end of term, ambrym island, memorial lectures, hot chips, dog food, and mosquito’s

end of term, ambrym island, memorial lectures, hot chips, dog food, and mosquito’s

Its 5AM, I’m listening to The Vienna Boys Choir sing Angus Dei…I feel human and spiritual. It’s the end of the 2^nd term so things have been very busy with the visit to Ambrym Island - which was excellent - the marking of tests and essays, preparing of various reports for the Pressie Church of Vanuatu (PCV) General Assembly and various correspondence for groups in NZ connecting with groups in Vanuatu.

So what have we been up to over the past few weeks?

This term has been one with many different things happening a lot of the time. There has been varous groups coming to Talua, work parties from Aussie and Korea, medical teams, friends visiting, sports days, open days, Vanuatu Independence Day week long celebrations, PCV independence celebrations and normal work - it’s made the term interesting and irregular which at times has made it hard to focus - especially for the kids doing school work. They would settle down to work to find all the local kids not going to school cos it was some kind of public holiday.

One of the pleasant things has been the cooler weather for the past couple of months. I have had to wear a sweatshirt at times - we have even thought we should have brought a few extra warmer clothes with us. It’s only been last week that things have warmed up.

In the weeks leading up to going to South East Ambrym we enjoyed the company of Roy and Anna Pearson at Talua. They were up in Santo checking on several projects. It was good to catch up. That same week Vanuatu celebrated 26 years of Independence…so up the road about a 40 minute walk at Najingo week long celebrations were held (I will upload photos of this to our website soon). The celebrations included another sports tournament of soccer and volleyball, a horse race (two horses along the beach), a marathon, a string band competition, a choir contest, a canoe race and a tug of war contest. During the each day many people cleared a bit of bush around the soccer field and setup stalls selling island food. A small petrol generator was powering a sound system with local music. Talua got involved having a stall selling rice and meat, coconuts to drink and eat and gataux (a donut like thing in the number 8 shape). Phillip purchased so much sugar cane from one stall that he was given a massive cane for free. On the last day of celebrations there was a church service with the moderator of the PCV giving the sermon (he lives on neighbouring Tangoa Island).

Phil with his free bag of sweets

On the Tuesday after the celebrations we flew - island hopped - to South East Ambrym where we met up with Bob and Barbara Walls from St. Columba Pressie, Otumoetai, Tauranga. The aim was to reunite with friends we made at South East Ambrym last year and paint the Moru Village church roof (we stayed in the church) and I did some reconnaissance for St. Ninians Pressie, Blenheim. They are sending a work party to Utas Village early 2007 to help repair the church (built by Kiwi work parties in the 80’s…Utas Village is holding the PCV General Assembly in 2007). It was great to meet up with old friends (it was the 3^rd time I’ve been there). It was also great to be able to share with my family the experience of going and living in the church, eating island food and experiencing a more authentic village life - cos life at Talua is not typical village life. While there a couple celebrated their wedding they married 7 years ago but could not afford the wedding feast, so 7 years later Tom and Mary had saved enough money, breed enough cattle and whatnot and celebrated in style with ten 25kg bags of rice, 4 bullocks, 1 pig, 50 laplaps, a massive Kava root to grind for drinking, about 3 days of work getting prepared, and finally a lot of fun and dancing on the night of the actual celebration. Plus a spectacular talcum powder fight - a must for every wedding.

When saying island hopping to get there the plane goes from island to island making its way to Ambrym, picking up and dropping off people and cargo on its way to Port Vila, we went as far as Ulie airport. We arrived the day after Vanuatu Independence Day and when arriving at the airport were told there was no diesel on the South East Ambrym - it was all used in the Independence Day celebrations - so it would be a good two hour walk Moru. Oh well…just go with the flow. We walked past a couple of villages then were told that Kalangai (the nurse at Utas) had found four litres of diesel and would pick us up soon. He had already walked 1hour to the airport and back again to his village looking for diesel. So in the end we only walked for about 45minutes.

Not only was it good to meet old faces, it was good to see things still working from our work party last year. The books and gifts given to Senai school were still there - even though we learned its very important when a group gives something to a school to say very very clearly “this …(whatever the gift is)…is for the school”. Otherwise teachers might think it’s for their own personal use and when the Vanuatu govt moves them on to another school they take the material with them. A few books did move on with a teacher from last year but I am able to report most are still at Senai and being used.

At Moru it was good to see the two water tanks still operating. They haven’t been used for the whole of the year but have been used most of the time. We arrived in the dry season and so they were low but being used. Also a couple of months ago there were major ash fallout from the neighbouring volcano island Lopvei - at night if the sky was clear we could see lava flowing down the mountain.

the following photos are Lopvei at day and night time (night time photo taken by Roy Pearson in June) and a Pama Loo (photo by Roy Pearson). The loos on South East Ambrym are the same

With the ash fallout the roof and guttering needed to be cleaned - which the locals did when the ash fallout stopped. Another problem was an earthquake caused a crack in one tank. Again the locals repaired it themselves. This proved my theory that if we build a water tank, they would repair them cos they can afford the one bag of cement to repair a cracked tank…what they can’t afford is the 1 to 1½ ton of cement to build a well from scratch. There had been other problems with the spouting (due to the ash) which we refined a bit and I will send some extra parts from Luganville to help.

So all in all - last years project was a success and the weather was kind to us as Bob Walls managed to finish painting the roof - it was a delight to fly over Moru on the way home and be able to photograph the bright blue roof of the church and the two water tanks. I’ll be back to South East Ambrym again next year to the PCV General Assembly and if it’s OK with St Ninians, when they go to repair the church.

After getting back from Ambrym we had exam week at Talua. Also Bob and Barbara Walls came with us to visit Talua - this was great and very sad to see them leave. They got to see a few places and even experience a rushed “transport” to the Canal.

This last week we had the Talua Memorial Lectures. Rev Feyak from Sydney gave ten lectures on the Spread of Islam. He was born in Egypt into a Presbyterian family. He became a Pastor in Egypt and forced to leave due to persecution. It was good to here some of the unreported truths behind what’s happening around the world. A very challenging week…also a busy week cos when I wanted to be marking papers and whatnot we were busy with lectures.

Yesterday as a family we took Feyak to the airport. I asked the bus to be back by 4PM. It arrived at 5:05 - flat tyre. Anyway I dropped Viv and kids in town to purchase supplies and took Feyak to the airport…we weren’t too late. Then we went to a restaurant for dinner…and had some hot chips…man they tasted good, real good. Talking about food, last night was I chatting with an expat in the butcher shop, he was buying food for his dog, the scary thing was the meat and other tinned fish he brought for his dog was the same food the students eat at Talua, the same except the students eat less.

There is a slight reprieve today from Mosquito’s due to the rain. But during the last week has been an explosion of the number of mossies. We’ve all been bitten to billeo standing outside one gets eaten alive. Currently there is no Malaria around so that’s good. Bob and Barbara picked a good week to be here cos two days after they left the mossies arrived in mass!

God Bless
Jon