needs green and red when you’ve got green jungle bursting with colourful summer flowers.

We’ve got “Christmas trees” all around us.  The flame trees with their fiery orange flowers are in full bloom at the moment punctuating the green hills around town.  Then there are the trees with lemon yellow flowers that hang like grapes and next door to us there is a big tree bursting with hot pink flowers.  Gardens are flush with pink, red and rich purple bougainvillaea.  Hedges of red hibiscus line driveways and roads.  Who needs fake green and red Christmas decorations when all this is about?

Neighbour's Hot Pink Tree

I have to say that one “traditional” decoration that does work very well is the fairy lights.  I’m not talking about the red, green, blue and yellow ones that light up the fronts of businesses in town and I’m definitely not talking about the ones that drive you mad flashing all night.  However, the plain white ones that currently bathe Port Vila in a cool white glow really work.

UNLECO, the local electricity and water company that thrives on monopoly pricing and would make a fabulous poster child for antitrust law campaigns, does put some money into the community at Christmas and works wonders with white fairy lights. 

Christmas Lights on Lini Hwy

They have taken strings of lights and made sheets of white light that hang over the main road through town.  Every 50 meters or so another one of these sheets of light spans from building to building across the road.  The seafront trees and trees around the market are also covered in white fairy lights.  It is absolutely beautifully done.

Going through town on a dark summers night the white light really makes the ground glow, you almost feel as though you are driving through a winter wonderland.  That is, of course, until you open the door of your air-conditioned car and step into a wall of heat and humidity.

Fairy Lights on Vila's Seafront Palms

Anyway, the trees that I find most amazing covered in lights are the palm trees.  UNELCO has wrapped the trunks of those on the seafront and outlined each palm frond with fairy lights.

Anyway, as I turned around to pick up my yellow plastic Christmas crown that I got from my Christmas cracker, my mind wandered back to the topic at hand and I saw the solution to the Christmas tree dilemma.

Sonja, Shari, Rob and others were in deep discussion over what they were going to do about a tree for their Christmas lip-sync competition fundraiser.  Shari had decided to go ask the people who own the house near the hospital if we could chop the top off it.  Rob was on to putting a gold star on top of a Christmas tree created from overlapping sheets of white cloth hung on the wall.  It all sounded way too difficult, not to mention traditional, but the trees on the seafront provided a solution - or at least I thought so.

Rob's Brilliant Idea

I suggested getting a big potted palm tree and covering it in lights.  The Christmas traditionalists looked over the fake little green Christmas tree in the centre of the table and gave me that what-a-silly-idea look.  Rob ignored the idea as he does and continued sizing up the wall for his white sheet Christmas tree.

As the week wore on and the ideas all got too complex, though, it was decided that a fairy lights on a palm tree was a brilliant idea.  A small group went down to the local nursery and picked out three nice sized palms that were put up in the Rossi Restaurant for the big night.

As usual, everyone is now saying what a wonderful idea Rob had to use the palm trees.  Story of my life! Anyway, the palms looked tremendous fitted out in gold and red and it was nice to see something a little more Vanuatu developing.  I’m not getting my hopes about any major progress to a real Vanuatu Christmas though.

Because, the day after, as I was cutting the fishing line we had used to hang the red balls, gold stars and red icicles (ok, so sue me, some one did get the snow thing in) while preparing the palms for transport to a new life at the golf club, I noticed a 13 foot Norfolk Pine walking into the Rossi.  It was placed in a pot and sat there waiting to replace our Christmas palms.  I guess the traditionalists win again.

Copyright 2001

[Note: This tale was first told in December 2000 and a few days later I got an email from a former nurse at the hospital who was then in living Scotland, but knew exactly which tree Shari was eyeing up for the chop – small world, eh?  And, alas, the Rossi is no more.]

A Tale of Vanuatu Jungle and Sea

La Piste Bleue Finish Line, Port Vila Vanuatu

It was pitch black when my eyes cracked open in response to the annoying screech of the alarm.  Rob leapt out of bed and headed for the shower.  I rolled back over and tried to go to sleep, but my mind kept working trying to figure out the time.  It was dark.  The birds hadn’t begun their dawn chatter.  Rob was wide-awake.  The wondering and the shower made it impossible to get back to sleep, but the alternative - rolling over to turn the light on to see where the hands of the clock were - was simply not an option.  I’d have been wide-awake myself then and I knew that on a Saturday morning that was just not suppose to be.

