We arrived Wednesday afternoon in Port Vila and were met by 80 degree 100% humidity day. InstantlyHi everyone,
I'm creating this file in the hope I can get it sent by Email in the next couple of days. Even if that's not possible, maybe writing it out will help me remember all the stuff that's happened during this incredible trip.
Henry and I left Albuquerque on Southwest Airlines Monday afternoon (4 PM 8/9/99) for LA. The plane was jammed full and we had to sit in the facing-each-other seats. What a drag. Not an auspicious start to our trip. The transfer at LA was not much of a problem and we had a long wait for out Air New Zealand flight which, of course, was about an hour late taking off. Things then started looking up because this plane wasn't full and both Henry and I had vacant seats next to us. The movies (3 of them) were bad and the food was just blah. Free booze, a temptation I successfully resisted. Went to sleep OK and seemed to get about 5-6 good hours sleep. We arrived in Aukland 6 AM on the 11th (after 13 hours). Cleared customs, stored our bags and went downtown. Stayed downtown from about 7-9:30AM and it seemed to be just coming alive when we left. Aukland is not a really interesting place to spend a few hours. Back to the airport and flew out on Air Vanuatu around noon. Had a good lunch and generally felt good.
We arrived Wednesday afternoon in Port Vila and were met by 80 degree 100% humidity day. Instantly
dripping. We were also met by Bruno & Mem. Went to Bruno's mom's (Fancoise) apartment and it turned out there was a vacant apartment next door that they manage to rent for the month. It had beds and a table and a few chairs...just what we needed. No mossies (mosquitoes) in evidence, and Francoise keeps the windows wide open at night (of some concern to us at this point). Henry is worried too, so he is burning the mosquito coils. No hot water. But water is supposed to be drinkable (don't yet trust). We sit around for a while, talking about stuff...Mem reveals she had to be evacuated last year and spent 3 days in hospital, (didn't really help our feeling of security). Then we walk downtown (about 1/2 mile) shop for some food and trip stuff. We go to the open air market and they show us Laplap which we will be eating for a week. It's the most disgusting looking stuff I've ever seen. This really begins to worry me (Henry too and he's more used to eating "rough". Maybe I'm just tired. Then we take a ferry (free) over to Iririki resort to have a drink...nice. Then they tell us we'll have to drink Kava in Malakula so we should go to a Nakamal here to try to get used to it (I'm not enthusiastic). So we go to a place called Ronnie's Nakamal...just a little house with about 4-5 people out front (at this point, it's about 7 PM and pitch dark outside). We drink the kava which tastes a bit like astringent weedy mud. Kava is a mild narcotic. Effects don't seem to be much, although we're already fairly zonked from the plane trip. We go back to the apartment and go to bed. No dinner because we really don't want it after the 4-5 meals on the various planes. I put my fancy sheet on the bed, crawl in, try to cover up and go off to sleep, hoping there really are no mossies because I'm too tired to set up the net. The night is very very humid but cool...in fact too cool....too tired to get out sleeping bag.
(Thursday)
Up about 7:30. Weather is dryer. Wheetabix for breakfast....yuk. Work on computer stuff then off to the Vanuatu cultural center. We try their generator and it doesn't work...a source of some concern. Work on forms for a while and try to call Jo....the phone system seems to not know about the US and a regular call is very expensive. Lunch is bread and cheese from the supermarket eaten on the esplanade by the harbor. Work on trip preparations some more... then do some shopping (don't picture Walmart, mostly the stores are run by Chinese who speal Bislama poorly and have no English. Then Cultural Center (still no generator), then more work on forms. Dinner by Francoise is good but a little late at 9:00PM. Afterwards fall in bed.
(Friday)
Running around shopping in the morning. Things are not cheap and are very hard to find. We have to be resourceful and find substitutes for lots of stuff (mostly recording & training stuff like tape measures, string, rope, tripod, pens, paper, etc.) Another generator that works is found...hurray! Off to Malakula...no trouble with luggage weight. Plane is a Twin Otter, the same plane we used to fly to Los Alamos...and the pilot's are good, but discussion of the plane crash last year (not our group) that killed 2 anthropologists tends to raise the stress level a bit. Take off, and flight over the islands is truly beautiful. After a flight of about 1 1/2 hours, we land on a grass strip in Lamap at the southern end of Malakula. Absolutely nothing there but a group of about 4-5 people at the end of the runway. Next a flight of about 15 minutes to Norsup (again no town) where there is a small airport building. We all
(9 of us) pile our luggage into a small Toyota 4WD truck and jump in after it. We drive 5 minutes to Lakatoro where there is a provincial finals soccer game going on with about 5-10,000 people milling about. Lakatoro is a town of about 800 normally. We go to the Malakula cultural center (a 1 room museum with kastom (old pre-Christian)artifacts, among them some really incredible old masks). Next we go to the MDC, a big store, and buy rice, john paper and chili tuna and other supplies. Since I know nothing about where we're going I buy nothing. We have to carry around our valuables at all times, which for me means 45 pounds of computer equipment. Included among the stuff I leave behind in the truck is my mosquito net....interesting
choice. We then buy a bunch of gas and kerosene and Coleman fuel, toss it all on the back of the truck with all our other stuff and the nine of us jump in for the 2 1/2 hour drive to Alpalak village, over the mountainous center of the island, around a bunch of switchbacks and back down to the seashore. The vegetation is quite incredible, a lot like Costa Rica, with paw-paws, breadfruits, more kinds of bananas, coconuts, etc, etc, etc. Some really huge old banyan trees.
