Tanna and Village Life

Tanna and village life Vanuatu consists of approximately 83 islands spread over 555 kilometres. While we might not be able to explore all of them, we’re certainly going to give it our best shot! Our first stop was the island of Tanna, famed for its Mount Yasur volcano which is rumoured to be as close to a live volcano as you can get.

Port Resolution where yachts anchor is home to the village of Ireupuow. It’s a funny thing with yachties – we arrive, hop in our dinghies, motor in and announce “Ta-daa, here we are!” It’s not like going on holiday where you have a hotel, they know when you are arriving, you sleep and eat in the hotel and set off sightseeing, doing tours etc. We arrive unannounced and ask “Please can we be absorbed into your village!” In countries like Vanuatu the local village community often appoints a person to look after the yachties. That person will greet you, walk you around the village, see what you need and then try their best to pass you off to some other people to play with.

Ireupuow Village

Ireupuow soon got our attention. We thought houses made with palm tree leaves were largely a thing of the past. But here was the real thing set in lush green surroundings – dried brown leaf houses and dark mud pathways wandering here, there and everywhere. Life is largely subsistence living and, to be fair, the Ni-Vanuatu (people of Vanuatu) are extremely lucky when it comes to growing fruit and vegetables – we get the impression they can grow anything! Life is simple and a village may have a store or two for basic items like sugar, rice, oil etc. So with no markets, we need to trade. And it’s so much more fun. More often than not you’ll get gifts of fruit just for spending some time talking with someone – it’s just so abundant and Adina was soon overloaded with mango, banana, papaya and pineapple.

Vegetable picking with Carolyn and Mary

We met a lovely lady called Carolyn who told us she was off to her vegetable garden to get vegetables for the family and we were welcome to join her and her little daughter Mary. We grew extremely fond of Mary, she was always there with a big smile, always helping her mother. Each family has its own vegetable garden located on the outskirts of the village. It’s great fun tagging along as you get to see more of the village, the neighbouring village, stopping off and talking to others. Arriving at the small allotment Carolyn started hacking, digging and just handing us stuff, “This is for you”. We muck in offering to help. And this is how you get absorbed into local village life. The longer you stay the more they absorb you and we were in no rush. You meet more people, get invited to do things. It got to the stage Carolyn would just hand her baby over to Susie, “Susie, I’m just going to talk to my cousin, please can you look after Melissa”.

Stanley in charge of the yachts

Of course, it’s not all picture perfect. We soon worked out our guide, Stanley, was making a little side profit on taxi rides to the main town, we learnt you need to get your goodies before you hand over anything in a trade, and in fact like anywhere else you travel, you need to wade past a few frontline sharks. It’s a fact of life, some people think short term cash, some people have a long term vision and reap greater rewards. But by far the vast majority wanted a fair trade. People turned up at the boat with fish or fruit asking if we could please charge a phone or portable DVD player (no electricity but still some Japanese goodies). No problem. One man came with lobsters asking for 1 litre of fuel – bargain trade! He wanted to know if we had anything he could fix a hole in his wooden boat with. We gave him some wood glue, talked through how best to make the repairs and he invited us to his village offering fruit and vegetables in return. The Ni-Vanuatu we met were proud people and want to pay their way. We too like to give back as we get so much from them, beyond just the physical trades. And we’ve learnt Ni-Vanuatus love a cake.

Mount Yasur blows!

We set off on our Yasur volcano trip with Weery from the local yacht club and Stanley, our village guide. Bump, bump along the dirt roads, hand over £40 and start walking to the rim of the volcano. You hear the volcano before you see it. And what an intimidating noise. A deep grumbling sound from its belly before it shoots another bowl of lava skyward. It’s quite awe-inspiring and at the same time slightly terrifying. Stanley perched himself down on a bench and we wondered off walking along the rim of the volcano. We’d arrived as the sun was setting but it was once it got dark that we really got to see the spectacular bursts of lava shooting up, golden and bright into the dark of night. At times the wind would blow and your reward was piles of fine ash all over you – a shower would be needed on our return home. Just fabulous – some marshmallows and a very long stick would have sealed the evening!

Susie helps Jocelyn prepare the food

Back at the village the next day, a celebration was being organised for the official opening of a water pump project provided by a Climate Change organisation, funded by Australia Aid, and we were duly invited. As usual we tried to sneak into the background but they were having none of it; we were guests of the community, we’d be upfront. Susie had baked a cake for the feast which we later noticed was not on the table for the guests but was cut up into lots of small pieces for the locals – we liked that! No doubt about it, Vanuatu needs help from international donors and the villagers were grateful for water tanks and a water pump for times when there local river supply dries out. We tried to chip in and advised villagers that they should learn how the pump works and ask for spares, as we know, just like boat parts, it will break at some stage and need repairing.

Village celebrations

Our time was soon up and we went in to say our goodbyes, with a few items to offer as thank yous. Little Mary had heard talk about cakes and had asked her Mum to ask Susie for one. So Susie made her a banana cake and brought her some colouring pencils. We turned up and she came running over, wide eyed and the most beautiful big smile, waving away “Su-si!!!” Such warm, kind people. Our trip to Vanuatu was off to a good start.