Rob came out of the shower and got his running gear on in the dark.  I finally brought myself to a point of awareness where I could talk and made the gesture of offering to drive him to where he was going.  I was more than pleased to hear that he was being picked up.  I really couldn’t bear the thought of getting up and driving him to the starting line.  I asked what time it was.  He said he wasn’t sure, but had set the alarm for 4:30!

He finished dressing, said goodbye and headed off to the kitchen.  As the bedroom door closed I mumbled a half-hearted “good luck” and was back to sleep in no time.

I rose at the much more respectable hour of 9 o’clock.  It was a brilliant day.  The sun was shinning, but there were huge fluffy white clouds that covered the sun from time to time just enough to keep it from getting excruciatingly hot.  I thought that would be good for Rob and his team on their 25 km walk through the jungle.

Every year the local electricity and water company, UNELCO, sponsor La Piste Bleue.  For those not familiar with Vanuatu’s other official language, La Piste Bleue translates as The Blue Trail.  Blue and white are UNELCO’s colours and the trail is marked with blue markers so people can find their way.

Well, most people can find their way.  Every year until last year when the requirement of doing the trek in teams was introduced, at least one person got lost.  In 1998, about 5 people got lost – one for several days – so that put an end to the individual competition.

This year a record 534 people including 81 children – they had a shorter course, of course – started out on the jungle trek.  I say started out, because not everyone makes it.  There are several check points along the way that teams must check in at.  It makes it easier to decide where to send the search parties this way.  The checkpoints are manned by the military police and at some you have the option of dropping out. 

Anyway, at 7am sharp teams with names like Cinnamon Girls, Les 40%, the Bull Dogs and the International School Scorpions headed off into the jungle behind the UNELCO’s new generating plant. 

Climbing Jungle Paths

Rob had done La Piste Bleue last year and of course could not resist doing it again this year.  I met him at the finish line last year.  He and his team had finished at about 3 in the afternoon and were covered in mud and soaked through from the river crossings and sweat.   The stories of the adventure and the fantastic scenery were very enticing and I briefly entertained the idea of doing it this year, but the reality is it’s not me – too many mountains and hills.  Rob sees a mountain and he wants to climb it.  I see a mountain and I look for the easiest way around it.  I love to walk, but only where it’s flat.  Beaches are good.  So, needless to say, when it was suggested I join the team, I declined. 

So, while Rob and his team were climbing Mount Bernier that morning, I was pottering around the house.  I had said I would catch up with them at the finish line and when I got to the kitchen that morning, I found a note instructing me to bring the champagne in the fridge and three glasses.  The “three glasses” instruction irked me a bit considering it was a three person team and with the champagne carrier that made FOUR!

Anyway, Rob had suggested they would be finished by 1 o’clock, but since I was told the same last year and had to wait around for two hours for him to finish I decided 2:30 would be more reasonable.

I loaded the champagne and THREE glasses into the cooler and headed out to Hideaway Island.  Hideaway is a great little resort, a resort in a Vanuatu sense that is.  It is known for its diving and snorkelling.  The reef around part of the island is a designated marine reserve so it attracts all kinds of fish and sea life.  The coral is spectacular at least from this novice snorkeller’s point of view.  It has a few bungalows for overnight guest and a rustic little restaurant right on the beach, which makes a beautiful fish curry.

Hideaway Island,  Mele Bay, Vanuatu

The first time we went out there, I thought that had the producers of “Gillian’s Island” paid a bit more attention to detail, they would have filmed it here rather than on a soundstage.  Everything about the place just screams Gillian – the bungalows, the “wharf”, everything except I guess the people, the boat to the mainland, the bar and the restaurant.

It is a great little place to get away from it all, but not too far from town to mean I would fail at my job as champagne carrier. 

Hideaway Island Resort is run by this Kiwi bloke from Auckland, named Bruce. Bruce is quite a character, one of the many who make Port Vila so quirky. He is well tanned and about 40. Bruce came here 14 years ago after a stint in Bouganville. He is one of the many who tell you they came here for six months, a year or a weekend holiday and are still here 14, 20 or 30 years later.