Not much wildlife, although the big fruit bats and flying foxes (4 ft. wingspan) are pretty impressive. Going over the highlands there is very little sign of habitation, but along the coast (there is a road that follows the coast around the entire northern part of the island) there are villages every 1/2 mile or so. Here a village essentially seems to mean an small extended family. That seems to mean a momma, papa, a whole batch of pikininies (here pikininni is not a racial slur, but the official Bislama word for child), a few aunts and uncles and maybe a granny and gramps. For some odd reason brothers don't seem to live together in the same village. I can't imagine why.
We arrived at Alpalak village and unloaded the truck. It turned out that our hut was one sometimes used by missionaries and sometimes by archeologists/anthropologists. It is about 20ft x 10 ft and consists of 2 "rooms". It is typical bamboo screen construction, with woven reed roof (luckily it never rained here so I don't know if the roof leaked). There is one door in the "front" room and 1 window in the "back" room. Along the front outside is a 8 ft long bamboo bench which is very handy and quicky crammed with various uses. But the floor is concrete...a result that is at once welcome (cleaner) and unwelcome (how do I fasten down my mosquito net?). The concrete is covered with rattan-like mats which is very nice. I eventually find 4 rocks (there are no rocks on this island because the geology is all very new and everything is old coral (which is not very good for mossy net weights)). Anyway, we unpack and occupy the hut (5 of us, with Henry, Nicholas (Australian conservationist), and me in the back room and Bruno and Mem in the front room). We go off to see the little sand beach they have just in time to see the sunset (6 PM because it's winter here). The beach is coral, the water is beautiful blue-green as is common in the tropics. Take 5 minutes to decompress a bit. There are about 4-5 kids playing on the beach (mostly watching us) and giving us rides in their outrigger canoe (I decline because Henry who is a lot lighter almost swamps the thing.
When we return back up to the village, we find we are invited to a Kava ceremony at the Nakamal, a great honor. So about 1/2 hour later we are led (not Mem, women are tabu, so she stays home and drinks Scotch) off into the bush in the pitch dark. After stumbling along for about 50 yards we come to a hut that looks just like all the others, bamboo, 10x20, leaf roof, this time dirt floor. We go inside and along the 20 ft wall by the door is a long bamboo bench where we sit. On the wall opposite is another bench. At the back end is a fire pit alive with coals (very hot, humid, smoky, dark). In the front corner near the door is the kava preparation area. The whole kava ceremony is very ritualistic although you wouldn't recognize it unless someone told you. The process starts with the kava plants (no one really showed us any, they claim they don't grow it, but purchase it) being ground up in a mortar that stands about 4 ft high and is about 1 ft around. The pestle looks like a big club.
The kava is mashed up and handed to the preparer who is sitting in the corner. These positions (grinder and preparer) are apparently ones of rank in the village. The preparer grinds things up some more and pours water (who knows where the water comes from) over the mash
which is now in a large bowl to preserve the juice. After a couple of rinsings, the mash is wrapped in a cloth and squeezed to get the juice out. The juice is now poured into a small bowl (traditionally a coconut shell) and given first to an honored guest (which ended up being me). I stand up drink the whole shell worth, say "tank you too mass, good, good, nambawan", spit, spit again, and give the empty
bowl back and sit down. I sit and contemplate the effects while the others are drinking and spitting. After about a minute, you seem to get a mild numbness in your mouth, a bit like novocaine. No other really noticeable effects other than maybe a feeling of relaxation although it's a bit tough to feel too relaxed here on display. This kava seems a bit stronger that the other stuff in Vila. Anyway, I have 2 more "small ones" and then we call it a night. On the walk back to our hut, the world seems a little bit wobblier than normal.
I can't really say I was a keen observer of the effects.
Back in village, about 7:30-8:00, we have dinner which is a big plate of rice, chili tuna, ground banana and water. It is served to us only, prepared by the villagers (women, of course) and tastes pretty good. After dinner, we show them the computer, encyclopaedia, take some pictures and talk. All of this is done in the dark in a cook hut of typical construction, one room fire-pit, one room for eating.
