OK, enough! Our last days were busier than we expected because instead of one big “las kakae” (farewell dinner), we had 10! We ate with different families, tribes or villages and as usual there was plenty of kava, too much food, speeches and presents. It all culminated in our “las las kakae” on our final night in Nikaura. This time we gave the speeches (even Nic) and we gave the presents.

Our gift was a clock for the nakamal so that we’ve left our village with “waetman taem” (whiteman time) – the ni-Vans thought this was hilarious and promised to think of us when they look at the clock.

We hired the Rocky String Band to play and they wrote us a farewell song.

On our final morning after we packed up the last bits and pieces and were waiting for Api to come so we could jump onto the back of his beat up red Hilux one last time, Leipakoa came to ask Nic to move a tree from near the sport field as it would get too big there. Of course, one of her sons could have done it but she wanted a tree to remember us by.

During our time in Vanuatu we made some “Top 10” lists and where better to share them than in our last blog entry. So keep watching for that one and I’ll post it when I find the book that we wrote the lists in! Things are a bit of a shambles at the moment.

In the meantime we want to say thank you to everyone who helped, wrote, posted comments, sent packages, visited, thought of us, collected books, and sent stationery, curries and Who magazines (Yes we were able to keep up with the antics of Paris and Nicole even from our remote village – it made all the difference! Mostly it made us not want to come home!!!)

Thank you all for your support. We’ll catch up with you soon.

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The main addition was a tree whose leaves were made using the handprints of the students.

….and ours as well…

… to create the final product.

The artists:

Narelle also extended Mike’s fish corner of the mural around the corner:

And added a sunny design to the library door:

It’s hard to fit the whole thing into a photo but this is the end section of the building:

Nic’s niece, Sarina, who came visiting and was also been roped in to help paint. We painted the other classroom so that the entire school looks bright and fresh.

Everyone loves how beautiful the place looks and we keep getting told that Nikaura School is the best looking school in Vanuatu!

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Dad had a new experience when we walked up to Mele Cascades – shoes off to cross the creeks and then he walked BARE FOOT. This is a man who puts slippers on to go 4 metres to the toilet during the night – I didn’t know he even had toes and I’ve been his daughter all my life! ☺

We hired a car and drove around the island of Efate (we actually made it all the way around this time as we went north and didn’t get distracted by feeding turtles and sharks like Deb did when Vic, Narelle, Diago and Bohdi were here)

We stopped for a snorkel and coconut break at Eton Beach and Blue Hole. Very beautiful, a typical “tropical island paradise” type place!

Another trip to Tanna and a climb up the volcano. Mum had hold of Deb’s fingers or arm the whole time and when Yasur boomed she left marks that can still be seen! (She has an aversion to heights, so it was a big ask to get her to stand on the rim of an active volcano in the first place!)

We all enjoyed the Cultural Tour at Jungle Oasis on Tanna. We were welcomed into the traditional house in the base of a banyan tree on the proviso that none of us strange spirit people with white skin kill any of the tribe and they carried Deb in, to show their respect for the group.

Now we're looking forward to heading out to Epi together..... and later in July a visit from Nic's niece, Sarina.

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Here's proof we were there (especially for those who claim Vic was never in Antartica because she's not in any of the photos!)

Here's one especially for Vic's TAC colleagues - Vic in the back of a truck, screaming along the ash plains, no seatbelts required!

But, of course, the real show began after dark....

AWESOME.

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Lots of new experience were had:

Relle tried pawpaw for the 1st time

Diago took a ride in an outrigger canoe

The boys drank fresh cocnuts

Diago learned how to "mow" with a bushknife (Don't look Nonna!)

Truck rides were a blast

Relle found a new appreciation for her washing machine after this

But I think the highlight was a night snorkel with Mike and Phillip to catch, tag and release a turtle:

I miss you all already. Thank you for letting me show you our island!
Love,
Deb

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As we were approaching, it emitted a couple of big puffs of smoke but we decided that was just the volcano making us feel welcome....

Our campsite was cleared for us and we dug into some “treats” that Lou brought to Epi for us – the usual stuff we crave but can’t get, like cheese and dip.