He has blondish hair with one of those little short tail thingies at the back. I suspect the hair may be disappearing, but it is hard to tell since he is never seen without his baseball cap. He smokes rollies and is uncomfortable wearing anything but shorts, T-shirt and jandals (thongs, flip-flops or any of the other names you might call those little pads of rubber you attach to your feet by slipping the rubber strap over the front of your foot and between your big toe and whatever the next one along is called - your index toe?).

When we first got to Vanuatu you would often see Bruce in one of those long oil skin coats you see the Marlboro Man in. At the time, his jeep was without a roof and it got a bit wet when it rained.  Fortunately, a year and a half on he has finally got a canvass top on it.

The Snorkeling is great in Vanuatu.

Now, I know, this picture is not what you would picture as a wonderful host, but on the contrary Bruce has to be one of the best hosts in town.  He is always a step a head of you on what you need... beer, coffee, cake, snorkelling equipment.  He is very witty and never short of a tale of his own.

I’ll never forget our second or third trip out there.  We had some visitors in town and had gone out for the afternoon.  Bruce came over to our table on the beach, while we were having lunch, to have a chat. As he often does, he told us a story. I don't quite remember why this particular story, but it fit into the conversation at the time for some reason.

A couple of years ago a group of four older women, old friends from high school, were at Hideaway on some sort of reunion. Their husbands were off some where and they were going snorkelling. The water at Hideaway is very shallow for quite a ways out, maybe only a foot or two deep, and there is a lot of coral rubble you have to make your way through to get to the reef. Anyway, just as one woman was starting out into the deeper water she started flailing, splashing and screaming. Bruce said everyone ran down to the water thinking something was terribly wrong – shark, sea snake, jellyfish?  Next thing they knew she stood up in the shallow water, topless, "with her tits hanging down to her navel" as Bruce put it and she said "Oh, Thank God!!" and was fine.

It turned out that as she had pushed off, her top had got snagged in the coral rubble and come off.  As she got into the deeper water (3 or 4 feet), her breasts came up into her face.  Through the goggles, tough, which I am told magnify things by about 25%, she didn't quite recognise them and thought she was being attacked by some vicious sea creature.  Hence, the panic attack that drew everyone to her aid.

Anyway, as luck would have it the comedy routine got even better that particular day. A little while after lunch, Rob and the others had gone for a snorkel. I sat at the table reading my book, because the night before I had had a shark dream and decided not to risk it (no, it wasn't funny but it figures, right?).

Bruce saw I wasn't going in so, being the good host, he brought some coffee over for me and a lemon tea for himself and sat down for a chat. During this chat this very large nicely dressed older man with a thick German accent - Sgt. Schultz type - came over asking if Bruce had seen so and so. Bruce hadn't and the guy went off back toward the bungalows.  The guy was staying on the island.

Well a little time passed and back came Sgt. Schultz, but this time he was wearing nothing but a pair of speedos and carrying his snorkelling gear. Jesus, was that a sight to be seen. From the front, his stomach hung down so far that you couldn't tell he was wearing speedos, but it wouldn't have mattered if he wasn't because 'it' would have been well hidden by the one large roll. From the side, you could see a thin wisp of black speedo and from the back, well that was large and black. The rest, however, was white as white could be.

He waved hello and went down to the water to put the snorkelling gear on.  Most people wade in to where the water is about 2 feet deep, sit down and put the flippers on. Not this guy.  He sat down just at the water line in about 4 inches of water, 6 inches when a wave came in off a very calm Mele Bay.  He put the flippers on, adjusted his goggles and snorkel, moved slightly forward into the water, stretched his arms and legs out and started swimming.

I say swimming, but it was only the motions of swimming really. His flippers were still resting on dry land, his stomach, well you can imagine, in 4 to 6 inches of water was resting firmly on the sand and coral rubble bottom, his butt was in the air, but his head and arms were in the water he thought he was swimming.  It took a few seconds, but eventually he worked his way out into the deeper water and was off.

It was one of those Kodak moments. Bruce and I sat there watching this spectacle and you could see both of our minds heading rapidly down the same track. We looked at each other, both about to speak, but Bruce, as he does, got there first.

"Thank Christ Greenpeace weren't here! They'd have been down there trying to push the poor bastard out to sea," he said with the smoke from his last drag on the rollie escaping from his mouth with those words.

