Missions in Malekula

Hair turned in Lakatoro


Waiting to escape Vao


With the ladies after church at Lavalsal


Morning on the Northern Star


Spel Smol: somewhere in the jungle of Malekula


Our first stop at Malekula on the northeast coast


Cultural Centa, Lakatoro

It was time for a new adventure. Helen had planned to come for a visit and was keen to do some outer island exploration, so we looked at the options and decided to go for the island of Malekula: it was close, big enough to have lots of travel options, and I had a friend who was keen to show us around.

As an aside, we had a 7.2 Earthquake in Luganville the week before Helen arrived. No water for a while (again), a few damaged wharves, cracked roads and buildings. Pretty violent really... lasted for about a minute with a really violent joult. anyway....

Helen arrived on the evening of the football party, which heralded the beginning of her island kakae experience (Helen would be on a par with my family for the volume of laplap and island kakae eaten in a week). The Side Riva girls arrived, island time of course, with soso laplap, other food, kava, a stereo system, and a wide variety of zouk music. Let the party begin! Lots of good food (for those laplap appreciators out there... this one had strips of ripe banana in the yam laplap... very good! Like finding hokypoky in the icecream.... okay, maybe not quite) and attempts to dance to Zouk music. Definitely harder than it looks. Noise restrictions ment the party finished a little early, but we were all tired so it was a good thing.

The next day we met with Malvina, our guide for Malekula, and dined yet again on laplap. We decided to try and get a ship on either the Monday or Tuesday, so the following day Malvina and I did the usual driveby of the two Malekula wharves looking for ships going to Artchin Island. Eventually we found the Northern Star, which was leaving on Monday night (although the first time had been Monday Arvo, classic vanuatu travelling times). So that evening, we headed to Simionson Wharf, storianed with the captain who had lived in auckland for three years, met a girl from eastern Europe travelling to Vila on the ship, and eventually found a spot at the rear deak of the ship and tried to get some sleep.

The passage across to Malekula was good, and we reached Malekula at about 3am, but had to wait until it was light enough for cargo to be loaded so anchored of the northwest coast until dawn, listening to the chorus of birds in the jungle as the sun rose in the morning. In classic island boat travelling style, we inched our way along the coastline, picking up passengers and ngatangora roofing material along the way. Eventually we made it to our destination for the morning: Heckinsons Bay, to look at the Yalo Cave. Malvina's sister lives in a village close by, so we ate, spel smol, then made our way to the cave, only to be told that there was a dispute and namele leaves at the entrance, so no visitors allowed. Definitely a pity as the cave is quite famous here for the tree that grows inside it, handprints on the ceiling and the stories that go with the cave.

After a swim in the stream, we headed off at 12pm to begin our walk across the island with Malvina's sister, two sons and husband. At about 2pm we got to the "halfway" point the village of clearwater... no one in our party had been across from this point, so we asked for directions and were shown an alternative route, as the main route had too many garden roads that we could get lost on.

And what an alternative it was.... past the tamtams, down into a stream, following the stream till we basically reached the head of it, clambering up gullies, walking along the edge of a hogback ridge that separated the two catchments, walking across a steep hill with what might have been a track before the last big rain, back down through streams and finally reaching a village. Luckily there were pompemose (grapefruit) along the way, as our water was running low. As the sun began sinking below the horizon, we continued to walk through plantations of coconuts and cocao, finally making it to Lavalsal, our home for the week, at about 7.30pm. Bucket showers and more laplap and a bigfula sleep in Malvina's mum's house, and plenty of spel smol the next day. Amazingly all done in jandals: very island style.

The next day we relaxed in the village, had a look at the new spring that had come up from the recent earthquake, and spel smol. We headed to Lakatoro the next day on the back of a truck. Lakatoro is the Provincial Headquarters for Malekula, wo we visited the town, cultural centre, market and sorted out flights for the return leg to Santo.

Later that week, we also walked up the coast to check out the island of Vao. I thought Jack had said it was a good place to go to (apparenty, a different island, Vao being a little bit crazy!!!). We were on the lookout for carvings, and happened to meet a man along the road with some at his house for sale, so as the rain began to pour down, we headed to his place, brought some mask carvings, and waited till the rain subsided to find a boat to get to the island. The solwata was pretty rough (as it had been since we got off the Northern star) but we made it safely to Vao and headed through the mission school. A friend of Malvina's proceeded to lead us through, up to the nasara, where custom dances take place. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed (which we were told after I'ld snapped off a quick pic of the tamtams), so we were quickly ushered through to the carving nakamal... It was a fairly uncomfortable situation, having been told off and then expected to purchase a carving, so we looked carefully at the kustom (and not so kustom) carvings, did a small toktok about how we had already purchased some but would come back with all our friends (yeah right) and headed away.... We came across another nasara and a crazy oldfula who told us not to use cameras or videos. We explained that we'ld been told this already and just wanted to see the pig-killing stones and tamtams.... but as we headed towards the nasara, he ran after us, thinking we were taking pics!

It was time to leave Vao

So we headed to the solwata, and eventually waved down the boat to pick us up... luckily a local truck picked us up and we headed back to the friendly faces of Lavalsal.

Otherwise, it was a great opportunity to see Malekula, meet some great people and live a bit of island life. And it was back to civilisation on Saturday to pick up Tom from the airport and out to Beachfront Resort for beers and pizzas (what, no laplap!) to farewell Peter who was returning back to NZ. The next day, we swam at the Matevulu Blue Hole and then went for dinner at Oyster Island, before Helen and Tom headed to Irikiki Island Resort for relaxation and the pool bar....