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
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