Unfortunately, Bruce was nowhere to be found on the day of La Piste Bleue.  So, I had to look elsewhere for entertainment.  I had a drink, had a bite to eat, read a bit of my book and just before two made my way back to ferry.  It was a nice day and it sure as hell beat dragging my butt up mountains, over rivers, through the mud and back to civilisation.

There were cars all along the road outside the entrance to the UNELCO plant when I got there.  Half of the road was blocked off and teams, muddied and wet, were powering home to cross the finish line.  I drove up to the airport to turn around and then parked the car under a tree along the road.

I walked into the grounds looking around to see if I could see Rob and the team.  I hadn’t really expected them to be there.  I was walking the same path as the trekkers and as I neared the finish line a guilty flash of embarrassment shot through me as a group of spectators started cheering.  I mean, why me?  I wasn’t muddy.  I wasn’t soaked with sweat.  How could they possibly think I’d managed to finish La Piste Bleue looking like that.

I sheepishly looked over in the direction of the cheers and realised they weren’t cheers at all they were just calling me over to where the team had plopped down after finishing.  Rob was propped up against the chain link fence drinking a Coca-Cola.

I sat down in the crowd as this was a crowd that was not standing and got the run down.  It was not as hard as last year’s.  There was no climbing up waterfalls and no river crossing this year.  Climbing Mount Bernier was the most gruelling part, but the twist, and there is always one, was the climbing a ravine using ropes to make your way from rock to rock.

La Piste Bleue Gathering

I heard who passed whom.  Who drove whom up a wall along the way.  Some people are quite full of themselves and strut there way along putting others down.  The first man to cross the finish had done the whole trek without shoes.  This meant I knew the winner was a ni-Vanuatu because as I looked around the group New Zealanders, French and Australians around me all rubbing their feet freshly removed from their shoes, there was no way any of them could have done it without shoes.

After a good 15 or 20 minutes, I mentioned that I had remembered to bring the champagne and asked if I should go get it.  A load chorus of “Yes” ensued.  Apparently, the only thing that kept Vickie, one of Rob’s team members, going was the promise of champagne at the finish.   So, I went back to the car and carried the cooler and THREE glasses over.  Considering there were a lot more than three people around that was a bit awkward, but we made do.

Maybe next year, I will walk La Piste Bleue, then again… 

[Note: During the decade that has past since this tale was first told, I have never done La Piste Bleue]

Copyright 2001

Malakula Waiting

Taxi Hey Taxi

George Our Wala Guide

Finding a taxi on Malakula Island's jungle roads is not an easy task.  We had waited about an hour and a half with our guide, George, before the revelation.  We were sitting on an old cement roadside drain on some banana leaves - the kind that don’t stain your clothes- that George had cut.

George put the banana leaves over the fern fronds used by other jungle passengers.  There were more disposed of fern and leaves rotting in the culvert opening.  This was obviously the bus stop/ taxi rank for Wala.  Others had waited here before.

We were headed up the coast on a fine Saturday morning to catch a boat out to one of Malakula’s most culturally rich islands, Vao.  Our taxi, the pick-up truck that had taken us from Norsup to the Wala landing the day before was supposed to meet us at 9 am.  We came across just after nine.  It wasn’t there.   George wasted no time in suggesting he walk to the road and bring back a taxi.

This should have been our first clue to a problem since it would not be odd for the taxi to been late.  Anyway, we insisted on walking out to the main road with him.  It was a nice day for a walk and I certainly needed the exercise.

We sat there by the road taking in the scenery.   We said “Allo” to a young couple heading off to the gardens.   George and I chatted about the usual Vanuatu small talk topic- family.  A family of five walked by – Dad with his bush knife, Mum carrying a sack on her back and a smouldering quarter coconut shell in her hand and three boys ages 6 – 10.   They too were off to work in the gardens.  The embers in the smouldering coconut shell would be used to start the garden fire for cooking and cleaning up the cuttings.

After about 45 minutes we heard a vehicle in the distance.  As it rounded the corner and headed down the hill toward us we saw that it was a taxi and noticed only the driver inside.   Our ride was here or so we thought.  It carried on right past us as the driver waved hello.

Island Time 

I recalled our discussion from the night before with the only other guests at the Wala Island Resort, a young Australian couple.   A traditional meal cooked with hot stones had been prepared for the four of us. 