We were able to do a bit of a hike up the old lava flow from when Lopevi was firing up last May.

Deb also was able to give climbing a coconut a go, bushknife in hand and all (don’t look, Mum!)

A highlight was the local crabs for dinner (we decided against going diving for more fish after Mike nearly became shark-dinner the day before! Pesky little cartilaginous fish!)

The boys helped chew the kava (looks tasty doesn’t it!)


...and then Rian even volunteered his shirt for it to be strained through, now that’s dedication to your narcotic drink!

Despite the puffs of volcanic ash, curious sharks and waves that did their best to drown our fibreglass dinghy on the way back, we made it to the safety of Epi completely intact (wet, cold and exhausted, but intact!)

Afterword:
Glad we didn’t try to go this weekend – I took this photo this morning...

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The opening was a big occasion. We had special guests from Vila and all over the island, as well as friends from Kingsway School in NZ who came and put the finishing touches of a coat of paint on the refurbished classroom. Lou (our in country manager) came and was honoured by the men of Nikaura. They carried her around the school grounds in a “throne” behind the custom entrance and singing.

Chief Timothy made an animated speech:

Thank you gifts were given to the special guests:

Lou and Deb opened the library:

The builders and Nic in front of the “fruits” of their labour:

We had “uniforms” specially made, don’t we look spiffy!

Leipakoa made a fantastic speech in which she referred to a banana tree that one of the men had cut from her garden and placed in the middle of the field in front of the building...

Leipakoa told this story:
When she was walking back from first talking to Deb on the phone (when we were still in Australia but preparing to come to Vanuatu) she met the late school council president’s wife walking the other way. The woman was carrying small banana plants and Leipakoa asked her what she was doing with them. She replied that she was just taking them somewhere else to plant so Leipakoa asked if she could have one to put into her garden to mark the day she first spoke with her Australian volunteer. Leipakoa explained to the coucil president’s wife that she was just starting something and she wanted to see if, like the banana, the aim of having a volunteer come to Nikaura would grow into something. And now both the banana plant and the volunteer project have borne fruit. (I cried the whole way through it – Deb)

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The books were donated by the family and friends of Rowville Secondary College, Woodend Primary School and my mother, Rhonda Wain. So, many, many thanks to all involved. Very special thanks to Emily Luck who coordinated the book drive, Bron Rees-Allen and her 7B IT Class and Les Clement and his 10G Civics Class.

The students and members of the school council helped to carry the books for the unloading point in the village to the school. Everyone helped out.

We’ve opened all the boxes and are steadily working through categorising them ready for the library (it has helped a lot that they have been sorted out before going into boxes – thanks guys!) It was like Christmas and I was tempted to abandon work to read various picture story books which brought back memories for me (See Dick Run, The Hungry Caterpillar, Come Back Amelia Bedelia and Giant John in particular!)

Now all we need to do is finish the roof-rebuilding project and we’ll have a place for our library as well. We’re very excited.... this is me when all the books were arriving!

Thank you all SO MUCH!

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So we’ve had an opportunity to be tourists on Efate (which we haven’t done before).

We checked out Mele Cascades....

...and the “Secret Garden”. (Don’t worry, Mum, it’s not a poisonous snake, only a boa – I did suggested Min try wearing it around her neck like a feather boa but she wouldn’t be in it! ~ Deb)

and Nic made a new reptilian friend too.

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Then the clean up began...

And then the coral was carried up from the beach...

And some cement mixed to seal the walls and repair some damage to the slab floor.

Timber was “bush-milled” and the trusses have been put together, so the roof is on it’s way!

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Some of you (probably most of you) know a thing or two more than me about general housework and, in particular, washing clothes. And you’re probably shaking your head in exasperation at how I’ve bunched these clothes onto the line and saying to yourselves, “Debra, that’s no way to get your washing dry... and what were you thinking mixing up the colours like that?!” Well, I can explain. This is not, as it first appears, my washing. It’s much worse than that. These are clothes that I’ve already washed (by hand), hung up, dried, brought inside, folded and put away... and now they’re back on the line being aired!

