Pentecost

“Would you rather crash in the jungle or the sea?” asked the intense foreigner as she leaned across the aisle trying to take photos out of the window on my side of the plane.”Neither” I replied.“So could you climb back into your own seat!!!” I asked.  She did. A few minutes later she pulled a soft toy rat out of her bag and started trying to cello tape it to the plane window. The rat wouldn’t co-operate and kept falling off. Eventually, the rat stayed attached long enough for a quick photo and I snapped one as well. While I was wondering what was going on she  started rummaging through  the seat pocket.

 

 “Do you have a sick bag?” she asked. “For you or the rat?” I replied. While all the time thinking “If you don’t sit still and stop leaping all over this tiny plane we are all going to need one!.”

I’m not a nervous flyer...but it doesn’t take much to unnerve me on a small plane. And as we made our way to Pentecost Island to watch  the famous land diving from which bungee is said to originate, I was feeling just as nervous as any jumper.

The runway soon appeared among a sea of jungle green, bordered by the clearest water I have ever seen. A string band plucked up a welcome song to the delight of the group. (When you’ve lived in Vanuatu a while, string bands are no longer exciting, in fact, you usually try to avoid them.)

We were welcomed with a grass necklace and wait quietly for a number of other planes to arrive. It was a beautiful day but the thick mud we glug our way through on our way to the tower made me think that we were lucky.

It was only a short walk to the tower and one is probably right in thinking that this, only one of five towers on the island, has been built close to the airport for convenience. Never-the-less, the first sight is intriguing.  A number of Ni-Vanuatu were climbing over the tower doing last minute adjustments to the rudimentary structure  fashioned from wood and vine.

At first the men were barely noticeable as their sinewy brown bodies blended into the wood and twine.

A massed group of grass-skirted women and children gathered on one-side while men clad only in penis sheaths began jumping and stamping to a hypnotic chant. The anticipation was palpable. The heat and stickiness of the day left me wondering if the gleaming sweat coating their bodies was from heat or fear.

The tower has four layers of planks. The youngest boys began at the lower level and so forth until the final, most experienced jumper leaps from the top.

As we waited the chanting grew louder. There was not a sound from the onlookers. The first jumper looked no more than about 11 years old. He joined in chanting with a voice that occasionally cracked.  Finally when the feverish chanting reached a crescendo, the boy leapt. There was a loud crack as the plank snapped and within seconds the boy hit the ground.  Two older men, whose job  was to dig the mud at the base of the tower to keep the earth soft, rushed over and lift edhim to his feet, helping him limp back to the main group. I wondered if we are supposed to clap but no-one moved.

 

And so it went on in the sweltering heat.  I find it hard to describe how I felt, part voyeur of an ancient ritual, uneasy at the eeriness of the atmosphere, disbelief that I was actually watching it.

 It was, without doubt, one of the most disturbing cultural rituals I have witnessed but strangely enough no-one else felt the same as me.

I looked across at the woman I had met on the plane. While the islanders are jumping she was trying to get the rat to stand up on a log. The log was too damp and the rat still wouldn't co-operate. The ritual continued in front of her while she battled with the rat. What funny creatures we are.!!!

 The flight back to Port Vila was also very memorable. When the weather is good the flight path takes you directly passed Ambryn, one of Vanuatu’s most active volcanoes. As luck would have it the clouds had parted leaving us a clear view of the volcano. The terrain was like nothing I had ever seen before, acres and acres of puckered, pleated and scoured ridges, grey rivers of ash and then two most gigantic vents with rims of yellow and of course the deep red glow of the lava at the bottom of the pit. I’ve never been so scared as I was as we flew directly over the crater. And all the time the rat-woman tried to clamber over me to get ‘the shot’.  I expected her next question to be “Would you rather crash in the jungle, the sea or the crater of a volcano” cos I sure as heck thought that was what was going to happen if she didn’t sit in her seat!!!

 

This would have to be the most exciting one-day trip I’ve ever had. I arrived home exhausted but also knowing that these special adventures are the very reason I chose to live in this country. (For a short time anyway!!)

Lukim Yu

 

 

 

 

Searching for a Social Live

It is 3am and the thunder, lightning and torrential rain has been continuous for hours. I lie awake in the comfort of the house I am looking after for three months and think of the villagers down the hill. Their make-shift homes constructed of corrugated iron, thatch and whatever timber resources they have managed to find, must be nearly floating away. The floor would now be a sea of mud. Everything they own would be soaked. They would be huddled together trying to stay dry. The only concession is that it is warm. Perfect breeding conditions for mosquitoes and disease which much surely follow. This is not a one-off occasion. This is the tropics and they don’t call it Rain Forest without reason. However, this is their life. And yet they will clean up, smile, sing and carry on. What resilience!!!

