Arrival in Southern Vanuatu
Sailing away from New Zealand, I was again brought into my distress about the diminishing numbers of wildlife, in this case particularly seabirds, much reduced since I first sailed in eight years ago. However, there were quite a few petrels, a sole albatross, what I believe was a mollymawk, and the overall magic of the ocean realm remained absolutely powerful: a straightforward passage spanning the third quarter and the full moon offered expansive time to absorb the moonlight upon heaving waters to the horizon in all directions whilst the sparse silver clouds cast their roaming shadows and caused the bravest stars to wink on and off above. In the last couple of days, the gentle heaving of the waters gave way to a seascape of white, wind-torn water-mountains as the winds rose, and we enjoyed a swirling, surfing ride right into the main village on Aneityum Island, the sun and rain-drenched (read, rainbows!) most southerly island of Vanuatu (population c 1400).
We struggled to tie down the sails as we dropped them, but found ourselves quickly enough in a safe anchorage with perfect holding and protection for two tired sailors, not to mention the feast for our ocean-weary eyes that the lush green hills and palm-fringed beaches offered, and the good fresh produce, friendly locals and beautiful places to go that we were soon to discover. Ashore we tried our best to find some way of officially checking in to Vanuatu and ended up sitting on Louise and Justin father’s grave in their family back garden. Louise is the school librarian, and she cheerfully told stories about her late father while we waited for Justin to appear from what appeared to be a complicated and protracted escapade with his cow: as sole police officer he is the nearest Aneityum offers to customs, immigration and biosecurity, all rolled into one. The cow took many hours, but after waiting, the formalities took only a few bantering minutes: we were told to rest and then check in at another island. In the tropics, for me at least, resting means swimming! I left the boat under the power of my fins and swam towards the nearest reef. Before I was even there, not one but two turtles lazily cruised away: what rich swimming I was to enjoy here! Widespread smash zones were evidence of cyclones that have affected the area, but there was lots of fresh young coral growth, as well as more protected areas of older corals, extensive soft corals
and LOTS of fish, plenty of huge molluscs, gorgonians, abundant anemonies,
and echinoderms to die for (glorious crinoid central!). I usually ended up swimming and drifting through the ‘active’ zones: not exactly passes, but areas of current. I was on the alert for sharks here, but saw not more than a few small reef sharks and was reassured by a fisherman that there was no shark problem. Back ashore, I quickly volunteered for what turns out to be a highlight of my visit: reading with the children at the school.
Each school day I met with the teachers and read with up to three groups of children from two classes whose names were a mash-up of misspelled English or French and what I can only describe as names straight out of Lord of the Rings, eg Leiwas (the principal) and Finyaloh (a boy from her class). At age 9-11, these youngsters all speak FOUR languages: Aneityumish (unique to Aneityum island and handy when you need to talk disparagingly about someone from a different island in their presence, apparently), Bislama (pidgin English, which is common to all the islands here), English (taught in Presbyterian schools) and French (taught in Catholic schools), the latter two representing the two former colonial powers. Although the children may not have shoes or access to electricity or flush toilets or running water or other things that may be considered basics elsewhere, they are bright, learning geometry and history and grammar, know all the reef fish, can grow food as well as harvest wild food from their environs, know how to cook, are able in handling tools… to live!… and speak FOUR languages fluently!
Absolutely everyone I met was friendly and open to conversation, was confident in themselves and their place and identity, and had interesting things to say actually. The school, however, became my main point of involvement with the community, and a very fruitful one it was too, in some cases quite literally: although this village is the capital of the island, there is nothing more than a handful of tiny shops
or a few women lying in a row on their bellies under a tree beside some baskets and brown roots vegetables that one could call a ‘market’, and this latter only happens randomly and rarely, so the garden produce that I was given by kind members of the school community was very welcome to say the least. Huge round passionfruit, thin-skinned pink avocados, grapefruit and oranges of many kinds all with rows of pips like crowded teeth, sweet raw sugar cane, ‘island cabbage’ (a dark green leaf nothing like cabbage), drinking coconuts, eating bananas… these are all gifted, not to mention a few brown root vegetables from the lying ladies, which are also good. As always, I did my best at listening and learning about the people and how their lives work, what their basic philosophy is. Their Christianity was a strong base for village life and relationships, and still focussed on the glorious memories of the first missionaries, who ‘saved’ them from the evil cannibalistic ways of their forebears and also, perhaps more usefully, implemented a practical system of quarantine for the thousands who died from diseases brought by white visitors (interestingly, ‘Mystery Island’ was the main quarantine centre. There were at one time around 12000 residents).