Everybody sits on the floor( rattan-like mats ) Occasionally a
cock-roach about 2" long falls down the back of your neck.
Then off to bed...quite a day...mossy net seems like a refuge, very humid, warm but not unbearable...sleep in only the sheet-bag.
(Saturday [Rest Day])
Breakfast was bread and water and coffee. I spent some time trying to make a panorama image of the village. Then started up the generator and charged up all the batteries. Not dying of "shit-shit water" (or dysentery) yet. But feel slightly blown away. Good to have a rest day. Lunch is Laplap...a true watershed experience. I think this was banana of some type. It is edible. If I have to survive on it, I'll survive. But I hope we won't have too much.
After lunch, we go to the top of the cliff to visit the village garden. It's truly amazing. It's sort of open jungle with most of the trees cleared away, by some left standing. Nowhere is it very organized, just a sort of haphazard array of plants of every kind imaginable, intermixed with what look like weeds, but for all I know are other useful plants. There are tomatoes of 7-8 different types, 7-8 types of chili, different kinds of yams and squash and pumpkins, cucumber, paw-paw, breadfruit, beans, taro, manioc, etc., etc., etc. There is a developed water supply here, a big (10-15 ft diameter, 10 ft high) tank and a pipe going down to the village and also out to the garden. This is the only "luxury" I've seen in the village, including a cold shower. If I haven't mentioned it, the weather today is partly cloudy, humid, of course, 80 degrees, no rain. After the garden, we walk to the apialo cave. It is a couple of kilometers up the coast and we have to pass a bunch of villages on the way. At every village, a bunch (say 5-10) of pikininies pour out onto the road and follow us. So by the time we reach the cave we have a retinue of maybe 50-100 kids. At the entrance of the cave, we stop and Jimmysan, the chief at Alpalak give us the story of the cave. I was given the job of photographing everything going on, didn't hear much of the story and promptly forgot the rest. We went inside and this was to be our only visit, so we busily tried to photograph as much as we could. I made a panorama shot and took some flash test shots. Took some shots for Mem and a couple of charcoal figures. After the cave we went further up the coast to see Jimmysan's in-laws who were old and sick so the family wanted pictures of them.
Our retinue of pikininies continued to follow. We met another chief on the way and photographed him in his dancing ground (a very weedy patch, but apparently the grass grows and when it is cut down, that is the announcement of a dance). We took pictures of the old folks and after some socializing, started home. By this time it was almost dark and by the time we got home it was full-dark, no moon. The walk took about an hour and all the way, our retinue of pikininies were singing polynesion gospel songs, and experience never to be forgotten. Back at the village, Henry goes off for Kava, but I decline. He's gone longer than usual (he says he had 6-7) and when he return, he looks a little woosy. Dinner is rice, chili tuna pumpkin and water. I try to print out some images, but the printer is broken. Off to bed. Still haven't seen or heard a mosquito which is good because too tired to take proper precautions.
(Sunday)
Up at 5:15 for the truck. Bread and coffee for breakfast. The trip to Tenmiel village is about 1/2 hour. The weather is nice. Starting to get used to the humidity but it's really something. The new village has a more formal atmosphere than the old. The chief is Pita Dan, a quiet, reserved man who is also pastor of the church. Our hut has a corrugated metal roof this time, is typical bamboo and about the same size and construction as the last one. Again concrete floor with rattan-like mats. Outside is a kind of grass-ceilinged shelter that doesn't stop rain but shades from the sun and has 2 bamboo benches running it's length. We immediately unload and charge up batteries. Shortly there is a 2-3 hour meeting about "the plan" for preservation and development of the Yalo cave. Henry and I are not really needed and the meeting is mostly in Bislama so we wander in and out doing other things. The village has a nice church, is in an open coconut plantation setting, about 200 meters from the shore, which is all very rugged coral rock with no beach whatsoever. There are flowers and flowering trees throughout the village including a big pink grapefruit tree right outside our door and frangipani everywhere. No running water in this village. There is a hand pump which seems to take forever to produce water which in theory is safe. I drank the untreated water at the last village (might as well, the kava is made with it and all the food), but here I decide to treat water for a day or 2 to see what happens (by about Tuesday I am drinking it untreated). There are tons of kids and they play volleyball and soccer out in front of the village. One other small comment, these villages are populated by an assortment of animals. Dogs, cats, chickens, ducks, geese, etc. This adds to the general hubub of the place. A little later we walk to the cave. It's about a 1/2 hour walk. At the cave, we check that we have an even number of members in our group, since Bubu (the cave grandfather spirit)requires that. The chief blows on a hole near the entrance (one toot per person) to announce our presence. Then we can enter. The cave is unbelievable. At the entrance end, there are hand-stencils everywhere including places you would assume no person could get. After an entrance corridor of about 50 meters, the cave opens up into a huge chamber that is open to the outside at another huge doorway (one entrance for people, one for spirits). This chamber is about 75 meters across and it seems about 30-50 meters high. Then there is another gallery (about 30-40 meters across and maybe 150 meters long)that leads to an even bigger upper chamber that is probably 100-150 meters across and again maybe as much as 75-100 meters high. Around on all the walls is rock art, mostly engravings (mostly mask figures) but also hand stencils and other pictographs. After a brief tour, I return to the entrance, fire up the generator and begin teaching how to use the camera and how to use the computer. At lunch we have rice and tuna (2 meals a day for the next week). We also taste the local coconuts and even some young coconuts that haven't produced milk yet. More training after lunch. Back at the village in the evening we go for a "fresh water swim," which consists of a big tub of water we all share, dipping cupfuls of water over ourselves to wet up, soap and then rinse. This ritual also takes place every day because we really get grubby in the cave. We strip to shorts for this which would give great opportunities for any mosquitoes, if there were any. Oh by the way, we do this in the dark. Dinner is rice, green beans, tuna and tea. Go to bed exhausted at 8 PM. In the middle of the night we get a typical tropical rainstorm, like a full rain that someone turns on and off with a switch. The roof doesn't leak as far as I can tell. (Later in the week, I learn that a hard rain from the wrong direction causes a gusher). Weather was nice today otherwise.
(Monday)
Breakfast is salada crackers + coffee + a hot banana. Walk to Yalo.
Run generator, teach and take pictures. Lunch is rice + tuna + water. Afternoon, more teaching. Home for a fresh water swim.
Kids playing volleyball. They also have a toy that's kind of neat. Its a long (maybe 8 ft) bamboo pole with 2 small wheel on the front.
At the back is a hoop for steering. The kids "drive" these things all over the place and they're surprisingly rugged although frequently broken...but just a quick fix and they're off again.
Dinner is Laplap, rice, tuna and taro. Again we eat alone with the villages watching us. They serve us a big (10" dia. I'd guess) deep-dish plate heaped about 6" high with rice, laplap and taro. Then they sit and watch if we eat it all. I notice that (probably because I'm the biggest) they give me the biggest portion. I can't eat it all. They give me a very worried look and I know they're counting on me to eat more as the week goes on. Numa (one of the fieldworkers) is sick.
(Tuesday)
Breakfast is banana, salada and coffee. All day rock art record. Lunch is rice and tuna + water. Pita Dan asks me to say grace. I can't remember any...embarrassment. Back at the village, we go for a salt water wade before dinner. Just outside the breakers we see a bunch of shark fins circling in the water. Malakula is know for its sharks so we are not encouraged to go for an extended dip. Dinner is rice + green beans + tuna + yam Laplap + tea. Evening talk about stories about the outside world. I'm put on the spot for a story tomorrow night. Weather nice all day.
(Wednesday)
Breakfast is 1 cracker + granola bar + coffee. Walk to cave. Rock art record and train all day. Lunch is rice + tuna + water (do you begin to see a pattern here? Does it seem a bit monotonous?). Day is rainy and wet mostly. It's always VERY humid in the cave and there is bat shit everywhere. So it's reasonably unpleasant. In one of the side chambers where the bats roost, the "guano" is about 6' deep and there are hundreds of cockroaches on the walls (picture roaches about twice as big as those in NM). We almost finish the recording. There is an owl (like a barn owl but bigger) in the cave which they call a "walk-night." Henry is sick. He has what they call shit-shit water (dysentery). Very unpleasant. The only "facilities" (in the village...there are none at the cave) are a hut off by itself with a pit underneath it and a hole in the floor. The place is crawling with cockroaches and spiders. Graham is sick (another fieldworkwer). He has sores on his legs (as does almost everyone, so his must be bad). Numa is still sick also. Mem suspects a kidney infection like hers from last year.
We have the fancy Laplap for dinner...yam cake-bread to dip in coconut milk with pieces of chicken and really good cabbage. I give my story (Lewis & Clark). The latest village census is 20 dogs, 30-40 chickens (roosters always start crowing 3-4 AM), 10-15 cats, 10-20 ducks, (and not right in the village, but nearby, unnumbered goats, pigs and cows).
(Thursday)
Henry started taking antibiotic last night and gets up this morning and still feels sick and wants to go back to Vila. There is only 1 truck per day for transportation and it comes before 7 AM so he packs up and jumps in the truck. Abong, one of the fieldworkers, goes with him to help and arrange things. After he goes off, we realize he is facing a 2 1/2 hour truck trip and he never went to the john after he got up. (We later find out he had a good trip back...the truck was interesting and the plane was just ready to take off when he arrived at the airport, so he was actually back in Vila before 11 AM).