The humidity dropped from 80 to 72% this morning and a fair breeze sprang up so it was a good day to put my wardrobe out to air. We’ve had some problems with clean clothes going mouldy before we get to wear them. Nic’s leather belt is a write-off too. Ah, the delights of a tropical paradise – they don’t mention mouldy clothes in the Lonely Planet!

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We’ve had a bit in the way of the wet season so far but nothing compared to what we expected (or feared). It has been humid, sometimes up to 98% humidity, but there has also been the occasional reprieve where the temp and the humidity have dropped. So at least there’s been some respite.

Yesterday was Christmas Day and we spent it in the village. The day started out with breakfast at the nakamal of bread and very sweet citrus tea. The bakers were at it all night – almost literally, they were baking when we headed home from carols on Christmas Eve and were still going when I got up to go to the loo at 4am!

Drinkti with our friend Neti

After breakfast (“drinkti” in Bislama) we went back home with a chunk of beef to make something to share back at the nakamal for lunch. (Yes, our vegetarianism has been put on hold a bit but we draw the line at pork!) This is usually a soup but we decided to be daring and make a really weak curry. The food eaten locally is not spicy at all, the ni-Vanuatu prefer to enjoy the flavours of the fresh meat and vegies that they eat rather than drowning them out with, say, chilli like I do! The men were already cooking the rice to go with the soup (and our curry) at breakfast time in the hugest pots you’ve ever seen.

After lunch we wandered back home again to “spel smol” (rest a bit) and to wait for the tamtam (slit drum) to ring to signal that it was time to come back and exchange gifts in a Kris Kringle-type affair. It was good fun. I got an island dress and Nic was given a woven and shell decoration to hang on our wall.

Later in the evening we went into the village again to say Happy Birthday to a little girl, Christina, who shares her birthday with Christmas. We hoped to just duck in the back and give our wishes but when we were spotted by the hosts we were ushered up to special seats in the front of the room and plied with food and drinks.... hmm I could get used to this star treatment, might be a bit ego-crushing to come back home!

That was our Christmas day – I hope all yours were as relaxed and unburdened by travel and rushing as ours but I think that might be asking a bit much. Hope you all had a good time anyway!

All the "mamas" wearing their island dresses have to dance when the string band play the island dress song!

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Great company, excellent food, space to sprawl, and cute Aussie cattle dog all included. We highly recommend it!

As cushy as that sounds we have made it a kind of working holiday by stopping along the way at the schools down here to talk to the head teachers. I’ve offered to bring the teacher workshops, which I developed at Nikaura, to their schools next year and they were very enthusiastic. I’ll write up the details and send them to the schools in question in a letter – still the easiest way to communicate here! Nic is also looking at the tourism side of things and how they have it all running here – a sort of “industrial espionage” (don’t tell our hosts, Rob and Alex!)

The gardens at the Epi Guest House are exceptional. Here is just one of the many Hibiscus.

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This “reimbursement” is, in fact, a local custom known as a “sorry ceremony” and is used for all manner of smoothing the waters when a wrong has been done. It can be much more complex than this, of course, involving payment of slaughtered pigs and kava. In our case we didn’t feel that the lost kumala was that significant but the people of Nikaura felt it was important to repay the “debt”. Of course, we were most happy to accept the offered goodies (and if you check the number of bananas on the table, the $ amount is probably well into the 100s! Possibly enough to repay our mortgage!!!)

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Soso brought her around to show us yesterday and Deb held it for a while. We then returned it to the nest it came from but an hour later it came back to our house and sat at Deb’s feet – obviously it decided Deb would be its ‘primary carer’. The challenge has been taken on. Although it lives in a box it prefers our laps and is currently sitting in a small gap under the warm laptop on my lap! Luxury accommodation!

Dingo is a bit jealous but so far has only had it in his mouth once and only flattened it with his paw twice. If it survives his affections we think they may become friends.

In addition to our chickens we have a visitor in our outside kitchen. Another chicken is hatching nine eggs there – she moved in while we were visiting Australia.

Yes, we have been back home briefly. We were lucky enough to be invited to Emily and Hugo’s wedding. Emily is a colleague of Deb’s from Rowville Secondary College and was in Vanuatu last year as a volunteer. The wedding was beautiful, held in Canberra’s Botanic Gardens. It totally suited the happy couple. We also met a few ex-volunteer friends of Emily and Hugo from their Vanuatu days. It was fun to compare notes.