Wala Island Resort 

The banana leaves in which the meal was cooked had been folded out and red hibiscus flowers had been dotted around the “platter”.   A whole chicken, the same chicken I had seen being plucked behind our bungalow just a few hours earlier had been cut into portions and placed in four separate piles.  Laplap and sweet potatoes where scattered around the bowl.  In the centre, coconut cream now filled the bowl-like cavity in the laplap where the chicken had been cooked.

As we sat on the mats devouring the feast by taking pieces of chicken or rubbery laplap in our hands and dipping it in the coconut cream, the Australians told of their stay on Wala.  They had loved it.  They told us of their visit to the Small Numbus cultural group and their experiences paddling a traditional dugout canoe.  They had sunk it off shore and had to swim back dragging the canoe.

Traditional Wala Canoes

Their good-natured explanation of the wait they had had on the beach next to Norsup Airport was what I was remembering now as I sat on my banana leaf on the side of the road.  When they arrived earlier in the week they waited two hours while the Wala Island Resort people tried to find a taxi.  Coming from Sydney’s winter they hadn’t minded a bit waiting on the beach in the Malakula sun, but I began to wonder. 

As I wondered, a slim-lined bird with a longish beak landed on the top of a coconut palm across the road.  George pointed it out and said, “Bird ia hemi kilim ol snek.”    It looked pretty harmless, but it was actually quite the killer.  Apparently, it dispatches snakes by stabbing them in the head with its beak and then carries them off to be stored hung on trees for later consumption.

An old man walked by wearing a blue baseball cap.  George greeted him in the local language.  A truck and a taxi passed going in the wrong direction.  According to George the truck had come from Vao and maybe we would get a lift on its way back from the market.

We knew we were in for a wait, when I asked what time the market closed and was told 12 noon.  Rob walked off up the road to see what he could see.  I stayed and chatted with George wondering if we’d ever see Vao.  I started to wonder if maybe this was the Wala Island people’s way of keeping us from going on their competitors’ tour.

I mean Wala Island had some amazing things of its own to see and we planned to do that later that afternoon.  At one point George mentioned that sometimes tourists go from Wala to Vao by boat.   A little light went off in my head.

Island Safaris in Vila from whom we had booked the tour had said we were going to Vao by boat, but when we got to the Wala Island Resort they arranged for the taxi.  We had played along as you do when you have no other way of knowing how to get there yourself, but George’s comment about the boat signalled what a friend of mine labelled circle-talk. 

Ni-Vanuatu rarely take a problem on in the most direct manner.  They will bring things into conversations and talk all around it.  For them it works and everyone knows what is being said even though it is not being said.  For the “white man”, however, it is often a real test to figure it out.

Once you recognise an issue is there to be discovered you have to play Twenty Questions to try and get to the bottom of what a Ni-Vanuatu would have understood in seconds.  So, I started to ask about the boat.   Where does it go from?  How long does it take? 

Now We Get It!

Rob came back from exploring and announced he’d found a Catholic shrine along the road.  He wanted me to go see it, but I wasn’t that bored.  I explained about the boat.   How long would a boat take?  George thought about 2 hours.  Just then another taxi went by in the direction of Vao.  Again, no passengers, again it didn’t stop.  We had been waiting an hour and a half at this stage.

At this point George decided to drop the final clue on us.  He explained that members of the Seventh Day Adventist Church had a virtual monopoly on public transportation on Malakula and they do not work on Saturdays.  Since today was Saturday they would not stop – of course, how stupid of us not to know.

This explained why the boat had made its way into the conversation.  George wasn’t going to tell us directly that our wait by the road would be in vain, so he had started to hint of a solution.  Because we had insisted on going with him, he had hoped that maybe one of the few taxi’s not owned by SDAs would come by, but none had.

It was all too clear now.  I asked if the taxi driver from yesterday was SDA.  Sure enough he was.

I didn’t bother to ask why the driver agreed to pick us up at 9 if he knew he would not be working.  That would have been pointless, but it explained why George did not wait for the taxi at the landing. 

Friends Helping Us Wait

We walked back to the landing to catch the boat back to Wala.  George was going to set up the boat to Vao for after lunch.   Of course, at the landing the saga continued. Because he hadn’t expected us until close to one, the boat’s owner had gone to tend his gardens in the jungle.  Various people took off to find him.

