Day 7: Beneath the Mango Tree

“And all of these moment might just find their way into my dreams tonight

But I know that they’ll be gone when the morning light sings or brings new things.

For tomorrow night you see tat they’ll be gone too. Too many things I have to do. But if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene, I’d be under the impression I was some where imbetween With only two- just me and you not so many things we got to do or place we got to be

We’ll sit beneath the mango tree now” -Jack Johnson

I couldn’t get this song out of my head. There was a huge mango tree by the main church in Nguna. I had kids constantly offering my mangoes. The kids were always excited to see me and they actually enjoyed having their picture taken. They laughed as I would show them the pic. One time, I was walking back from the beach when I heard a little voice yell ‘hello’ from beside the trail. I looked over and sure enough there was little kid squatting (using the bathroom) under a tree waving frantically at me. I waved back and laughed as I saw his pants and undies further up the trail.

My other mango experience came on the island of Pele. I arranged to take a boat over (10 minute ride) and was led to the Peace Corp volunteer who showed me around and took me up to the mountain on Pele. He dutifully attempted to answer all of my questions about Vanuatu. I was becoming more and more intrigued by the way things work and the way the people live. After our hike, we had to talk to the chief of the village to see how much I had to pay. While waiting for my change, we gathered under a mango tree by the beach. Someone came around with a huge tub of large mango. Sitting beneath the mango tree overlooking the picturesque beach gnawing on a sweet mango with the local people was one of my favorite moments of the trip. In simplicity, I had found perfection.

Day 6: Access Denied

The ni-Vanuatu still adhere to some older customs and rules.  I told Enet that I was interested in hiking up the mountain to the extinct volcano.  The next morning she apologized and said it was not possible.  She had apparently sent a message up to the village who controlled access and they weren’t going to decide until their weekly meeting on Monday which would have been too late for me since I was going back to Vila.  In typical American fashion, I thought there had to be another way. So I took off up the hill.  After about 30 minutes, I was stopped by Kirk.  Apparently he had an arrangement with the other bungalow for organizing tours.  He seemed to think that it was possible for me to go up there because the land wasn’t atually owned by any village in particular.  Kirk showed me the bungalow he had built and the spot where he wanted to build another. Apparently bungalows was the business to be in.  Kirk was  little busy, so he volunteered his kids to show me the way.  All for only 1000 vatu ($10).  A rip off, but he said the $ would go toward their education costs. I chose to believe him and hoped he wasn’t really going to spend the money to re-charge his French satellite television account.

 

The kids took me on people’s garden paths and through cane grass to the top.  The kids were 9, 7, and 7 years old.  One of the little girls wasn’t wearing shoes because her flip-flops had apparently broken. The walk was quite, peaceful, and beautiful- as were the views.  On my way back down, Kirk told me that his dream was to be in Lonely Planet.  I wished him the best of luck. Getting his bungalows listed in LP would surely make him financially set for the rest of his life.

 

I spent the afternoon exploring another coastal village.  I observed their fishing techniques: this involves a large net and a few guys with snorkels and masks.  As I strolled through Unakap, a woman in her Mother Hubbard dress started walking with me and pointing out different things.  She volunteered her daughters to walk me back to the village where I was staying.  The women really enjoyed inquiring where I came from (most visitors are Australian), if I had a husband, and if I had kids.  

Day 5: International Tour

A bit about simplicity: It seems sort of backwards that I would go to a developing country and seek out a place without tv, power, phones, etc. as a means of relaxation.  At the guesthouse, the water pump wasn’t working so I had one bucket for flushing the toilet and one bucket for showering.  One thing that I though was great is that the lights were powered by solar panels.

 

I met the other tourists for a guided hike to an old banyan tree.  I always love meeting interesting people when traveling.  The people I went on the tour with were a French woman, her English husband, and their kid.  I thought it was really great that their son was bilingual- he spoke only French with the mom and only English with the dad. The ability to speak 2 languages fluently is a wonderful gift to give your kids.  I’m also intrigued by French women b/c they really do seem to have that “joie de vivre.” I aspire to be more whimsical and light hearted like they are. 