Nicholas & I go to cave until 3:30PM. We finish everything.
Back to village for breakfast at 4:00PM rice and pumpkin and to do web page. The villages really enjoy seeing the page come to life, but don't fully comprehend what the Internet is all about. We record the kids singing a couple of gospels to include on the web page.
I show the kids the image morpher. I take their picture, put it into the laptop and then use the software to "morph" their faces into wierd shapes. I was a little worried this might scare or offend them, but the really love it.
Dinner at 7:30 of rice and green beans + Tea.
(Friday)
Up at 6:00. Pack up and wait for the truck. Coffee only for breakfast. The truck comes, we say our goodbyes, take lots of pictures, all pile into the truck and drive to Alpalak. I get to sit in the front of the truck. One of the fieldworkers is bringing a chicken back to his family...which unfortunately has to ride underneath all our luggage.
We plan to stop in Amokh, the old ceremonial center, but give up the idea because it starts to rain. Later the rain lets up and we stop at Wailu village to look for people who were in the old 1972 National Geographic article. We find a person who was. Later, we stop in another village while Numa tries to recover his fishing net he lent to someone...no luck. We get to Lakatoro for lunch. After eating the food in the village for a week I still don't know whether to trust the food in town so I abstain. We get to the Airport early and are rewarded by the plane being about an hour late. Part of the air
cargo is a couple of pigs. They are alive, wrapped up in rice sacks and tied. They squeal like mad. The baggage handlers load the first and the throw out luggage in on top of them.
Home to Vila by about 5 PM. Call Jo but she's gone gallivanting off around the country somewhere. People say I'll get a FAX tomorrow telling what's going on. We unpack, shower (cold). Veg soup and cous-cous for dinner (Thank God it's not rice).
For about an hour, we work on web page and transfer of images so they're backed up. Then bed. No Malaria, no Dengue fever yet. Am I safe now? The windows are open and Francoise says she saw Mossies today.
(Saturday)
Up at 7:30. Raisin Bran and Coffee for breakfast. Ah, civilization!
Transfer images and check them. Walk downtown. Look around for bargains to bring home. Don't find anything I gotta have.
Quiche lunch. Bruno, ever the entrepreneur, is paying his mom from contract funds for cooking. I am thankful. She's a good cook, can use the money and it's really a lot more convenient for us.
Afternoon we go to Erakor Island resort for a lie around and salt-water wade. I have a Pina Colada. On the whole it doesn't taste much better than the kava. We go out for dinner to celebrate the end of the fieldwork. Bruno & Mem pay.
(Sunday)
Today is sort of a lie around day. In the morning we work on the Web page..I get talked into a hike with Henry. He's doing the research and I just go. It turns out we take a bus about 8 miles outside town. Then we're going to walk about 5 miles to a waterfall. We walk. It's hot, humid, muddy. But the countryside is fun. We get to the falls and there is a closed gate in front of a trail leading to it. We can hear the falls. Henry says, "Have you seen those cartoons with the white man in the cooking pot? Well this is the country where it really happens. I'm not going through any closed gate." So we don't. We try to come back a different way, but get lost, after about 2-3 miles we backtrack. Eventually we catch a ride back to town.....exhausted. Watercress soup for dinner. A great way to stoke up the fires for diving tomorrow.
(Monday)
Today is a diving day. Up at 7:00, off to the resort. I get picked up by a shuttle for the diving place. The system here is that there are taxis, but they are more expensive than the busses which are privately owned minivans with a "B" on their license plate. You just flag them down (frequently families seem to live in their van) and they will take you anywhere pretty cheaply. Arrive at 9:00, wait until 10:00. The day is wet and cold....great for diving.
Equipment is a bit worrisome, but the class is 1 on 1. Sky is overcast, sea choppy.
First dive is a beach dive. Beach is coral and with the tanks and weights, I die walking across it (no footies) to get in the water. Dive lasts about 1/2 hour of bottom time, 45 minutes overall. It's surprisingly stressful. Different equipment, different instructor and a while (with a lot else happening) since I last dove. Then an hour wait. Then a boat dive. Again stressful because first boat dive and the sea is very rough. Finally, once in the water, about half way through this dive, I begin to relax. The coral colors are dull because of the sky, but the fish are spectacular....huge schools of the follow us.
Back to home for dinner with Jimmysan and Pita Dan....a long boring evening....mostly because I'm exhausted.