We waited and chatted to villagers who were there.  We waited and waited.  An hour later the owner returned.  We made it back to the resort just in time to have lunch at the time we had planned to be back from Vao - 1:30.  The Australians were in the restaurant and anxious to hear about our visit to Vao.  They showed no surprise that we had not made it there yet.

Finally Vao

After lunch we piled in the boat with the Australians who were on their way to the Airport to head back to Vila.  They were a bit distressed by now that the taxi situation would mean they were stranded, but the resort manager assured them that the transportation was arranged.

However, as we left Wala we could see that there was no taxi at the landing.  We off loaded them and as we set off to Vao we saw the two Australians and two resort staff wading, baggage on shoulders, across the stream that emptied into the bay.  George said they were off to the Mission a mile or so away to see if they could use their truck.  Rob and I were sure we’d see them again tonight, but we never saw them again.

We were now on our way to Vao in the same boat which had taken us across to the landing that morning to catch the taxi to Vao.  I tried not to think of how much time we would have saved had we just gone by boat in the first place.  Wala Island was getting smaller and smaller and I knew we would not be taking any jungle walks there to investigate the rich culture of that island, at least, not this afternoon. 

We would not be visiting Wala’s ancient nasaras, ceremonial-dancing grounds that contain the ceremonial stones of eight chiefly generations of Wala Islanders.  At one nasara it is said that the earliest stones, which are granted during the ngamege, pig killing ceremony were first erected over 400 years ago.

We would not be visiting the coastal caves where devils hide or the battlegrounds where the people of Wala fended off invaders from the neighbouring island of Rao.  The tour of ceremonial and medicinal uses of plants was off too.  It would have to wait.

The trip up the coast to Vao was fascinating, yet nerve racking - for me anyway.  I’d never travelled in seas with metre high swells in a 13-foot aluminium boat.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to now either especially in a boat with an outboard motor that you had to take the cover off to start.  Rob being ever so helpful tried to calm my nerves by telling me not to worry until the swells were so high that you could no longer see land.

We landed just below the mission just 45 minutes after we had left Wala.  We were taken first to a carvers house to see some of the wooden masks Vao is famous for.  There was no one there when we arrived.  His workshop was under a tree.  The half-finished masks, tools and shavings were strewn all about.   

A few moments later and a woman came in off the reef in a dugout canoe.  She was the carver’s wife.  She laid out the masks that were available for sale.  A dealer had been through the day before and cleared most of them out, but there was still a nice selection.  Business before pleasure had been forced upon us and we bought three very nice masks further depleting the carvers inventory.

Then it was off to see the nasara.  We walked through the village along paths that were lined with knee high coral stone fences.  The fences were there too keep the pigs out of people’s living areas and to make it easier to get the pigs to the nasara for ceremonies.

Pigs play an important part in many ceremonies in Melanesia and Vao is no exception.  We followed the “road blong pig” up a hill.   We walked into the Nasara and stood on the dancing ground made perfectly level by centuries of use. 

Taken For A Ride

Huge banyon trees blocked out the sun. Three tamtams with carved faces (drums made out of tree trunks) stood in the centre of the nasara. You could almost feel the spirits of the Vao ancestors watching us.  Not wanting to offend any spirits, I asked permission to take a photo of the tamtams and was told my our guide, “Oh, no.  Sorry, it is tabu.”

The tabu warning was quickly followed by, “It is tabu, but if you pay 200 vatu per tamtam, then it would be ok.”

I hesitated and the price quickly dropped to 100 vatu per tamtam.  George, the boat owner and the Vao guide climbed into the photo one at each tamtam.  They each asked for a copy later.

Vao Nasara with Tamtams

I related this story to our ‘haos gel’, Marie, back in Port Vila.  She is from Malakula and when I mentioned the money she looked at me with that knowing look she has that says – “You really are a sucker.  Aren’t you?”   She said it would have been ‘kava money’, that is money that would have gone to purchase Vanuatu’s mind altering drink of choice – kava.  I had suspected as much, but I had my photo.

We moved on a few hundred feet to look at the Nakamal or men’s meeting house located just behind the nasara.  It was tabu for the “white man” to go inside the nakamal and this time there was no doubt that that was true. No amount of money was solicited to lift the tabu.

We walked further into the jungle.  At a junction in the path our guide said good day and headed off home with the 300 Vatu that would get him 3 shells of kava.  He left us in George’s capable hands for the rest of the tour.