The “hike” was great.  We had fresh coconut and mango’s along the way.  Apparently you can eat coconut in all stages of it’s growth. I’d never had soft coconut before, but it was really good.  The great thing about the climate of Vanuatu is that locals can grow their own food.  This means that food shortages are rarely an issue.  I found out quickly that yams, taro, bananas, rice, and manioc make up most of what the ni-vanuatu eat.  My enterprising hostess cooked huge meals for me 3 times a day and then sold plates of what I didn’t eat for 100 vatu to other villagers.  That made me feel better about ‘wasting’ food.  I sat in the kitchen and talked to E-net (the girl in charge of the guesthouse the week I was there) as she cooked.  I was sincerely disappointed when she declined to eat dinner with me.  I felt really awkward as she put the huge plates of food on the table and left while I ate by myself.  Each meal was arranged neatly on the plates- rice in formations accentuated by flowers. 

 

The rest of the walk was really beautiful- we passed banana trees, pineapple, manioc and yam plants on our way to the treehouse in the 300 year old banyan tree.  A lot of the plants and flowers were familiar to me and some of my favorites- Hibiscus, bromeliads, birds of paradise, plumeria, etc. I also enjoyed talking to the French/brit couple and learning about their adventures.  They had pretty much traveled the world backpacker style starting in their late teens and didn’t slow down one bit with the births of their 3 kids.  

Day 4: Left Past the First Goat

Slightly tired of Vila, I decided to head for Nguna- a small neighboring island. The thing with island people is that they don’t plan ahead. This means that they’re not so good at giving information, direction, or anything corresponding to time. I headed to the market around 8am because I had heard that the trucks bring people in from nguna to sell stuff at the market and then head back. After a bit of a run-around, I headed to the store which seemed to serve as the bust stop for people heading to the other side of the island. I parked myself in front of the store and asked everyone I saw if they were going to Nguna. Just follow the locals I kept telling myself. No one could understand why I wanted to go there or what I was going to do there. “Peace Corps volunteer? Missionary?” They asked. “No, just on holiday” I replied.Finally, I found a man and a lady wearing an extra bright Mother Hubbard dress who were headed to Nguna. Yeah, the missionaries couldn’t deal with nudity so they roped the Ni-Vanuatu women into these large, unflattering, brightly colored dresses. I enjoy wearing dresses. But, the women in Vanuatu do a lot of hard work and the dresses just seem to get in the way. Anyhow, I had a recommendation to stay at the Nakie Women’s Guest House in Nguna but I hadn’t made reservations. The guy going to Nguna got on the phone (yes, everyne there has cell phones) and I could tell he was talking about me. Bislama is an extreme form of pidgin English so it’s not that hard to pick out main ideas. After hanging up, he didn’t say anything to me. We just waited. Finally around 11:30 or 12pm, the truck came. There were 10 of us piled in the back of this small truck along with tons of supplies(food, kerosene, etc.). Two and half hours of bumpy dirt roads, steep hills, and 500 vatu ($5) later, we were at the dock. One dock in the middle of nowhere. The boat was waiting for us so everyone helped in the unloading and reloading. By this point, one of the women was still intrigued by me so she was looking out for me and making sure that my stuff got put on the boat. The boat couldn’t have been more than 15-17 feet. It took about 45 minutes to get to Nguna. As we arrived, everything was unloaded and the lady who was helping me offered to walk me to the Guest house where I was going to stay. About that time, Enet, an employee of the guesthouse came to greet me. I guess that the guy on the phone talking about me must have called the guesthouse to tell them I was coming. It never ceases to amaze me how things can sort of just happen in place like this. It’s like there’s a non- system in place that no one understands except for the locals but it works.