The rest of the trip was spent with family and friends in Melbourne. It was fantastic to catch up but all too short and very tiring. It was much harder to say goodbye this time round. We were welcomed back into the village and are now back into our projects (when we’re not playing adoptive Mum to day old chicks or massaging the bruised ego of a displaced dog!)

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The other night I was having a particulary bad nights sleep and was unimpressed to wake up yet again and need to go to the toilet. I usually cope OK with the long drop but the disappearance of the sun below the horizon marks the start of cockroach happy hour at the Wain-van den Bronk Loo (it's the hip new place that's recently been renovated!) One of Nic's renovations to the toilet was to get rid of the original wooden crate with a hole in it that was the toilet seat and construct a taller, sturdier seat with a hinged lid so that the cockroaches and spiders couldn't hide under the lip. I found this fantastic and I've been steadily picking off the little blighters by squashling them with my shoe.

However, on the night in question in my sleep deprived state I took aim, smacked at the nasty creature, missed, hit the other edge of the toilet with the recoil of the attempted whack and dropped my shoe into the long drop! I stood in shock at my stupidity (now quite well awake) and then burst out laughing at myself. On going back to bed I found that I still couldn't sleep but this time because I had the giggles and couldn't stop myself from thinking silly things like "Well that's 3000VT down the toilet....literally!" (I'd bought the fake Birkenstocks in a dodgy duty free place when we first arrived in Vila). In the end I had to wake Nic up to tell him & share the hilarity. I'm sure, though, that he didn't need to be woken in the middle of the night to know that he's married a complete dill!

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Here is an indulgent blog of our puppy! He’s very entertaining especially when he’s bouncing after the chickens. (I’m sure he thinks he’s bounding but he has more of a Pepe LePue action of all four feet off the ground at the same time and coming down to land practically in the same place as he left off) We’re slightly concerned that he’ll figure out the co-ordination thing and actually catch one, then we’ll be hauled off to a sorry ceremony to make it up to the owner of the chicken!

Anyway, I think pictures say it all:

A dog in a hanging basket? It would keep him away from the chickens!

This one's for Nic's dad, Dingo thinks he's a builder's dog sleeping on the timber!

He seems to do a lot of sleeping, doesn't he?

In other news:
Nic’s project was officially advertised (to him alone) and he has applied so now we’re just waiting for that to go through. [update: we got the "Yes" email today! Yay!!!]
I’ve run my second workshop on the different ways kids learn which went over quite well – the headmistress couldn’t make it because in the morning she was invited to attend a wedding that day and she needed to go and represent the school (the woman getting married was the daughter of the school council president).
Third term is nearly over (at the time of writing) and Nic & I plan to head over to Vila for some running around and some R&R this time!
We’ve moved to our new place (the other building closer to the sea where we get a better breeze).
We’ve had 100mm of rain in the last 3 days and this is supposedly still the dry season!

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Many people find Nic & I highly entertaining even when we’re doing “normal” things like digging our vegie patch or washing the dishes. Particularly when Nic does “mama’s work” like washing the clothes. My mum asked in a letter how I was managing the washing so here’s a photo of exactly how, Mum!

Nic has also been known to draw quite a crowd trying to fix our neighbour’s generator. (He said he was pretty pleased when he got it going as he felt like the pressure was on!)

Our other news is that we’ve been given a puppy (Don’t tell Luna and Gem!) His name is Dingo (so they’ll remember the Aussie volunteers after they’ve gone!) and he’ll stay on here as the school dog when we go home. The kids love him and vice versa so that’s a bonus.

This past week (as well as building furniture) I’ve started a remedial program with kids that we identifies as needing extra help. I’ve set myself up in a spare classroom and the kids come to work with me each morning. It’s good to feel like I’ve really started something. Even though I’ve held one workshop already, it didn’t feel like much. I’m also helping out in the classrooms during the morning English lessons. So that’s keeping me busy.

Nic is still working with the Peace Corps, Mike, from the next village on business classes and ecotourism classes. Today we went to a big school council meeting where we talked about an opportunity to get funding to repair the damage to the school so starting next Tuesday Nic will be busy helping the committee to write the grant application for that as well.