The remains of their first printing press - the envy of many a missionary for printing the gospel - was still very much on the village 'tour'.
In this respects, Aneityum was perfectly similar to many islands I have been to, but in other ways turned out to be rather unique. I found no apparent conflict between traditional and modern/Christian culture, no conflict between rule by chiefs (kastom law) and written law (police/government); no conflict within the hearts of the locals at being here in their birthplace, ie no desire to ‘make it’ in the big glamorous world where there are shiny things to buy (that’s where most of us come from, remember) and shake off the lowly life of villager growing vegetables and fishing on the reef (I think this might be often called in the West, ‘living the dream’). Everything was very ordered, right down to the trimmed, flower-bordered gardens, and there was a high degree of cooperation and community sharing, membership of various groups and organisations (as well as church), but without yielding to any discontent and desire associated with Western culture, the had somehow relinquished their own: I saw almost no traditional dress, music, religion, island-built boats, and only minimal handicrafts. After a time I began to regard this situation as a very apt response to the colonialism, which ended in 1980. The French and British used Aneityum for sugar cane production, but mainly for timber, clear-cutting the native forest of sandalwood, kauri and other trees over a large part of the island. The ‘main road’, running from coast to coast, is a former forestry track and serves as such still, because the inventive locals had the presence of mind to use the great misfortune of the loss of their native trees to their advantage and plant pine to create their own forestry industry, unique in Vanuatu to this day. This company, unlike former times, is communally owned. Today huge tracts of land are covered in pine
and the mobile timber mill can be heard at work in the distant hills, supplying the whole nation with timber.
Likewise, since 1983 they have been developing an uninhabited offshore tiny island as a cruise ship destination (renamed ‘Mystery Island’ for the purpose). I witnessed one cruise ship visit and, after already spending a couple of weeks with the locals, the zoo of white (mainly) Australians that arrived with strange hairstyles, pointlessly affected clothing, crying children and the obligatory beer bottle in hand in search of plastic toys to float on, sit on, lie on, eat from or wear, and service from locals that was completely unrelated to island life, not to mention the inevitable photo fascination…
it all appeared not far short of mentally ill*. However, the locals glide through all this, make some money and get back to their contented lives when the ship leaves at 5 o’clock. Needless to say, this is also a community-owned business focussed toward profit for all: landing fees, etc go into the community chest, and the opportunity to sell handicrafts, drive water taxis, offer tours, etc is carefully rotated between villages so that individual families can all benefit. An intermission brought me from the crazy cruise ship to the local cargo ship: how different. The cargo boat’s arrival is definitely another community event.
Children splashed in the shallows, everybody waited in the shade of the trees to see what was coming off, drums of fuel were stacked as they were rolled off the unseaworthy looking vessel, whose rusty decks were covered in diesel and railings were strung with laundry. I sit down with ‘Aunty’ (Lousie’s aunt) and she offers, ‘yumi tok tok bislama?’ (you-me talk talk bislama: Shall we talk bislama?). It is fun here, even the language. As a result of its international business interactions, and others, Aneityum has bettered itself in many ways. For instance, the school has a small library in the making (with the help of a US Peace Corps volunteer), furnished with donated secondhand books, and there is a new building which is a ‘clinic’ for health needs built with donated money from one of the visiting cruise ships. But what really made me think more than anything else, was not how the locals had used relationships with rich countries to their advantage, far from it, what I saw was they were doing it much better than we do in the West in so many ways. The cooperative, community-owned cruise ship and forestry businesses both exemplified a much more sustainable way to make money than the regular old capitalism that feeds the shareholders elsewhere: they really have got something there! The settled, no stress, healthy lifestyle that pervaded the communities was the reward they had certainly carved for themselves (and need I say, it is one that is hard to find in rich countries).
*this picture is not of a seemingly mentally ill Australian tourist, but just of my Dean being his normal self!
Larger pictures and a couple of extras are here:
