Updates: June

Jess with Desmond, baby Elvis and family, for a final laplap kakae.


The final deck party... is it a ship?!

The two misis and their masta...

The girls: Elizabeth, Jess, Isabelle, Sarah and Eva... nice tattoos!


An example of the piracy on offer...

Well, there’s been a few adventures of late, with the trip to Pentecost, my first Ni-Vanuatu wedding, interspersed with the usual soccer tournaments, kakae with friends and parties with the expats. So plenty of new stories for you to read : )

With Jess leaving there were plenty of farewell parties, most notably the sailors party the night before she left. It also allowed us to catch up with Ni-Vanuatu friends, sharing kakae, laplap and storianing.

It appears to be the season of Baby Doc’s, with up to 25 student doctors at one time descending on Luganville over the next couple of months. Not sure exactly how many will actually get into the hospital, but it is now accepted that this elective for them is more holiday than work experience.

Work is slowly picking up speed. Luganville appears to be a town on the cusp of substantial new developments, so there’s a number of interesting projects requiring Environmental Impact Assessments. So far, I’ve been making assessments for proposed marina’s, jetty’s, cultural centres and quarrying activities. With the international airport here looking to get more flights from Australia through AirVanuatu, rather than just Solomon Airlines, there seems to be a lot of potential for growth here.

The teaching at Kamewa is going well. I’m now doing individual reading with pikinini from year 5. As with any place there is a large range in ability. Generally, reading is done as a group. Unfortunately, because resources are so limited, the kids end up basically memorizing the stories so at the end of the year they are just about able to tell you the page number and story off by heart. Hopefully the individual reading time is helping.

The weather finally changed about a month ago now, so while the days are still fairly hot, there is no need for a fan at night. The change is also reflected in the market, where tomatoes and oranges are starting to come into season. You do know that you’ve acclimatized when the blue holes, at a temperature of 24 degrees Celcius, are considered cold.

The first visitors from New Zealand, Dave and Rene, are heading this way on Saturday. So it will be nice to spend some time showing them the sights and delights of Santo. The first adventure will be horse riding at a station south of Luganville on Sunday.

Lukem yu!