Circumcision House

The four of us carried on to the next Nasara.  Off to the left there was a small hut.  It was here that village boys who had completed the circumcision ceremony lived for a month following their circumcision.  On most islands in Vanuatu, young men are circumcised when the reach puberty.

George asked us to look up and above us in the banyon tree we could see several arrows stuck into the branches.  When they complete their month in the boy’s house, the men who emerge shoot an arrow into the tree as the final step in the initiation. Before they lived with their mothers.  After they live with the men and take their place in the nakamal.

We continued down more paths, past more huts, past more pigs on the road and entered a small family settlement where another carver lived.  After stopping to look at more masks and carvings, including some very nice stone carvings we headed back to the boat.  Vao is amazing and was well worth the wait.

Search for Petrol

We loaded into the boat and shoved off heading toward the Vao landing on the ‘mainland’.   This was not the way we came, but George explained we needed to get some petrol.  On the way we passed families in dugout canoes heading home to Vao from the mainland.  Some of the canoes were stacked high with bananas, taro and yams from the gardens. 

When we reached the beach George jumped out with a small plastic petrol can and disappeared into the jungle.  He came back several minutes later with an empty can.  No petrol available.

I started to wonder if we would spend the night adrift at sea or spend it on the road waiting for the SDA sabbath to end so that we could get a ride back to Wala.  It was decided we would stop at the next island, Aitchen. 

We could see rain on the horizon.  The sky to the north and east was purplely black and a fuzzy grey rain squall was visible between us and Malo Island 20 or 30 miles to the north.  The swells were bigger.  George assured us the rain was not headed our way.  We carried on toward Aitchen skirting the coast this time.

We motored past more people in canoes.  We waved to people on the beach of a village on Aitchen.  It became clear that we were not going to stop as we were now going parallel with the beach past the village.

I looked at George curiously and he said, “The people here are SDA.” 

 “Oh, so, the shop will be closed”, I said.

“We will go back to Wala,” was his only reply.

We went very close to a guy in a canoe who was setting his fishing nets.  George and the owner thought this was funny and so did the guy with the net.  As we came around the Western tip of Aitchen we came upon a mission.

I asked if it was an SDA church.  I was really just making conversation.  I mean if the people there were SDA, it had to be an SDA church, right?  “No, that is Catholic mission,” George said.  I didn’t bother to follow that up and still have no idea why we didn’t stop for petrol.

Back to Wala

The trip back to Wala was wrenching.  Each time we got to the top of a swell the boat banged down sending shock waves through the bottom of the boat, into the wooden plank we were siting on and then into our spines.

When we finally got back at about 5 o’clock we headed off to our bungalow to rest up before dinner.  The rain that “was not coming our way” arrived at half past five.  It poured.  Our bungalow made of bamboo with a pandanus leaf roof kept us nice and dry. 

It didn’t last long, so George was basically correct.  We headed off our flashlight in hand to dinner at the restaurant.  Our one choice of meal that night, they don’t even pretend to have a menu, was chicken curry with baked breadfruit and more sweet potatoes.  Again it was basic but very good. 

We talked to Charlie the manger for quite some time and then headed back to the bungalow.  There was only a kerosene lantern for light so we were in bed under the mosquito net by about 9 o’clock.


Wait Some More

Wala Island Ancestoral Stones

The next morning we awoke to sunshine and the sound of chickens and pigs searching the grass outside the bungalow for breakfast.  After our more civilised breakfast, we met up with Loren, a Cultural Centre Field Worker, charged with studying, promoting and protecting the culture of his island.  He gave us a great but short tour of Wala’s ancient cultural sights and fascinating information on the local plant life.

The red ginger flower, “loklok” in the local tongue, for example, is used to adorn only the highest-ranking men on the island.  Lower ranking men must use the pink ginger flowers in their costumes. Wala Island offers quite a few things to see for such a small island.

After lunch we headed over to the landing.  The taxi driver who had brought us up on Friday was there at the landing waiting for us.  Rob and I crammed back into the front seat.  I got to sit almost on top of the gearshift this time and we headed back down the road to Norsup.

For our departure we were two hours early.  There was not a soul in sight, but the doors to the airport were open.  We sat down and waited once again.  You can’t win really, but we had a great time and will certainly be heading back before we leave Vanuatu.

[Note: This tale was first told in July 2000]

Copyright 2000