Lukem yu Jess!!

With Jess's departure from Santo, I asked her to do a guest blog. Jess had her own stories to friends: the 'survivor episodes'... highly entertaining so I thought you'ld enjoy a round up from her : )


Sarah asked me to write a blog signing off on my time in Vanuatu, so I’m currently sitting in the netherworld of Port Vila and trying to be reflective. It’s harder than I expected. Mainly, that’s because the past year has been a chaotic range of experiences, emotions and observations. Everything defies accurate description and I feel like I am doing the experience a disservice to try.

How can I explain the food, staggering in its volume, blandness and lack of nutritional value, and still get you to appreciate the joy of a mama meal (cheap, hearty, MSG-loaded fare) or my addiction to yam and breakfast crackers?

I could tell you that I love walking down the main street and constantly shaking hands and storianing with people, mamas in bright island dresses and old men who are just as likely to be wearing a loin cloth as a second-hand T-shirt advertising a random plumbing business in central Australia. But it wouldn’t be an accurate picture if I left out the annoyance of groups of ni-Van boys calling out witty things like “Hey, Missus, I love you”.

The year has also been punctuated with frustrations; Big ones like the pervasive apathy at work, the tolerance of incompetence and misappropriation, and the tendency to both unquestioningly rely on, and frequently try to extort, white people; and small ones like constantly smelling like a gym towel, being weighed in at the airport, hearing how silly you sound speaking Bislama and having to strike 20 crappy Chinese matches before you can get one to light.

However, in spite of all of that, the balance for the year is tipped in favour of the good memories. The laughter, the sunset from the balcony, warmth of good people and strength of good friendships and having a soccer tournament in my honour definitely edge out the negative stuff.

In that spirit, I’ve compiled a list of highlights, things that I will miss, and some “lessons learned” (in preparation for the wanky Australian Youth Ambassador debrief…). It’s a testament to the good times that have been had that it was extremely difficult to narrow down the lists to a Top 5!

Highlights:
The Feehely Momorial Futbol Tournament
Spending a week in a village in north Ambrym to begin the adventure, learn some Bislama and get a taste for root vegetables and string band music
Easter weekend at Lonnoc – good food, good weather, great company: good times.
Gaua Arts Festival
Deck parties – cricket, drunken sailors, vile alcoholic concoctions and dancin’, sweet dancin’: all the best parties in Luganville happened on one of our decks.
[Runners-up: my first reef dive, underwater birthday cake, making island Christmas stockings, night swimming at Palakula and crashing a wedding and dancing to the same five Zouk songs for hours]

Things I will miss
The three Missus – Sarah, Jen, Andrew, and just generally being part of such a solid team
Riding in the back of the ute – this is, often quite literally, the only way to travel
The view of the East Coast as you round the corner at Sarunda
Earthquakes – the frequent gentle, or sometimes not so gentle, rumbles of the earth still give me a little rush every time
The little clicky finger pull ni-Vans do when they think something is funny (which is often)

Things I’ve learned:
A village that doesn’t have toilet paper, water, road access or a public phone within 2km will probably still have a generator, DVD player and a copy of “Rambo”.
If you stare at a group of geckoes on the ceiling for long enough, one of them is bound to fall off.
Regardless of the arrangement, people will arrive when (or if) they feel like it. Same goes for boats…
It’s OK, NOONE looks sexy in a wetsuit.
Good people make all the difference. Sarah is (in keeping with the uber-Australian persona I have unwittingly adopted here) a top sheila. Her levity, support and chocolate cake have helped to make this whole experience worthwhile.
So, on reflection, my sage advice for surviving a stint on a tropical island is to learn to laugh about things and enjoy the good stuff, take sweet chilli sauce and only buy Three Diamond matches. And take Sarah with you!