It’s all happening!

Love to everyone! Hope you’re all well and happy, drop us an email, comment or letter to let us know. We miss you all.

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We are back from a short trip to Vila for me to sit an exam (and to catch up on some shopping while we had the chance). Vila is incredibly expensive, and we were pleased to get back to Nikaura to relax. Several letters awaited our return too which was great.

Deb ran her first workshop for the teachers when we got back – reading strategies. It went over well with the staff at the primary school who now number four (two teachers, one trainee teacher and one volunteer teacher). It was very gratifying to see some of the strategies in use the following week. Deb is now hard at work preparing her next workshop – multiple intelligences. For those of us who aren’t teachers, multiple intelligences refers to the many ways in which kids absorb information; e.g. reading, writing, music, pictures etc.

Lopevi the volcano has also come back to life since our return. The last few nights have been spectacular with the clouds lifting high enough to expose the top of the mountain (nearly 1500m). The lava flows reach about 2/3 of the way down. Local legend goes that the volcano is extinguished by the traditional owners of the island washing it to put out the flame. The owners don’t live on Lopevi anymore since a major eruption last century. They now live on Epi and some on Paarma, the two nearest islands. Occasionally people paddle canoes out to collect crabs. Last week some youth from Nikaura returned with a haul of crabs and our neighbour cooked one for Deb. Crab in coconut sauce, apparently very delicious.

Our vegie garden is up and running with tomatoes, pak choy, basil, snake beans, cucumbers and snow peas growing well. The snake beans were four centimetres high just three days after planting the seeds. Growth might slow down though because it has got cold! Last night it dropped to 18 before we went to bed, the coldest it has been since our arrival. This morning was the first time I put on a jacket. (sorry to all you people living in the south, I can’t resist the temptation to rub it in a bit!)

Domestic duties call, so I must sign off. Cheers from Vanuatu.

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Nic and the boys sitting in the 'window' of the nakamal during the big lunch feast for the Shefa Day celebrations. Shefa is our province and we have a public holiday to celebrate the 11th anniversary of the setting up of the council. There were some fun and games as well as the huge amounts of food!

The Sack Race in action.

The women had a weaving race...

...and supposedly the men had a fishing comp but 2 women joined in as well (there were only 2 men in it!)

A soccer championship, of course! Everyone here is following Australia's progress in the World Cup too.

And a volleyball match for the girls, they're the two sports of choice: soccer and volleyball!

More pics of cute kids later!
Love,
Deb & Nic

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My new shadow, the principal's granddaughter, Josephine. She has become somewhat of a shadow, following us everywhere and often visits to see what we're doing, climb on our laps, play with my hair and share (our) food with us! She's a little "stronghead" and (to put her in context for the van den Bronk family) she reminds us a great deal of Igochi when she was small, she has the same way of strutting around. She looks a bit shy in this photo, the camera doesn't always tell the truth!!!



The front of our house with the newly erected verandah for us to sit under (we just learnt it is not water proof but it is a good bit of shade!)



I have only just come back to Nikaura as the principal went off to a teaching workshop on literacy for a week and after being there for a day she sent for me. The message got to me as we were walking through town and a woman just stopped me as she was going into the shower to ask if I was the volunteer at the school (there are a couple of other white people around with the youth conference so it would be hard for them to know why we're here at this point). She told me that the "headmistress" had sent a message that I should join her so I got to go to the workshop where I met up with Priscilla, who was one of the facilitators (the teacher who was Em's counterpart at Fres Wota school last year) and Claire who is Em's replacement!

We're able to put up this blog because Nic is going into Vila to do a tour of the Roi Mata sites which is a tourism project that a couple of other Australian & an American volunteer have been working on so he can kill two birds with one stone and will put this up when he gets there.

We were just visited by a young woman from the village who came to give us a pawpaw for no apparent reason other than to welcome us. The children in the village still stare when we walk past and giggle after they say hello.... everyone has been lovely, it's great to be on the island!

Miss you all!
Lukum yu nekis taem!

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The next time you hear from us we will be in Vanuatu!

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