The art of walking upright Is the art of using both feet... One is for holding on The other is for letting go...

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Independence Celebrations


Football Celebrations! Side Riva United: Independence Week Champions


Childrens Day



Custom Day at Unity Park




handball team


Luckily for the newbies to town was Independence week, basically a week or so celebration of Vanuatu achieving independence from France and Great Britain. Luganville went from sleepy town to action packed (and back to sleepy town of course)...

The celebrations kicked off with Childrens Day. My friend Desmond had a stall at Unity Park and I’d been asked to cook some cakes for the day, so all five of us (Rach, Marv, Bridget and Robyn) proceeded to bake and ice a range of kiwi classics the night before (including ginger crunch) to raise money to send Desmond to teachers college next year.

As with all things here, we kicked off Children’s Day with a march down the main road. I’ve been working on a project with Desmond’s class for story writing, so took photos of his class during the day for the kids to create stories, in a similar vein to the classic School Journals in NZ. The key message for the day was Telem no long drugs… so there were plenty of banners and posters about the dangers of dope, what hashish is etc… Following the march, hours of speeches and a particularly long prayer session, sports teams began…

Independence Week is the time when everything happens. From a place where it can be difficult to find things to do, it changes over independence where there are baby shows, motherhubbard competitions, displays, basically like a Vanuatu version of an A&P Show. At night stringbands and movies entertained the crowd while the men crowded around the multitude of kava bars set up for the punters.

During the day, most sporting disciplines had competitions for the week. It was my first opportunity to participate in women’s football, so Isabelle and I put in a team from Side Riva. I was also involved in netball (for Hybiscis) and handball…. so it resulted in some fairly hectic running between games, a strange cross between island time and games happening hurryup! Netball and handball weren’t so successful: however after a draw and loss in the football, Side Riva United managed to win all the following games, including a penalty shootout in the semifinals and a 1-0 win in the finals! A nice way to end the celebrations, particularly with the interested generated with the missis on the field.

Each day had a theme, but as part of celebrations this year, there has been a big focus on Kastom Ekonomi…. 2007 is the year of custom economy for Vanuatu. One of the announcements during our football game: “wan missis ia stap long field… bambae tomorrow, I gat wan whiteman backagain bae ia walkabout witem wan maomao”…. the following day was devoted to the kastom ekonomi, including a parade/march down the main street in kastom dress, which Jack was to take part in.

I was keen to see the kastom dress, so met Jack and his friend John on their way to the beginning of the march. When we got there, their mats were still at John’s house, so we went up to his house at Chapius area and somehow we all ended up donning kastom red mats from Pentecoste. After convincing the girls hanging round the house to come along too, we headed down and began our march with a group dominated by man Pentecost, on our way to Unity Park and in veritable speeches in the rain. Afta a couple of hours toktok, it was time for custom dancing! So I also got dragged up and danced Pentecost style, much to the amusement of the crowd…. Still, it was fun and a nice opportunity to get to know a few more of the Pentcost people in Luganville.


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