I was really pleased with the Nakie Guesthouse. I think the EU and some Australian group had come in and remodeled it and given the ni-Vanuatu women some advice. For 3000vatu/night ($30), I had my own room and 3 meals per day. It was sort of expensive for what it was, but I felt good about staying here because the money went to the women in the village unlike the bungalows down the “street” where the owner seemed to be all about the money for himself. His bungalows were about 100 feet from the beach, but I didn’t mind the 3 minute walk from my place.

The only other white people on the island were staying at the beach bungalows. I walked down there to check it out. I wasn’t sure how far I was walking, so when I found a goat tied to a tree, I used him as my landmark. There’s no paved roads on Nguna. With only 12 villages (about 2000 people, there’s really no need. It was exactly the quiet and relaxing place I was looking for. 

Day 3: Scoot-Scoot to Hideaway

I met P early on day 3. We had breakfast in Vila at a little French place. I can’t say no to crepes wit bananas and nutella. We set off on the scooter to see what there was to see. Outside of Vila, the people live in villages which are exactly what you would imagine. Some have minimal electricity, generators, etc. I followed P’s lead as he just pulled over and walked up to the village and into people’s ‘yards.’ In the US, this would not go over so well. Also, he kept his nice camera around his neck and was taking incessant photos. I was amazed at how welcoming the ni-Vanuatu were. Most speak fairly good English. I was impressed that most people spoke 3 languages: their mother tongue which varies from island to island, Bislama (so that different islands can communicate), and English or French to communicate with the tourists. Vanuatu used to be shared by the British and the French before independence. There is still some French influence evident, but as most of the tourists are English-speaking, locals have adapted.

As we traipsed through these people’s worlds, they smiled, thanked us for coming, and invited us back. We also stopped by a few schools (photographer’s love photographing kids) and generally got the same response. Within a few minutes of arriving, word would spread and someone with good English would find us and start talking to us. Upon learning that it costs about $120/yr/per kid to attend school while the average income is only about $10/month in some poorer villages, I was immediately racking my brain and trying to figure out the best way to help these people. Reforming the school system, making the government pay for it with tourist income, etc. It took me a few days to realize that maybe these people are happy just as they are.

We finally found the cemetery that P had been looking for. We sat under a huge tree and indulged in a meaning of life conversation in a way that only fortunate people can. Did the ni-vanuatu sit around pondering their purpose? Did they have quarter life crisis and have to take trips halfway around the world to find themselves? Probably not. P proposed that maybe it was because they were oblivious of the way Americans lived. Maybe they didn’t desire things because material objects weren’t in their face all day every day. Everything that the ni-vanuatu did was purposeful and linked with survival: working in the garden, making things to sell at the market, etc.

After leaving the cemetery, we headed to Hideaway Island. We caught the ‘free’ ferry and then paid 1000 vatu to enter the island. The snorkeling was well worth it. After using up all of our brain power on the intense meaning of life discussion, lazing on the beach felt well deserved.

Vanuatu Day 2: On the Way to the Cemetery

I’m not a clean freak or a hotel snob, but the one thing I can not handle is bugs in my bed. When I woke up, the dead cockroach on the floor didn’t bother me at all. Such things are to be expected in tropical climates. But the ants or whatever bugs in my bed were not tolerable. Especially for $40/night.

So, first project of the day: find new place to sleep. It was during this quest that I started to tune into the situation in Vanuatu. Essentially, the foreigners had come in, invested and wiped out the “middle class.” The locals had caught on to the fact that they could charge tourists lots of money and so in some places, they emulated the prices of foreigners. But, the ni-Vanuautu needed to live too. So prices of some things were still low. My strategy was just to pretend I was a local and do what they did.

First step was to get a ‘bus’ to the other side of town. The ‘buses’ are 100 vatu (about $1) for wherever you need to go. They’re unregulated mini vans with no pre-determined route that you direct by telling them where you’re going and reminding them by yelling ‘stop here please.’ I had experienced this same thing in St. Maarten and found it to be great. If the bus is semi-full when you get on, you get a free tour of some outlying villages or parts of the island you wouldn’t have ordinarily seen.