(Tuesday)
Again a diving day. Again overcast, rainy and cold. I feel like shit. I think I have a cold. First rule of diving. Don't dive if you have a cold. Screw it. I'll be glad to finish the diving. I go and walk up to the dive desk and the guy tries to talk me into postponing. I want to get it over with. My enthusiasm wanes when the owner tells me he won't be here, he has to take a diver to the hospital....apparently bent. No decompression chamber within 100 islands of here. Anyway, I go (and after rejecting one tank because the regulator won't seal (I mean a full blast vent, not just a slow leak) (all the tanks leak and the O-rings look like the Piranha have been chewing on them)) and things actually work out OK (Did I mention my BCV low pressure inflator didn't work?). My instructor started me at 15 pounds of weight and quickly gave me 3 more. But during the first 3 dives she wouldn't give me any more and kept insisting I should just hold my inflator tube higher to let out more air ( I didn't have any in it ). Finally, on the last dive, she let me use
21 pounds and I was actually able to take a full breath without bobbing up toward the surface like a cork. Anyway, I passed and in spite of the cold (I was able to equalize just fine) and in spite of the dicey equipment and the overcast weather and the bent diver and the rough conditions and the low visibility, I must say I enjoyed the diving part. I'm just glad the next time I dive I won't have some maniac for a buddy that keeps ripping my mask off and grabbing her neck like she's choking.
Back home, Henry has arranged a trip for us to Tanna island for Friday and Saturday. Looking forward to it if the weather is good.
That pretty much fills up the schedule. I have to go over to the Vanuatu Cultural Center to show Jimmysan and Pita Dan the Internet.
I sneak out an E-mail to Jo while I'm on.
(Wednesday)
Well, woke up with a full-fledged cold. Nose like a water spout
and sneezing constantly.....probably worsened by diving. Anyway,
went to Mem's talk and then rested the rest of the day. Bed early and hope for better tomorrow.
(Thursday)
Today we went on a field trip with the UN World Heritage group. They are mostly Polynesians with a sprinkling of other South Pacificers and a few 1st worlders. We drive by bus about 1/3 way around Efate
(the island Vila is on...about 40 minute drive on bad road). We stop at a coral beach a jump into boats. The boats split up going in 2 directions to visit 3 sites. The first we go to is Feles cave & rock art site. It is a cave in volcanic tuff with engravings, hand stencils, rows of cupules, some geometric patterns and a moderate amount of modern graffiti starting with a date in the 1870's...reminders of El Morro. On the way back to the beach and boats, we pass a couple of groups totaling about 20-30 Australian tourists. On the beach some natives have set up mats and are selling trade goods...fancy sea shell, old coke bottles, woven baskets and coral necklaces. We "hop" in the boats (a tricky procedure because the boats can't beach because of the coral) and go to the next island which contains the Mangass site, a long time inhabited but now abandoned village site which is used as the Vanuatu government archeological field school. In spite of it's being excavated every year for about the last 10-12 years, there is not much evidence of anything other than jungle overgrowth.
We then get in the boats and go to the next stop which is Eratoka (Hat) island, the burial site of king Roi Mata, probably a Polynesian who came to this island around the 1500 during an intense period of clan wars. He gained control and instituted a series of political reforms (such as having brothers go to other villages) which put an end to the warfare. All of this was known only by traditional legend until his grave was excavated in the 70's. The excavation confirmed almost every detail of the legend and so the importance is that it is still one of the best examples of verification of traditional spoken word legend enduring over 400-500 years. Very little evidence of the excavation remains. We hop in the boats and head back to the mainland amidst a typical downpour of tropical rain. We go to
Manaliuliu village for a Polynesian/Melanesian feast. We have about 50 people and feast on a table of yams, bananas, laplap, rice, manioc, taro, chicken, pork, etc., etc. etc. After dinner, the Polynesians instigate a "thank-you" which consists of representatives singing a Polynesian song from their island. With 50 representatives of 40 or so islands, this goes on for well over an hour. Fortunately, no one wanted a song from the US. Henry and I were getting very worried.
(Friday)
Up at 6:00. We have to catch a plane at 10:00. Around here, you get to the airport early. About 45 minutes before the flight, the post a sign saying the flight is closed. If you're not checked in by then, tough. Flight is nice on a Dash-80 turbojet with assigned seats, a stewardess and served orange juice. We're looking forward to a little luxury at the Tanna Beach Resort which all the guidebooks say is THE place to stay on Tanna. It should be, it's
$100. per night. At the airport, a car (or rather a 4WD truck) picks us up for the trip to the resort. Again a recommendation of the book...and a good thing because there are no busses or taxis anywhere. We're a little shocked at the primitiveness on Tanna. We expected it on Malakula, but here we expected more tourists.