Life continues to be good to me. I’m in a lovely home. Have the most delightfully intelligent dog to look after and a not so friendly tortoise shell cat that is nearly blind. The house comes complete with gardener and house help. I don’t create much work but I will sure be challenging them with my bad attempts at speaking Bislama. It should be the easiest language to learn as it’s only pigeon English but there are lots of ‘blongs’ ‘longs’ ‘ems’ ‘ums’ and ‘ims’ and I sure do get them muddled!

Now that the foreign is becoming familiar my life is settling into a new rhythm. The emphasis is less on how to shop, travel and communicate and more about finding a social scene which will give me contact with people outside of school. However, in a city as small as Port Vila, there is no escaping parent of pupils and being  aware that anything you say and do will quickly become the next ex-pat coffee morning topic.

Monthly social events at the Australian High Commission seemed to be a safe way of meeting others. There is a procedure of being greeted by the security guard at the entrance, signing your name and signing the name of the person who invited you. When you actually haven’t been invited this can cause a problem. The choice is to try to write the name of the person on the list above you, provided you can decipher it, or ask around before you go so that you  find out the name of someone going. After a few drinks no one really cares.

I’m more than a little reluctant to sample the kava after watching everyone rinsing their mouths out with alcohol to get rid of the taste. Then there’s the hoiking, spitting and clearing of the throat...sounds that will haunt you forever! I’m assured that the Port Vila Kava is unlike the Tanna Kava which is made by first chewing the kava root then spitting it into the bowl for further brewing.

I’ve now been to baby showers, book club, dancing and dinner parties and I can confirm after an evening of wine-tasting that New Zealand and Australian wines are favourable to the French. I am also proud to announce that I can drive safely on the right-hand side of the road!!

They say that ex-pats in the tropics are either mercenaries, missionaries or misfits....there is certainly an enormous range of people. Types that I have never meet before.  Honestly...you could write a book about them...but I won’t.

I met a wonderful woman who appears to be the key to knowing about every social event.  She has put me on ‘The mailing list’ and I am in awe of the amount of stuff happening.

This New Friend (whose name I shall not mention due to Port Vila being so small) insisted that we go dancing at the WaterFront Restaurant on Friday night. The band was fantastic. The local dance instructor was flying around the floor with his beautiful dance partner. (A scene from ‘Dancing with the Stars’ ).  New Friend decides that we should join them. It’s amazing what you can be persuaded to do after a drink or two.

 Picture this, dance floor with prize-winning couple and two over 50’s shimmying  and sweating while everyone else watches. Six very tall, elegant Tahitian travel agents arrive. Average age 20+, legs up to their armpits and wearing crowns of exotic flowers. This should have been my cue to leave the floor but realise that everyone will be looking at  prize-winning dancer and exotic Tahitians  NOT flapping over- fifties covered in a film of sweat.

We carry on. “Look!” says New  Friend “There’s (he- whose- name- shall- not- be- mentioned) he’s single and got lots of money’. She races over to the bar. An elderly French man turns and gives me a little wave. I sink into my drink. She brings him over, introduces him, grabs my left hand, waves it under his nose and says “single, single...look single’. He kisses me on both sides of my ever-so-sweaty face, takes my hand, kisses it and mumbles in French. (One can only guess what he was mumbling...I didn't understand a word of it!) New Friend disappears leaving us to carry on an awkward conversation! Actually, I was the one trying to carry on a conversation...he spent the whole time gazing at my chest and the tiny...ever so tiny peek of cleavage!

Minutes later, on the dance floor, picture this .... exotic Tahitians, prize winning dancers and Frenchman flinging me around the floor trying to control my erratic....I said ERRATIC...moves, there was definitely nothing erotic about them! I managed to get flung towards the dance instructor, leaned back and gasped as loud as I could .. “private lessons, need them urgently....” but before I could make a date I was flung the other way.

I finally spotted New-Friend and as soon as the band stopped, quietly thanked my partner and headed off to seek a much needed ride home to mop up and recover. I last saw the French guy patting the bottom of a botox blonde about 40 years younger. Much more his type I think J.

 

I really must start to take some more photos or get some with me in them! Hideaway Island is my regular weekend hideout. The snorkeling is fantastic. I've been for some dives but missed the mother and baby dugongs in the harbour and the Whale shark at the entrance.

 

I’m off to Pentecost Island next weekend to watch the land-diving. I hope I don't end up like this guy.

 

 Next blog should be much more educational for those interested in the real Vanuatu.

Lukim Yu

Ange