After a discouraging hour or so of looking for accommodations (1 place had changed names and was no longer budget, 1 place was full, 1 place I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I understood ‘no’ and ‘2 years’) I was headed back to town. Some guy on a scooter stopped and asked me if I knew where the cemetery was. I was a little tired of carrying my pack around, it was getting pretty warm, and I was sweaty. I shook my head just as the guy realized that I was even more lost than he was.

The guy ( I will call him P) turned out to be a really nice and helpful individual. He interrupted his quest to photograph the largest cemetery on the island to help me find a place to stay. He had rented a scooter and it must have quite a sight to see the two of us plus my (slightly large) pack on the scooter.
I ended up finding a little place about 5 minutes out of town. It was locally owned which made me feel a ton better about the $20/night. The ‘bungalows’ were actually pretty neat. There were 4 or 5 scattered up the side of hill amidst lush vegetation.

After my task of the day was complete, I headed to the market for lunch. Just like in latin America, the fresh fruit/ vegetable market had locals cooking up meals in the back. I found a table, sat down and asked what was for lunch. The lady said chicken or fish so I had a huge plate of fish with rice and vegetables. All for 350 vatu (roughly $3.50US) while my tourist Aussie friends were enjoying their $15+ meals at the restaurants down the street.

One of the most endearing qualities about Vanuatu is that the people (the ni-vanuatu) are so friendly and happy. While some are dirt poor, there are not children running after you begging for money, there aren’t shady scams ripping off the tourist. As a female traveler, I have to pay more attention to my surroundings and positions I put myself in. In Vanuatu, I never felt uncomfortable or that I was a walking target. I find that there are a lot of situations in life where acting like you know exactly what you are doing is key. I acted like it was completely natural for me to be the only white girl eating lunch with a bunch of ni-vanuatu.

I wasn’t able to completely avoid the touristy traps though… P and I took the scooter up to the Mele Cascades where we paid an exorbitant 1500 vatu ($15) to walk up to the falls. The swimming holes and size of the falls in general definitely made it worth it.

Vanuatu Day 1: At Home in Paradise

Before this trip, I didn't know anything about Vanuatu. I finished up a few school assignments (1 a week early which has never happened before) and off I went. Based on a few bits of random advice, I brought some food and expected the worst. Vanuatu consists of over 80 fairly small islands. I went to Efate to start with because it was the cheapest/most accessible from Brisbane. Port Vila is the main 'city.'

As I walked down the stairs off the airplane, I felt immediately at home. All I could see was endless green vegetation and blue skies. It was similar to Hawaii, just without the scent of plumeria in the air. The tropical warmth and feel was intoxication and I soaked it up willingly.

I took a taxi to the hotel I planned on staying at. The taxi was a rip-off ($18) and the accommodations which I had been told were back packer style had morphed within 2 years to ‘resort’ style. I figured it would suffice for one night even though a bit out of my budget. I quickly remembered that patience and going with flow is key to island living.

By the time I got settled in, it was definitely time for a beverage so I changed clothes and headed into ‘town’ (Port Vila). I found a great little café right on the water but was almost immediately disappointed to find out that there was free wireless access after 3pm. This was not where I wanted to be. I collected my overpriced but strong cocktail from the nice man with pink fingernail polish and settled in for some people watching and reflecting. I was surprised to see a version of drunk Jenga at the café. I was also surprised at the lack of young non-touristy backpacker styles.

In my experience, most males have a fascination with transportation vessels whether it is cars, motorcycles, boats or whatever. As previous boyfriends mentioned fantasies about life on a sailboat, I would immediately tune out and go to my fantasy of life on my own island. But, for the first time, I watched people taking their dinghy's in from the big boats anchored just outside the harbor and I wanted to be one of them. Surely I could overcome my motion sickness tendencies if it meant complete freedom.