We get to resort and it seems nice, but smaller than we expected. They show us out $100/night room and we can't believe it. It is dark and wet and moldy and dirty and broken down. It has no electricity except from 6PM - 12midnight and even then only 1 light bulb and 1 florescent. It has a john which looks dangerous. There is a shower stall that is literally alive with unknown life forms, but has no hot water. We dump our bags and exit as soon as possible. Henry is very silent. I think he's more frightened than on Malakula. There were 2 or more price ranges of rooms, and he picked the cheap one. Some of the more expensive rooms are out on the beach and seem airier, although not in better repair. I tell him I think he made the right decision, but both of us are worried this whole trip will turn into a fiasco. As we walk around the rest of the grounds, we begin to relax. The beach is black sand washed by powerful surf. The fact that the local sewer empties at one side is not too noticeable. The main resort center is and open-air bar-dining room that's about 25' x 25'. There are about 5 tables, a couch and 2 chairs, there is a bar with 5 stools and there is a reception desk, almost never manned. When someone was there, they seemed unfriendly. We have some lunch which is good. There are sign up for tours. The big thing to do on Tanna is to go to the volcano and there is a tour going at 4:00PM so we sign up. Then we notice signs that say there is a level 3 (out of 4) alert and you aren't allowed to get close. We decide we'll go anyway.
We walk to town, about 5 kilometers away. The town, the biggest on Tanna, has a population of about 1000. It is the big city because of its port, which as we see is just a sheltered bay where a supply ship is anchored and is unloading big bags of flour and rice into small boats for transport to shore. On shore, deals seem to be taking place on the spot for the bags of flour and rice. We walk to the market (Friday is market day) and buy some woven bags. The walk back to our plush resort is typical tropics, hot, dusty, humid, teeming, dogs, cats, pigs, cows (no horses), people (no cars or trucks), noisy, peaceful, hubub, lazy, jungle, villages, roads. etc.
At 4:00pm we jump in the back (not seat, back-back) for our trip to the volcano. Another couple (Australians on honeymoon) join us.
The truck has no springs or shocks. The road is the worst I've ever seen (wait until tomorrow). But the trip is incredibly interesting.
There are people and villages everywhere. Missionaries have been at work, so every different village is some different religion and looks slightly different from the next. The road climbs away from the shore and into the highlands. The road at the very top of the island seems to be a remnant of one built for WWII. We stop at the top to look at the view. You can see the whole island. In the distance is the volcano smoking away like mad. You can also see the shore on both sides. Most worrisome, you can see the road which descends this side in a series of switchbacks that reminds me of the mules tracks in the Grand Canyon. I look at our driver. Is this a man I want to trust my life to? He smiles back at me. There is a gleam in his eye.
We reach the ash plain of the volcano. Apparently, the wind mostly blows the poisonous gasses in the other direction, but no one explains how the ash we are walking on got here. About every 2-3 minutes, the volcano goes BOOM! (Hard to describe, but somewhere is the 0-10 hertz range so you feel it more than hear it.) But at this distance its really pretty tame and nowhere near a scary as Arenal in Costa Rica. We watch for about 1/2 hour until sunset...pretty, not awesome. We watch for about another 1/2 hour as it darkens. The full moon rises...pretty, but the light obscures the volcano's glow.
Another truck comes driving up, from where I dunno. The driver leans out and yells, "Hey, yumi wanem go long kava?" Henry, with his impeccable command of Bislama, only understands 1 word and decides, yes. Our truck, with the Australian couple leaves. We wait another 1/2 hour...boring...but the clouds cover the moon and eventually we are just barely able to see the glow from the volcano and occasional glowing ejecta.
The truck we now ride in (along with an Oregon family, the first Americans we have met) also has no springs or shocks, but the driver is a much faster driver (not necessarily a blessing). We catch the other truck just as we reach Lenakil, but they go on and we stop for kava. I drink mine and actually like it OK. The driver congratulates us, I guess for not upchucking, we jump back in the truck and go back to the resort. (this is the first time we learn the truck is really from our resort and apparently our resort owns about the only running trucks on the island.) We also later learn that the tradition on Tanna is that the kava roots are not ground in a mortar like they are in Malakula, but are chewed by young boys.
Henry says he wishes he'd known that beforehand. We go to the resort and have dinner which is good and finishes about 9:15. The driver comes to tell us there is an initiation dance (part of the circumcision ritual for young boys age 10-14) tonight and they will take us if we want. We want. At about 10PM we go about 2-3 km to a dancing ground behind a local village. It is dark, but they have a generator running a single florescent light over the dance area which is about 30x50 meters. There area is surrounded by about 1000 or so locals with fires going at 6 or so places around the outside. A number of very old, very large banyan trees loom over the area with kids in the branches. A group of about 30 are dancing, clapping, stomping and singing. The males are all in the center and they pay no attention to the females around the outside. The males are dressed in their modern pants and T-shirts, but they decorate their hair with feather and reed ornaments. The dance-clap-stomp is VERY powerful. The females around the outside are in decorated grass skirts (I didn't ask what was underneath) and modern blouses. They wore various jewelry and ornaments and waved twigs of herbs. Their faces were painted purple and red and yellow and some wore elaborate headdresses. We stood on the end for a while but eventually were led to seats on mats on the 50 yard line (The Aussie couple said they felt like the guests of honor at a cannibal feast). Each dance-chant lasted about 10 minutes, increasing in tempo, complexity and volume to a climax at the end. Then the whole thing would start again with a similar but subtly different chat. After about an hour, a new group of male dancers would come onto the dance ground and slowly and overlappingly take over. The whole milieu gradually grew in size and intensity over the 2 1/2 hours we were there. By the end there were maybe 100-150 dancer (we were sitting right at the edge and might have been trampled if we weren't sheltered in the roots of the banyan tree. There was smoke and dust and food smells and body smells and dogs, cats, chickens, kids and people everywhere. We came with our driver from the resort and about midnight noticed he was dancing also. Shortly afterwards, the resort owner came up and suggested we might leave now (whether he wanted to go to bed or it was less safe for us to stay I dunno).
The dance lasted all night long. Our driver was at work the next day.
Back to the resort and into bed in the pit.
Friday is Malaria pill day.....yuk!
Fortunately, we're very tired when we go to bed. The electricity is off. This place is the pits.
(Saturday)
Up at 6:00 & out of the room immediately. Wander around until about 7:00 when we have breakfast...continental breakfast island style with lots of fresh fruit, homemade bread and good fresh coffee. We goof around until about 10:00 when we go to the kastom (old pre-Christian lifestyle) village. The chief of this village has decreed (Traditionally they fled the 7th Day Adventists) a return to the old ways of living. So they live and dress traditionally. Children don't go to school, there are no visible modern conveniences in the village and they use the old style of progressing through ranks for males and of using pigs as a measure of status and as a bride price.
The only compromise we saw was ourselves. An interesting choice to allow us tourists in to observe the village, but it seems genuine.
The village is up in the highlands and again we jump in the 4WD truck. Our driver, who danced all night long looks a little blurry-eyed. The road is the worst ever. We are always in low-low 4WD gear and in ruts up to the side-panels. After about 20-30 minutes we come upon 2 sticks crossed in the middle of the road. At first we think if marks a cargo cache. There is a reed-bag of coconuts someone wants us to take up the hill to the village. But we only go 30 yards when we hear shouts to turn around. (No one explains why exactly but we hope it's just the road is bad.) So we go back (30 minutes) and go back up another road which is worse. It is so vertical, we cannot believe. It's also muddy and the driver must keep up speed to be able to progress, but he spends just as much time going sideways toward the cliff as going upward. We reached the end of the detour and continued to the village past a bunch of villages, perhaps about every 1/4 mile or so. We stopped the truck short of our kastom village and walked in. Immediately we noticed some children in kastom dress (or rather non-dress). The boys wore nambas. We were invited inside the first hut and saw it was a cook hut for yams and taro. (They have different cook huts for different foods.) There was a man wearing only a namba and a woman wearing only an undyed grass skirt (no top). All the tools and utensils were primitive.
We walked around some more of the village and found other huts to be similar although slightly different according to function. Some were raised, some dug into the ground, some up in trees. Our guide explained the uses of some of them, some for food, some for ceremony, some for young boys, some for young girls, etc. Everywhere the usual assortment of animals except here the pigs run thru the village and there are lots of them. There are kids everywhere too, lots of them.
A bunch (maybe 20) young men show up. Several take a wad of newspapers our driver has brought and we ask why. They go off toward the potty and he answers, "Can't you guess?" Aha! A modern convenience unmasked! The rest of the young men are rounding up a pig that is to be kill for the upcoming Toka ceremony. They catch the pig which squeals like murder as it is led off to its fate. We walk on through the village and up to the dancing ground. This dancing ground again seems typical. Surrounded by big banyans and about 50 meters in length. The women have spread trade goods for sale consisting of carved walking sticks, stone axes, fish, pig killing sticks and woven goods. We buy some stuff. The men return and they and the women dance. It's a pale copy of the night before.
Return to the resort, lunch, go to airport. The plane this time is the small one and we don't go to Vila nonstop. We land at a grass & mud strip on Aniwa island....the worst landing strip I've ever seen.
The pilot got out of the plane and walked up the strip shaking his head before getting in again and taking off at full power. Once airborne we breath again and look forward to our night landing in Vila.
Return to apartment, pack up, and go to bed. No frills except a cold shower (this one's not crawling with things) that feels great after 2 days in Tanna.
(Sunday)
The trip back to Abq. was pretty uneventful. Besides, I'm tired of writing.
One exception was that Henry didn't get rid of all his Vatus on Vanuatu and when he tried to change them back in Aukland, they wouldn't take them. So now he's stuck with 12,000 Vatus (about $100.)
That's all folks,